by Steven Swaks
Alaska!
Up North and to the Left
Steven Swaks
Copyright © 2011 by Steven Swaks
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1482692501
Library of Congress Control Number: TXU001773184
Photo Credit: Heather Grace Johnson, Lydia Swaks, Steven Swaks.
Published: 2013
I have tried to recreate events, locales, and conversations from my memories of them. In order to maintain their anonymity, in some instances, I have changed the names of individuals and places.
To my family, Skyler, and so many others.
In Memoriam
To Joe, Terry, Scott, and Stephen.
Aviation dearly misses you.
Acknowledgements
Not everybody is going to be reading this (aside from the affected parties and the people who wrongfully think that their name should be in there (for the threatening phone calls, please, not after 10:00 pm, thank you)).
Where shall I start? The name’s order of appearance has of course nothing to do with the amount of work you have provided, or even the degree of thankfulness I would like to express towards your participation. Either way, I am deeply grateful for your help, from the simple question answered or the two minutes given out of a busy schedule, to the endless hours it took you to review my project.
So here it is. First and foremost, thanks to my wonderful wife for spending so much time proof reading over and over the same chapters. Thanks for your patience and your kindness along with your linguistic expertise.
Thanks to my own personal editors: Priscilla, John, Elena, Zoe, Dave, my brother Olivier, and my father René, who have relentlessly read the manuscript, gave me their input, and corrected the occasional errors.
Thanks to so many Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta residents, John, Thaddeus, Derrick, and Christina, for their technical and cultural assistance. This book would have been so bland without you!
Thank you Heather for some of the beautiful pictures you have provided! Also thank you Janey for that beautiful blue sky on the cover!
I shall not forget my front cover committee. Big thanks to Massis, Dave, Gabriel, my brother Franck, my mother Marlyse, Pastor Rich, and all the others already mentioned somewhere else!
Thanks to the real life Roman who was supportive and allowed me to use his character. See, you were not so bad after all!
How could I forget a certain English teacher, Mrs. Kimberly Quintana Mullane, who watered the seeds of writing. You have managed to be open-minded and let loose my craving for creation. For this, I will be eternally grateful.
Lastly, I cannot fail to mention the Yupik Eskimo People from the Y-K Delta for the inspiration they gave me. Lydia and I came to Alaska with preconceived expectations and found so much more. You have opened your door and helped us better understand your culture. Thank you for your kindness, and thank you so much for being there for us throughout this adventure.
Author’s Note
As a side note, most of the anecdotes and stories in this book are real. However, for a smoother reading experience, I found myself forced to take some liberties by changing a few situations and setups. As a disclaimer, this book is based on a true story, but the aeronautical data and figures cannot be taken as factual.
On the next page, I have added two maps with all the locations mentioned in the book. At your leisure, you can retrace some of the trips we went on. Who knows, you might find some inspiration and decide to experience the Delta for yourself!
Table of Contents
Prologue
D.C.
Up North and to the Left
Bethel, Alaska
Alaska Company
Health Corp.
Flight School
House Hunt
Dinner and a Race
Hi Dad!
For Sale
Up She Goes
Today is a Better Day
Shannon
Up I Go
New Year’s Eve!
The First Year
The Leap
Day One
Hopeless
New Stuyahok
The Legend
Robert
Checkride
Breakup
The Smelts
The Sad Reality
The Next Day
The Skyvan
Nyac
Summer Day at the Village
Mekoryuk
Dinner at Nyac
Never Mind
Red Devil
I have a Neighbor
Salmon Hunt
Cutting Ceremony
Fish Camp
Fish Strips
The Orphanage
The soldier
It Was All About the Moose
The Freight
The New Guy
Dean
Downfall
So Long, Farwell…
Nyac, Epilogue
Cape Romanzof
Morning Clamor
One More for the Road
The Fury
A Plane, a Preflight, and a Whole lot of DeIcing!
Just Another Day
The Ice Road
History Chanel
Taxi!
