Alaska Or Bust, 2003

Well then, after one fire season in Lakeview I started looking around for a Permanent dispatch position -- a job with health insurance, retirement and that fun stuff. My search turned up job openings in Fairbanks, Alaska with the Alaska Fire Service. I applied for, and got a job!

So, off I drove to Alaska, stopping in Idaho to visit my long-time friend Sioux near Moscow, Idaho and my high school chum, Fritz Fliegel in Spokane.

I'd been to Alaska in my mid-20's, working on commercial salmon seiners around Kodiak Island one year and Ketchican the next. I'd never been to the Interior, nor had I ever driven north along the Alcan.

I entered Canada north of Spokane and drove through Banff and Jasper national parks, both worthy of their reputations. It took me a full day to drive the 100 miles from the community of Banff to the community of Jasper -- I had to stop frequently to take pictures, short walks and absorb it all. I'd love to go back and do some backpacking there one of these decades.

All I can really say about the Alcan is that it is like driving through the pages of National Geographic. Broad mountain valleys, towering mountains, and lots of snow. The whole way up I called John down in California and chatted away - the phone bills . . .

The Iraq War had just started and all the way through Canada I felt so embarrassed and kept telling the Canadians I met that not all of us supported the war and Bush. It was in a coffee shop in Whitehorse that I first saw the political photo "Frodo Failed."

I must say though, that when I got to Fairbanks I was horrified. I arrived in early April during what is called "Break-Up" when the snow is all melting and ugly. My first thought was "Oh my God, what the f#@!k have I gotten myself into?" The Alaska Fire Service is located on the Ft. Wainwright Army Post. But soon "Green-Up" arrived and the place was beautiful.

When I left Oregon I packed everything I had into the back of my pick-up truck. If it didn't fit I got rid of it. I started out living in the Alaska Fire Service's (AFS) employee barracks, and got out as quickly as I could.

I found out about a Gay fellow, Chris Barefoot, who owned an "Alaska Style" cabin about 27 miles from AFS. I loaded up my pal Joe and drove up to meet Chris. The cabin was cute, but unfinished and a little overwhelming. The "defensible space" (a fire thang) was overgrown with three to four foot aspen starts. It was in a subdivision off the power grid, and way out on the edge of nowhere, five miles out a gravel road -- literally the end of the road. Chris was more interested in selling than renting and we wound-up entering into a lease to buy option.

The day I moved into the cabin, May 31, John flew-up for a two week visit. My first night in the cabin was with John. Foreshadowing events to come.

We had a great two weeks -- we went to Denali National Park and road the bus 60 miles into the park. On the way in there was a small herd of Dahl Sheep right next to the road. We could almost reach out and touch them. John got some astounding photos that looked like they were taken by a professional wildlife photographer. Once we got to the end of our ride in we walked back along the road for about five miles and hopped on a bus heading back out. We also saw several caribou, moose and a grizzly bear sow with her cuddly little cub.

When we returned I had to work a day or two. The first day I came home John had gone out and rented a metal bladed weed whacker and had cleared-out all of the aspen starts around the cabin. What a huge difference that made. Instantly living in the cabin seemed far less overwhelming. It began to feel more like home and I started in on finishing the outside of the cabin, planting grass and flowers, relocating the outhouse and other projects.

On the western horizon from the cabin the high point was a spot named Murphy Dome. The Air Force had installed a radar site there and during the winter it was the only light that could be viewed from home. Murphy Dome was about an eight mile drive from the cabin and offered a great view of Denali, the Alaska Range as well as the Yukon/Tanana Uplands, a mountain range that separated the Yukon River Flats from the Tanana River Valley.

The Uplands bordered Fairbanks on the north -- Fairbanks is not what most people think of when they envision Alaska. It is not surrounded by towering mountains. The peaks of the Alaska Range are 75 miles south of town on the opposite side of the Tanana River Valley. The Uplands themselves are "hills" by Alaska standards. When I first saw them I was rather disappointed, but as time went on they grew on me, especially since the cabin was located in them!

That fall I had a friend of Chris', Bret Fishell come in and drywall the ceiling in the "living room," a 12' x 12' space with a window facing Denali (Mt. McKinley). The next spring I had him do the walls, but I'm jumping ahead.

One of the benefits of my job was that I was able to go on flights to Native bush villages and fire observation flights all over the Interior. On one trip to Allakaket a coworker who had grown-up in that village came with us. At lunch he invited me and one other fellow to his parents house for lunch -- his Mother had some Caribou stew. I'd never had Caribou before, it was yum!

2003 was a fairly mellow fire season in Alaska, and in August I got to go on a fire assignment to Glacier National Park, the Robert Fire. I went as an Information Officer and did several radio, television and newspaper interviews. I saw myself quoted in an AP story that went across the country and when I got back to Fairbanks a coworker commented that he'd heard me on the radio up there!

One of the really sweet things about that assignment was that I got to drive into the park when it was closed to the public -- had the "Going to the Sun Highway" all to myself.

As fall rolled around I started going burn pile crazy. During the summer I'd thinned out the forest near the house for fire protection and to open the view around the house -- plus there were piles from the work John had completed in June.

In November I migrated south to Paradise, California to spend the winter with John. I was sort of disappointed to be missing my first Alaska winter, but excited about living with John & getting to know him better. Thanksgiving was great and so was Christmas. John is a total Christmas freak the way I am and totally tricks-out his house for the event. John has this habit of decorating his house for the season of the year, and to think he didn't realize he was Gay until he was about 40! Bless his heart.

After Christmas we took a great little driving trip up into Oregon visiting friends of the two of us around the state, and a great trip through the Columbia River Gorge.