![\"Friends](\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/34576822_web1_image7.jpeg\")
<\/a>Friends and family of Greg Bowen hold his ashes on the day of his service in 2019. The ashes were spread “at the seine hooks Greg mastered and other spots he loved,” said Barbara Nelson. From left to right, Bill Peters, Matt See, Nicholas Nelson, Norval Nelson, Wade Bowen, Michael Corpuz. (Photo courtesy of Barbara Cadiente-Nelson.)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
Recalling Bowen’s caring nature publicly has been an important part of the grieving. Taton alleged that she stabbed Bowen in self-defense, and it’s important to Pittman and Nick Nelson, who testified — and others, who didn’t — that they talk about the kind of man Bowen was.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
He was “the opposite of violent,” Pittman said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Pittman, who raised children and co-parented with Bowen until he died, talked about how he looked out for his family and friends, especially his three children, Wade Bowen, Alexandria Pittman, Alexandria Roehl, and his godson, Michael See.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“He was always cooking and making sure other people had food, always shared the wealth, his catch,” said Pittman. He showed up with catch from whatever season was underway, salmon or crab or king crab, or halibut, as well as meat from the Thanksgiving hunting trip. “That was his nature, his caring and giving and providing for his family, and others.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
People remember Bowen well because of his generosity, Pittman said. Not long ago one of the neighbor kids, long grown, reached out. “She said she was the girl in the brown house, and ‘I have the craziest, funniest memory of Greg,’” recalled Pittman.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The story, which Pittman also recalled, was of her and other kids getting off the school bus and seeing Bowen in the yard. He’d been harvesting king crab and cooking.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“He told them to wash their hands and get ready for some grub,” said Pittman. So the kids went into the bathroom to wash up and were startled when there was movement in the bathtub. There, to their surprise, four king crabs started to wake up.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“They were totally shocked — scared the crap out of them,” laughed Pittman. “Even 34 years later, getting a message from one of those kids? They remember him.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The Thanksgiving hunting trip is something Bowen did with the Nelsons, a tradition that dates back with the Nelson family more than 55 years. It started with “Norval, Sr. (Ole) and son Norval, who would leave aboard their fishing vessel for their hunting grounds with their sons, grandsons and crew and a few other fishermen,” Cadiente-Nelson said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The annual 10- to 14-day hunting trip has continued ever since. It begins the night of the holiday. As with other families who share the same tradition, sometimes the hunters return with their deer limit and the boat frozen over from stormy seas. Other times conditions are mild.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“Greg was always eager to go along and made sure everyone aboard was safe,” she said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“The men hunt in daylight, said Cadiente-Nelson. “At night they dig clams in the moonlight and have a crab feast on the beach, “with blazing bonfires to stay warm.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The hunting trip will happen a little later this year, she said. But “Greg will be with them in spirit.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
• Contact Meredith Jordan at meredith.jordan@juneauempire.com or (907) 615-3190.<\/em><\/p>\n\t\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Greg Bowen is remembered as an adopted tribal member, basketball player, father and friend. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":920,"featured_media":104603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[59,104],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-104602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-crime","tag-fishing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/920"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104602"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=104602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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