Unearthing My Grandpa’s Lost Adventure Film From 1973

Why did you decide to shoot it all on film? The dream was make a film that was basically published or was viewed. The project got to the point where I just didn't feel I could do what needed to be done and I never finished it. I did not know of anybody that has done more different experiences in more far-reaching places of Alaska than myself and my family and my buddies. How do you know that? I don't know that, I just suspect that and there's bound to be somebody out there that I don't know about. And this movie is about all that? This movie, the way it was, is about some of those experiences. The very, very best experiences, unfortunately, they got to stay quiet. Thanks a bunch, buddy. Cheers. See you down the trail. Looks good. Walking to the fox farm. The boathouse is our number one building. If everything else was burned down in the fire and we kept this, we could still make the fox farm work as we have been using it. The machine shed we use as a storage for our four-wheeler, building supplies, plumbing supplies, miscellaneous stuff. We call this the Bear Ass Den. It's a sauna that my son and I built in 1979 and there's probably no deck in the world that has had more beverages consumed in it and has had more giggles per square foot than what this whole operation has had over time. It was thought that we maybe needed to have a caretaker down here and so we had a caretaker that lived here. He was called Bozo. I've been on all of the continents except Antarctica. I've been all over the place and this is where my ashes get dropped. Forwarded to an automatic voice message system. Robert Maurer, Worsham Chuck here, a voice from back yonder. Hope you're kicking well, buddy. Hey, I've got grandson Max and his partner up from fresh out of film school in California and we're doing a film using all of that old footage I shot back in the 70s. We're down at the fox farm right now on a deck. We just, I'd like to bullshit with you a little bit if it'd be good enough for you. Just like to talk to you about it. Pretty neat stuff because nobody else did it. Why did you decide to shoot it all on film? Because it was something I wanted to do. I was into doing film stuff at that point in my life. The dream was make a film that was basically published or was viewed and I got involved with flying and kind of lost interest in the film project and I never finished it. So here we are back at it again. That's okay. How did it feel getting rid of everything? Oh, that was hard. Getting rid of stuff you put so much work into, yeah, that's hard for anybody. And just like people that can't get rid of a thing in their house. This is different though. This was a piece of soul and it was hard to get rid of it. But I didn't really get rid of it. I passed it on. And I thought that that would be the possibility, especially when I knew you were getting into the filming. So that's cool. Yeah. I wish you had kept the camera. Rail three. What's this one? Oh, this might be float trip. This was the first time we did the connect hook. Bob Begich and his son Michael were along. Mike and Mike were friends. And at this time, I think we did the whole river. We did not see another human footprint in the sand. We did not see another boat. But this was the daddy of fishing trips. Dan, you had counts with the sea who could catch 100 fish in a day first. What did you like about raft trips? As long as you had your food and you had your tent, your sleeping bag, and clothes, which was basically what you wore. I called it the freedom of the hills because you were self-sufficient. But if you screwed up and broke a leg or something, you die. That's quite a lifestyle. Oh, it was wonderful. I don't know what I was thinking back then. As far as what you wanted the footage? As far as what I was going to do with the footage. I just like shooting stuff. It felt good. It was a beautiful day and beautiful river and the smells were good. It was time to shoot movies. That's the baby. My sound isn't on, is it? Okay. Well, that's the baby. Come here. Looks just like it used to. Well, you got some power on it. You got it so it works? It works. Holy smokes. Are you going to do a zoom? No, I'm not. You like the static? I like the static shot because the zoom is going to be not smooth. When do you do zooms and when do you keep it static? When my belly tells me to. I have no set pattern. How's the focus? It's good? Okay. Okay, ready, set. I didn't have very sturdy shoes for being on an island in the middle of nowhere. It's not like an old man thinking back on when he used to like tie his own flies. It's like just how fresh the world is when you're nine years old and checking it out. Mom, what do you think drove Chuck to film all these experiences with you guys? We wanted to make a movie just like you are tonight. Not even to like glorify our role, but we were kind of my dad's actors. I just remember at the end of every afternoon we'd have to film over and over and over and over. That's fake. That's not how it was. He had to look a little harder for a glass float than that. He had to hunt for them. Sick treasure. All right, ready, set. Turn on the camera. Go. Oh, let's do it again. Let's go. Ready? I'm your camera assistant. What do you want me to do? I want you to make sure the damn camera doesn't fall over. Okay, good. Okay, come on. Okay, keep coming. Move uphill to your right. Come, okay, keep coming. We're out of film. Do it again. No, we're out of film. You'll do it again until you're done doing it again. Do you want me to hold it, Dad? No, I'm good. If you don't do it again, you won't get any more candy bars the rest of the trip. No more almond joys. No. Look at that. First roll of film you've shot in 50 years. Yeah, that's right. This is gold. Yeah, I hope so. I know it is gold, whether it works or not. You're the boy. Yeah, the boy. I think about those years quite a bit, just sort of in my daily routine. You know, it definitely is stuff that is not far from sort of the present. That's why I think it's unique. I mean, and I know it's unique, you know, the stuff that we did. Tell me about your relationship with Chuck now. I love my dad. He's an amazing man and he's lived a big life. Not perfect. None of us do, but I feel very special to have grown up the way that I did. And still to this day, I mean, I haven't lived there since I was 18. But it makes me proud to tell people that I grew up in Alaska. Because not very many people get to experience it in the way that I got to. Okay, can we stop? Oh, I'm