Outdoors/Adventure

A bush pilot's greatest fear? 'Getting eaten by a grizzly bear.'

Alaska Bush Float Plane Service in Talkeetna is a premier fly-in fishing, hunting, and sight-seeing service. The owner and operator, Jason Sturgis, has been a pilot for 30 years, and has run the company just as long. Located on Fish Lake, Alaska Bush Float Plane Service has a scenic view right out of their office window.

The location of the company is everything, and their close proximity to the many lakes and rivers around Interior Alaska is a prime place for these services.

Jason Sturgis has an excellent flying record that reflects the amount of time that he has spent in the air. Sturgis keeps a dollar that was given to him by a person living in Rural Alaska to buy stamps to deliver his mail.

Still, Independent film producer Paul Hemann's video portrays the serious fears held by most, if not all, bush pilots. Stugis' main fear just happens to be "going down in a plane and getting eaten by a grizzly bear."

Hemann promotes and films just some of Sturgis' day-to-day activities. On his YouTube channel, Hemann has a series of videos that showcase the events that happen within a day at the company. And, with the many plane crashes this summer, bush pilots have to take that extra air of caution. As Paul said of the matter, "It's not a matter of if you go down, but when you go down."

As Paul Hemann says, though, "Jason Sturgis is an awesome, stinkin' good pilot."

Contact Bryan Dunagan at bryan(at)alaskadispatch.com.

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