She pulls on purple nitrile gloves, turns the rifle over and sets it carefully back on the padded table. For several minutes she examines the 38-year-old Winchester Model 70, noting the faded walnut stock,
JOE DUGGAN / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Saturday, February 16, 2008 6:00 pm
BEATRICE — She pulls on purple nitrile gloves, turns the rifle over and sets it carefully back on the padded table.
For several minutes she examines the 38-year-old Winchester Model 70, noting the faded walnut stock, blemishes in the blued metal, the slightly deteriorated rubber recoil pad. She picks up a clipboard and makes notations on a an attached form.
Deborah Long is the objects conservator for the Gerald R. Ford Conservation Center in Omaha, a division of the Nebraska State Historical Society. She has assessed more than 1,250 firearms in her career, which is part of the reason Homestead National Monument of America wanted her to take a look at this one last week.
The Winchester belonged to the last American to receive land under the Homestead Act of 1862. Monument staff asked Long to judge its condition and recommend how to best display it.
“This is in really good condition,” she says to Keely Rennie-Tucker, a collections technician at Homestead.
Rennie-Tucker nods in agreement.
Long continues, “It’s been used a lot, but it’s really well taken care of.”
***
Ken Deardorff wakes to the sound of breathing outside the spruce logs that comprise his cabin walls.
It’s a bear.
His cabin is near the Stony River in southwestern Alaska, a spot three hours by boat — 2½ by dogsled — from the nearest other humans, who live in a place called Lime Village.
He gets out of bed and grabs his big-game rifle, a 7 mm magnum Winchester Model 70. He opens the door and turns to where he heard the breathing. The black bear, closer than he imagined, rises on its hind legs when it sees him.
He fires.
The bear lunges. For a second, Deardorff imagines it charging into the cabin. Then the animal hits the ground in a dead heap.
“Just at that minute a second bear walked out from behind the corner of the cabin, about 15 feet away,” he says.
He fires a second shot, bringing down the second bear.
Then a third appears. The Winchester booms again.
Three shots, three bears, 30 seconds.
“At that time in my life, I still smoked,” Deardorff says. “I had to go in the cabin, drink a cup of coffee and smoke a cigarette before I could get out there and get to work.”
The close encounter not only raised his heart rate, it brought his family a windfall of fresh red meat, a welcome departure from fish.
It’s why he keeps the gun in good working order.
***
Living off the land had been his dream since a book about a frontiersman captured his childhood imagination.
After returning from the Vietnam War to his home in southern California, Deardorff worked to fulfill that dream in the nation’s last frontier. He moved to Alaska and chartered a pair of planes to deliver him and his possessions to the nearly 80 acres of land he would claim under the Homestead Act.
He filed his claim in 1974, more than a century after the act was passed and two years before Congress would repeal it in the Lower 48. By then, the government had given some 270 million acres to about 2 million claimants.
In 1979, Deardorff fulfilled his part of the bargain — living full-time on the land for five years, building a dwelling on it, clearing trees and planting crops. The same year, he mailed in documentation seeking the deed to nearly 50 acres he had “proved up.”
For unknown reasons, the government didn’t mail back his patent until 1988, two years after the land program ended in Alaska. In 2001, government researchers confirmed his was the last homestead claimed under the law.
For 10 years, Deardorff, his first wife and their daughter lived in the wilderness. He ran a trapline and the furs he sold provided their main source of income. They also ran a small general store for travelers on the Stony River.
Other than dry goods from town, they lived on salmon, bear, caribou, moose and lynx. They also raised a few vegetables and collected wild berries.
He kept the Winchester slung over his shoulder wherever he went. The firearm, bought in a California gun shop in 1970, was a survival tool that became an extension of himself.
“The rifle itself has a lot of sentimental value to me,” he says. “It stood me in good stead. It provided me with thousands and thousands of pounds of meat. It protected me, it protected my family.”
***
The Homestead Heritage Center, which opened last May west of Beatrice, features a display on Deardorff.
Visitors can see his dogsled and his fish nets. They can see photos of his cabin and read his land patent. They can watch a video clip of him showing where he lived for a month in a nylon tent while he built his first cabin.
The Friends of Homestead National Monument, a private nonprofit organization, recently bought the rifle from Deardorff for $1,400. Then they gave it to the Heritage Center.
Before long, visitors will be able to see his Winchester Model 70.
***
In 1984, Deardorff moved to McGrath, a small Alaskan town where he works as a construction consultant. His first marriage ended, but he has since remarried.
He sold his homestead in 1993. His daughter voices her displeasure about that decision every chance she gets.
He’s 63 now. And he says he often misses living off the grid.
At least he still has a trapline.
Reach Joe Duggan at 473-7239 or jduggan@journalstar.com.