AlaskaAV
GONE WEST
Mission, TX
When we were transferred to Dahl Creek from Umiat just before New Years in 1965, all the company had was a 38 x 8 foot trailer that had been flown in with our C-82 (02B) which was probably a little tail heavy since part of the trailer stuck out the back. The doors had been removed for that trip so I was told but who knows. I never saw it. Needless to say, not capable of 50 below zero temperatures with the 2 inch walls. My generator was 1.4 KW so we kind of had to be like Green Acres on TV. If we plugged in a number two, we had to unplug a 1 and 3. Shut off all lights and radio when we made coffee and toast. Oh was that place cold all the time in the winter. My wife had to melt very dry powder snow in a 30 gal garbage can over a two burner Coleman stove burning 24/7 just to get water but the heat helped keep the HF and NDB radios warm. No sewer or well of course. Outhouse was a Porta-Poti (called honey bucket) in the uninsulated generator shed which never got warm.
I told the CEO (a book, Arctic Bush Pilot, has been written about him) I would spend the rest of the winter but not another winter so we talked it over. He agreed the company would buy a 1000 sq ft log Pan Abode building for quarters and use the trailer for "passenger terminal and cargo/mail storage". I talked him into 1400 sq ft with a floor plan of my choice and I would use our living room as passenger terminal. After all, we knew everyone anyway.
Finally he agreed so in due time, everything was flown in but then the CEO dropped the bomb so to speak. The company couldn't afford the labor to construct it that summer. I have a feeling he knew what I would do next, after all, he did the same things himself in Bettles many years before so I was ready for it. I agreed to build the building and any costs for construction I would pay for and they would pay me back next year. Agreed but not on paper. Stupid? Of course but I trusted his boss, Sig Wien, the airline owner. Back in those days, his word was better than a written contract. I did get approval that I could bypass our purchasing department and order all materials direct and everything was my choice, no questions asked. That included the entire kitchen, bathroom, lighting, plumbing and wiring. Boy was that fun and Sears became my very good friend. As I recall, other than the work my wife and I spent on the building, I paid some $300 labor from start to finish at Dahl Creek. My wife and I worked all company flights while building the log home.
For those not familiar with the Pan Abode cedar log homes, they are prenotched and tongue and groove cedar, about 2 inches thick. A really beautiful building when completed and with fantastic heat ratings. The Office at the resort I was associated with on Maui came from the same company and all of our bush buildings for Wien at the time were the same also. They went together just like the old Lincoln Log toys.
Even though my wife could do about everything, I needed a guy to help lift the logs so we hired an Eskimo from Kobuk that had built log buildings for years. Only problem was he could not speak English so my wife would translate and it worked great. All logs were identified by letters and numbers on the ends so all he had to do was look for the letters.
From the day we started looking for the logs for the foundation to the day we moved in was 45 days although it was not entirely completed yet but better than what we had. While doing all this construction, we also worked flight operations every day.
I had decided to use 8 large trees (18 inch butts and 4 on each end) for a foundation over bare gravel over permafrost. The logs would overlap the smaller ends in the middle of the house.
Now is where the guy from Kobuk was so unbelievably fantastic. It was so interesting to watch him just hunch down and look for maybe an hour or so. Once he made his decision, off he would go and he would tell my wife what he wanted me to do. He set the floor up so perfect that when we put the last prenotched log on the crown some 12 foot high, it was less than 1/4 inch off. The roof had a bow up in the center but the next year, the crown was level and stayed that way. What a guy he was.
We put in solid oak shorts for flooring and rented a sander from Fairbanks to sand it down and varnish it with several coats. All wiring was surface mount because I didn't want to drill any holes in the wall for fear of frost. All light fixtures were of the old kerosene type electric lamps and with a large wagon wheel in the middle of the living room and over the dining room table, again with the old type lamps and many small wall mount ones all over the house (all electric of course).
