If you want to know what it's like to transport a buffalo carcass through the Alaskan bush in mid-October, imagine disassembling the appliances in your kitchen—refrigerator, range, microwave—then carrying them on your back down a snow-covered mountainside. When that's done, stack the parts on a piece of inflatable rubber and float them through three miles of whitewater canyon while suffering the initial stages of hypothermia. Then load the ice-covered parts into a large raft and paddle them down a 13-mile maze of braided river. Oh, and one last thing: A couple of thugs want the appliances, and they outweigh you by 300 pounds and have five knives strapped to each hand.

The "thugs" that wanted my buffalo meat were a pair of grizzly bears. I'd seen them a couple of days before, browsing rose hips on a nearby hillside. They left paw prints on top of my boot tracks and scratched the ground where I'd earlier sat. I was alone in the wilderness of south-central Alaska and not in a place where I could easily escape the bears' attention. Seven miles to the west was the Richardson Highway, running between Valdez and Fairbanks. The highway was on the opposite side of the Copper River, a massive flow of glacial runoff loaded with deep, swirling rapids. To the east, when the clouds lifted, I could see the distant peaks of the Wrangell Mountains, like paperweights of rock and ice anchoring the center of the 13-million-acre Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve. The park holds nine of the United States' 16 highest mountain peaks and is home to arguably the most free-ranging buffalo, or American bison, herd in the country.

A simple piece of paper had led me to this place: a buffalo-hunting permit. I was one of 1,304 people who entered the permit lottery and one of only 24 who landed an opportunity to hunt a truly wild buffalo. I'd been through seven days of hell trying to find one, and now, with a half-ton carcass at my feet, along with dozens of grizzly tracks, I felt more like I'd landed a rare opportunity to have my face removed in claw-size tatters. The smart thing would be to leave, I thought, but leaving at that point was like wanting back into the plane after you're halfway into a skydive.