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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781468550429 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 02/23/2012 |
| Pages: | 128 |
| Product dimensions: | 8.50(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.33(d) |
Read an Excerpt
ALASKA'S MIDNIGHT SON
By Harley Davis Hess
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2012 Harley Davis HessAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4685-5042-9
Chapter One
ALASKA BOUND
An early morning mist that hovered over Puget Sound added to an almost mystical excitement. It was April 29th 1947 when the steamship "Aleutian" belched a thunderous moan from her horn signifying one half hour before her departure for Alaska. Her gangplank was loaded with ex-GI's like me, ladies adorned in fine furs, jewelry, and elegant clothes. Men with barking dogs in shipping kennels, sleds, shovels, picks, axes, saws, knives and provisions as if they intended to search the ends of the earth never to return until their fortunes were found in gold. I felt the excitement that perhaps the men and women who lived through the Klondike gold rush of '98 might have experienced just forty nine years earlier. Passengers lined the port side deck as they waved to those left behind. We eagerly waited to be at sea and to meet fellow passengers and exchange dreams and hopes of what the future in this new land would bring.
Final whistle! Mooring lines pulled in. Gangplank stowed, the vessel slowly pulled away. She then turned her bow northward. In an hour Puget Sound was behind us as we crossed the Straits of Juan de Fuca and entered the coastal waters of the San Juan Islands then on into the scenic panorama of British Columbia.
The war was over. These people were searching for a new horizon. I was one of them. The only sound on deck was that of barking dogs muffled by the drone of the steam engine. Black smoke from the funnels intermingled with gray clouds and fog that partially hid the view of the coastline. I was mesmerized by the smell of fresh salt air as I leaned against the starboard railing. The cool wind from the north nipped at my face, the gentle rolling motion of the ship, seagulls screeching above, and the steady drone of the engine lured me into a dreamy, imaginative state. I imagined days of a half century earlier. Jack London was writing of his exploits. The Klondike gold rush was world news. Robert Service was writing and experiencing what I was dreaming of. The Canadian Mounties, the famous Iditirod dog sled relay to get the diphtheria serum from Seward to Nome, "Soapy Smith" and his infamous days in Skagway, the Chilkoot trail, and the Yukon-White Pass railroad. Suddenly, history came alive. My boyhood dream was coming true.
Alaska! It's hard to remember when I first decided to see this last frontier. Perhaps when I was fourteen, a family friend, Edna Borigo visited her parents in Port Townsend, Washington, after teaching school in Alaska the previous winter. Her eyes sparkled with excitement as she told her stories of adventure and intrigue.
"Harley, you will probably go there in a few years from the expression on your face," she smiled, "and I'll bet you do!" How right she was.
In spite of her large size, she was very agile. Her voice was soft and deliberate until she became involved in re-living her own stories. I listened to her endless tales of fishing, hunting moose, caribou, and seeing giant brown bear.
"I hunted only for food to feed my two daughters and myself," she qualified, "I don't just kill wildlife for a sport."
Edna had been widowed a few years earlier. What guts this lady had living in a cabin raising two small girls and teaching school. Her tales of prospecting for gold made my imagination run wild. I already had a vivid one for a fourteen-year-old kid. I was ready to go back with her in the fall just to see and do these things myself. I knew that someday I would see this magic country.
My next 4 years were in high school preparing for college. I constantly dreamed of Alaska. I planned to attend college in winter and summer in Alaska. Then came December 7, 1941; so much for dreams of men. Mine went like smoke. Rather than being drafted, I enlisted in the Army Air Corps. I still dreamed of Alaska for the next three years. After my discharge, I went home to Port Townsend briefly then on to Washington State College for the year. Alaska was still eating away at me, so in the late spring, after the school semester, I decided it was time to head north. Two days later I was in Seattle with bags packed and a steerage ticket and aboard the steamship Aleutian on her way to Seward, Alaska
I was happy to learn my steerage ticket was only fifty dollars. This meant sleeping on wooden bunks in the ship's hold and eating at the steerage mess. It was merely an extension of the past three years.
The Aleutian's route took us to Canadian fishing villages and towns as we entered Alaskan waters. This inside waterway opened a vast country of cool colors of blues and greens. Huge spruce trees covered hundreds of islands that popped up out of icy blue waters with hidden coves and inlets. Snow covered mountains rose high on them. Giant stands of virgin forests stretch for miles. Mountains, valley streams, and canals join to make navigable waterways that begin in Canada and flow westward to the Pacific. These natural channels bring to Canada and Alaska economic resources; mining, fishing, lumber, and tourism as well as giving rise to wildlife habitats. Large channels were formed during the ice age. This provided deep water channels where cities were eventually built.
Our first Alaska port of call was Ketchikan. We arrived about eleven at night. We had two hours to see the town, though there was not much to see.
