Chris Poynter
“I’ve been out here on the Talachulitna for 16 years, since the 2008 economic crash. I was a masonry contractor in Oregon, and I just didn’t want to do it anymore. My wife asked me what I wanted to do, and I told her I wanted to go fishing. She said ‘Where?’ I said ‘Alaska.’ A year later we ended up in Anchorage, and the next day, we landed on the Talachulitna River.
I had been coming up to Lake Creek, and helping some friends that had a lodge down there get their lodge opened up for quite a few years. The opportunity just came at the right time, and we took it.
The kids were 9 and 12. It was a massive adjustment period, especially for my son. The kids not being able to have TV all the time. And adjusting to just ‘Let’s go outside.’
Now it’s home. We have people that come out to the lodge and ask us ‘Aren’t you afraid?’
And we’re like — ‘Afraid of what? I’m more afraid when I go to town than when I’m out here. You’re out here with nature, and you can just respect that, and there’s nothing really to be afraid of.
There’s a certain sense of freedom being out here. It’s hard to describe. It’s evolved and changed over the years. This is home, that’s all. It’s just home.”
—Chris Poynter, avid flyfisherman and co-owner, Talvista Lodge
“A few years later, my wife Sarah and I were put in a position to be able to purchase this lodge, Talvista.
That is what our dream was. That’s what we wanted. We fell in love with the place. That opportunity came and we jumped on it immediately and haven’t left since.
Now we’ve moved forward 16 years and we’re just watching the place slowly deteriorate. The salmon populations. The moose.
In early October, I was out catching rainbows and grayling with my wife. At that time of year, when it is as dry as it was, every single night we get out and we go have dinner on a gravel bar somewhere. Sit there with a little fire, go fishing, watch nature do its thing. And just enjoy being out there, with nobody around for miles.
The other morning we were sitting on the porch having our coffee and a cigarette and I said ‘It’s too bad we can’t hear any traffic right now.’ And that’s just one of the magical things about being out there. Those periods of time when there’s nobody out here but the two of us. And those couple times of year when it could be four months when we don’t even see anybody else.”
—Chris Poynter, avid flyfisherman and co-owner, Talvista Lodge
“The Talachulitna River is just a magical place. We all know the history of the Tal, if we’re deep in the fishing industry at all.
I’m not this big salmon guy. I do a lot of salmon guiding because that’s what pays the bills. But I’m a rainbow guy, and the Tal has the most amazing rainbow fishing. It’s second to none.
I did a lot of guiding out of Bristol Bay and Iliamna, fished those rivers for four or five years even while living here, in the West Su. Those were all great rivers and there were great rainbows in them. But I never caught one that outclassed this one. The largest rainbow trout I ever caught in my life was here. A 38 inch rainbow. Everybody thought it was a steelhead.
The fish here are so vibrant in color. They’re the prettiest rainbows I’ve heard of. I’ve seen pictures of beautiful rainbows — you see pictures in the magazines. That’s what all our fish are like. Big red patches, dark stripe down size, leopard rainbows. We get so many black spots on their eyelids and lips. When you can go stand on a gravel bar and catch a dozen rainbows in that 20 to 26-inch range, you’ve got to love it.”
—Chris Poynter, avid flyfisherman and co-owner, Talvista Lodge
“The change of the season – being out here, my wife and I watch the whole world go dormant in the fall. Everything just slows down until it freezes and everything stops. And then it’s just asleep until April.
In the winters, I put in 28 miles of trails. Part of it goes into Skwentna. The other part goes to Alexander Lake trail and comes out on the Yentna.
And then, in the spring, you watch the whole world wake back up again. There’s the first eagle that comes and lands in the big spruce tree out front. Certain things that happen at certain times every year in wildlife that most people don’t ever see, don’t ever get to key into, because they’re taking their kids to daycare, off to work, coming home from work, have got to stop at the grocery store.
It's not easy out here. But we wouldn’t do it any other way.”
—Chris Poynter, avid flyfisherman and co-owner, Talvista Lodge
“I love it when people make it out here. If people make it out there they’ve got adventure in their heart and they’re like me. I’m that guy on the river if you’re floating by and you’re out there, I’m going to know your name before you go by, not because I’m being a police officer, because I want to stop and know how you’re doing.
And I’m going to show you what I’m using. You catch fish – I want you to go home talking about how awesome the Tal is, how friendly the people are, how it’s a place people want to get to and want to go. But if that road comes through, it’s going away.”
—Chris Poynter, avid flyfisherman and co-owner, Talvista Lodge
“At a West Su Industrial Access Road meeting in Skwentna this year, the forestry guy told us the forest was ill. He said we need to go out here and harvest these trees to make our forest healthy again. And my question to him was — ‘Do you believe in nature?’
He got kind of defensive, and I said ‘No really. Do you believe in nature? It’s already managed in nature. Everything in nature gets utilized. So what is it you have to come out here and fix?’
I’m a trapper. That’s part of what I do out here. And our marten population has been down. Do you know why? It’s because our spruce trees died. And the spruce trees make pine cones, which the squirrels eat. So when there’s lots of spruce trees, lots of squirrels, which means lots of marten. But in nature that marten population can get too big so every 40 years these spruce beetles come through. The sick, ill, and weak trees die. The big ones survived. The strong ones. And now we’re building a big strong population of martens because we didn’t mess with the fricking trees. If you go out there and change it, you’re changing it all.”
—Chris Poynter, avid flyfisherman and co-owner, Talvista Lodge
“The Talachulitna has changed so much over the years. Right now I’m watching the salmon populations in our river go down. And that’s a tough one. We have problems with the moose population as well.
At the meeting they had in Skwentna about the West Susitna Industrial Access Road this last year — on one hand you have this government agency trying to protect the wildlife and the fish. And then on the other hand, a government agency that wants to stuff a road right through the same area.
As soon as you put a road here, your fish and your wildlife are going to disappear even faster.
That was one of my questions in the meeting.
I asked ‘Can you show me any place in the world where putting a road into it has enhanced the fish and wildlife?’ And they didn’t want to give an answer.
Are we going to try to save the fish and the wildlife in the West Susitna and Southcentral Alaska, which we know are in decline, or are we going to do the one thing which we know is the worst thing you could do?”
—Chris Poynter, avid flyfisherman and co-owner, Talvista Lodge