I ordered and assembled all the kitchen cabinets from Sears, sanded and varnished them. I did order through Wien a special seamless kitchen counter top that was probably 20 foot long. Needless to say, all appliances and bath fixtures came from Sears too. I used copper tubing for all water lines so I could keep them away from the walls and near the eaves to keep them from freezing in the winter (60 below zero out side). I chose heating by two space heaters which didn't take any electricity to operate other than the built in fan although I did install electric fan stack robbers (what a heat saver) in the stove pipes which gave us back some of the heat going up the stove pipes. At all times, we had kerosene lamps just in case we lost our generator. Lots of candles for my wife and I though after the kids went to bed. Under the floor, I put 2" of styrofoam sheets between the 4" by 6" joists on 4' centers to help keep the floor warm and did the same thing on the roof under the aluminum sheeting. I installed a Sears 4 foot diameter round fireplace open all the way around in the middle of the living room floor and as a present to my wife, I built her a local jade hearth around it. We lived in Jade country at Dahl Creek so that was easy to do and free. Charcoal steaks all winter long. Cook the steaks, dump the coals and throw on a couple of logs and by the time dinner was over, the fire was burning. For me (us), I built a padded bar in one corner of the living room. Since we didn't have TV and all those wasteful things, we all made our own fun. Every night after dark, it was always family time since we didn't need runway lights and lots of power available.
Actually, that was the second house I built out of the Sears catalogue. I also built a home in Barrow in the middle of the winter when it was dark all the time since the sun never came up for 3 months. Sears and I became very good friends in the 60s.
Our good friend, the project manager for Kennicott Copper, sent down a crew and equipment to drill us a water well but they couldn't get down deep enough and through the permafrost so it was back to hauling water but this time it came out of Dahl Creek which ran year around under the ice and snow. He had a 1200 gal water storage tank built for us that fit through the back door into the utility room and I built up a complete pressure water system. I ordered all the pressure system and installed it so we actually had running water. I built a log septic tank to finish that out. Talk about a modern home north of the Arctic Circle.
Once the home was finished, I ordered 55 gal of Liquid Rawhide wood preservative for the cedar. As I recall, that was like $25 per gal at the time in the mid 60s. Talk about beautiful. Just because you live in the bush doesn't mean you have to rough it, right? The logs needed the preservative of course but when I put it on, I lost all the wonderful aroma of the cedar logs.
Total cost "on paper" for the building including labor other than my wife and myself was $13,000. Unbelievable really. It also did not include flying in the home with a company
C-46A.
I suspect the crown on the west end of the house was over 14 foot high and in the winter, a snow drift was clear up to the crown. The second winter there, there was over 15 foot of snow. Along the sides, the drifts were up to the eaves and I would have to climb out an east window to shovel the snow away from the doors and windows to get in and out and for an emergency exit. The local martins and white weasels really liked to live under the house and would come up and look in the windows just as the moose and caribou did. Would the kids feed them? Not that we saw because it was a no no. What a life for a young married couple that made life what we wanted it to be.
My boss told me that the company couldn't afford to furnish me any ground equipment either. I had been turning around all flights with my snow machine the first winter. He agreed to fly in my Jeep at no cost though. That time he even had a smile on his face. Reminded me of the Bush smile. Actually, when I left, I sold the Jeep for twice what I paid for it.
Still, I had to haul water out of Dahl Creek by snow machine in the winter in 5 gal cans, even at 50 below zero. Does anyone know what cold really is?
Again a smile from my boss. He was going to give us a new generator, a Whitte 6.5 KW. Really sounded great but by that time I knew there was a catch. They couldn't afford to build a shed for it. Ok, there I go again. I will build the shed but large enough for my Jeep so we would always have emergency transportation. Also large enough to age home made beer but he didn't know that. Agreed so I bought the material of my choice and the company flew it in. They flew in the new generator but I insisted that I would install it the way I wanted to and to keep the mechanics away. I wanted it done right??? Would you believe I won? Sure did.
It was really great to have that much power too. We had an electric dryer, I even installed a complete runway lighting system (no labor costs) that the generator would carry if we didn't have too much power being used in the house and the weather bureau equipment and our radios didn't really take that much power. I did try overload the generator a few times each month in the summer when it was not being used to full capacity and would load it up to 100 percent overload (13 KW) for an hour or two just to blow the carbon out. Only a Cat generator would do that I thought. I have a lot of respect for those single cylinder Whitte generators. Very definite putt, putt, putt at about 600 rpm.
After everything was done, I sent in copies of receipts for reimbursement but no answer or check from my boss as promised. After repeated short wave radio calls, I jumped on a flight and flew to Fairbanks. It was so great having a wife that you felt comfortable with leaving alone in the middle of nowhere with no help near by other than a short wave radio. I was not able to see him that day but was allowed to the next day. I got my check within 2 hours with no problems. I never did that with him again. By the way, he got fired by the owner later but not for that and that is one story I probably shouldn't tell and it is not included in his book.
