During the Alaska Gold Rush, it was said of Erwin A. “Nimrod” Robertson that he could make anything but a living. He sank his money in an airplane that was covered with feathers and had wings that flapped. (The flapping mechanism is in the University of Fairbanks Museum.) The plane burned on takeoff.
In 1905, Robertson shot a bear that was trying to tear down his food cache. The bear’s body was too heavy to drag away. If Robertson left the cadaver in place it would attract wolves. No one bought bear meat and Robertson had no teeth left because of scurvy. So, to dispose of the bear’s carcass, he made a set of dentures from the bear’s teeth and then “ate the bear with its own teeth.” Robertson used the dentures for years and found them serviceable except when he had to drink hot tea. Today the Alaskan term “eating a bear with its own teeth” means to use a problem to solve itself.
THE HUMAN FACE OF THE ALASKA GOLD RUSH