HLM -Chapter 1177 Breaking the Ice to Catch Fish

Starting from the third day, Wang Bo told himself that something had to change—otherwise, after covering a 1,200-mile journey, he would go crazy.

Singing was an incredible thing, so he decided to sing.

Now, whenever the dogs heard him sing, they no longer bolted wildly as if trying to escape. Instead, they enjoyed his voice. Wang Bo discovered that as long as he sang, the dogs would become happy, even howling along with him a couple of times in response.

In the livestream, he earned several nicknames: Eastern MJ, In-Car God of Song, Soul Singer of the Snowfield, and the like.

Besides that, whenever he took a break, he would always find something to do. He rested with the livestream turned off, then took out a musk ox and gave it a haircut.

Thanks to Peterson, from constant exposure he had picked up some pretty decent shearing skills. While being shorn, the musk ox barely resisted at all.

After several such breaks, he had accumulated a large pile of musk ox wool. Though it wasn’t as valuable as hide-on ox fur, considering the current population of musk oxen and the fact that Arctic musk oxen cannot be shorn in the wild under normal circumstances, the wool he’d gathered was worth at least tens of thousands.

By the fifth day, his throat was already a little hoarse, but he still insisted on singing.

He was no longer singing because of loneliness. With four and a half days of the journey completed, he had grown used to solitude and found other companions for himself.

Especially at sunrise and sunset each day, watching the sky to the east and west glow red, he would often feel deeply moved.

This was actually a sign of abnormal mental state—of course, not mental illness, but a natural reaction when someone accustomed to living in groups suddenly becomes isolated, combined with physical exhaustion.

The Iditarod Sled Dog Race is called the most magnificent competition of all life in nature, and that’s not just empty praise—the trial it puts both racers and dogs through is immense.

On the sixth day, in northwestern Alaska, he encountered a frozen lake.

Although it was still early, he stopped anyway. He released the dogs, spread out wool blankets for them to rest, then took Zhuang Ding and sat down by the lake.

Zhuang Ding was very sensitive and immediately noticed something unusual about him. The moment Wang Bo sat down, this fluffy big kid pounced on him, wrapping its strong forelegs around him and rubbing its forehead vigorously against his face.

Wang Bo burst out laughing. Hugging Zhuang Ding and roughhousing with it, he laughed and said, “Don’t worry, my baby, I’m not crazy. I’m not trying to kill myself—I just want to catch some fish here. Eating meat every day gets greasy.”

The lake surface had frozen into a thick layer of ice. He took a rock and smashed at it, but couldn’t even crack a seam.

Wang Bo refused to give up. He took out his rifle, aimed at the lake, and fired—bang!

The gunpowder round still packed plenty of power. A large arc of small pits instantly appeared on the ice surface, but it was still far from piercing through.

Wang Bo was especially troubled. Seeing no one around, he used the sled as cover and took out a large electric drill—the kind used at construction sites to drill through stone.

At the sight of it, the livestream erupted in gasps, followed by a flood of comments:

“Holy God, this guy even prepared a rock-breaking drill?”

“Gotta admire it—Wang is really something.”

“I’m kneeling and licking; he’s way too fierce.”

The drill was hybrid-powered, oil and electric, with diesel inside. Once it was fixed in place, all he had to do was start it up and it could work.

As the massive drill bit began to spin, chunks of ice flew into the air.

The faster the bit rotated, the more ice fragments and icy water were flung out. Finally, after fifteen minutes, a hole as wide as a bucket opening appeared in the lake.

Wang Bo lay flat and peered inside—the ice layer was a full half meter thick!

With the ice broken, catching fish became easy. He sat there waiting, holding a stick and constantly stirring the water surface to prevent it from freezing over.

Even in daytime, the temperature was still below zero.

The stick churned the water, and yet fish still surfaced. At first there were one or two, but soon the hole was crowded with dense, dark greenish-black fish heads.

Wang Bo didn’t know what kind of fish they were—he’d never seen them before. They were about twenty centimeters long, entirely dark green to black, with streamlined bodies and protruding lower jaws; their dorsal and anal fins were opposite each other and close to the tail.

Worried they might be a protected species, he took out his phone and snapped a picture first.

The comments that followed immediately put him at ease:

“These are Alaska blackfish. You can eat them without worry.”

“Blackfish taste good—my grandma makes great fried blackfish.”

“Your grandma’s grave grass is probably already two and a half meters tall. Freshwater fish can’t be eaten; the pollution is terrible!”

“Idiot, this is Alaska, not your Michigan!”

Besides Alaska blackfish, there were also northern pike and freshwater drum. These weren’t protected either, but many people still advised Wang Bo not to eat them.

In the United States, few people eat freshwater fish. Many people fish, but most do it for the experience—after catching one, they take a photo and then throw it back.

Some people back home who’ve been kneeling for too long and can’t stand up claim this is because Americans are loving and responsible. Wang Bo sneered at that—what nonsense. If Americans were really that loving, would musk oxen have been driven to near extinction by them?

In fact, musk oxen are extinct in the United States; all the musk oxen there now are descendants of animals introduced from Canada.

The reason Americans don’t eat freshwater fish isn’t just because freshwater fish have too many bones that they don’t know how to deal with—it’s because domestic freshwater lakes and rivers are severely polluted.

As everyone knows, the United States had a “golden hundred years” of industrial history, from 1860 to the 1960s. During that century, industrial development was rapid—and pollution was just as rampant.

Industrial wastewater discharge during that period was completely unchecked.

Heavy metal wastewater in particular is terrifying: once it enters water, it doesn’t make the water dirty or murky, nor does it create foul odors. Instead, it settles at the bottom.

Aquatic plants absorb the heavy metals, fish eat the contaminated plants, and thus the food chain accumulates them. The heavy metal content in fish bodies often becomes frighteningly high, which is why Americans don’t dare eat them.

But Alaska is the exception.

Alaska has little industry, and the golden century of industrialization had nothing to do with it. This place is truly natural and unpolluted—even the lake water can be drunk without worry.

Wang Bo picked up a rock and stood by the ice hole to get to work. Like driving piles, he smashed the rock downward again and again, quickly stunning a whole bunch of fish.

He scooped them out, and in less than a minute, the ice hole was once again crowded with dense fish heads.

The lake had been frozen for months. These fish had been living in darkness, deprived of oxygen. Now that they finally had a chance to breathe freely—how could they not desperately rush to the surface?