Doc Warner’s lodge is located at the mouth of Excursion Inlet. Long before our guests began enjoying the calm fishing waters near Excursion Inlet, the United States Army built a barge terminal to aid the Army’s efforts to liberate the Aleutian Islands from their Japanese invaders. …
In the early years at the lodge, we had a 14-kilowatt generator to provide our electricity. The generator was housed in a small room off the original boathouse. The radiator fan faced outside toward the trees. Several times during the summer, I noticed our staff placing their wet boots and clothing items on a ledge in front of the radiator fan. On occasion, I asked the staff how effective the warm generator air was at drying their clothes. They consistently replied that the drying process was a little slow, but it worked. …
In the mid 1990’s, just before we bought land and began building the lodge, we camped in Excursion Inlet, a short distance from our current location. The owners of the property were personal friends. The Gordon’s had purchased an aluminum geodesic dome and placed it on the property. The dome was in a secure area and seemed to have repellant properties to some of the big game in the area. We didn’t see a single bear while camping using the dome (nor did we see any elephants, woolly mammoths, or mastodons, so you can see how effective at repelling it was!) …
Many years ago, when we first started to bring guests to Doc Warner’s, our boat motors were 35 horse power 2-stroke Suzuki’s. At that point, all we knew about being mechanics was that motors stop working when they run out of gas. …
Just as you reach the crest of the small incline leading from the dock to the lodge, you are greeted by Linda’s colorful garden.
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When guests ask us how we built such a nice facility in remote Alaska, our standard answer has been: “If we had known what we were doing, we would never have attempted such a big project.” In this post Doc tells how Marv Prestridge saved the project of building Doc Warner’s into a fishing lodge. …
Sometime during 1981, an Explorer Scout leader, Richard, phoned me* from Utah. He wanted to bring his scouts on an Alaska high adventure fishing camp-out. At the time, I was working for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. I told Richard that if he would bring the boys to Juneau, I would help arrange for the necessary equipment and suggest a place they could fish from shore, since neither they nor we had boats.
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I think I will forever be a student. Early in my reading career, I read a few ‘how to’ books and decided, after reading several, that the authors knew little about my business interests and probably started writing books because it was easier than running a business. However, research books provided much of the information I was seeking. One of my favorite authors is Jim Collins. Sometimes, in reading an entire book, I come up with one or two ideas that resonate with me.
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This post is about how the Doc Warner’s team found the perfect boat for their guests and it was written by Doc Warner.
One September after the lodge was closed for the season, Linda and I drove home from Alaska and visited every boat manufacturer we could find in Washington and Oregon. We were on a mission to find the safest boats for our guests to use.
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When someone catches a big halibut and brings it to the dock everyone wants to know where the fish was caught. The fortunate anglers who caught the big fish love to share their secrets and give out location information. For the next few days multiple boats are often seen in the general proximity of where the big fish was caught.
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