The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1934-12-27
Tells of Big
Game Hunt
inNo. Alaska
Ray G. Lockead Writes Inter-
esting Letter of Condi-
tions and Happenings
TIMES ARE BETTER
Aeroplane Trip Into Noun
tain Country Made With
Two Friends

The following interesting letter
was written by Ray c. Lockead to
his mother, Mrs. J. A. Lockead. In
this city:
Anchorage, Alaska,
December 8. 1884.
Dear Mother:
It has been long time since 7
have written to you, but I have
somehow gotten out of the habit
OF writing to anyone. I think
have stayed In Alaska too long.
Something tells me that next fall
7 will make trip Outside. It was
the crash in the fur business that
has kept me here. After putting
$4,000 into this fur farm, I came
out somewhat In the hole. How
ever, I am getting over that. I still
have the farm and cannot content
myself to live anywhere else.
! have five acres inside the city
limits, with comfortable house
and light, water, and telephone. So
I live here when I am not out on
the railroad. With me lives an en-
gineer, who works on the railroad
here, and whom I knew In Mis-
soula, Mont. In 1908.
We are now having freak win
ter at the present time We have
had a month Of fine weather only
slightly below freezing and no
snow anywhere in Alaska.
Two days ago It turned warm
and has rained steadily for 80
hours, the temperature staying
around 30 degrees above zero, and
the frost Is going out Of the
ground. have just heard over
the radio that 1t Is thawing clear
into the Arctic zone. No one has
ever seen such winter here.
I am sending you some pictures
taken In October on my last hunt
ing trip. This trip was made by
airplane with friend Of mine and
his wife. It was a wonderful trip
and shall always use plane from
now on. One hour you are many
miles from anyone and the next
hour you are home. It Is hard to
grasp. It was the same lake where
! killed the grizzly bears Of which
I sent you pictures and the first
time a plane ever landed on that
lake.
We left Anchorage at 1:45 p. m,
In drizzhng rain and at 500 feet
elevation were in the fog and I
thought the chance Of finding the
lake would be small, but after 30
minutes Of flying we found a hole
UP through the fog and went UP
to 5000 feet, which put us above a
world Of fog with only mountain
peaks sticking out. I had some
trouble finding the right gap In
the mountains but after some Giro
ling I found the lake. We made q
nose dive down to II before we lost
It In the fog. We landed at ESQ p.
m.
The aviator had intended to stay
all night and hunt with US but the
weather was too bad so he left In
a hurry. He had just taken off and
left US on the beach with our bum
dies when we looked UP on the
mountainside and saw two big bull
moose, SO we just picked up our
guns and started up. It took US an
hour to climb up to them. There
was only one In sight and two
shots put him down. I was bleeding
him when something made me look
UP and there was another moose
above me looking down at me. ]
picked UP my gun and shot II and
It slid half way down to me. I
went on with the job on the first
one and soon I heard the other fell
low, who had been looking for an
other moose, say, "do we want that
one" and there was another one
above us looking at us. We both
shot at the same time and 1t slid
down to join the other one. BY fast
work we had the three OF them
dressed by 5:45 p. M, and 1t was
getting dark.
We hurried back to the lake and
got there Just at dark where we
had left the friends wife sitting
on a roll Of bedding. We had TAX
en- lanterns with US and we set up
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