Because of the very remote area, we had to really consider our food supplies. At any time when a company flight went mechanical or weather, we had to feed every one of course. Come to think of it, the company never repaid us for that either but what the heck, the passengers were friends anyway and had we been in their home, they would have done the same thing. We always ordered everything by case lots and beef by the half or quarter from Fairbanks. Want a can of peas, order a case. Bread by the case and eggs by the half case. Always had to be ahead 30 to 60 days. I always used the same grocery supplier in Fairbanks, Lindys, the best ever. Meat came from a shop in North Pole. On every order, I would always authorize them to send some $20 of new products they thought we might enjoy. Come Christmas time, a special present from them: a huge bottle of very special Italian wine which stood some four foot high. We usually ordered imported French wine for our use and for our Kennicott friends. We often were invited to Lindy's place for drinks when we were in Fairbanks but that was back in the days when everyone were friends regardless.
When we were assigned to Umiat, I took my family back to Nebraska for a vacation and to meet my parents. I had a very good friend that worked for a general merchandise company, Gambles, in my home town so we worked out a plan for publicity for him.
His company agreed to sell us a freezer at cost and give us a gas cook stove free and that I would pay all shipping charges. The airline costs were free to me. Sounded great since the airline transportation was free for us anyway. The local newspaper was notified of the salesman's dream, selling a freezer to an Eskimo. It hit the front page of course.
Now comes the fun part again (gee, I have a lot of those don't I?) Somehow, there was an error in shipping. One set, freezer and stove, was shipped out of a warehouse in Minn and another from a different warehouse I believe in Nebr. So we got two of each at Umiat. When we got to Dahl Creek, we sure put them to good use. I agreed with Gambles that I would pay freight charges but not for the extra units which they agreed with right away so we got them free. Boy, can two huge freezers hold a lot of frozen food. We immediately sold one kitchen stove to a teacher in Kobuk for almost nothing (she wasn't paid that much anyway) and gave another one to a very good friend from Shungnak. Those from that area will remember the Cleveland name.
Did my wife work hard at Dahl Creek outside of company work? I had hired a live in house keeper/baby sitter and basically just a great family friend who became our oldest daughter in a way and she could always beat me at poker. On one trip to Hawaii, we almost took her with us but too old to pass off as a daughter because she was not much younger than my wife and besides, it would have been illegal.
I can tell you one thing, you had better have a great wife that loves you and that enjoys living in the bush if you are going to live in God's Back Yard. I was so very lucky, I had the best of both.
_________________
I told the CEO (a book, Arctic Bush Pilot, has been written about him) I would spend the rest of the winter but not another winter so we talked it over. He agreed the company would buy a 1000 sq ft log Pan Abode building for quarters and use the trailer for "passenger terminal and cargo/mail storage". I talked him into 1400 sq ft with a floor plan of my choice and I would use our living room as passenger terminal. After all, we knew everyone anyway.
Finally he agreed so in due time, everything was flown in but then the CEO dropped the bomb so to speak. The company couldn't afford the labor to construct it that summer. I have a feeling he knew what I would do next, after all, he did the same things himself in Bettles many years before so I was ready for it. I agreed to build the building and any costs for construction I would pay for and they would pay me back next year. Agreed but not on paper. Stupid? Of course but I trusted his boss, Sig Wien, the airline owner. Back in those days, his word was better than a written contract. I did get approval that I could bypass our purchasing department and order all materials direct and everything was my choice, no questions asked. That included the entire kitchen, bathroom, lighting, plumbing and wiring. Boy was that fun and Sears became my very good friend. As I recall, other than the work my wife and I spent on the building, I paid some $300 labor from start to finish at Dahl Creek. My wife and I worked all company flights while building the log home.
For those not familiar with the Pan Abode cedar log homes, they are prenotched and tongue and groove cedar, about 2 inches thick. A really beautiful building when completed and with fantastic heat ratings. The Office at the resort I was associated with on Maui came from the same company and all of our bush buildings for Wien at the time were the same also. They went together just like the old Lincoln Log toys.
Even though my wife could do about everything, I needed a guy to help lift the logs so we hired an Eskimo from Kobuk that had built log buildings for years. Only problem was he could not speak English so my wife would translate and it worked great. All logs were identified by letters and numbers on the ends so all he had to do was look for the letters.
