Ray and Jonathan

On our recent alpine hunt I took a lot of pictures of Ray and Jonathan.  I've hunted with Ray for years, but this was the first time I had met Jonathan.  Like Ray he is a doctor from Anchorage.  He spent his childhood in England and at times has a slight British accent.  But he can also speak fluent French, and has spent a lot of time on Madagascar.  By the wood stove in the teepee at night he would regale us with Madagascar stories.  This of course would remind me of my South Africa and Mauritius stories.  Needless to say but we told a lot of stories.  I even tried to speak French.

Anyway, to go back to the pictures.  It seems that almost all of my pictures are of Ray and Jonathan posing with some sort of awesome backdrop.  Or hiking, or glassing for deer.  It is the Ray and Jonathan show.  But it is also my view of the hunt because whenever I looked around there were Jonathan and Ray.

This was Jonathan's first deer hunt, and first trip to Kodiak.  Ray and I got to show him how we do it on Kodiak.  He showed up with a borrowed Barney's frame pack and a bag.  Ray and I showed him how we lash our meat directly onto the frame and forego the bag entirely.  Ray even recounted how he saw our choice of backpacks as sort of an evolutionary 'ape to standing man' sort of thing.  We all started with the frame and bag.  Then took the bag off of it and added the dry bag.  Then came the Kifaru packs and the rifle holders.  And then finally after the Granite Gear 'Flatbed' we all seem to have Seek Outside packs.

Patrick