In July of 1974, Michael, our 2 sons David then 10 and Richard (Mark) then 6 and I headed to Alaska to build a log house on the 20 acres of woods we had purchased a year before. All of our worldly goods were in a Ford 250 pick up and the  Volkswagen square back we pulled.

From the onset of our trip I kept a daily journal. Unfortunately, in January of 1975 we lost all of our belongings, including my journals, in a fire that consumed the cabin we were living in. No one was hurt. (That tale is for another time.) Fortunately, my mother kept every letter I sent her during the 2+ years we lived in Alaska. So, though I did not pick up my journal writing until December of 1975, I do have a chronicle of our lives because of my mother’s foresight.

Periodically, I will include some of the letters she saved as well as pertinent journal entries.

THE MOOSE HUNT

On December 29, 1974, Michael, David, Mark and I “moved” into Jerry & Steph’s cabin 5 miles from the nearest road. The following is an account of the moose hunt as I related it in my journal.

 

HOMER, ALASKA (Letter to my mother)

When we arrived in Anchor Point at the end of July 1974, we figured we could build our log house before winter. Little did we know what Alaska had in store for us. Physically we had to retrain our bodies so that we could cut down trees, branch and bark the  logs, drag the logs down to the home site and put them up on the house. That along with living outdoors as the weather progressively got colder began to wear us down. We were living out of our pickup truck and the Volkswagon Squareback, cooking on a Coleman stove and keeping warm by a fire in a large oil drum. Our house was ¼ of a mile from the road and we trekked that distance multiple times a day. By September, we were not even half way done the outside walls. The kids, who slept in the back of the Volkswagon, were now going to school in the Russian Village 2 ½ miles away. When we finally reached the point where I was drying the dishes by cracking the ice off them, the temperatures were ranging in the mid 20’s and there was 4 inches of snow on the ground, we knew it was time to move indoors.

Some friends turned us on to a log cabin on the bluff in Homer. So in mid October , after 3 months of living and working outside, 5 of us (Michael, our friend Daryl, the 2 kids and I) moved into a 14’ by 20’ log cabin with a loft. The following letter to my mother on January 12, 1975 goes into many of the details of our life in Homer and what the town was like then.

This first letter was written on July 14, 1974 while camping at Dawson Creek, Mile 1 of the Alaska Highway.

 

THE SAGA OF FT. NELSON

Note the optimistic ending to my letter  in Dawson Creek. Unfortunately we did not make it past Ft. Nelson, BC,   283 miles into the Alaska Highway.  Keep in mind that the 1300 miles of highway were unpaved—nothing  but dirt and gravel. It had been raining for several days and by the time we hit Ft. Nelson, the rains had washed out much of the road north of us.  Crews were working with heavy equipment to clear the landslides and basically recreate the highway.  We were told it would be a couple of days before we could move on.

Ten days later we were able to pull out. In the meantime,   the city filled with travelers heading to Alaska  literally doubling the population.  A huge campground was set up and a community within the city  evolved. Truckers carrying foodstuffs and perishables contacted their companies and were told to just distribute the food.  A tent kitchen was set up and groups took turns cooking meals.  Portable toilets were set up to accommodate this growing population and showers were hard to come by. Locals started opening up their homes, for a price, for shower and bathroom facilities. Food stuffs at the local grocery stores jumped in price. A local welder “adopted” us and showed us where to find the places the “locals” shopped.

In the meantime,  the US  government declared FT. Nelson a disaster  area for all US citizens and gave each person $25.00. (Remember, this is 1974). The Canadian Air Force put on an air show for us, keeping us entertained and distracted. We stuck close to the military families headed to the various bases in Alaska because they  seemed to have more information on the road’s status than the Canadians.

It didn’t really matter; we were stuck for as long as it took.  Our  plans for getting our cabin completed before winter were slowly diminishing. My parents told us to turn around and come home. That was not even an option. We contemplated getting jobs in Ft. Nelson but that too was not an option. So we sat and waited for the highway to reopen. Finally  on day 10 they began to slowly let groups of vehicles onto the highway. Huge dozers  dug out sections of road to allow us to continue. It was slow going but we finally made it to the US border and on to Anchor Point. It was now the end of July.

One of the pluses that came about from this setback was that we met Daryl, a long haired, bearded fellow from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan who was taking a friend to Anchorage.  He was basically “footloose and fancy free” and decided to follow us to Anchor Point and help us build our log house.  He turned out to be an incredible help as well as a good friend.