"Let so get a beer," someone suggested. We were thirsty, since no alcohol was available aboard the ship. In a flash we were on our way down the gangplank.
"I wish it was daylight," I moaned, "So we could see what this place looks like. This might be the only time I ever get to see it".
After an hour, the half-hour whistle blew so we headed back to the ship wishing we could have started earlier. By now we were in a partying mood.
The next port was Wrangle, another small fishing village. Little did I know that here a few years later I would have a near tragic experience. A few hours later we arrived in Sitka, the first Russian capitol of the newly purchased Alaska. A few original Russian buildings were till intact including the Russian Orthodox Church. A few years later the church burned along with all the exotic trappings and ornate statues in it. From here, we made our final ports of Juneau, Haines, Yakitat, Cordova, Valdez, and finally Seward. Years later I was able to re-trace my journey to see most of these places again.
One afternoon, I ventured from steerage where thirty of us lived, onto the upper deck where it was off-limits to us. I had scouted the ship when I first came aboard and found a beautiful grand piano in the main salon. I checked it out, and much to my surprise it was in tune. I sat down and played awhile. Thinking I was alone some passengers heard me and soon were in the salon requesting songs. Shortly, I was asked to return to my quarters and informed that steerage passengers were not permitted above deck.
We left the port of Valdez around seven that evening. It was the last night at sea. The Captain traditionally sponsors a dance for first and second class passengers. An hour before the dance was to begin a ship's officer asked if I'd like to play for the dance. I was honored and gladly accepted, on condition that my friends in steerage were invited. The Captain agreed, even though I presume it set a precedent. We all had a great time singing and dancing until the early morning hours when the ship's steward told us we would be in Seward in eight hours and perhaps we'd best get some sleep.
Drizzling rain and fog met us as the ship tied up. We walked directly to the waiting room of the Alaska Railroad. The train was waiting a few yards away. As soon as freight was loaded onto the train, we showed our tickets and stepped aboard. We were on our way to Anchorage and our new futures whatever they brought.
A shriek came from the steam whistle. A great puff of white and black smoke belched from the coal burning locomotive. It made a sudden jerk, spinning its giant drive-wheels as it lurched ahead and began to move down the tracks across town. The old steamer slowly picked up speed along the flats toward Snow River, across the first bridge then a gradual assent to Twelve Mile hill. The engine huffed and puffed as the elevation increased. We looked in amazement out the coach windows at the scenery. Icy waterfalls cascade from snow-capped mountains. These flow into smaller streams, then into Resurrection Bay. Ancient blue-ice glaciers lay between these ravaged sentinels of stone. The train crossed several more bridges, pulling her long line of cars gradually toward the summit. At "Twelve Mile hill we briefly leveled off before beginning to coast down the other side. Near the bottom of the hill, two moose were eating from a lake bottom with heads submerged. Out of the water came mouths full of fresh green morsels hanging from their huge muzzles. They were accustomed to seeing the trains and were oblivious to our presence.
We continued gazing at the panorama from our coach when a large body of turquoise blue water came into view. This we found was Kenai Lake. The railroad tracks followed it for five miles on our way to the small settlement of Moose Pass, twenty seven miles north of Seward. Here we stopped to pick up more passengers. Again the train started out just as it had in Seward with a lurch, clanging of cars hooked together, and more billows of cinder filled-smoke. The engine picked up speed on this level ground for another few miles. Now began the assent into the higher country in Johnson Pass. The steamer chugged and coughed her way slowly up the winding rail-bed inching to the summit. Alder and other hardwood trees were beginning to bud. Creeks and waterfalls emerged from beneath the melting snow cover. Every turn of the tracks brought new excitement. What would be around the next turn?
At last we reached summit. The engine coasted now, no longer heaving under the labor of the heavy load. It began to pick up speed as the tracks descended toward the headwaters of Turnagain Arm. The engineer applied steam brakes again and again. Within fifteen minutes we reached the bottom of the pass again on a level run skirting the south end of the arm. Here moose were feeding in the shallow ponds that flooded behind the railroad bed when it was built damming the water behind them. Culverts were laid beneath the rail bed to allow the water to empty into the main inlet. We saw brown bear running away from this noisy, snorting, iron horse. We made a flag stop at the small village of Girdwood where a few more passengers climbed aboard. The train made only three round trips a week to Seward. Passengers going south who wanted off pulled the emergency stop cord and those Anchorage bound, flagged the locomotive down. This serviced small villages as well as isolated miners and prospectors. Next year I would be pulling the cord and hiking up Crow Creek to my friend's gold mine. It was thirteen miles from the train tracks to the top of one of the surrounding mountains and Raven's Pass.
