Alaska! Up North and to the Left

by Steven Swaks

  “I’ve dropped off a tech. He’s working on an antenna down the hill.”

  “Oh… well suit yourself.” Charlene was not much of a talker. She was polite but independent. She found something to do deeper in the kitchen and politely vanished.

  The dishes were nicely aligned on a professional grade aluminum stand. I was not hiding in a remote Alaskan location, it felt more like a restaurant in Anywhere, USA. The fresh romaine lettuce was just waiting to be picked up, the shredded carrots, a few hard boiled eggs and garbanzo beans were there to complement an already appetizing salad. A few steaks were further down the line smoldering in an industrial aluminum dish. Past the meat, were mashed potatoes and gravy, ultimate and required companions of the lonely beef. Charlene had nicely aligned a few apples, Jell-O, and yogurt at the end of the buffet to finish up the feast. The food was another touch from the Air Force, they figured that a stomach full of prime rib and potatoes would not rebel as much as one filled with collard greens. Once in a while, when the weather permitted, a heavier freighter came directly from Anchorage with its belly full of groceries and freight, Norton was the light weight in charge of passenger service and mail.

  I spent most of my meal eating alone in the dining room. Allen and Matt were gone. My lunch had been simple but tasty with a steak, mashed potatoes, green beans, and some kind of small pastry. I hung out in front of the television, slurping a coffee, and enjoying the perks of being a pilot. My sole companion was ESPN and Kobe Bryant who -as usual-flirted with the basket and slashed his opponent.

  Once in a while, technicians nonchalantly walked by and went to the kitchen to pick up lunch. They came back with a full plate and walked away to their office or sat at a different table with a quick acknowledgment. I was curious about the atmosphere, it was not heavy or oppressing, but it was not light either, it felt like an ICU. Everybody minded their own business and avoided bothering the neighbor, the quiet TV was really the only source of noise, but itself was barely loud enough to be heard. Once in a while, a voice emerged or a door closed, even the ADHD dog was docile and quietly roamed around without real purpose.

  I was long done eating when Tim walked into the dining room.

  “How’s Allen?” I asked.

  “He is in his room, he’ll come around. He just needs some time. Did you finish eating? The repair is done and the fog is rolling in. You better hustle up if you don’t want to stay here!”

  “Thanks! Let me call my dispatcher, I’ll be right back.” I strolled back to the office and called.

  “Norton Aviation, this is Chris.” He seemed sharp, at least so far he had been helpful.

  “Hi Chris, it’s Steven, we are going to leave Romanzof in fifteen minutes. We should be back by 3:30. The tech is coming back with me.”

  “You got it. I might have a quick mail run to Kipnuk for you, after that.”

  “Ok, that’s fine, see you then.” Chris was already turning dispatcher and he was thinking ahead. That was good.

  Tim was waiting for me as I exited the dome. Barney was along for the ride. I never understood that dog, one instant he was happy and friendly, the next he tried to bite a chunk of my hand off. The dog was the only creature to stay here full time, and I could only wonder if he turned psychotic after years of isolation.

  Allen walked out of his room as I entered the small gray corridor towards the exit. He looked awful with deep carved eyes.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he answered in a daze.

  I looked outside, clouds where rolling in over the mountain top. The gray mass was eating up the rocks from the east towards the runway. We had fifteen minutes, twenty at most, to escape the crater before the runway would be sucked in.

  Matt drove the pickup to the concrete stairs, and only gave one look to Allen.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” He muttered barging out of his truck before walking straight towards him.

  “You got to stop your drama, it’s your call, it’s one or the other. You stay here or you go home, which one is it going to be?”

  “I stay, I have to.” Allen answered with an abated voice.

  “No you don’t! You don’t have to do anything. You decide, but if you want to stay here, you pick yourself up and move on. We need you up here, but we can’t handle a breakdown.”

  “I’ll stay.”

  “If you stay you can’t give me that depressed game.”

  “I’ll be ok.”

  “Good, chin up, get out of here, go get a coffee.”

  Allen turned around ashamed of his weakness and disappeared into the dining room.

  “Steven we got to go, now, this place is going down in a hurry.”

  I looked up, the clouds were swallowing the mountain in a dense fog. Romanzof was higher than the rest of the delta, and I only needed to take off to stay out of it. If Alaska had difficult weather, the Cape had its own miserable microclimate magnifying the surrounding conditions.

  We drove down the hill to pick up John, my technician. As we arrived at the work site, the lone man was waiting for us on the side of the gravel path and pointed at the approaching clouds. A large gray and dense mass was covering the Romanzof crater like a giant lid. The thick fog was eating up the mountain tops one at a time. It went from one rock formation to the next one in a methodic fashion. In a matter of minutes it would reach the runway and close off the Cape. The sight of the truck driving down the road was announcing John’s return to Bethel, if we reached the airport on time. I could see a temporary sense of relief on his face. He could already picture himself stepping out of my plane in a rush to the Alaska Airlines terminal. Soon, he would be home with his wife and his young daughter. Romanzof was another day at work in Alaska. While the brats harassed their underpaid teacher at school; daddy took four flights to go get a two hour job done. John hastily threw his tool boxes in the back of the pickup and sat in the crew cab’s rear seat. His work was done, mine was resuming.

  “Are we going to make it out?” John asked while laying his skull on the head rest and sighing.

  “It should be all right, we are going to find out soon enough.” I answered.

  “Those clouds are awfully close.” He added peering out the window.

  “That’s not going to help that Allen.” Tim said shaking his head while rushing the truck down the hill towards the airport.

  “Oh Lord, it’s right there.” John muttered. The fog was rolling down the hill like a ghostly cavalry. “Are we going to be ok if we manage to takeoff? We’re supposed to head east and turn into that stuff.”

