Alaska Man Monday: Lodge Update and a Really Dumb Crook

I’ve written a fair bit lately about our favorite hangout here in the Susitna Valley, the Sheep Creek Lodge. This wonderful family-owned business is struggling with a major septic system failure, which will cost a lot to rectify (if you care to donate to help them, you can do so here).

Co-owner Jessi Leach recently spoke to the Midnight Sun Sisters about the lodge, its history, and current events. Watch:

My wife and I love the Sheep Creek Lodge and everyone who works there. It’s the best food between Anchorage and Fairbanks (inclusive, if you ask me) and that’s saying something. This isn’t a part of the country where there’s a fast-food gut-bomb factory on every corner. It’s almost all local eateries here, some of which are really fantastic, and we think that the Sheep Creek Lodge is the best. It’s also a hub of community life hereabouts. We’re proud to call them our friends.

Small communities are great. People look out for one another. And when a friend asks for help, you help them. It all goes around and comes around, in good time.

Alaska Man score: Five more decades for the Sheep Creek Lodge. As the Beatles said, let it be.

Now, then, on to something funnier; there are dumb crooks, and then there are dumb crooks. Then there’s this guy.

On August 26, 2026, AST responded to a commercial trailer theft near Parks Highway and Vine Road. It was determined that Donovan Lee had taken a commercial semitrailer belonging to a nearby business and attempted to move it using a Chevy pickup. Lee had used an extremely unsafe and improvised setup: several cinderblocks stacked in the truck bed with a fifth-wheel assembly placed loosely on top, unsecured to the vehicle. Chains were wrapped around the fifth wheel in an attempt to hold it in place. This setup failed under the trailer’s weight while Donovan was driving on the Parks Highway, crushing the cinderblocks and leaving the trailer resting on the sides of the truck bed.
Lee was arrested and remanded to Mat-Su Pretrial on charges of Theft in the First Degree, Driving Without a Commercial Driver’s License, and Reckless Driving, where he is being held without bail.

Now, picture that for a moment. This goober tried to move a commercial semi-trailer with a pickup truck. Correction, he tried to steal it with a pickup truck. By piling cinderblocks in the bed of the truck and just laying a fifth-wheel connector on top of them.

That’s got to be a new world record for dumb. In this case, Florida Man, for all his fabled antics, could only watch in envy as this Alaska man said, “Hold my beer.”

Alaska Man score: no moose nuggets for this guy, although I was tempted to award one for the entertainment value.

In other news, moose season is open hereabouts, so of course it’s been raining a lot. I haven’t been out after them, because my wife (she’s probably right) won’t allow me to go out after them alone, and my son-in-law, who was planning on coming up to hunt this year, had to cancel due to some family issues. My wife and I may wander around some back roads with a rifle in the truck so I can glass some hillsides, but that’s rarely a productive tactic. Fortunately, there seems to be a lot of birds this year, and we’re already planning at least one trip into the Interior to spend a few days hunting sprucies, ruffies and sharptails. That’s always a lot of fun and much, much less work; I can shoot a grouse, put it in my game bag, and go find another. A moose or a bear is a whole different story.

Now, let’s talk about Dolly Parton.

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