Two Five Delta
The Day After
Moving On
Conclusion?
Winter Day at the Village
Day Off
Emergency Inbound
K300
Stuck!
Wolf Hunt
The Talk
Thank You for Choosing Norton
Sleetmute
Monday, Monday
Epilogue
Glossary
Prologue
It was only a few years ago. We were living in sunny Southern California, and the time for a change had come. Lydia, my beautiful and very patient wife, was just stepping out of medical residency, and the ink of my Flight Instructor Certificate was still dripping. Even if I did not know it at the time, Alaska was there, waiting for us.
It was a chance, an opportunity to seize in the midst of a decaying economy. Alaska became a promised land, a gleam of hope in a darkening age. We might have wished to find the light in Southeast Alaska among legendary names like Juneau, Sitka, Ketchikan, where the luxurious cruise ships sailed by; but we stepped out further than expected. It was called the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, or the Y-K Delta for anybody remotely acquainted with the area. There were no tourists, no souvenir shops, no trees nor towering mountains. It was a desolate land the size of a small state, a two hundred mile wide delta covered with thousands of lakes and seemingly endless tundra. A roadless town, Bethel, was at the heart of the nervous system. It was the transportation hub for fifty Yupik Eskimo villages and housed the only hospital within hundreds of miles. The little town was a windswept culture shock. Some potential migrants did not go further than the airport terminal. Upon arriving, they peered outside, only to walk right back to the ticket counter to escape. Others stayed and uncovered a marvelous world. Their raw boldness had unraveled wonderful people and a new culture.
Up North and to the Left was one answer among so many others regarding Bethel’s exact location. Dubious friends or acquaintances usually moved on and asked about the lodging arrangements and how cold it was. To answer their inquiries: no, we did not live in an igloo, and yes, it was indeed very cold. I have written this book to answer their questions and share personal experiences in the realistic hope to shed some light on a much underappreciated and unknown corner of the United States.
As you read, you might perhaps notice a few aeronautical or Alaskan references, but do not be frightened, I have included a very basic glossary at the end of the book f
or a few words highlighted with an asterisk. As for the pilots, please stay away from there as you might want to use my picture as target practice if you happen to read these overly simplified definitions. Remember, it was written for Joe or Jane I-have-absolutely-no-idea-about-aviation-and-I-am-not-going-to-read-this-book-if-it-is-too-complicated.
Either way, I hope you will all enjoy this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. It is time to buckle up and head on a journey into the Y-K Delta!
D.C.
November
When did it all start? When was the very first sign that my wonderful Californian life was about to take a wrong turn and perish in a fiery crash? If I recall correctly, it was during a lovingly prepared dinner with Lydia, my beautiful wife. I entered the kitchen with an inquisitive look. Although I loved my dear wife with her long black hair and her slender Asian silhouette, I was much more interested by the meal to come. She was stirring something in the wok. I peeked inside. It was stir fry with kale and tofu. I cringed.
I kissed Lydia, and looked at her with a forced smile.
“Oh come on, it’s not so bad. It’s good for you!” She laughed.
I shrugged and stepped back. “I saw Insomnia this afternoon, you know, that movie with Al Pacino in Alaska,” I said to steer away from the dinner topic.
“How was it?”
“I liked it. The scenery was incredible. There was a neat opening scene with a sea plane.” This is roughly when I said it. This is when I dropped the A bomb of little phrases with a world of consequences. In those days, I did not know any better and it might have been a wet fire cracker at most. “You know, not that I am frustrated or anything, but… if I was single, I would love to fly in Alaska.”
That was it; just a few words carried away by the fumes of Lydia’s stir fry. She hardly acknowledged what I said, and we ate our dinner without fuss.
A few weeks later, Lydia’s medical school loan was becoming more and more urgent, and she was committed to find a family practice position at a clinic that qualified for a repayment program. The setting was not very glamorous, a small hotel room in a Washington D.C. suburb, a high traffic carpet, a small wooden desk, a cheap copy of an ancestral English hunt with horses and hounds jumping above a white picket fence, all of it soaked in the anonymity of the establishment. Lydia had spent the afternoon walking down the aisles of a physician job convention and the options were fading one by one.
