This week I sit down with Assistant Guide Tyler Kuhn about his truly amazing story of becoming Alaska's youngest big game guide. Growing up impoverished in Western Pennsylvania, hunting was both an escape and a way to put food on his family's table. From a young age he had a singular focus to move to Alaska and become a big game guide. His journey of the last 6 years has been filled with harrowing encounters and bad actors, but through perseverance he achieved his dreams.

Links

www.TheAKShow.com

Tyler’s IG @BearSkinner907

One of Tyler's contributions to Fur-Fish-Game Magazine https://www.furfishgame.com/back_issues/2019/2019-01.php

Interview Notes

Tyler is 23, he’s an Alaskan hunting guide, and hails from a small city in Western Penn called Newcastle. Hour north of Pittsburgh.

Interesting upbringing - kind of an inner city environment. Grew up hunting - he was very poor. Once the steel mills disappeared in the 1980s the economy never recovered and a lot of drugs moved into the area. Tyler grew up with no real income in the household - tons of family members did drugs and drank. His release was being in the outdoors and hunting, fishing and trapping.

It was both a way for his family to eat and for his own release. There were times where food was scarce because they were on food stamps and welfare. Hunting white-tailed deer was a means to provide for himself and the family.

Extended family would live in the house. There were times when they’d have 5-9 people in one household. 

Tyler hunted and fished everything - deer, turkey, small game, fishing for trout and walleye. Anything Tyler could get his hands on he would.

School was interesting for Tyler. When you grow up in that environment getting an education was on the backburner. He wasn’t sure if he’d have something to eat when he got home, so it would weigh on him. Back when he was in school he got picked on and bullied a lot. He used to be a really scrawny, frail, emaciated kid. Now Tyler has changed a lot through the experiences of being a hunting guide. School at that time was really tough. Tyler was the first person in his family to graduate high school. He’s thought about getting further education.

Tyler, when he was 7 or 8, saw a documentary program about the western caribou migration and told his grandma he would live in Alaska. No one believed him. In high school Tyler thought about getting into a science feel like wildlife biology or zoology since he loved the outdoors so much. But when he was a teenager he discovered the Alaska guide industry - and that became his main focus when he was 14 or 15 years old.

He learned about it initially by studying Alaska. One day he was watching a hunting show on tv and saw a guy do a goat hunt in Alaska. Tyler admired the way the guide presented himself and how strong he was. At the time that really impacted Tyler. The mindset of the Alaskan guide is no matter what you must push through.

After that he started reading literature by the pioneer guides. And nowadays he’s worked for some of these guys and knows them. 

Has the guiding industry changed much? There are timeless aspects to the job but there’s also a lot of industry change between the pioneers and now. With the growth of technology and expansion of humanity across the globe - Alaska has changed in a lot of ways. The fundamentals of guiding in the 1970s is the same as 2020, but the technology is obviously way different and the skills are different.

Back in the day those guys had to have very strong grasp of the local topography and land navigation. Nowadays Tyler can use his Garmin and it’s much easier, although they have to learn those land navigation skills. The overall fundamentals and the ethics and morals has never changed.

Tyler came to Alaska directly after high school. He graduated high school in Pennsylvania. Went down to visit them in Arkansas for a little bit. Then took his savings and went straight to Alaska. Didn’t know anybody. He had applied for a Packer position for 26 or 27 different outfits and got one callback. 

A packer hauls meat and camp supplies around. It ultimately gets into the Alaskan assistant guide apprenticeship which lasts two years. He started here directly after high school. 

For that position the job description is vague. These outfits will fly them up there, give them basic gear like rain gear and a tent for the most part, and put you to work. For some you pay your own way. A lot of the outfits won’t pay you - it’s your way to get your foot in the door in the industry. There is some variability in the different outfits whether they pay or don’t pay. 

You come up here and pack meat and being a sherpa hauling supplies, cooking, and doing all the industry grunt work. That’s what he was told and what he expected. This is an industry where you work your way from the ground up. You hope to rise through the ranks. Every master guide outfitter started being a packer.

He applies for the jobs mid-summer and they fly him up at the end of August. He started in the Brooks Range up above the arctic circle. He flew into Fairbanks commercially. They drove most of the way there up the Dalton Highway. Then they flew into camp. You can imagine coming up to Alaska and seeing it for the first time - that was a magical first experience for Tyler. 

The thing that shocked him the most was the actual reality of the vastness of the wilderness. Growing up in Pennsylvania - you’re seeing human civilization everywhere, even deep in the country.

When you’re a packer you answer to every single person above you. The outfitter is the guy who runs everything - he’s the boss. He’s giving tours to everyone, but he’ll assign you to an assistant guide or camp manager for the day. The idea of being a packer before being an apprentice is they’re trying to break you down physically, mentally, and emotionally. When you’re out in the field as a guide and performing that duty you’re in charge of your camp, your hunter, other guides under you, and all the packers. You’re in charge of keeping them safe and alive in dangerous situations. Tyler compares it to a special operations attitude in the military - they want to break you down and build you up to do your duty.

There’s a lot of humbling that’s necessary and it’s also an educational experience. They’re destroying the toughness you think you have and are testing how tough you really are. The unpredictability of the training surprised Tyler. Not even the guides know what’s going to happen. When that super cub drops you off and flies away no one knows what’s going to happen after that. When you’re packing they’re putting you in situations to see how you react to things.

Every guide remembers his first pack because it’s the worst experience in his life. Tyler’s first pack - they killed a big bull that was probably 4-5 miles from base camp. They were glassing from this ridge. As a packer you also help hunt and learn the basics. They see a monster bull moose. The guide Tyler was with told him it was very nice - over 60”. It was actually 66”. They saw two bulls fighting - one was a 58” the other was that 66” bull. For a big bull like that their hindquarters can be 150-160 lb and that’s a long way to pack that meat. They made the decision like this is a very far pack, Tyler is new, is he capable of it?

The guide asked Tyler if he was up to the task and Tyler said absolutely. They put on a successful stalk, shot the bull, and butchered it. THey called in a second packer to help. It was shocking to Tyler how difficult it was. You’re in hip waders going through swamps.

In certain game management units you have to leave the meat “bone-in” and in some areas you can “bone out” the quarter. In that area you had to leave bone-in. In some places where you can bone-out it’s still highly recommended you leave bone-in so you don’t have as much surface area for bacteria to grow and it takes longer to pack and bears are more likely to come after it.

So they’re packing the quarters back. They didn’t even make it a mile when the other packer took a nasty fall and did something bad to his foot like twisted it. The second packer had to keep stopping and Tyler took his pack on and off like 20 times. It’s the worst to take it off because it’s so heavy, you can’t even do it on flat tundra. They finally get back to base ca