seabag had all it could hold. I lugged it down to Pier 91, went to Transportation to establish my priority for the Sunday flight, and got my orders from a Navy clerk who had the charisma of a stereotypical undertaker.
At 11:35 A.M. on Sunday, July 27, I would meet the Navy bus and proceed to McChord Field in Tacoma. My last chore at the pier was to transport my bulging seabag across a high footbridge to Household Effects. Sweat poured in trails all over my face when I arrived and deposited the fat, canvas sausage. The neatly dressed woman who checked my gear was careful that I didn’t get too close to her and gave me the definite impression that the sooner I left with my perspiration, the better.
Harry Mae served me a thick, orange fillet of king salmon with cream sauce for my last supper.
“The kid’s going to Kodiak,” he announced to several others along the counter. That started something.
“You’ll be walking across the backs of salmon,” one said.
“… want to fish near the crick mouths when the tide’s turning.”
“When you see a bear stand thirteen feet high, then you seen something!”
“It’s rugged with them winds up there, but you won’t find a better place to save money … if you don’t gamble. Lots of that—and drinking, too—man, oh, man!”
Harry poked around under his counter. “Try these,” he said. “Tied ’em myself.” He handed me several artificial flies, some attached to Colorado spinners. “Take these plastic bags, too. Just as good as a creel. And,” he added, “drop me a line.”
At 1:30 P.M. I arrived at McChord Field. The flight was not scheduled to leave until 4:20 P.M. Things hadn’t changed much since my service days.
The DC-4 transport plane had bucket seats, heavy canvas stretched over metal crossbars. A blanket was spread out in the aisle, and a Black Jack game was in progress around it. Some sailors, slouched and sullen, were showing the effects of their leaves; others hinted of anxiety. Several civilians were reading magazines. A Navy Chief sat with his head hanging, dropping lower and lower until it rose abruptly, only to loll on his chest and start a new cycle.
The motors roared. I fastened my seat belt. The plane began its taxi into position.
So long, Seattle, I thought. We didn’t really get acquainted.
Two time zones away to the north, Kodiak waited in the Territory of Alaska.
Territory. That had a good sound.
Author’s journal, circa 1952
I am anxious to get started and get settled once more. Kodiak lies ahead, a land that I have never seen. Just a point on a map, a place where a giant bear lives. And now I will enter a new field of vision, and I must like what I see there, for I have bound myself for twelve months. I must work hard, I must be faithful to my notebook, and if I do these things I might someday show some doubters that I had the stuff after all.
CHAPTER 3
The Transplanting
My face pressed against the window. The Alaskan coast was coming into view. Conical spikes reared out of vapor that ringed their chocolate-colored bases like feathers. Cloud layers sliced mountains across their middles to give the illusion of floating triangular peaks. Beyond them loomed the alpine monarchs, giant, thrusting spearheads chiseled from alabaster, dwarfing their spruce-skirted subjects. Clouds piling against the jagged land upheaval reminded me of heavy surf caught with a high-speed camera just after its explosion against the rocks. On we drifted over a white desert that hid the sea.
One of the passengers pointed to a hole in the fleece.
“Anchorage,” he said. I didn’t see a city. All I glimpsed was a mountain veiled in the freshest green, then some planes on a landing field, just before the clouds erased the earth again. Kodiak wouldn’t be far now. The plane began to buck and stagger, now plummeting, now surging in a fizzy, floating upwards. I pulled my seat belt tighter.
When we finally slanted in for the Kodiak approach, I looked at my watch. It had been ten hours since we left McChord. Subtract two for the time difference. We hit with a shuddering jolt and bounced. The engines thundered. Concerned, frightened looks, almost panic, and then everyone jabbered with relief as the wheels touched down again, this time on the runway.
Nobody seemed to know what to do with a group of men arriving after midnight. In bewildered knots, we tied and untied over the hangar floor until a Navy bus arrived, blinking its headlights. The sleepy-eyed driver didn’t seem to know or care where he was taking us. At the first stop, there weren’t enough bunks available for everyone. Success at the second stop.
As I collapsed into my bunk, my head throbbed. In the bunk next to me sprawled a sailor as pale as a corpse. I asked him if I could get him anything, but he just smiled weakly and shook his head. His ashen face was the last thing I remembered.
I awakened in the morning to the far-off whooping and guttural calls of ravens. I looked out to steep green hills that ascended into the mist. There were gullies down their sides and scars of raw earth. Spruce and alder choked the ravines. A fine rain was falling.
Kodiak, Alaska
July 29, 1952
Dear Dad, Molly, & Mrs. Millet:
Ten long hours in an Army transport plane. Bucket seats. We followed up along the coast of British Columbia. Below could be seen the patches of snow in the mountains, lakes half sealed with ice, bare places on slopes and snaky paths that betrayed lumber operations, smoke pluming up from a fire in the forest, a line of jagged snow-shrouded ramparts seeming to march beside us….
I’m not going to include all of the details of my final arrival here. It was as I expected. Nobody seemed to be expecting us. Typical naval procedure. My ears ached from the drop into a normal pressure, my head ached and I was dead tired….
I am hardly settled here. My job is that of a typical laborer with pick and “muck-stick” (Alaskan lingo for a [he-he] shovel). This afternoon I could see my breath in the air.
I hear a lot of fellows got stranded for jobs on the Alaska mainland. I’d have been foolish to have joined them.
This is a very incoherent letter, but I just wanted to get word to you.
Love to all,
Sam
P.S. The pilot undershot the runway coming in and had to gun his engines at the last minute. We hit like a ton of bricks, and barely missing going in the “drink.” (Oh, well, he was an army pilot.)
AFTER A BREAKFAST REMINDFUL OF MY service days, a paunchy fellow with a jutting jaw checked our papers. He chewed on a toothpick and enjoyed our confusion. He pointed to the ghostly shape of a mountain.
“That’s Barometer,” he said. “Our weatherman. If you can see Barometer, it’s going to rain. If you can’t see it … it’s raining.” He glanced slyly over the group to see if his comment made us any more miserable than we were, then dispatched us to the various checking-in stations
