"I didn’t cry often, but this seemed the right time because I realized that I would die after all." – from the Fox Story

Fox Story

Based on notes and oral history by Rob Boyd: "Of all my adventures and experiences, this is my favorite story. I had Pat (Rob's sister Patricia Snyder) write it down and I asked my cousin Tom to read it today."

In 1968 I had been out of Cheney Tech for one year and spent that year working in Pratt and Whitney in East Hartford assembling jet engines. I saw men who had followed the same path and were in the same place 25-30 years later.  I knew that was not for me. The war in Vietnam was a daily reality and so was the draft –I was a prime candidate to be drafted.  So I decided to “do something” before other’s plans for me took over.  In May 1968 Bob Kendall and I set out for Fairbanks Alaska to seek our fortune.  His mother had married a man from there and Bob was moving to be with them. I went along for the ride.   The long drive in a less than road-worthy (and this is giving it the benefit of a doubt) pick-up truck took weeks.  The trip included 1500 miles of dirt road –the Alcan Highway-from Calgary, Canada to Fairbanks Alaska.

When we finally arrived in Fairbanks, we found that there had been a flood and the town was under military law.  Army personnel with guns stopped traffic coming in. In order to be allowed into town, you had to be carrying food and water for 5 days and have a place to stay.  We had all that so we proceeded to Bob’s step-father’s house.  I was looking forward to sleeping in a real bed and to hot shower-two luxuries we had missed in the rough camping we had done on our way to Fairbanks.  “There were no motels to go t o, the electric was off in most of the town, many people had lost their homes in the flood so sleeping places were used up and everyone who didn’t lose their house had 10 people staying with them until the water went down.  Bob’s family’s house seemed not to be finished yet.  As it turned out, it had not been started yet, but they did have a trailer which was fine for the two of them.  The land was on high ground so a lot of their friends that weren’t so lucky were staying with them.  Not a good time for company to show up and stay for an undetermined amount of time.  Bob’s step-father, Harold, didn’t take long in taking us aside and explaining that this was a bad time, everything was in short supply and unless we had a lot of money(I had $200 maybe not even that) we needed to get jobs fast and a place to stay.

Harold talked me into joining the Smoke Jumpers which was a semi-military group.  You join them for 2 years I was told, and you flew over fires and jumped out of the planes with parachutes and put out the fires.  This was done in areas that didn’t have roads, so after putting out the fire you had to walk out of the woods.  As fun as this sounds-and it did-we stopped at a small airport at which a small airlines, Interior Airlines was housed.  Harold wanted to see if I could get a job there.  They had three airplanes; one of planes had to be started by hand.  The owner, Jim, said sure he had a job for me.  He said “Come back in three days with some warm clothes and a gun.  We need someone to go up North for a little while to look after an oil rig”

I was in Fairbanks, Alaska twenty five miles above the Artic Circle.  What did he mean by going north?  And what did he mean by taking care of an oil rig?

I was 19 years old.  What could I possibly know about taking care of an oil rig?  But it seemed to make sense to the adults.  Jim and Harold seemed to agree this was a good career choice for me.  When we walked out of that office, which was nothing more than a shack that said “office” on the door, it seemed my fate was set.  As young and irresponsible and reckless and inexperienced and naïve and wide-eyed as I was, this did sound better then jumping out of a plane into a fire.

You know now what no one knew then.  Prodhue Bay on the Artic Ocean was the site of the discovery of the largest oil reserve in North America.  The oil had yet to be discovered-the oil rig that I was to attend to was a wildcat operation and needed a single caretaker during the summer basically to keep polar bears from destroying the equipment.

None of this was explained to me and my plane journey to Prudhoe Bay can be the subject of another story.  Suffice it say –I came back in three days with some warm clothes, a goose-down parka and a .357 Smith and Wesson revolver both bought at J.C.Penny’s in Fairbanks which had been flooded out but was open.   The ride in the plane was terrifying but eventually we arrived at a point on the tundra where we landed.  A  Davy Crocket-look-alike jumped into the plane just as me and some supplies were hustled out-weather was deteriorating and the pilot allowed no time for any talk.  I was left there to do the best I could.  The only “orientation” I received was the previous caretaker’s (the Davy Crockett look-alike) directive to me- “Don’t shoot the Fox”.

