The Life of Fisher - Oct. 1999 to Nov. 2014

It's hard to dig a grave in winter.

Our dog Fisher passed away early in the morning on November 2nd. We had to put him down after he had some sort of stroke or seizure and was not coming out of it. We had already scheduled to have him put down in our home on the 5th but he was suffering and would not get up. He'd had a great day up until that point when suddenly it all went wrong. He was 15 years old.

And so I miss him. I miss his incredible fur coat. I miss his floppy ears. I miss his big head and the feel of it moving under my chest whenever i bent over to greet him or ask him a question. I miss the smell of him, even though that's probably just the smell of a dirty floor. I miss him when i reach over the side of the couch and feel that he's not there. I still am walking in a pattern to avoid tripping over him.  I miss the way his breathing changed when we were having an ear to ear conversation. I miss his warmth and his optimism.

My dog Fisher, this past August. Proud to show me his newly discovered beach.

Even in his last week of life he was introducing me to new trails he wanted to try out. We had that in common.  In September I was getting frustrated with his problems and, scared that he might mess up the inside of my car, I left him at home more and more. I could tell he was getting depressed and frustrated with being confined to our house and neighborhood. Then I had to go out of town for two weeks at the end of September.

When I got back, I tried to be more accommodating. I put extra effort into working out methods to make sure I could drive him around. I started taking him for longer walks and rides at least three times a week, and that made a visible difference in his demeanor. He was getting happier again and perked up at home. 

 Enjoying the sun at Big Lake on Maree's birthday.

 Visiting a cabin at Carpenter Lake on Summer Solstice. About midnight was the best sunset I have ever seen on solstice and i did not take any pictures. 

 Hey there mister you aren't going to stick your....

 OH MY GOD! YOU DID! YOU STUCK YOUR TONGUE IN MY EAR!!!

I never knew Fisher as a puppy but he looks like a handful.

 The same glove in both pictures. He grew at an extraordinary rate of speed. These two pictures were taken just 8 hours apart. The world must have appeared to be shrinking.

 In this bottom picture he still looks like a puppy but he's next to a full sized milk crate.

I've lived in Alaska now over 13 years and during that time Fisher has always been there. He was two years old when I met him through Maree and it took a while for him to accept me. He had this weird habit of growling at people he didn't know while also acting affectionate like leaning against people and asking to be pet. Once he was growling at me while lying on his side and I was messing with him. I was sure he was bluffing so I shoved my head into him and he bit me pretty good on the top of my skull. We were friends after that. I'm the only person he ever bit.

So this blog is his memorial. I'll spare you all the videos of him opening presents and making snow angels but I won't have any more chances to post pictures of Fisher after this.  I know a lot of people who knew Fisher may be reading this and will enjoy these pictures. Unfortunately I didn't take that many pictures of him when he was young because I was incredibly poor and was counting every frame on my roll of film or slides. Of those early pictures, i haven't had time to find them or scan them, except for a few, so I have added others from Maree and Sonny Young.

A young Fisher somewhere above Anchorage and below that with his long gone friend Lander on top of Bird Ridge.

 A mountain dog on maybe the way up Wolverine? So young he doesn't even look like the same dog!

On top of South Suicide Peak, Rabbit Lake far below. He liked climbing mountains. He was great at rock climbing and he knew that you keep going up until there is nowhere else to go.

My first visit to Portage Pass, I think. Fisher and Maree.

Maree is wearing different clothes so this must be another visit, maybe when we camped on the beach at Portage Glacier. Fisher hated camping. If there's one picture i wish i had of him it was him on a stormy early spring day along the rocky shore or portage lake. The whole are was in thick fog. The winter ice on the lake had broken up into plates separated by leads of water. Just to show off Fisher started hopping from plate to plate making a long simicircular path back to shore. It reminded me of a picture i saw once of a wolf hopping between icebergs.

Fisher was born in the 1900's. He was my main companion everywhere I went adventuring. We hiked together, climbed together, partied together, nearly died together, ran from moose and bears together (although that was mostly his fault). Other times we ran AT bears together (entirely his fault). Man, he had a serious death wish when it came to bears.

He was a huge dog, often scaring people to death when he leapt out of the bushes because they thought HE was a bear. I always considered him a large dog and Kona a medium dog but I just found out that Kona is legally considered a large dog and Fisher is classified as a 'giant' dog. I guess that explains why everyone said he was bigger than they had expected. We had so many experiences together that he became part of my identity.

