AlaskaAV
GONE WEST
Mission, TX
I have talked before about working for the Alaska Railroad in 1956 at Bird Point so this is kind of like the next chapter in a way. This summer, 1957, I was hired back on to the same work crew by special request of the superintendent. The crew was located at Curry, Alaska, this summer and a very unique area really. At one time in the old days, Curry was a very big station for the railroad. They had a round house which was a place where they could turn a steam engine around, get one or several engines inside at the same time to do maintenance, load water and locally mined coal. All this structure was gone when I got there but the memories were still there to the local people. The railroad also had a hotel which was built as a crew changeover quarters and for any passengers that needed a place to stay if they wanted to. What a huge bar they had when I was there. Would you believe they had a dance floor? A good record player and lots of beautiful ladies to dance with? Nah......this was a work area. A few years later, the whole place burned down.
OK, now back to work after all the dancing.
We were still living in the same converted bunk cars that I had lived in the year before and we were parked on a siding just 1/4 mile south of Curry right on the Su River. We had a very friendly black bear that enjoyed our camp but never really bothered us but just don't go outside at night. I had pictures taken from 10 foot away but all were lost in a flood at Galena years later.
Now comes the real scary part.
We came up for a 3 day weekend and a bunch of us thought it would be fun to float down the Su River to Talkeetna in a rubber raft. Well, not a bad idea on paper as far as I could tell but the only problem was some of the guys might have not read the paper.
Here we go in a 5 man rubber raft with 7 people on board. Daylight of course and weather was good and no worry about high water. Two of us were under age so we could not drink alcohol (yah, sure) but off we go with a couple or three cases of beer and a rifle which I believe was a 22. Off we go but two of us (farm kids) really thought this might not be a good idea. Ok guys that know the Big and Little Su rivers, remember the boulders under waterline in the middle of the rivers that were very visible as you got close to them? These half drunk guys wanted to hit those submersed boulders with the rubber raft. Five against two and we were like kids to them after a case of beer. Anyway, we kept hitting the boulders and would spin around and the rear of the rubber raft would swing around under the overflow water over the top of the boulder and fill part of the raft and two of us would bail like hell while the drunks kept laughing and saying how much fun that was. Within minutes, they would be shooting again at our special bald eagles which really got to me. Finally they ran out of ammo without hitting anything. Still, we are hitting those huge boulders. I suspect only by the grace of God, luck had nothing to do with it, we actually made it to Talkeetna where we found Cliff Hudson, Hudson Air Service http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q="hudson+air+service" who flew us back to Curry in several trips in his Pacer. I got so I really liked Cliff, partly because he had an aircraft operation and because he was such a great guy. I was on the last trip with just Cliff and I and he let me fly the trip. That was before I even took lessons in Nebraska.
Later that summer, we moved from Curry to Talkeetna to do some work. I spent my free time around Cliff's operation for some reason. Aviation? One weekend, he was going to haul a load of freight in his Jeep pickup from the west side of the Su River up to Petersville gold mine and asked if I would like to ride along. On paper it doesn't look like much now but in 1957, there really wasn't a road and it took one whole day just to drive 80 or so miles. Many years later, the 40 mile roadhouse I went by would mean a lot to me while on a cross country flight in a PA-18. Once there and introduced by Cliff and accepted by the mining crew, they brought out huge containers of raw gold, not flakes, real solid gold, pound after pound and some containers held large gold nuggets. I am talking about many, many pounds, not ounces. Everything was a tent camp and so very welcome that night and the next morning, I had the best breakfast I have ever had. First time I had ever had boiled coffee. Once strong enough, take the pot off the heat, drop a cold rock in and never a coffee ground in the cup. Gee, what a kid can learn when he watches the pros.
OK, fun is over and I have to get back to railroad work for a while. Not long after that, we had a three day weekend coming up and I told Cliff if he needed my help to run a trip back to the gold mine, I would be free. The day after that, he told me to have at it. I did barrow a Ruger .44 mag just in case. We went across the river in a small boat where he already had the load stashed. When there, he showed me how to load it to max. I knew down the road, I would have to offload half of the load just to climb a hill and at the top, offload that part and drive back to the bottom of the hill and load the other half and when at the top, load everything up again and off I went. On the way, I shot a few grouse with a 22 that Cliff always had in the pickup and I dropped them off at Fortymile Roadhouse. Finally got to the gold mine but was so tired, all I ate was some pilot bread.