This advice became clear when I found the camp and in it a friendly fox who counted on me to provide food as I came to count on him for companionship. Those first days are the subject of other stories, but now I have come to the point where I can tell you my favorite story and one that I have thought about in many situations in my life.

It was always a problem getting fresh water to drink.  I would catch rain water the best I could, but it was never enough.  I also took water directly from the tundra but that was standing water and even if I boiled it for a least 3 minutes as I was taught in the Boy Scouts, I was still afraid it would make me sick which up there means I might die.  I wasn’t ready to die yet; I had just started to live.  What I needed was a source of running water that I could use to cook and drink.  I had been told that there was a running stream where  I could get water.  I had a 5 gallon Jerry can to carry it back in.

I decided one day to walk out with the five gallon can in the direction that I had been told and get myself some good drinking water.

I got myself ready I brought my .357 magnum Smith and Wesson that I had bought at JC Penny’s and the marine knife that Harold had given me a few days before I left.  I had an empty cartridge shell that I had placed three kitchen matches in and then dripped wax from a lit candle to fill up the empty cartridge as I had read about in a survival manual one time.  I also had my Australian felt hat that we bought at the army surplus store in East Hartford.

I had the jerry can and started to walk.  It was morning with the sun rising in the sky.  In the summer the sun never goes far down under the horizon so it’s never really night.  The sky seemed fair and it usually rained or snowed every day but it’s not like I could get lost because everything was so flat and the oil rig stuck sixty feet in the air and would act as a homing guide for me to get back. 

Walking on the tundra is a hit or miss job.  You may want to head toward a point on the horizon but you have to keep changing direction because the water gets too high in the direction you are headed so you have to back track and find another way around it the water when it gets above your waist.  That means you are always wet and you don’t leave a trail you can follow back because most of the time you are in a foot or two of water and you don’t leave any tracks.

I walked for about three hours, always away from the direction of the oil rig toward the Brooks Mountain range that was about 100 miles away.  I don’t  know how far I had traveled as the crow flies, but there weren’t any crows and telling distance over this flat, grassy, featureless plain was hard.

I found the stream and it was only three feet wide.  It moved slowly through the tundra grass.  It wasn’t like a mountain brook bubbling over stones with a sandy bottom like we had in Connecticut, but of course the land was so flat the water would never go fast causing it to filter itself but I filled the jerry can anyway.  It was starting to rain and get colder and the can was heavy with the water in it.  Fog was coming off the Artic Ocean and I was starting to lose visibility.

This was bad.  I realized that without the structure of the oil derrick standing out on the horizon, I would have no way to guide myself back to the safety of the camp.  No camp, no heat, no food, no protection from the weather. 

I could find a relatively dry spot and wait the fog out.  In fact, in the survival manual I read it said the do just that.  If you get lost in a snowstorm the best thing to do is to find a shelter, sit down before you perspire through your clothes and wait the storm out.  It says if you keep walking in circles you will eventually drop from exhaustion and die of exposure.  The problem was this wasn’t a snowstorm.  I was already soaked through and had been for hours.  It was getting colder and a half snow and half rain started it was getting heavier as time went on.  I knew where the camp was, I just had to keep going until I got to it,

It was hard to tell how long I had been walking before I saw it, at least an hour maybe longer, but I was getting tired.  What I saw may not seem like much now, but then it was very good.  Sitting on one of those dry spots was a 55 gallon oil drum with a small battery powered light on its top.  On my way out to the stream, I saw a few of these oil drums that were set up for landing lights for the resupply  planes that landed in the winter when there was snow and the ground was frozen.  This was great.  I hadn’t seen any sign of mankind for hours and felt I was just wandering around in circles until I dropped.  My spirits raised and I sat on the oil drum, took out a Pall Mall cigarette that had been carefully wrapped to stay dry and took out my zippo lighter and lit up.  Things were looking better.  This drum must be one of the many that were lined up to form a runway.  All I had to do was to keep going from oil drum to oil drum until it brings me to camp!  I felt such a feeling of relief.  I had been afraid that I was going to die of exhaustion out here and a wolf would find my body, rip it apart and I would never be found and my mother would never know what happened to me.  