For some reason in his youth he was frequently attacked by other dogs. I think his big size challenged other dogs sense of worth or something. I saw him send two big black labs running after they attacked him out of the blue. He picked one up by the neck and pinned it against a tree so it couldn't move. The other lab was so freaked out by that it immediately took off. I was impressed.

The only fight i saw him in danger (other than bears) was when he was ambushed while he was trying to be polite by a big husky, a malamute and one other Girdwood dog who were in a gang of sorts. But he was never one to start fights. On the contrary, he was a mediator, always throwing himself into the middle of other dog fights to break them up. He had enough injuries in his life he didn't like seeing anyone else get hurt.

With me on top of a high narrow ridge in the Talkeetnas.

Some old prints I scanned in from my first summer with him. This was a fun day exploring Bird Point. I spent a long time this and other days teaching him to walk in between me and the side of the road. It was very windy.

Heading off towards his doom on the mudlfats behind Bird Point.

An alternate version of a well known picture of him.

 On top of the Lion's Head.

 Visiting Girdwood for Christmas? Doesn't seem like much snow.

Snowshoeing up to the Goat Glacier above Girdwood in spring with his long gone old friend Moxie. I never knew who owned Moxie, she would just show up at a certain point and go with us for miles. Then leave us when we got back near her house.

Fisher was a big dog. Too big to sit on a regular sized couch, so we had to go buy a giant couch. Here he is ignoring my command to get off.

Cuddling with Maree on that old couch.

 A younger Fisher at Point Woronzof in the 1980's. I may not have taken this picture. Possibly Jeff Bennett?

 It took us a while to convince him that the bunny was not food but after we did he tried earnestly to be friends with this dangerous creature. They shared the common bond of brown eyes and floppy ears. But the bunny could not be trusted and one day put a huge gash in his nose.

 Looking super pitiful because on this one trip he had to sit in the back with other dogs. Sometimes his life was that bad.

Surveying his big fantastic world.

 This bridge collapsed on him while we were looking for the ghost town of Suntrana.

Above Bear Valley. We used to go up here a lot for a few years.

A middle aged fisher enjoying bare ground and frozen lakes.

He was a superb athlete who could run at least 32 mph (official) while also being over 100 pounds. There are so many stories to tell they can't be all written here. The times he ripped his paw pads off 7 miles from the road. The time we explored a giant old dredge north of Fairbanks or snuck into Denali National Park for a hike. The time he was swept over Winner Creek Falls and through its whitewater gorge, the time he was trampled by a moose in the snow, the time he jumped on top of and knocked down a moose calf right in front of his raging mother, the times i had walk right up to a bear and physically drag him away, his face covered in the bear's slobber.

The list goes on and on. He had both lots of dog friends and human friends. Everyone who knew him said he was like a person. It sounds nuts but you really felt like you could have a conversation with him.

You can only have so many relationships with dogs in your lifetime, with each one being typically 8 to 14 years of your life. I feel sure that I will not have one as significant again. Spending enough time in the wilderness together, just the two of us, it was amazing to see him learn and gain experience, just like I was. It makes you realize dogs are smarter animals than we typically give them credit for. And that goes as well for the other wild animals we encountered together so many times. They too learn and can communicate with you if you pay attention. I think they are conscious. I have gambled on a grizzly bears rationality in close quarters and I have done problem solving with a moose.

 Ignoring my friend Jeff.

 Rescuing my friend Jeff. Jeff was trying out a wetsuit in a freezing cold lake and Fisher, knowing people never swim out to the middle of a freezing cold lake, became very worried and tried to help him get back to shore.

 Our favorite place to go hiking was the highlands of the Talkeetnas. He's on the right checking out a ground squirrel den.

The same ridge, another day.

On his way up Hatcher Peak with 4 legs.

On the summit of Hatcher Peak with only 3 legs.

 Probably attempting to kill a marmot.

 Exploring old mines. He did not enjoy exploring old mines.

 Later that same day we got slammed by a freak fall blizzard. One of those days when I was pushing the onset of winter.

OH IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT TO TAKE A PICTURE OF?

WAIT WAIT IS IT OVER HERE?

If i ever found anything interesting on the ground to take a picture of he always made sure to jump on top of it and and roll all over the place until it was thoroughly destroyed.

 A cold wet dog after spending all day in the late summer mountain rain.

 Searching for an IED in Afghanistan.