From the day we started looking for the logs for the foundation to the day we moved in was 45 days although it was not entirely completed yet but better than what we had. While doing all this construction, we also worked flight operations every day.
I had decided to use 8 large trees (18 inch butts and 4 on each end) for a foundation over bare gravel over permafrost. The logs would overlap the smaller ends in the middle of the house.
Now is where the guy from Kobuk was so unbelievably fantastic. It was so interesting to watch him just hunch down and look for maybe an hour or so. Once he made his decision, off he would go and he would tell my wife what he wanted me to do. He set the floor up so perfect that when we put the last prenotched log on the crown some 12 foot high, it was less than 1/4 inch off. The roof had a bow up in the center but the next year, the crown was level and stayed that way. What a guy he was.
We put in solid oak shorts for flooring and rented a sander from Fairbanks to sand it down and varnish it with several coats. All wiring was surface mount because I didn't want to drill any holes in the wall for fear of frost. All light fixtures were of the old kerosene type electric lamps and with a large wagon wheel in the middle of the living room and over the dining room table, again with the old type lamps and many small wall mount ones all over the house (all electric of course).
I ordered and assembled all the kitchen cabinets from Sears, sanded and varnished them. I did order through Wien a special seamless kitchen counter top that was probably 20 foot long. Needless to say, all appliances and bath fixtures came from Sears too. I used copper tubing for all water lines so I could keep them away from the walls and near the eaves to keep them from freezing in the winter (60 below zero out side). I chose heating by two space heaters which didn't take any electricity to operate other than the built in fan although I did install electric fan stack robbers (what a heat saver) in the stove pipes which gave us back some of the heat going up the stove pipes. At all times, we had kerosene lamps just in case we lost our generator. Lots of candles for my wife and I though after the kids went to bed. Under the floor, I put 2" of styrofoam sheets between the 4" by 6" joists on 4' centers to help keep the floor warm and did the same thing on the roof under the aluminum sheeting. I installed a Sears 4 foot diameter round fireplace open all the way around in the middle of the living room floor and as a present to my wife, I built her a local jade hearth around it. We lived in Jade country at Dahl Creek so that was easy to do and free. Charcoal steaks all winter long. Cook the steaks, dump the coals and throw on a couple of logs and by the time dinner was over, the fire was burning. For me (us), I built a padded bar in one corner of the living room. Since we didn't have TV and all those wasteful things, we all made our own fun. Every night after dark, it was always family time since we didn't need runway lights and lots of power available.
Actually, that was the second house I built out of the Sears catalogue. I also built a home in Barrow in the middle of the winter when it was dark all the time since the sun never came up for 3 months. Sears and I became very good friends in the 60s.
Our good friend, the project manager for Kennicott Copper, sent down a crew and equipment to drill us a water well but they couldn't get down deep enough and through the permafrost so it was back to hauling water but this time it came out of Dahl Creek which ran year around under the ice and snow. He had a 1200 gal water storage tank built for us that fit through the back door into the utility room and I built up a complete pressure water system. I ordered all the pressure system and installed it so we actually had running water. I built a log septic tank to finish that out. Talk about a modern home north of the Arctic Circle.
Once the home was finished, I ordered 55 gal of Liquid Rawhide wood preservative for the cedar. As I recall, that was like $25 per gal at the time in the mid 60s. Talk about beautiful. Just because you live in the bush doesn't mean you have to rough it, right? The logs needed the preservative of course but when I put it on, I lost all the wonderful aroma of the cedar logs.
Total cost "on paper" for the building including labor other than my wife and myself was $13,000. Unbelievable really. It also did not include flying in the home with a company
C-46A.
I suspect the crown on the west end of the house was over 14 foot high and in the winter, a snow drift was clear up to the crown. The second winter there, there was over 15 foot of snow. Along the sides, the drifts were up to the eaves and I would have to climb out an east window to shovel the snow away from the doors and windows to get in and out and for an emergency exit. The local martins and white weasels really liked to live under the house and would come up and look in the windows just as the moose and caribou did. Would the kids feed them? Not that we saw because it was a no no. What a life for a young married couple that made life what we wanted it to be.
