Latest Update: August 3, 2001 by Ben Marcus

22:33 PT THURSDAY AUGUST 2, 2001 RV PARK IN BELL II, CASSIAR HIGHWAY

ODOMETER 59960
TRIP METER 4882

MONEY

Cash from yesterday $131
Candy at Meziadin Lake store: $16.56
Movieline Magazine and candy at Meziadin Lake store: $ 7.67
???????? $15.94
??????? $ 7.60
Cherries at fruit stand $ 5.00
Pin at New Hazleton Info booth $ 3.00
Chicken and potatoes X 3 in New Hazleton $12.03
Three drinks in New Hazleton $ 6.25
Bell II RV park $17.12
Computer time at Stewart library $ 2.00
???????????? $ 6.37
Cash to hitch-hiker $20.00

CHARGES Purolator charge for visa material $ 26.25
BC Web charges (shit) $ 30.50
Chevron in New Hazleton $ 7?.??

Damn! I got snaked by another magazine. Hawk was right. Evan was right. Flame was right. I blabbed too much on Sacklunch, prying eyes read it and I got totally snaked. My two goals over the next month are to drive up to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and maybe write an article, and then go to Kamchatka for a pioneering surf trip. I've been blabbing about those things here for month-ignoring warnings, accusations and reproaches from friends and enemies-and now, it turns out they were right. I got snaked.

How else to explain the latest National Geographic? Fuckers. They must have read Sacklunch and snaked me. I mean, they totally snaked me. I bought the latest issue at a market in Stewart, B.C. and what did I find? Back to back articles: Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Oil Field or Sanctuary on page 46. And then, the very next article, only 10 pages later: Kamchatka Volcanoes: Russia's Frozen Inferno.

ANWR and Kamchatka. Happy now guys? You totally snaked me.

And to add that, the cover story of the latest issue of Alaska Magazine is "Oil vs. Wilderness: Alaskans Weigh in on the ANWR Drilling Debate.

I have both of them in front of me but I'm so pissed I haven't read either of them. I flipped through the National Geo to find out who the writer was, because if I ever bump into him I'm gonna kick his ass.

Look at this photo and caption right here. There's an orange Mi-8 helicopter-OUR helicopter-with this crummy caption: Patched with Duct Tape, this chopper made flying almost as scary as rappelling into a Gorely volcano crater, as Margaritis and Tessier are about to do. "We asked the pilot if there was a problem," says author Jeremy Schmidt. "No," he said. "In Afghanistn the blades were full of bullet holes, but we could still fly."

Well I'm going to ask the pilot if author Jeremy Schmidt is a WANKER, and suggest that maybe he should be filled full of holes.

Geez. Snaked by a fricking girlie magazine. Great. Oh well, they tried to warn me.

The whole National Geo thing was the low point-along with the rain-of a long, long day. Hard to believe that the hitch-hikers and canned salmon and strange dogs of this morning were this morning, so much happened since.

Right now I'm in the driver's seat of the van, listening to 1450 AM, a station from Port Angeles/Sequim, as a matter of fact. Those night waves create all kinds of weird effects. I wonder if I can get KPIG up here?

Ike is off and running around somewhere, in the middle of black bear country. He saw several black bear today, the first running across the highway in the Bulkley Valley, and then several on the Cassiar Highway. He didn't seem all that impressed, viewing them form the safety of the car. He'll be impressed if he bumps into one at night, but Ike has a sensitive sniffer, and he should be able to smell a bear a mile away. I'd better go look for him. I'm so pissed about the National Geographich fiasco, I'd probably smack a black bear upside the head. I got pretty close to one today, doing absolutely the wrong thing by getting out of the van to take a picture of a Boo Boo cub eating grass on the side of the road. I was looking over my shoulder the whole time, and wishing I had Mr. Walther left me. I'm back into the country where Mr. Walther and I first bonded. I even passed the Rest Area overlooking the lake where I capped off a shot last fall. I wouldn't try that now, there are too many people around.

I miss Mr. Walther. Please everyone, send an e-mail to my mom at s.t.marcus@att.net and beg her to mail Mr. Walther to me in Alaska. Tell he that I'm no nearly as psycho as everyone thinks I am, and that happiness is a warm gun and that Ben deserves to be happy.

Thank you.

(23:29 Wow, that was weird. I just went for a walk to find Ike. I walked past the lodge and he came jingling out from behind a large gas tank. As we were walking back, I looked to the southwest and saw what had to have been the International Space Station. This was the exact same thing that happened to me last fall in Dease Lake, where I am headed tomorrow to get that Russian/English dictionary. Odd. Really so very odd. Not me, seeing the Space Station. It's a lovely night, by the way. It's half an hour to midnight and there's still a fair bit of twilight in the northwest. That really screws me up, because I walk into places thinking it's 19:00, and they're getting ready to close because it's 22:00. Anyway, the air is about 60 degrees and clean and clear and perfect. It's very quiet and you can hear the wind in the trees and a river rushing around off in the distance. The Cassiar rules, but it's still a little sketchy walking around at night, waiting for a big, black shadow to jump out from behind a truck.)

