Smokey Merkley

A few of the the most interesting hunters of the past were giants in the area they hunted. But they were relatively unknown elsewhere. One of those giants was Hosea Rollo Sarber and the place was Alaska from 1922 to 1952.

Sarber was born April 11, 1897, and raised on a farm near Tyner, Indiana. He lost the sight in his left eye to a band saw blade that snapped while he was making a toy rifle. The loss did not affect his expert marksmanship.

When Sarber was 9 years old, he and a buddy arranged for his first rifle by jointly compiling a letter order to Sears and Roebuck. With the sum of $3.75, they purchased a Stevens “Little Scout” .22 single shot. When Sarber’s father found out about the rifle, he gave young Hosea a lecture on firearm safety he would never forget.

In 1915, Sarber took a job as a harvest hand in the Dakotas. After the harvest, he enlisted in the U.S. Merchant Marine and visited many Asian ports, including China and Japan. When his enlistment was over, he returned to Tyner, but left soon afterward. It was the last time he would see his hometown.

In 1922, he became a registered guide and worked for the public survey in Alaska. Later, he became an Alaskan game warden, working out of Petersburg.

In 1929, Jack Thayer, a timber cruiser, was killed by an Alaskan brown bear he had shot on Southeast Admiralty Island. A year later, Sarber traveled to the site of Thayer’s death. He was immediately attacked by an enraged bear.

To escape, Sarber climbed a windfall and reportedly shot and killed the bear with one shot from what is believed to have been a .30-06. He felt that it could have been the same bear that killed Thayer because it had an old bullet wound in its shoulder.

Sarber seemed to have had a fondness for both the .270 Winchester and .30-06 Springfield caliber rifles. Some have incorrectly stated that he only carried a .270 Winchester or .30-06 Springfield when hunting or patrolling as a game warden in Alaska. He may have only carried the .270 or .30-06 when patrolling as a game warden, but he often carried a Winchester Model 70, .375 H&H Magnum when hunting or working as a hunting guide. He reportedly owned nine Model 70s in .375 H&H Magnum caliber.

Sarber in his office in Petersberg, Alaska. (Submitted Photo)

Sarber did, however, kill quite a few bears with a .270 Winchester and .30-06 Springfield, later saying that he was comfortable in bear country with either caliber. His favorite bear load for the .30-06 was the old and now-discontinued Western Tool Company 172-grain cartridge with open point bullet. His favorite .270 bear load contained a 160-grain Barnes bullet that Sarber loaded himself.

Jack O’Conner, the editor of Guns & Ammo’s hunting magazine in the 1950s and 1960s and a good friend of Sarber, states that Sarber backed him up on several of his Alaskan brown bear hunts with a .30-06.

Sarber is reputed to have killed more bears than anyone else in Alaska, but he refuted that claim and stated that he may have taken more photographs of Alaskan brown bears than anyone else in Alaska. That’s because he always carried a camera with him.

He certainly killed a few problem bears — as was his responsibility as a game warden — and probably a few more that clients weren’t capable of stopping while charging them. But I tend to believe the majority of bears he killed were in self-defense — either his or his clients. He was just in a lot of those situations.

His many clients and friends, which included most of the dedicated hunters and gun writers of his day, said Sarber was a pretty easygoing individual and enjoyable to talk to.

On July 28, 1952, Sarber left Petersburg on patrol for Alaska Fish and Game and was never seen again. He was 55 years old. Most who have tried to retrace his steps feel that he was bushwhacked by fishermen illegally poaching in closed spawning waters.

However, the rooting section of the big bore enthusiasts have been spreading the story that he was armed with only a .270 or .30-06 and got into a fight with an Alaskan brown bear that killed and ate him.

Even today, Hosea Rollo Sarber is still one of Alaska’s favorite legends.

Smokey Merkley was raised in Idaho and has been hunting since he was 10 years old. He was a member of the faculty of Texas A&M University for 25 years. There he taught orienteering, marksmanship, self-defense, fencing, scuba diving and boxing. He was among the first DPS-certified Texas Concealed Handgun Instructors. He can be contacted at mokeydo41245(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)hotmail.com.