Trekking across the Barbarian Lands

At the top of The Ramp, before we crossed over to Ship Lake. There were hurricane force winds at the pass. When we were returning the wind ripped my hat off and blew it 5 or 6 stories up into the sky and over the pass. Fisher was of course way ahead of me and he must have thought I had been blown away when my hat landed near him. He was overjoyed to see me, even though we had only been separated by about a minute.  A few hours later it was snowing.

 In his element on a fine fall day.

 Loving his daily walk on a fine spring day.

 For a while we liked to go up Haystack Butte.

 I wasn't going to post this old shot until I noticed this picture has Haystack Butte far below us in the middle of the valley.

 He had a lot of tension to work out after a long ride to Summit Lake near Paxson.

 For a while he was interested in Signal Corps

 Camping in front of the Deltas.

 Pointlessly risking his life in glacial rapids just because he was hot.

 In the coastal rainforest.

 At Winner Pass on a smokey day.

During a break on the way back from one of the best days I had with him. We hiked all day long across high wilderness without ever seeing anybody or any trail. Finally he had enough of the endless rockfields we seemed to be crossing and he laid down. We were so close to my goal that I took off my pack and left it with him, then I continued on. Half an hour later I returned and he was still there as if he never doubted I'd be back.

In Alaska dogs are an important part of our culture and our history. As a friend told me, Alaskan dogs have a really really good life compared to most dogs, and Fisher had a really good life even for an Alaskan dog. I'm having to remind myself constantly of that, having decided his time was up, though he lived on. It was especially hard for us because he was still a happy dog. His mind was alert and working well. In contrast to my dogs of the past, with Fisher it was just his body that was breaking down, not his mind or his lust for life.

In 2008 he got cancer and we had to remove his back leg. The cancer never came back and after 6 months he seemed to adapt to life with only three legs. He was still happy and I was able to take him on hikes as far as 5 or 6 miles. He did well for 4 more years before his age started to show. The hikes slowly diminished and I had to start exploring on my own. I felt so guilty when I left the house because he knew very well what I was going to go and do but he didn't understand why he could not go with me.


In 2012 we adopted Kona (or maybe Kona acquired us) as she barged into our house off the streets and demanded we feed her. Fisher usually is very aggressive to any strange dog that comes into his home, but with Kona he was somehow unoffended. We kept Kona. She and Fisher bonded quickly. The competition she created for the free food and attention raised his spirits and put a spring back in his steps. He had been acting pretty old before that.

Of course, Fisher was an Alaskan dog, so most of his life was spent in the snow. Snow was probably his third favorite food. Here he and Kona take a break above the frozen sea at the mouth of Turnagain Arm.

 In a winter wonderland above Potters Marsh.

 Snow too deep for a tripod.

 Playing tour guide for my friend Patrick Calvert, who happened to be in town for 24 hours in the dead of winter.

Surviving the frosty Taiga.

Heading for the ocean through the ghost forest on a cold winter day.

A very nice spring day below Flattop.

I wrote about his long decline. Now I have deleted that. It's irrelevant. What is relevant is that after a great week that we provided him, he came to us. We were watching a movie when he had his stroke. He could no longer walk properly, and his extremities were cold, but through a hurculean effort, he raised his body on his three legs and came over to us. He was asking for help. I guided him to a dog bed. After that he would not get back up, but he did not want either of us to leave his side. So, shortly after midnight, we did our part.

What really surprises me, is how much Kona has been affected. They bonded more strongly than I had imagined. She seems lost without him. She ran away twice this week but at home has been lethargic and obviosuly depressed. She ate almost nothing the first two days. I don't think she has ever been alone in her life. She grew up on a sled team and after that she lived with her sister until she found us.

We had to put his body on the back deck (it was below freezing out there), wrapped up, for a day before i could bury him. Kona kept approaching it very cautiously, sniffing it all over and running back. She was acting like a primitive caveman or ape who has never seen death before, although she knew something was very wrong as soon as we put him back in the car at the clinic.

In the forest dunes.

Walking at Kincaid with Maree and his friend Danny.

For about 10 years this was my view to the right, until I sold the old Ranger.

A rickety old man bouncing along a rickety old bridge. He outlasted the bridge.

In his own yard, strategically hanging out under a lilac for protection against aerial attacks. The magpies loved to attack him from the air, as did the occasional raven.

As he got older we spent more time on the neighborhood trails.

Sometimes he looked like he might be contemplating the repercussions of the latest Supreme Court Ruling.

