Texas Equine Veterinary Association

www.texasequineva.com • 22 VET ADVENTURE ALASKA by Bo Brock, DVM, DABVP I like to laugh hard. I don't mean a giggle or a forced smile…I mean the kind that doesn't even make any noise. The kind that comes from the belly or somewhere close to it. I like to laugh and have to come up for air now and then to keep from passing out. I like to see other people laugh this way. I long to make them, but most of the time, it is someone else that makes me laugh this hard. Years ago, my good friend Mark Justice (veterinarian in Hobbs, New Mexico) advised me that we needed to start a group for veterinarians that like to fish. I was a bit skeptical about such a venture, but Mark wasn't. He worked at it a while and came up with the name "Vetadventure". A group of vets that wanted to get a little CE and fish. He got it done. We decided membership would be free. We decided that we were gonna go even if no one else wanted to. So we did, and we have. We have fished and fished. I just got back to west Texas today and the temperature upon landing was 105 degrees. This to contrast the 75 degrees we left in Alaska. Oh my, it was hard to come home. But let me tell you…we laughed. We had vets from New Mexico, Utah, North Carolina, and Texas on the trip. Some of whom I had never even met. We caught Halibut, Salmon, Sea Bass, Cod, Rockfish…to the tune of about 50 lbs. of fillets a piece. And we laughed. We were not the only group at the lodge near Angoon, Alaska. There were people from all over the world there as well. There was a particular couple from Florida there that we all took up with. They were in their mid 70's and were so much fun to be around. Dot and Rudy…some of the most wonderful people I have ever met. My mother and step dad had gone along with us and they became friends with the Florida couple almost immediately. On Friday we were able to take an excursion. It was a trip to an isolated cove about 2 hour boat trip away from the lodge. A place with a natural hot spring and reported views that were amazing. We all went. When we arrived, the captain told us that is was about a 45 minute hike up to the hot springs and lake. He said it was uphill all the way there, but down hill all the way back. I wasn't sure about these old folks in the group making it that far, but they insisted…so off we all went. Let me just try to get a mental image in your brain of what this place looked like. It was in the middle of nowhere. I mean nowhere. It was at least a two hour boat ride from the closest town…and that town had about 500 people. It was in a cove off of the inside passage that had mountains jutting up about 3000 feet from the ocean. The mountains were covered with Sitka Spruce trees and 200 foot waterfalls. There were humpback whales bubble feeding about 15 feet from our boat as we docked, and about 50 Orcas in the straight leading in to the bay. There were a few log cabins on the shore, and a wooden path that led from the dock into the rain forest toward the hot springs. It was absolutely breath taking. The question was, could the old folks make it up that far to see the lake and the hot springs. After a few minutes of debate, we decided that we would all go slow and help them…and off we went. The path was so breathtakingly beautiful that you wanted to go slow to take it all in. We went slow and stopped often to absorb the view…Salmon berries, blueberries, ferns, dense foliage, Bald Eagles, Water falls, hummingbirds, bear footprints, native American carvings….. this went on and on for 45 minutes until we came upon the hot springs and then on up to the lake. Every step was filled with new things that none of us had seen before. We took binoculars and saw snow covered mountains and beaches at the same time. We saw salmon and trout hurdling waterfalls and swimming

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