like hot and sweaty and crying. I don't want to cry. Bye. Hello? Hey, Worsham here. Hey! Yeah, twice in one week. How about that, Moan? Wow, right. So what's happening? Ruth Glacier. You got any fond remembrances or good points, low points? Age and other things with hearing and understanding. But you're talking about your book? The film. The film project that we did on the Ruth Glacier, 1978 or whenever it was. I see, okay. Well, that's a long time ago. You know, as you can sort of see, I'm struggling. Okay, not a problem, Gordon. What about playing frisbee up there? At where? When we were on the Ruth Glacier with Bob Bauer and Ward Hobart out of the Shelton hut? Yes. Do you remember playing it? Do you remember that? Yes. Thinking about back, it was a pretty incredible project. And if I remember correctly, I can still visualize flying up the gorge and on the right side looking at those incredible cliffs up to the mountains. And then we actually went down somewhat a little bit lower. He takes us in there and he lands us. We put on our skis and I think we roped up and then worked our way around and that. But I remember one of the things that certainly we, I guess, were amazed at, both listening and then looking to see the avalanches coming down some of the mountains, especially the one that across the gorge from where we were. I mean, there was avalanches off that place almost every day. Yep. Almost every hour of every day. Right. I have two cardboard boxes in my garage. Both of those boxes are filled or three-fourths of the way filled with pictures. You know, I have all of those things back through our history that I haven't seen forever. Hey, you owe it to yourself to dig those old carousels out, put it in that old Kodak projector and look at them. It's a good cry, man. Okay. Well, fun to talk with you, buddy. Hey, thanks. Thanks, Gordon. Talk to you, bud. Yeah, all right. Do you miss those times with your friends? Oh, yeah. But happy that I have them because not everybody gets those times with their friends, especially what we were doing. As the years go by and each, I mean, more and more of them pass. Yeah. And you're going to more and more. I mean, you've talked about going. My turn's coming up. How does that make you feel? I had a good ride. I don't think about it. Does death scare you? No. When time comes, time comes. Because again, it's been a good ride. And I've had very, very good people to join me along the way. And good family like you. Thanks. I think, I guess just in doing all this, too, I've realized, I mean, off camera, we've gone and bullshitted almost every night. Yeah, it's good. And you really do seem like, as cheesy as it sounds, you seem like you're a prime example of someone who's lived life to the fullest. Thank you. So what do you think it means to live life to the fullest? I think you're on a good start and you got to keep going. They might catch up to me. I don't know. That sounds challenging. You're drawing it. No, you're drawing it, man. I'm not drawing it. You said you're the guy that's going to draw it. When did I say that? You're the artist. This is your art piece. I'm not the artist. And this is our piece, mostly yours, because you want to do it really bad. You've never used a saber saw? Jesus, you guys are protective. Follow the line. I'll hold it on that side. We'll do an eye. And then the tail needs to be fucked up. That's special that it's got a tail that the girls like. What? You're looking like a horny dude. That's good. I like those kind of rams. Okay. Okay, let it dry a second. How can you tell it's a horny ram? Well, by those vertical striations that are run down through his fur. That's only during mating season that they get that. The rest of the year, they don't. They don't have it. I didn't know that. Yeah, I didn't either, but it sounded good. What do you want to name it? Bozo. Why? The sheep hunt is the peak of the year. That's the high point of the year. The kayaking, the skiing, the fishing, the beach combing. That's all neat stuff. But the sheep hunt is the high. It is really neat when you backpack way back into an area after an airplane has dropped you off from an hour or two hours of flying. And you know that in some cases, the nearest human being to you is over 100 miles away. There's no roads. There's no help. There's no radio. There's no nothing. But you got in the wilderness for many, many miles. And there's a certain excitement about that. It's like total freedom when you're out there. You know, you're not tied to any schedule. You just do what comes natural. And it's relaxing. And you forget all about your previous day-to-day existence. Hunting is all about to me is the actual finding, stalking, and observing the rams. I love to watch rams through my spotting scope. We really looked over a lot of rams. And there have been fewer and fewer of these big sheep. There's been lots of rams around, but not so many of these big ones. And we look over a lot of sheep. And we just come out without taking one. I guess one of the true joys that I have each year is to totally escape people, with the exception of my hunting partner. You want someone who shares the same feelings and kind of reverence for the country that you do. And the ability to enjoy all of the uncomfortable things that you have to go through in one of these experiences. Okay, so here's the deal. We got a sheep up the mountain. We've already decided it's a good ram. It's a legal ram. It's a good ram. But we can't go around the mountain. We got to go this way. There's no other options for us to do. Are you sure? I'm sure. We already looked at them. No other options. This is it. You got to go up that damn cliff. As soon as a man starts thinking of home, it's time he should leave the wilderness. Because it's obvious that you are no longer enjoying what you went out there for. Or you have found what you want. Are you going to miss this place when you leave? I'm going to miss it, especially when we sell it. Sell our share. But I always, every time I leave, I don't care how long I'm here. I always miss it when I leave. It's been definitely a special place in my life. You guys can feel it after you're here for a week. It's fun to watch. Why are you selling your share? Because I'm really too old to really do my piece of the action. And I see some changes, potential changes coming that maybe I just don't want to be around. It's the way it was. Sometimes the memories of the way it was is better than trying to keep them going 50 years later and remember the way it was, do something different.