Concealed Carry On The Last Frontier
Packing Heat in the Frozen North
Hey bear! Here’s the reason you want to be careful while hiking the Alaskan backcountry.
Will took these pictures himself — this guy was enormous.
Like most wild animals, most of the time if you leave the bears alone, they
will leave you alone. However, a lot of mischief can be found in those rare
unpleasant exceptions.
Alaska is the prettiest place on the planet. Back in the ’90s, when I flew helicopters for Uncle Sam, I spent three years in the Alaskan interior. There were places I could pull up to a high hover at 4,000 feet or so, do a pedal turn and not see a manmade object to the horizon all the way around. There just aren’t a lot of places left in the world where you can do that. My favorite Alaskan bumper sticker read, “If You Cut Alaska in Half, Texas Would be the Third-Largest State.”
For all its undeniable natural beauty, however, Alaska is a terribly unforgiving place to live, work and play. I’m frankly convinced God made Alaska for people to visit in the summer. I bet He gets big yucks out of the fact we try to live there year-round. Our first winter in Alaska we got 144″ of snow.
The coldest it got while I was there was 63 degrees below zero, and we were in the field. I’m skinny and tend to shiver a bit just thinking about it. In addition to some impressive environmental challenges, Alaska also plays home to some simply epic predators.
Down here in the Deep South where I live, the meanest, nastiest animals we might encounter are perhaps water moccasins or the errant incontinent toddler. By contrast, a fish-fed Alaskan brown bear weighs upward of 1,500 lbs., and eats absolutely anything it can catch. A few of those monsters I saw were the size of Volkswagens. Now hold that thought …
Just because you are on vacation away from home and arrived by plane
doesn’t mean you have to be unarmed. There is some simply magnificent
hiking to be found in Alaska. However, it is a bit like wandering about the
zoo with all the doors to the predator cages standing open.
Blessings
When I got the opportunity to return to Alaska with my wife and kids for a couple of weeks, I jumped at it. It had been two decades since we had lived there, and I was intrigued to see how much the place had changed. We planned to hit the major tourist sites along with plenty of off-road, backwoods stuff we had enjoyed back in our foolish youth. Such an omnibus trek required some proper planning.
I carry a gun whenever I walk up the hill to check my mail. I’m sure not wandering about the last frontier unarmed. As concealed carry challenges go, though, this one was particularly sticky.
One of the more shocking aspects of modern-day Alaska was how civilized the place had become. What had previously been expansive miles of nothing around Denali National Park now sported luxury hotels. Fairbanks has sprouted both a Walmart and a Home Depot. It was a sure sign of the coming apocalypse to find Fairbanks, Alaska now boasted a Starbucks.
Such developed civilization meant people. This meant I would have to figure out a concealed carry solution I could pack underneath a generous flannel shirt. It would also need to reliably dissuade predators whether they lumbered about on four legs or skulked around on two. It was a simply splendid challenge.
You can drive to Alaska, but you have to want it hard. The trek via the Alaska Highway takes more than a week and passes through Canada, our gun-averse neighbor to the north. Flying with guns isn’t hard, but I didn’t want to pack an arsenal. I needed a single compact yet powerful handgun along with the carry gear to hide it.
Will found this Smith & Wesson Model 66 .357 Magnum with a 4" barrel to be
proper company throughout Alaska. In the field, it rode open on his belt. In urban
spaces, it stayed hidden underneath an untucked flannel shirt.
The Process
Life is a series of compromises. If I lived truly free from compromise, I would start every day by putting my head in my wife’s lap while she spoon-feeds me Count Chocula cereal. Instead, I get up, take a shower and go to work to do battle with humanity’s many manifest diseases before returning home pummeled and exhausted. Repeat as necessary. This gun was likewise going to represent a compromise, this time of the ballistic sort.
If I were ever to be attacked by a 1,500-lb. bear, I’d want something with a high explosive warhead and an impact fuse. However, I did have some previous experience selecting bear guns based upon my time as an Army aviator. In fact, I once conducted a spirited and memorable discussion with an elderly gentleman from my church on the subject.