My boss told me that the company couldn't afford to furnish me any ground equipment either. I had been turning around all flights with my snow machine the first winter. He agreed to fly in my Jeep at no cost though. That time he even had a smile on his face. Reminded me of the Bush smile. Actually, when I left, I sold the Jeep for twice what I paid for it.
Still, I had to haul water out of Dahl Creek by snow machine in the winter in 5 gal cans, even at 50 below zero. Does anyone know what cold really is?
Again a smile from my boss. He was going to give us a new generator, a Whitte 6.5 KW. Really sounded great but by that time I knew there was a catch. They couldn't afford to build a shed for it. Ok, there I go again. I will build the shed but large enough for my Jeep so we would always have emergency transportation. Also large enough to age home made beer but he didn't know that. Agreed so I bought the material of my choice and the company flew it in. They flew in the new generator but I insisted that I would install it the way I wanted to and to keep the mechanics away. I wanted it done right??? Would you believe I won? Sure did.
It was really great to have that much power too. We had an electric dryer, I even installed a complete runway lighting system (no labor costs) that the generator would carry if we didn't have too much power being used in the house and the weather bureau equipment and our radios didn't really take that much power. I did try overload the generator a few times each month in the summer when it was not being used to full capacity and would load it up to 100 percent overload (13 KW) for an hour or two just to blow the carbon out. Only a Cat generator would do that I thought. I have a lot of respect for those single cylinder Whitte generators. Very definite putt, putt, putt at about 600 rpm.
After everything was done, I sent in copies of receipts for reimbursement but no answer or check from my boss as promised. After repeated short wave radio calls, I jumped on a flight and flew to Fairbanks. It was so great having a wife that you felt comfortable with leaving alone in the middle of nowhere with no help near by other than a short wave radio. I was not able to see him that day but was allowed to the next day. I got my check within 2 hours with no problems. I never did that with him again. By the way, he got fired by the owner later but not for that and that is one story I probably shouldn't tell and it is not included in his book.
Because of the very remote area, we had to really consider our food supplies. At any time when a company flight went mechanical or weather, we had to feed every one of course. Come to think of it, the company never repaid us for that either but what the heck, the passengers were friends anyway and had we been in their home, they would have done the same thing. We always ordered everything by case lots and beef by the half or quarter from Fairbanks. Want a can of peas, order a case. Bread by the case and eggs by the half case. Always had to be ahead 30 to 60 days. I always used the same grocery supplier in Fairbanks, Lindys, the best ever. Meat came from a shop in North Pole. On every order, I would always authorize them to send some $20 of new products they thought we might enjoy. Come Christmas time, a special present from them: a huge bottle of very special Italian wine which stood some four foot high. We usually ordered imported French wine for our use and for our Kennicott friends. We often were invited to Lindy's place for drinks when we were in Fairbanks but that was back in the days when everyone were friends regardless.
When we were assigned to Umiat, I took my family back to Nebraska for a vacation and to meet my parents. I had a very good friend that worked for a general merchandise company, Gambles, in my home town so we worked out a plan for publicity for him.
His company agreed to sell us a freezer at cost and give us a gas cook stove free and that I would pay all shipping charges. The airline costs were free to me. Sounded great since the airline transportation was free for us anyway. The local newspaper was notified of the salesman's dream, selling a freezer to an Eskimo. It hit the front page of course.
Now comes the fun part again (gee, I have a lot of those don't I?) Somehow, there was an error in shipping. One set, freezer and stove, was shipped out of a warehouse in Minn and another from a different warehouse I believe in Nebr. So we got two of each at Umiat. When we got to Dahl Creek, we sure put them to good use. I agreed with Gambles that I would pay freight charges but not for the extra units which they agreed with right away so we got them free. Boy, can two huge freezers hold a lot of frozen food. We immediately sold one kitchen stove to a teacher in Kobuk for almost nothing (she wasn't paid that much anyway) and gave another one to a very good friend from Shungnak. Those from that area will remember the Cleveland name.
Did my wife work hard at Dahl Creek outside of company work? I had hired a live in house keeper/baby sitter and basically just a great family friend who became our oldest daughter in a way and she could always beat me at poker. On one trip to Hawaii, we almost took her with us but too old to pass off as a daughter because she was not much younger than my wife and besides, it would have been illegal.
I can tell you one thing, you had better have a great wife that loves you and that enjoys living in the bush if you are going to live in God's Back Yard. I was so very lucky, I had the best of both.
_________________
