Badger Arrow, I know of a few folks who left the interior of Alaska then moved to the Peninsula of North Michigan not to far from you. That seems to be a good location for Alaskans to retire, beautiful but not as extreme a climate and certainly not as expensive. I'm a big fan of both Michigan and Wisconsin, two great places for Traditional Archery.
Chris, I passed through Korea a few times but never had the chance to check out their archery first hand. I did own a video of them making arrows years ago, not sure what ever happened to it but I learned from it. I will try to get some project pictures of bamboo and gear up this week.
ArkyBob, I was born in Hot Springs and grew up in Southwest Little Rock when Fouche Creek was a was still wild. I have hunted many of the WMAs and the White River Refuge. At one time I had a small camp down on the White River but that was ten years or more ago. I have not Duck hunted timber since 99 but do I ever miss it. Duck hunting has changed, I didn't think it could ever get any fancier but it did. The best hunts I have ever been on were lone hunts where I canoed into the swamp at 10PM to set up my decoys by midnight and catch a few hours sleep before all the boats started coming down the lanes flashing me. You could always hear them talking in the boat, someone would always be saying, "boys, hes in our hole" which gave me a little satisfaction but there was always to much pressure in public hunting ducks in timber. Im not even sure if you can still take non powered boats out all night anymore, do you know anything about that.
Gil, Do you make bows are anything? I know of a couple guys there that make knives but not anything about archery in the Philippine Islands. I could pass through heading to Guam sometime and thought about seeing the guys I know there, if your around I would be happy to meet you. There is also the chance you could head this way sometime so we could shoot here or build bows or something. I have a couple project going here but I'm in limbo as the government is struggling and nobody knows what is going to happen next, I could be making move quicker than I expect.
Brian, How I got to Thailand? Long story there but I will try to make it quick. I had always liked Asia and had a long history of dreaming about the place. I got in with a pretty wild group of guys who had been living over here since the Vietnam Era and they are the ones who convinced me to come here and they also taught me how to get by on my own. It took ten years of haggling around but one day I was getting ready to feed close to a hundred sled dogs in Tannana Alaska, they were yapping away and the weather was about to turn serious, huge chunks of ice were floating in the Yukon, and I was drinking a very expensive cheep beer which had been flown in on the mail plane and I just thought, what the heck, time for a change. I told a German friend named Christian who is still there and another friend who owned the dogs I was heading into town, they asked when I would be back, I said not very soon, I'm heading to Thailand for the winter. That was back in November 2002 and I have been here since then.
What I do over here is try to stay sane in a insane world. What I don't do is worry about freezing to death. I would have already left here many times but I married a local girl and we have a good life. I have always been a drifter so this is the longest I have ever stayed in one place. I have no complaints but there are many questions about whether the government here will survive as it could be overthrown any day of the week, that's part of the intensity of living here.