We left Girdwood and headed into the last leg of our journey. It was thirty five miles to Anchorage. The engineer opened her up on this last straight away. This old steamer literally whistled along the tracks. The steady rhythm of the steel wheels clanking their way to my new destiny made me somewhat apprehensive. So far we had been given shelter and food with somewhat comforts of home. When we get off the train, we'd really be on our own. Suddenly I felt quite alone, more alone than I had ever felt, even on isolated guard duty in the military. We began to see a few houses here and there among the trees and bushes. Small fields were being cultivated; even now there were homesteaders building new lives in this world of opportunity. There were no roads, just trails winding into town.
The engine slowed as we approached the Anchorage railroad yard and depot. Less than fifty years before it was a tent city. I got my bags and hiked up the hill to Fourth Avenue. It was the main street of town, and the only one that was concrete surfaced. The only other street was Fifth Avenue which was graded of dirt, gravel, and filled with pot holes as far as the street went to the east. This also was the road to the town of Palmer and the Army base at Fort Richardson. Along this road were the majority of night clubs and a few smaller bars and dinner houses. Most bars were on Fourth Avenue. There was a church for nearly every bar in town. Later that summer, the beautiful Fourth Avenue Theater was built and opened by Cap Lathrop a wealthy philanthropist. Never before had anything so ornate been built in the state. It was Anchorage's Carnegie Hall also a movie house.
I was wide eyed. Here truly was a bustling community. A pioneer town like one would read about in the days of the old west. There was no time for crime. People were on the go twenty four hours a day as were the bars trying to make their fortunes. Everyone had a job. If you didn't work, you didn't eat. Beds and rooms were renting at a premium if you could find one. Two of my boat friends and I shared one we luckily found for the night. We three spread our sleeping bags out on the one bed. After we split up the room rent of fifteen dollars I had five dollars left.
That night I walked into the Village Bar where a western band was playing.
"I see the piano isn't being used, could I set in with you guys?" I asked the band leader.
"Come on up," he invited.
I played the rest of the night with them. When we finished the owner Jimmy Sumpter asked, "Would you like to work steady with the band?"
"I sure would if the rest of the guys want me to," I joyfully agreed.
"Yeah, the guys want you, so start tomorrow night at eight thirty," he ordered in a very business like way.
I was elated! Now I had a steady job working with the "California Doughboys" all ex-GI's like me. The next day I found a place to live and invited my other two friends to join me until they found their own places. I also found a daytime job at the Post office where I had had experience while in high school. I kept the two jobs for the next three months until I as healed monetarily enough that I could go back to music full time.
Jimmy Sumpter was a very business-like, likeable guy, blue eyed, thinning blonde hair, and a beaming personality at times that dazzled his female friends much to his wife's displeasure. He loved his booze. He never turned down an invitation to party. Later, many nights I had to load him into a cab to send him home. Not an easy job. He weighed two hundred and forty plus pounds. We became the best of friends for many years.
Everyone seemed to be friendly and it didn't take long to become acquainted with many new people, all seeking the same new life and beginning; the same dreams I had. Soon I was invited to go on fishing, hunting, and hiking trips. Fishing was unbelievable in Ship Creek which runs through the train yards and to the north of the depot. World class King or Chinoook salmon came to spawn each spring. I have seen so many fish in the creek at one time that you would hardly get your feet wet walking across them. Many GI's for Fort Richardson and Elmendorf Air Force Base came to fish. If the one they caught wasn't big enough to suit them, they tossed it back. Many people would just leave them on the bank to die. These were early days when there was little fish and game management protection in Alaska since it was still a territory. These animals were fished until near extinction in this creek. In later years, the run was re-established, but of those species of lesser weights, unlike those found in Rivers Inlet in British Columbia that can weigh sixty to ninety plus pounds each.
Jimmy Sumpter had a group called "The Hollywood Cowgirls" playing the Village Bar after the "Doughboys" finished and returned to California. These were three attractive and talented women. Lee Johansen was the leader and guitarist, Lu Curto played the upright bass and sang, and "Tex" was Claire Johnson the fiddle player. Lee was a striking blue eyed, red headed lead singer. Lu was a brown eyed, black haired Italian girl who danced and twirled with her big bass fiddle and sang harmony. Tex was tall, dark long hair, ruby red lips, and sang third harmony. She could play violin classics or hoe-downs whatever anyone wanted. All three girls sang in three part harmony no less than that of the McGuire or Andrew sisters.
They needed another lead instrument so Jimmy asked, "Harley, how would you like to work with three beautiful gals?"
"You're kidding of course," I answered, "Why, what's going on?"
"Well the gals need another lead instrument. It's too tough for Tex to play all the leads all the time."
It didn't take much arm twisting!
"Heck yeh!" I agreed. "When can I start?"
"As soon as you get here," he promised. Two nights later I was on the bandstand learning their routines and thinking I had gone to heaven.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from ALASKA'S MIDNIGHT SON by Harley Davis Hess Copyright © 2012 by Harley Davis Hess. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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