At first daylight, I am ready to head back after a great bush breakfast. Something about eating in the bush of Alaska at a very rich gold mine, everything tastes so good. The guys there were really great. Probably because I brought in fresh groceries, right?
What did I charge Cliff for the two days of work? I told him he already paid me just by letting me have so much fun for two days.
Some of us know about the city strip just south of Cliff's store at Talkeetna. Loss of tail feathers on Cliff's aircraft from one and a stupid departure by myself.
Ah, the good old days.
OK, now back to work after all the dancing.
We were still living in the same converted bunk cars that I had lived in the year before and we were parked on a siding just 1/4 mile south of Curry right on the Su River. We had a very friendly black bear that enjoyed our camp but never really bothered us but just don't go outside at night. I had pictures taken from 10 foot away but all were lost in a flood at Galena years later.
Now comes the real scary part.
We came up for a 3 day weekend and a bunch of us thought it would be fun to float down the Su River to Talkeetna in a rubber raft. Well, not a bad idea on paper as far as I could tell but the only problem was some of the guys might have not read the paper.
Here we go in a 5 man rubber raft with 7 people on board. Daylight of course and weather was good and no worry about high water. Two of us were under age so we could not drink alcohol (yah, sure) but off we go with a couple or three cases of beer and a rifle which I believe was a 22. Off we go but two of us (farm kids) really thought this might not be a good idea. Ok guys that know the Big and Little Su rivers, remember the boulders under waterline in the middle of the rivers that were very visible as you got close to them? These half drunk guys wanted to hit those submersed boulders with the rubber raft. Five against two and we were like kids to them after a case of beer. Anyway, we kept hitting the boulders and would spin around and the rear of the rubber raft would swing around under the overflow water over the top of the boulder and fill part of the raft and two of us would bail like hell while the drunks kept laughing and saying how much fun that was. Within minutes, they would be shooting again at our special bald eagles which really got to me. Finally they ran out of ammo without hitting anything. Still, we are hitting those huge boulders. I suspect only by the grace of God, luck had nothing to do with it, we actually made it to Talkeetna where we found Cliff Hudson, Hudson Air Service http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q="hudson+air+service" who flew us back to Curry in several trips in his Pacer. I got so I really liked Cliff, partly because he had an aircraft operation and because he was such a great guy. I was on the last trip with just Cliff and I and he let me fly the trip. That was before I even took lessons in Nebraska.
Later that summer, we moved from Curry to Talkeetna to do some work. I spent my free time around Cliff's operation for some reason. Aviation? One weekend, he was going to haul a load of freight in his Jeep pickup from the west side of the Su River up to Petersville gold mine and asked if I would like to ride along. On paper it doesn't look like much now but in 1957, there really wasn't a road and it took one whole day just to drive 80 or so miles. Many years later, the 40 mile roadhouse I went by would mean a lot to me while on a cross country flight in a PA-18. Once there and introduced by Cliff and accepted by the mining crew, they brought out huge containers of raw gold, not flakes, real solid gold, pound after pound and some containers held large gold nuggets. I am talking about many, many pounds, not ounces. Everything was a tent camp and so very welcome that night and the next morning, I had the best breakfast I have ever had. First time I had ever had boiled coffee. Once strong enough, take the pot off the heat, drop a cold rock in and never a coffee ground in the cup. Gee, what a kid can learn when he watches the pros.
OK, fun is over and I have to get back to railroad work for a while. Not long after that, we had a three day weekend coming up and I told Cliff if he needed my help to run a trip back to the gold mine, I would be free. The day after that, he told me to have at it. I did barrow a Ruger .44 mag just in case. We went across the river in a small boat where he already had the load stashed. When there, he showed me how to load it to max. I knew down the road, I would have to offload half of the load just to climb a hill and at the top, offload that part and drive back to the bottom of the hill and load the other half and when at the top, load everything up again and off I went. On the way, I shot a few grouse with a 22 that Cliff always had in the pickup and I dropped them off at Fortymile Roadhouse. Finally got to the gold mine but was so tired, all I ate was some pilot bread.
At first daylight, I am ready to head back after a great bush breakfast. Something about eating in the bush of Alaska at a very rich gold mine, everything tastes so good. The guys there were really great. Probably because I brought in fresh groceries, right?
What did I charge Cliff for the two days of work? I told him he already paid me just by letting me have so much fun for two days.
Some of us know about the city strip just south of Cliff's store at Talkeetna. Loss of tail feathers on Cliff's aircraft from one and a stupid departure by myself.
Ah, the good old days.