This wizened gent was a native, not in the ethnic sense, but rather in that he was born and raised in Fairbanks back before civilization ruined it. It is the rare old man who can still tolerate Alaskan winters. He was clearly of hearty stock. He had also spent enough time in the bush chasing moose and arctic grayling to get good at it.
When I asked my friend his advice on selecting a pistol for defense against bears, he said the details really didn’t matter. Surprisingly, he explained caliber, model and barrel length were all fairly immaterial. He said the only serious consideration driving the selection of an Alaskan bear pistol was that you take the gun to a competent gunsmith and have him grind off the front sight.
I initially figured this was to allow you to acquire a target more quickly or help expeditiously clear the holster. He went on to pontificate the real reason was so that when the bear took the gun away from you and rammed it up your backside, the experience was no more painful than it had to be. Words to live by indeed.
The Smith & Wesson Model 66 .357 Magnum is honestly a fairly marginal
Alaskan bear gun. In this case, though, it was hugely better than nothing at all.
The Gun
I settled on a Smith & Wesson Model 66 with a 4.25″ tube. This stainless steel wheelgun is as reliable as a tire tool and not unduly bulky. When stoked with some proper hollowpoints, it will punch deep and foment plenty of chaos on the receiving end. If the threat really does weigh half a ton, then the Model 66 is indeed still inadequate. However, packing an AT4 antitank rocket underneath my shirt when I take my family out to a nice restaurant in Anchorage would be a fairly impractical solution. As I said, life is a series of compromises.
The Model 66 obviously packs six rounds onboard. Its stainless-steel construction makes the gun fairly weatherproof. The 4″ barrel is short enough to hide behind a waistband yet still offers some decent downrange thump. The single-action/double-action trigger is the standard by which others are judged.
The gun comes with some nice rubber stocks. The front sight includes a red insert, while the rear is easily adjustable for both windage and elevation. Despite the Magnum chambering, the Model 66 isn’t unduly thick. As with all .357 wheelguns, .38 Special is for practice, while the Magnum loads keep me company when out where the wild things roam. Additionally, though I realize I shouldn’t care, this manly Smith wheelgun also just looks super cool.
A DeSantis leather thumb break scabbard sufficiently spreads
the mass of the pistol to keep it comfortable on a stiff belt.
How to Pack it
Not just everybody makes a concealable holster for a Magnum Smith & Wesson revolver. However, DeSantis Gunhide has the goods. I use several DeSantis holsters regularly and swear by them.
Gene DeSantis started DeSantis Gunhide back in 1972, building holsters on his kitchen table. DeSantis has since grown into one of the largest holster manufacturers in the world. DeSantis equips the U.S. Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security, the TSA and the FBI as well as countless other law enforcement and military customers worldwide.
A DeSantis leather thumb break scabbard kept me packing across the Alaskan wilds. The thumb break offers added security and keeps the gun high enough to be concealable underneath an untucked shirt. While the big Smith is bulky compared to trim modern autoloaders, the holy melding of Smith & Wesson with DeSantis did indeed keep me comfortably armed throughout our stay.
Using the DeSantis holster, I packed my manly Smith pistol to museums, in the backcountry, aboard bush planes and in restaurants with impunity. Once I got used to the geometry, the gun really wasn’t much less comfortable than my standard carry fare back here in the World. I was honestly amazed at how practical the S&W/DeSantis combination could be.
The .38 Special loads (right) are for practice. Full power .357
Magnum loads are for packing on the trail.
Ruminations
It turns out I didn’t actually have to fight a bear while hiking in Alaska with my family. In fact, I have it on reliable information very few visitors to Alaska have to fight bears. I likewise never once felt uncomfortable or unsafe in any Alaskan urban areas. A grand time was indeed had by all.
Had the need arisen, however, I was as ever prepared. The hefty Smith & Wesson wheelgun is a proper deterrent, no matter the threat. It was also surprisingly practical to tote, even for long periods, while out hiking and climbing.
Alaska is indeed a fairly magical place. The vast unspoiled wilderness and intimidating fauna conspire to offer an unparalleled rugged experience. Should you have the opportunity and inclination, I powerfully suggest a visit. And if you do take a gun, just remember my buddy’s advice about the front sight.
For more info: Smith-Wesson.com,
DeSantisHolster.com
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