Where was I. National Geographic? Mr. Walther. I'll begin where the day began. This morning I burned another $30 at the BC Web CafÚ, and the people working there just shook their heads that I didn't by the Frequent Flyer card. Oh well. That was so long ago that I don't even remember if I got any interesting e-mails. I tried to find the manufacturer of that fly-rod I broke last year on the Kispiox, hoping to get a replacement tip.

This is the letter I sent to Tomas Persson and a bunch of names I pulled from a website about fishing in Sweden.

Scandinavian Special Design Flyrods
Sweden

August 2, 2001

Hello

Last October I was fishing the Kispiox River in British Columbia when I met three jolly fishermen from Sweden, who took me under their wing.

These guys had an incredible amount of fly-fishing gear and one of them, Tomas Persson, even hand-machined his own reels out of titanium. Crazy Swedes.

I didn't have a clue what I was doing and these guys knew it so they loaned me some good equipment to try to catch one of those elusive Kispiox steelhead.

After many hours and days of flogging the river I finally hooked one. But I got cocky and tried to get my camera before I had the fish. The steelhead dove behind a rock and wrapped the line around it. As I was trying to get the fish out, I broke the rod tip. Paid Tomas $150 American for it.

The rod is a Scandinavian Special Design flyrod Pool 12. SSD. 9' 6. Line 8.

It's green. The same color I was when I broke it.

It is only the tip that is broken, and I wonder if it would be possible to buy just the top piece and have it shipped to Alaska.

I am leading a surfing/fishing expedition to Kamchatka in Russia on August 19, and I want to have as much equipment as I can.

Let me know if this is possible.

The shipping address is:

Ben Marcus
C/O Scott Liska
1XXXXX Kasilof Blvd
Anchorage, Alaska
99516

Please let me know if this is possible and how much the replacement tip and shipping will be. I could send you my MasterCard number, or cash.

I am leaving for Kamchatka August 19, but even if it doesn't come by then, after Alaska I will be driving back through British Columbia, Montana and Idaho for fall fishing.

I still want to catch a fricking steelhead, and if I don't do it in Kamchatka, I may just kill myself.

Thank you for your time.

Ben Marcus
TheBenM@AOl.com

P.S. Tomas and Peter and all the other Swedish people I sent this to.

I can't find a link for this company. If you could forward this to themI would appreciate it.

I am in Smithers, B.C. right now, setting up this trip to Russia.

The surfers who are going are flakes, but I think it's going to happen. We leave August 19 for two weeks.

You can read about it now at www.sacklunch.com "Travels with Ike" or www.swell.com after August 16.

Going to come back through here after the trip and catch that damned steelhead that broke Tomas' rod.

Montana was great. Trout heaven. Even I caught fish. A lot of fish.

Let me know how things are going. I'm trying to get rich so I cna build a ranch here and in Montana and you guys will have a place to stay.

Hopefully that will work. I sent 37 e-mails in two hours this morning, covering all kinds of interesting topics. Mostly I worried about the Russia trip. I contacted Ken Achenabach to see if he was still going, and he still sounded keen. I faxed him the cover letter I wrote and the official invitation for Wild Russia and also a visa application. He won't be able to use his Frequent Flyer miles to get any free tickets, and he;s even paying for his own. Oh well.

Hawk sent me a complimentary e-mail about the Crouching Tiger article in Surfer's Journal and I sent him a mean one back. I have no idea why he still communicates with me. You could hardly tell someone to piss off as loud and eloquently as I did. Oh well.

I was in BC Web for two and a half hours, then finally got out of there. I made up a Purolator package at the Post Office and sent three passport photos, a filled-out visa application, that cover letter to the consulate and a check for $100. I think I sent them the photo page from my passport. I hope I did.

Anyway, once I did that, it was out of my hands. Everyone on the trip knows what they need to do, all they have to do is do it. In a hurry.

I went back to the camp and packed up. I dumped all the kitty letter from the plastic box, washed it out and turned it into a food box. Ike showed up and we got out of there and hit the road. Finally. Smithers was nice. I liked the campground and the guy who was the caretaker and the foxes running around and the ballsy field mice who would stand their ground against Ike. But it was time to go.

On the way out I saw a guy walking down the road with a backpack and I pulled over and offered him a ride. He looked a little shocked, but threw his backpack and African Drum (!) in the back, and off we went.