Other times in the middle of the night he would stare at you through the window like a brainless and insane Jack Nicholson.

Just a regular summer day of checking out someplace new

Somewhere around maybe McHugh Creek Trail?

Our house is the last one on the street with snow every year so I have to shovel it out into the street once it gets warm. Fisher protests the loss of his precious snow.

 Walking through a Pantone Forest.

Fisher would fight a bear on sight without a drop of fear but make him sit on a big piece of paper and he thought he might just die. Maree tried to bribe him with treats for a quick portrait.

With Kona on his last visit to Girdwood. The Goat Glacier is in the distance, the same one pictured earlier where we hiked up to years ago with his friend Moxie.

He really enjoyed it.

I decided I wanted to bury him, instead of having him cremated. Unfortunately it is winter, and it is hard to dig a grave in frozen soil. I spent 4 days looking for a suitable place. It would have been easier in summer but with snow covering the ground it was difficult. I found a place out of town in the mountains but it was the hardest place to get to of all the sites I considered. As if it was meant to be, I showed up with a shovel and a moose had been sleeping in the spot I chose. The beast's body had warmed the ground underneath, making it easy to dig. There was a big difference in difficulty when I got outside the area where the moose had lain. I was glad I brought a pick axe too.

Because I buried him on a mountain there is not much soil, so his grave was not deep enough. I knew I would have to build a kind of tomb but strangely there are not many rocks where he rests. So I went to a quarry and built the tomb there. Then I took it apart and piled it in my truck. It took me seven days to get all the rocks up there. Every day i would haul as many as i could carry in a pack a mile up the mountain.  The first two days i over did it. The stones were so heavy they were digging into my skin through the pack and i over exerted myself getting up there. After that i realized if i took about 15% fewer stones i would feel much less tired. Still, i was completely worn out and sore from the neck down for the first 4 days.

It took one additional day to get his body up in a sled. There was no cutting back on the weight that time. It's ok though. I am apparently one of those people who needs to do something as a way to cope with stress.

 A few years ago my friends Sandor and Yalli came to visit and he still made it up Fern Valley.

 Fisher puts pressure on Amadea for some jerky.

I thought we might have to put him down this past August, so I took him out to take some pictures, to one of his favorite places he could still get to. While we were walking up Campbell Creek, ever the explorer, he found this new beach we had never been to.

 Steamy breath and chewing sticks for an old man on a cold August day. He actually taught Kona to chew sticks. She had no idea that sticks were of any use and it took her a while to figure out that he wasn't actually eating the sticks.

He was so happy about it that he wouldn't leave. We probably stayed there for half an hour.

My goals for the tomb changed completely after he was up there. I came to grips with reality. I noticed there was an unpopular point of land on the mountain where you could see the grave site. I decided my goal really should be to make the grave secure and unseen, so I  threw my original idea out the window and resorted to digging up boulders in the local area. Those large stones were already covered in the proper lichens and fungi and would make it less visible. The larger stones as a foundation also would help give it a slightly better chance of resisting a bear next spring. I'm kidding myself about that though. So I'm trying other bear deterrents.

I also wanted the bigger stones for protection against wandering moose walking over the grave once the deep snow arrives. Not only was there a moose lying in the exact spot where I dug the grave, but while looking for boulders I found a moose skeleton just 40 feet away. One skeleton is a grave, two is a cemetery.

 I laid him on a bed of roses, because he deserved it.

 It was time to build his tomb over his final resting place.

I kept messing with the pictures of him lying in his grave. I just wanted them to look more.... alive, but I couldn't do it. I think it shows the difference between what I was seeing and the reality of the scene. I saw my best friend, Fisher, but the camera could only record a dead dog, albeit in a nice grave.

Fisher rests in a beautiful location. I wish I could be buried in a place so nice. In the days I have returned over and over while hauling all these rocks, I've gotten to see it in all kinds of beautiful light and clouds. I would love to share the view but I cannot underestimate the power of the internet. Someone with ill intentions might be able to guess it's location. I'd like to show the finished tomb too, but again, even that might be too much information.

I went to a lot of sustained effort to get this done. I couldn't really argue against people who might say I'm crazy, but it helped me cope and pass the time. It left me knowing that I really did do all I could for him, for the best dog I'll ever have.

So long, old friend. Best friend.

I hope wherever you are, it's next to the sound of crystal clear water on a beach with lots of sticks, the sun low but warm, and never setting. Never setting.

Rest in peace, Fisher.