Former Alaskan here. This can happen. I worked with someone who was out walrus hunting with some others in the Bering Sea and were adrift/lost for 3 weeks before being rescued. You can read about it here:
Not surprising at all that this guy washed up in Russia.
He was trying to get to China but landed in Chukotka. Columbus would understand. Sarah screeched at him to turn right but he wouldn’t listen.
“I can see Russia from my back yard!”
Really, Todd? You could just get a divorce like regular folk.
Scouting out an exit route for Dotard, when he flees prosecution?
There’s a guy named Edward Snowden that he should check with first, about the advisability of that particular exit route.
Is “John Martin” the new “John Barron,” by any chance?
Two questions:
Shouldn’t that have been “Goy!” rather than Ahoy?
Is Martin a distant relative of Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan?
“We’re going to have to indefinitely detain this illegal immigrant until he is deported, just like you do. But maybe give us Butina and DeFaul and you can have your citizen back sooner” in 3…2…1…
I think walrus are or are close to being listed as endangered, soooo that’s not nice. Does they use buckit as bait?
Well, in this particular 1988 case, the Alaska Native hunters and their authority to hunt walrus was (and still is, I think) protected by the Marine Mammals Act, which is also tied to their authority to hunt whales. The way it was explained to me is that this authority to hunt them was an acknowledgment of their historic cultural hunting traditions. Non-Alaska Natives (White people, like me) were not permitted to hunt these species. The teacher referenced here is married to an Alaskan Native woman, and was out with is in-laws on this trip.
Walter Eckland: How do you suggest I get there, Frank?
Commander Frank Houghton RAN: That launch of yours has a dinghy, doesn’t it?
Walter Eckland: All those miles of open sea and back again in a seven-foot dink!?
Walter Eckland: You’re nuts!
- Father Goose (1964). Love that movie.
Was Wayne LaPierre in the boat with him?
Maybe already been said, but who’d be surprised if they temporarily make noises about this guy being a spy and hold him for a few days? Then they release him - to show, you know, how magnanimous putin and his merry crew of oligarchs are - and ask us again to release Butina.
Ah, I kinda suspected that was where your answer might go. Inuit, Aleut, et al., have special dispensation. Gotta be 1/4th I think?
Still makes me cringe though. Mammals are so much easier to anthropomophize…
Oh, yeah. I don’t really like it either. On the other hand, it is hard to argue with a 6000 year hunting tradition.
I think Inuits have dispensation for hunting by traditional methods. (As I now see @drtv explained above.)
Thanks for the buckit flashback. 
After learning that Martin had been detained for entering Russia illegally, Trumpp sent Border Patrol agents to Martin’s home to remove his children.
Their whereabouts are currently unknown.