He was from New Brunswick and knew exactly what I was talking about when I told him about our attempt to ride the Turnagain Arm Tidal Bore. He grew up five minutes from the Bay of Fundy, so he was hip.

I stopped at that epic barn and took some photos, and then we got going. He was heading for the Queen Charlotte Islands to work on a farm, and I told him all I knew about the place. He had met a friend in Fairfax near Sacramento then hitched to Colorado, and up to B.C. I offered to let him ride along up the Cassiar and into the Yukon, but he wanted to go to Queen Charlotte Island. Can't blame him.

We stopped in New Hazleton, where I had stayed last year. I thought the Info Booth would have a computer, but it didn't. I bought some cherries from a fruit stand nearby, which had bionic peaches, watermelon, corn, beans and a bunch of other produce of the Okanagan Valley.

The hitchhiker was pretty hungry. I wanted to detour down to the Skeena to look for that wedding ring I lost last year, but he wasn't into it and that convinced me to keep going. I'll have lots of time to look for it on the way back.

We turned back to the 28 Inn where there was a computer. There was a drunk and/or senile Indian out front of the bar who wanted a ride. He reminded me of the drunk Indian from that John Wayne movie, ?????. He talked like he was drunk, even when he wasn't, and this guy asked for a ride as far as Kitwanga. I told him no problem, after we took care of business.

It took us a while to take care of business. The hitcher-whose name I got but don't remember-had trouble with his Hotmail connection, and then he gave up and I gave him $20 to get some lunch. He looked hungry and said he was eating only once a day.

I checked my mail and there wasn't much happening. Mr. Sacklunch is threatening to start a campaign to deposit money into my PayPal account. That would be flattering and nice, but a letter-writing campaign to get Mr. Walther back would be just as welcome.

I miss my firearm. We had an ever-lasting loveƒ

Hitcher came back with three packs of gnarly fried chicken and potatoes. The Indian was still keen so he bought a case of beer and off we went.

He was another weird talker, closer to the Montana yodeler than the Rainbow Coalition space-case. He talked like that Indian in the John Wayne movie. He grumbled and mumbled and I could understand every fifth word or something. I just pretended he was talking to the hitcher, and I ignored him.

Ike cruised through all of this. People just don't bother him at all. Every new person is a friend, and he walks on their shoulders and leaps over them and sits on the dash in front of them, just like me. Everyone Likes Ike. He's likable.

I did learn that the Indian's name was Roger, and he talked about his nephew and the beach and bathing suits and this and that. I couldn't understand him, and the more I think about it the more I realize that it is really rude to be unintelligible. It creates a strain on the listener that is very distracting. Today on the CBC they were talking about how the brain loses energy when it focuses on more than one thing. Well driving through the Bulkley Valley and listeneing to a crazed Indian half-talk made my brain almost shut down.

Eventually we got to Kitwanga, where I had to turn right to head up the Cassiar. I threw the hitcher a $20 and my e-mail address, because I know what it is like to be stuck with no money. I said, "Hey, I help people out, and sometimes people help me out. That's how it works. That's how it should work."

Roger needed a ride across the Skeena River Bridge, so we saddled up and hit the road.

Roger was able to give me directions to his house, which was just off the Skeena River. He had some weird-looking dog that would stand up on its hind feet and look all adorable, but I failed to get a photo of it.

Roger invited me and "Sylvester" in and he kept talking about giving "Sylvester" some fish. He caught the Sylvester connection and that made me wonder what else he said that was interesting. Ike came in and ran from the annoying vertical dog. Roger plunked down a big bowl of marinated salmon, and then gave me a glass jar full of it. I'll be busting that out for Ike on a special occasion.

Eventually I said goodbye to Roger, and promised to drop by on my way back down. People might not remember me, but they'll always remember Ike.

I'm too tired to finish this. I'm going to sign off and go read those rip-off magazines. I'll catch up with this tomorrow.

15:32 PT FRIDAY AUGUST 3, 2001 TATOGGA LAKE RESORT, CASSIAR

MONEY
Roast beef sandwich: $4.50

Made it to Tattoga Lake Resort where I left some Brazilian money on the wall last year: 9-20-00. Stressing the whole way, wondering about the state of this trip and if it's part of the "consequences" Hawk talked about and the "shitstorm" that Carcus28 mentioned. Maybe it's all a conspiracy, to let me stress and set it up, then everyone pulls out the carpet. All my enemines are whispering and bubbling: Sharp, Hawk, Skindog, everyone.

Naw.

Hope not.

The Cassiar is beautiful, quiet. Got stopped for 20 minutes at one construction area, but now I'm in civilization, trying to use a phone line in between gas ups at this resort. Not too many e-mails. No real bad news, Although Yegor says the invitation he sent was only for me, and each person has to send in an application.

How fucking hard can it be to send a fax? Maybe this is a conspiracy.