“El Paso?” She said lying on the hotel room bed staring at the ceiling.
“I can’t teach there, I told you. The nearest flight school is too far away.” I was sitting on a desk chair, unable to pull my military style light brown hair in frustration. “What about that clinic in Chicago?”
“They won’t give me the time of day. I keep calling but they don’t even return my calls.”
“L.A? That would be great; we wouldn’t even need to sell the condo!” I claimed with a faint hope.
“I can’t stand that clinic. Stacy worked there, she hated it,” Lydia shrugged. She sat up. “I have an idea! Remember what you told me a while ago?”
“What did I tell you a while ago?”
“You said that if you were single, you would love to fly in Alaska.”
“Yeah?” I frowned.
“Well, I walked by a booth for a small hospital in Bethel, Alaska.”
“Bethel? Where’s that?” I said with an even deeper frown.
“I don’t really know, it’s somewhere west of Anchorage. Anyway, the woman, I think her name was Deborah Paul, told me about it, but I didn’t really listen. I’m starting to think that wouldn’t be a bad option. I told her about you, and she said that they have many small airlines based at the local airport. They even have a flight school; you could easily get a job there and teach!” Lydia was lighting up. “Hold on, she gave me a DVD.” She opened a large conference plastic bag and scoured through it. “There it is!” She pulled a small DVD case out of the bag.
“You’re not seriously thinking about going to Alaska, right? I just made a comment after a movie. It sounded great on the couch, but it’s another story to go! It’s not California; it’s actually cold up there. They have snow for weeks at a time!”
“We have snow in L.A. too!”
“Please, on top of the mountains, thirty miles away! You can barely see it from the condo! You’re the first one to get cold when it’s below sixty! This is ridiculous, come on, be serious.”
“Steven, so far, we have no other options. We can at least give it a chance.”
“Do you really want to check it out? Let’s look it up online, I’ll show you how bad it can get!” I opened my small laptop and I typed Bethel, Alaska in the browser. The screen downloaded after an instant. “Where’re the temperatures?” I scrolled down. “There! Average high in January 12.4°F.” I shook my head. “Average low 0.7°F! Record low -48°F! This is hilarious! There’s no way we could live there!”
Lydia looked above my shoulders, “The summer is better. It’s in the 60s.”
“What else do they have to say in there?” I scrolled back up. “It’s 340 miles west of Anchorage… 6000 people in town… Kusko… what? Kusko something 300 dog sled race-”
“A dog sled race? That would be great! You have to admit it!” Lydia said with a sense of hope.
“I guess… that would be fun. What else do they have? Dance festival, who cares? History of the town, Moravian Church… bla bla bla, I don’t care either, Geography… ah, it’s close to the Bering Sea, that would be neat to see… Climate? We already saw that one… Demographics, 61% Native American, 2.87% Asian, ah, it’s got to reach 3% if you go there!” I laughed. Lydia chuckled. “Transportation and Economy-”
“That’s promising!”
“Don’t get your hopes up! I bet you that Deborah told you everything you wanted to hear! If you told her I was a cosmonaut she would have told you that they have a launch pad!”
“You are such a jerk!” Lydia smiled. “Oh! Look, right off the bat, Bethel Airport!”
“Yeah…”
“Coastal Aviation, Norton Aviation, two runways, $7 million renovation and expansion, three float plane bases nearby, numerous small air taxi services, the airport ranks third in the state for total number of flights… so… when do we go?” Lydia said with a large grin.
“Hum…”
“I don’t really want to go, but it’s not that we can be picky, we can at least watch that DVD.”
“Can I see that?” I asked.
