Rainy Pass Lodge is the oldest continuously operating hunting lodge in Alaska, set deep in the wilderness 120 air miles northwest of Anchorage. 2014 marks the lodge's 77th year in existence. Exclusively a hunting lodge in its early days, Rainy Pass Lodge is now open year-round to cater to snowmachiners, ptarmigan hunters and the Iron Dog and Iditarod races, as well as summer guests and horseback riders.
Buckey Winkley came to Alaska in 1961 and has been the resident hunting guide at Rainy Pass Lodge since 1964. Winkley was born 20 miles north of Boston, and he says, "That's why I still sound like a damn Kennedy."
As a child in the 1950s, Winkley enjoyed history and reading, and he immersed himself in hunting articles, hunting books, and books about natural history. "To me there was nothing more exciting than hunting a grizzly bear in Alaska." His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all hunters. He started shooting guns when he was 5 years old, and started collecting them in high school. Winkley says he's always been a collector, and out of the 145 antique guns in his "museum," he's shot more than 70 of them.
"There's guns in here that are over 400 years old," he said.
Some things haven't changed at Winkley's cabin in the past 50 years -- his closest neighbor is still 35 miles away. But one thing that has changed -- in a positive way -- is the way the Alaska Department of Fish and Game regulates the hunting business and ensures there are animals enough for hunting year after year. Winkley had high praise for "the game wardens that enforce the laws, the biologists that study it. Alaska Fish and Game department is one of the best in the world."
This remote spot deep in the Alaska wilderness is where Winkley calls home. Rainy Pass Lodge owner Steve Perrins says Winkley tends to be a hermit once and a while, but Winkley says laughing, "everybody has their moods. There's times I like to be left alone, dammit."
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