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A couple years back, I saw a listing on craigslist for a ~40 acre riverfront remote parcel of land in Eagle, AK listed for around 40k and was reminded of that when I read this article. I just found this article and thought it was an interesting read - to think of how self-sufficient & hard-as-nails these old sourdoughs were.
Here's a link and a copy/pasted article:
There once was this old trapper named Nimrod Bodfish that lived near Eagle, Alaska...about 100 miles from nowhere.
Around the year of 1862, one especially cold winter, as old Nimrod was socked in his cabin for the winter, he developed an excruciating toothache.
Being all by himself, and being the handyman that he was, he took a pair of rusty pliers and started pulling his own teeth until he finally found the one that hurt.
After recovering enough to regain his appetite old Nimrod went out to retrieve some sourdough bread from his food cache that was buried in a snowbank.
That is when he discovered that a grizzly bear had found his food cache and had eaten everything that wasn't in a can.
Old Nimrod took his Henry rifle, stalked the griz down and killed it, took it back to his cabin, skinned and butchered it, and used it to replace his stolen food.
That would have been the end of the story if old Nimrod Bodfish had not been the craftsman that he was. He grabbed the same rusty pliers that he had used to pull his own teeth and pulled the grizzly's teeth. He then melted down the aluminum handles from one of his cooking pots to form a base, and inserted the grizzly's molars into the molten metal. When the metal cooled Nimrod had a set of false teeth made from a grizzly's teeth.
He became the first, and probably the only, man to ever eat a grizzly bear with it's own teeth.
This is from a story entitled "Searching for Nimrod" by Mr. Whitekeys written for Alaska Magazine.
this was the only supposed picture I could find of said dentures. they are/were supposedly on display at the Eagle, AK museum as of 2001.
He was also known for being quite the inventor and was said he " could make anything but a living". In the late 1800's he patented a flying bird machine complete with real bird feathers. The whole town of 700 residents at the time came out to witness the flight (that subsequently crashed before even taking off from land).
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=36621
Here is a picture of the engine he created and patented:
"“To lift, or rise, and propel itself through the air by up and down strokes of its wings as a bird. Power for moving wings to be supplied by specially designated gas engine or by specially adapted commercial gasoline engine” (Robertson’s own description of his invention)"
And another article: https://akethnogirl.wordpress.com/tag/alaska-history/
Here's a link and a copy/pasted article:
There once was this old trapper named Nimrod Bodfish that lived near Eagle, Alaska...about 100 miles from nowhere.
Around the year of 1862, one especially cold winter, as old Nimrod was socked in his cabin for the winter, he developed an excruciating toothache.
Being all by himself, and being the handyman that he was, he took a pair of rusty pliers and started pulling his own teeth until he finally found the one that hurt.
After recovering enough to regain his appetite old Nimrod went out to retrieve some sourdough bread from his food cache that was buried in a snowbank.
That is when he discovered that a grizzly bear had found his food cache and had eaten everything that wasn't in a can.
Old Nimrod took his Henry rifle, stalked the griz down and killed it, took it back to his cabin, skinned and butchered it, and used it to replace his stolen food.
That would have been the end of the story if old Nimrod Bodfish had not been the craftsman that he was. He grabbed the same rusty pliers that he had used to pull his own teeth and pulled the grizzly's teeth. He then melted down the aluminum handles from one of his cooking pots to form a base, and inserted the grizzly's molars into the molten metal. When the metal cooled Nimrod had a set of false teeth made from a grizzly's teeth.
He became the first, and probably the only, man to ever eat a grizzly bear with it's own teeth.
This is from a story entitled "Searching for Nimrod" by Mr. Whitekeys written for Alaska Magazine.
this was the only supposed picture I could find of said dentures. they are/were supposedly on display at the Eagle, AK museum as of 2001.
He was also known for being quite the inventor and was said he " could make anything but a living". In the late 1800's he patented a flying bird machine complete with real bird feathers. The whole town of 700 residents at the time came out to witness the flight (that subsequently crashed before even taking off from land).
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=36621
Here is a picture of the engine he created and patented:
"“To lift, or rise, and propel itself through the air by up and down strokes of its wings as a bird. Power for moving wings to be supplied by specially designated gas engine or by specially adapted commercial gasoline engine” (Robertson’s own description of his invention)"
And another article: https://akethnogirl.wordpress.com/tag/alaska-history/