“Just be open minded.” She handed me the case. There was a black background with a purplish sunrise picture over a lake and tundra during the summer. Another two small pictures showed a native woman smiling and a paramedic helping a woman out of an airplane. “See, even on the case you already see planes.” Lydia smiled with yet another victorious smirk.
“The challenge of a lifetime, you kidding? That’s their motto? It’s written on the case! They tell you right away that you’re going to be miserable! Some places show you their golf courses and their tennis courts, over there, they show you a lake and they tell you flat out it’s a challenge. It’s like somebody saying that their property for sale needs some minor repairs when the house is completely falling apart!” I laughed at my own incredulity.
“Can we just watch it? There’re no other places I can think of, all right?”
I quieted down and slid the DVD into the tray. The main menu appeared with the same picture we had already seen on the case with a soothing native song. A woman was singing along with an older man in the background. I pressed play. A large map of Southwest Alaska appeared, narrated by a warm female voice. “Yukon Kuskokwim Delta… three sub regional clinics in the villages of Aniak, Emmonak and St. Mary’s… comprehensive health care services are provided to fifty eight villages located throughout this vast region…” The video was fading from different maps to still shots of a corporate office, lakes, green tundra, and a blistering blue sky. “Discover a culture, a community, a challenge like no other…�
�
“Here we go again, a challenge like no other, they really warn you,” I lashed dubiously.
“Just watch it, see what they say,” Lydia said slightly annoyed. A new screen appeared with a sea plane, a husky dog, and bold letters spelling A-D-V-E-N-T-U-R-E. “Ah! LOOK at that!” Lydia smiled gloriously.
I stayed stoic.
The video continued with a young native woman giving a testimony, “you have nature… you have adventure… for most people that might be scary…but for someone willing to take on a life challenge… it would be unforgettable…”
“I’m sure that would be unforgettable… like that time we broke down on the highway in the desert; I’m not going to forget that one either,” I laughed. Lydia was trying to ignore me, intrigued by this possibility.
The video continued with a blend of summer shots, children running in an outdoor playground, a little girl sitting on the ground, a wide shot of the local harbor, all served with a blue sky and melodious native music. The camera panned out and unraveled the local landscape “this vast tundra, or treeless wetland plain…” the soothing voice carried on.
“It’s supposed to be Alaska… and they don’t even have trees?” I commented.
Lydia stayed quiet.
An older native woman was seated on the ice at the edge of a hole with a small wooden stick and a string to ice fish. The documentary moved on with details of the medical center and their services. “The community health aid program has served as a model in other parts of the world… acute care facilities… emergency room, radiology services, laboratory services, huge pharmacy…” An old native man gave a subtitled testimony in Yupik Eskimo language. “When my wife’s kidneys failed, they called Anchorage right away and asked for a Medevac to take her in… they did not let her die.” A taxiing medevac Learjet 35 with a large blue medical cross on the tail highlighted his words. Lydia looked at me with a grin.
The video moved on with a few shots inside the hospital before going black with a bold white title on a black screen: Medevac Mission, August 15th, 4:25 pm. The documentary’s mood drastically changed. Black and white still pictures flashed one by one with a countdown like drumming. There was no more light tone and children playing in the park, the film was there to portray a clear sense of urgency with two Paramedics boarding a medevac Caravan* aircraft to attend a sick baby at a distant village. Lydia sat back and let nature run its course. She knew that not only I was passionate about aviation, but I was also keen on the rescue topic after years as a firefighter and 911 provider. When the child turned out fine, Lydia’s triumphal but silent mood flooded the room. The medevac flight was the final touch, the oversize pink bow on a ridiculously large present. Lydia was not bothering to look at me, she was on her victory lap after the winning game, she remained quiet, indulging in her success. The rest of the video was irrelevant. The testimonies of employees and their unquenchable thirst for freedom and open spaces, the friendships and anecdotes were useless chatter on an already made decision to go on our little wintery excursion. The site visit was one phone call away, one “Hi Deborah, this is Doctor Swaks. I have been thinking about your offer, and I would like to come to see the hospital,” that was all.