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CBN.com – As an Alaskan wilderness guide, Rocky McElveen has had more close calls and brushes with death than you can count. But the guide, author and adventurer says in those years, he’s learned a thing or two about life. Reporter Dan Reany caught up with Rocky at his lodge.
Rocky McElveen lives a life of adventure as a hunting and fishing guide in the wilds of Alaska. His clients have included George Bush Sr., evangelist Chuck Swindoll and former major leaguer, Dave Dravecky. Recently 700 Club reporter, Dan Reany got a chance to spend a few days with Rocky at his lodge on the Holitna River.
Dan Reany: With that element of adventure, there’s also an element of danger and an element of thrill, right? With the planes, and the boats, and the flying, and the landing on the mountain and the fishing, and the animals and all of God’s creation, it’s almost like you’re going back to the original Garden of Eden, where you can’t see anybody. You can’t hear anything. I mean, you are here in the wilderness of Alaska, alone. Forty-five minutes upriver, I found out how a native Mississippi boy wound up in the state known as the Last Frontier. Now, Rocky, you pretty much grew up doing this with your dad, right?
Rocky McElveen: Yeah. It wasn’t for fun. It was for dinner. You know, my dad felt the call of the Lord to Alaska. He loved to fish, and he loved to hunt wherever he was. We didn’t know if it was the call of the Lord or the call of the wild that got Dad to Alaska. He was quite the outdoorsman.
Reany: Rocky’s father was a missionary to Alaska and when missionary parents are outdoorsmen, that means the kids are outdoorsmen, too.
McElveen: We fished and hunted a lot. We stayed outdoors. We cut a lot of wood. We hauled a lot of water and just basically our life … Oh, man, what a hit! --Basically our life was ...
Reany: Oh, that’s a big one. Want me to get the net?
McElveen: You know, I’m like Peter. I threw my net away and followed Christ. It’s not in the boat!
We lived in a log cabin, cut our own firewood, had no electricity, no running water, unless it was, 'Rock, run get the water,' and it was always cold.
It was just a very frontier, tough and hard lifestyle.
[Over the years Rocky’s seen Alaska at its best and its worst.]
McElveen: Alaska can thrill you. Alaska can chill you. And Alaska can kill you.
Reany: And you’ve experienced all of those?
McElveen: All of those.
[In his book, Wild Men, Wild Alaska, Rocky shares personal stories about boat wrecks, encounters with bears and wolves, and plane crashes.]
Reany: Now we’re sitting here, and I’m looking at the plane, and it reminds me of one of the chapters in your book where you had a very close brush with death. You had the Lord in your heart, but you were with a pilot who didn’t.
McElveen: I had hired a pilot, and he couldn’t hear real well, and he couldn’t see real well and obviously, he couldn’t fly real well. So we left, in fact, on this mountain right here -- it’s funny you would say that -- we were up on one of these ridges right here. And when we took off, we hit the top of a black spruce. About three or four minutes later … all of a sudden … the prop went dead still. As I looked at Bill, he was desperately trying to start the plane. The wind was still howling above us, and I kept looking down at the mountain going, ‘Oh no.’ And he kept saying, 'Boss we’re gonna make it. We’ll make it, boss. We’ll make it, boss.' And finally I said, 'Bill, we’re not gonna make it.' Sure enough he had to nose it into the spruces. And we looked down below, and I felt like I was on a World War II kamikaze dive. As we got out of the plane -- we both survived -- I took Bill and pulled him out. He was hurt. His face was hurt, his knee was hurt and pretty bloody. I said, 'Bill, if something would have happened right then, I would see Jesus. He must be talking to one of us.' I said, ‘How about you?’ And he said, 'No. I’ve heard about Christ and Jesus in my little church in Texas, but I’ve never asked him into my heart.' And I said, 'Well, I think God was saying, Bill, this is your opportunity.' And right there that pilot accepted Christ on this mountain. So we lost a plane, but we got a believer.
Reany: And instead of losing your life, you made a brother in Christ.
McElveen: Right.
[Even though his dad was a missionary, Rocky wasn’t always a Christian. He says he lived the life of the prodigal son and even went as far as joining the Navy to get away from authority.]
McElveen: So it was a rude awakening at boot camp, with the drill sergeant yelling, 'You stupid idiot! Get out of here! Blah, blah, blah.' Then I thought, 'Ut, oh, this is my father in spades.' What was I thinking, man? I traded in my father for a nasty, foul-mouthed, cigar-smoking, drill sergeant?
[After two tours in Vietnam, Rocky wound up in California, partying and practically living on the beach.]
McElveen: I was becoming more and more despondent, more and more isolated, and more and more depressed.
[During that time he read a book his father wrote, called Christianity: Sense or Nonsense. That’s also around the time he met his future wife, Sharon.]
McElveen: I realized that her priority was loving a man that really loved the Lord, and I think that had a great impact on me really wanting to change and wanting to get my life and my heart right with God.
[Sharon k new when she married Rocky that life was going to be an adventure. She thought she was marrying a beach boy.]
McElveen: Little did she know, I put the ‘wild’ in ‘wilderness.’ I kind of fooled her with the bathing suit, and the swimming snorkel and the fins.
[The beach boy wound up finding God at a conference about medical missions.]
McElveen: That night, the Gospel hit home. The Word of God was powerful, like a two-edged sword and piercing.
Rocky went on to seminary and became a youth pastor, but soon felt the same call of the wild that his father felt. Today Rocky and Sharon are not only husband and wife, but business partners as well. They founded Alaskan Adventures, with a motto of ‘Restoration Through Recreation.’
Sharon McElveen: You see men that come up that are so uptight, and they just want to control everything that goes on, and after the first day they begin to realize that they can’t control it. And you see them relax and become restored.
Rocky McElveen: People need to get someplace where they can disconnect from all of their toys and all of their noise and their iPods and cells, and communicate and actually talk. People just do not want to stop and be still and know that there is a God. And part of that is connecting to your children. Part of that is reconnecting to your wife. Now you have a personal philosophy that men need adventure, not just want it, but actually need it. I think healthy adventures produce healthier men and healthier families. I think women need to understand that about their men and encourage their men to have the adventures that would let their men experience the adrenaline rush, the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat -- all of those things that men need to experience.
[In 20 years as an Alaskan wilderness guide, Rocky has seen that kind of adventure change men’s lives.]
Reany: Hundreds of guys, maybe thousands of guys have come out to hunt or to fish, but is that what they’re really coming out here for, or is there something deeper?
McElveen: Yeah. It’s the journey, the process, and not the trophy maybe. I’ve learned that over the years. Something else is going on in their hearts, and their minds, and their lives when they experience Alaska, and they experience God’s love through His creation.They seem to take time to be still, and to know that there is a God -- a God who loves them and who has handed creation to them as a sign of His love.
[After all of the adventures, the grizzlies, and the close calls, Rocky says the biggest lesson he’s learned is that ultimately you have to let God be in control.]
McElveen: You know what? You take control of your life, and it’s only a matter of time before the prop stops.
Reany: It seems like when some people are on the fence, are they going to commit their lives to Christ or keep control for themselves? they think Christ is going to take away, or dull down their life.
McElveen: Yeah. And now, I think if there’s anything that we stand for at Alaskan Adventures is the fullness and the incredible adrenaline rush and the excitement of life on the edge. I say to men and women, there is no more exciting, there is no more adventuresome life, than a life with Christ.
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Wild Men, Wild Alaska: Finding What Lies Beyond the Limits