While wandering around, an article that I had read in a magazine before leaving that morning kept going around in my mind.  The article was about Frank Sinatra and how he had grown up in Hoboken N.J.  The article mentioned that Hoboken had the most bars per capita of anywhere in the country because it was so small and had so many shipyards and the men drank after work and there were 3 shifts.  When you are facing hard times and maybe death you tend to make deals with yourself and God.  My deal was simple: if I got out of this, I would go to Hoboken and have a beer in one of those bars and tell someone this story.  It sounds stupid, but I found myself a year and a half later in Vietnam making many such promises.

With my spirits raised, a good smoke, and a short rest I was off again to find the next barrel. That would eventually lead me back to my nice warm trailer and food and sleep.  After another hour of walking it was really getting cold and I was getting tired.  My legs were numbing up from the cold water I was slogging through, my arms were still all right, but I could feel the the wet cold settling in my chest.  I was starting to think again that I would not make it.  I should have found the next barrel by now.  The fact was I had no idea where I was, or what direction the camp was or even where I had just come from because there were not footprints. 

At that low point, I saw it.  The next barrel.  It seemed to come up fast and wasn’t in the direction I thought it would be in, but there it was as big as life-my life.  I was going to have my life after all. 

I walked up to the barrel and took a good look, then started to cry.  I didn’t cry often, but this seemed the right time because I realized that I would die after all.

It was the same barrel!  This was the same barrel that I had found before and at which I had rested because I found the butt of the cigarette I had smoked.  I had walked in a big circle for the last 2 hours instead of going in a straight line.   

That was one of the lowest points in my life.  I was in a state of shock but after a while I just had to go on.  I started out again and only got a short distance away –about 50 yards- when I saw the movement.  I froze.  Something was moving in the grass, and it was coming straight at me.  I had learned that unlike the timid animals in the woods in Connecticut, nothing was afraid of me here.  I was warned of wolves became I came so my thoughts when straight to a pack of hungry wolves who had picked up my scent and was going after an easy meal.  Well, it wasn’t going to be that easy.  As I hunkered down in the tundra grass, I could hear it coming straight towards me unafraid and with no hesitation.  I took out my .357 magnum Smith & Wesson.  It was loaded with .38 instead of the more powerful .357 magnum, but that was alright because I was at such a short range.  The problem was that the gun had been soaking wet for the last 8 hours and I wasn’t sure that it would fire.  When I was told about the wolves, it was also said that they carry rabies and any skin that they broke with a bite could kill me.  I took out my knife, thinking that when the wolf got close enough, I would jump up and pull the trigger 3 times.  If the gun didn’t fire, I would drop it and use the knife and try to cut its throat before it could bite me and infect me with rabies.

I was squatting down in the grass as low as I could and couldn’t see it coming, but I sure heard it.  When it got close enough, I jumped up to fire.  It was the fox.  The fox that I was told not to shoot.  The fox from the camp that I had been feeding every day, my little friend.  I was thrilled.  It wasn’t a pack of wolves coming to kill me but my little friend looking for food.  I froze, didn’t move a muscle.  I had realized in a moment that the fox was coming to get fed and have me play with it like I always did.  By me not moving, or feeding him, it would soon get bored and go back to its home under one of the trailers in the camp.  It didn’t take long until it turned around and went back to the camp.  I followed; it wasn’t that far, but in a completely different direction that I was going.  I wasn’t going to die that day, but I was going to have to go to Hoboken.

Once I got back to the camp, I made myself a plate of hot food, dry clothes and hot coffee, but not before I fed the fox four eggs and a whole can of spam. After that day, the fox ate when I ate.