  “I checked the weather in Scammon Bay before leaving, they are fine, Romanzof is much higher so they are straight into the soup.” I told him.

  The fog was gaining ground. The truck was careening and jerking on the rocky path.

  The white pickup stopped by the plane. We stepped out and all looked at the fog sliding towards us.

  “You two better get out of here, I don’t give it much time before it’s here.” Tim said.

  “You’re going to have a hell of a time to drive back up.” John commented.

  “I’m used to it, I could drive that road blind folded.”

  “John, take a seat and fasten your belt.” I said while starting a quick preflight.

  The fog was hiding the sun. First, it was a faint veil, then it morphed into a dense and impenetrable cloud sucking in the daylight.

  I sat on the captain chair and locked my door. John was behind me on the right.

  Tim approached the passenger door. “Be careful on the way back.”

  “We will. Is Allen going to be ok?”

  “Who knows, this weather is not going to help him. I’ll drive back up and we’ll see from there.” John closed the passenger door and stepped away from the plane.

  I started the engine, and waited a few minutes to warm it up. The fog was at the edge of the ramp, an insipid gray wall rushing towards us. I taxied and turned to line up with the runway. I
t was wide open, I could see ten miles away towards the west and the sea. I applied takeoff power and lurched away from the Cape and the weather. I waited. The plane ran down the strip and downhill gravity propelled us like a slingshot. The same cold waters emerged beneath our wings. John was thrilled. There was no more fear of not making it back home, the Cape was going down, and who knew for how long, but John did not care, because he would not be the one locked up in the crater.

  John closed his eyes and looked forward to tuck in his sweet angel. Sweet angel? She was a spoiled pest, but he loved her, at seven years old, she had her daddy wrapped around her finger and she knew how to manipulate him. He was aware of it but did not care.

  An invisible fist hit the side of the fuselage in a tremendous blow sending the plane into a steep bank. There had been no previous sign, no prior tremors, nothing.

  “I did not see that one coming.” I said while recovering.

  “Neither did I.” John said startled.

  The attack was not over. The next strike came from above. An invisible giant’s sledge hammer smashed the airplane directly on the top of the fuselage. For an instant, gravity gave up and the cabin escaped the laws of physics. For a few ever stretching seconds, the 207 was a space ship with everything flying around the occupants. A leftover sandwich wrapped in cellophane paper behind me became airborne and floated in the cabin. In a grotesque slow motion, John looked at the suspended food in a weird David Copperfield trick and slapped it right back onto one of the passenger seats next to him.

  We escaped the turbulent area and glanced at the surrounding bay before flying over Chevak in a backward version of the flight to Romanzof. A mass of low clouds was surrounding the mountains around Romanzof. The rest of the delta was safely flyable with occasional patches of fog or low clouds to negotiate, but nothing truly frightening. John stayed quiet, blankly staring at the whitened tundra, his gaze was already on the way to Anchorage to hug his family after another day at work.

  Morning Clamor

  November

  It did not matter if it was October or February; all the mornings followed each other in the same dreadful fashion. They were dark and cold, they started with the same look out the windshield during the morning commute. Could I see stars? The moon perhaps? If I did, I could hope for clear skies and reasonable flying, if I did not, I came back to the basics and checked the local weather with a morbid curiosity. The marginal weather was the most difficult to handle. It was the suspect package in a crowded airport. It wandered around in a place of doubts and question marks, a place filled with uncertainties and traps. At least, if the weather was truly awful, there was no pondering, we just did not fly and kept busy around Norton.

  This morning was one of those doubtful days, I vainly gauged the weather. I peered outside the windshield in illfated hope to find a cue, a landmark for a hint. The control tower from the highway, what was it? Two miles visibility? The ceiling? I could not see anything, no stars, no moon, not even low clouds, nothing. Soon, I would officially check the weather, we would see from there.

  I entered Norton Aviation and walked to dispatch, Jeb was already there. I mumbled a “hi,” he acknowledged, that was enough interaction for me, Annie was already on the phones, she smiled, I smiled back. There was a familiar voice in the hangar. I walked in.

  “Heeeeeeey Steven!” Roman was back. “How’re you doing my Californian comrade?”

  I had not seen him in such a long time. Months. I had talked to him a few times on the radio and we had waved to each other a few times on the highway driving by, that was all.

  “I’m good, you?”

  “Great! The summer was fun! I did a lot of flying, a lot of fishing, I went camping with my wife by Pegati Lake, was fun.” Roman was smiling and nodding back and forth as he was talking. There was no more animosity, only the pleasure of meeting an old acquaintance.

  “So, are you back with us for the winter?” I asked.

  “Yep, I did enough goofin’ with floats for the summer!”

  “And Jim was ok with it?”

  “I’d asked him back in January, he didn’t mind. You know, he needs warm bodies in the planes!”

  I smiled.

  “Remember the villages’ codes, don’t mess them up and you’ll be fine!” Jim said as he walked out of the mail room. He was followed by a tall and clean cut young man, whose short light brown hair and fine face only added to the puerile look. Jim walked towards us. “Hi guys! This is Nicolas, Nick, whatever, same thing. Nick’s going to fly for us, he’ll be on the sled for a while.” We greeted each other.

  There was some new blood, again, who knew how long this one would last, but I truly hoped it would work out and it would not turn into a Benjamin fiasco. We walked back to dispatch before Jim escaped to his den upstairs; Annie was still on the phone behind the counter.

  “You don’t ship internationally? But… I mean… your site says you ship anywhere in the U.S… but… does not apply to Alaska?” Her soft voice could barely be heard. We all fell silent, curious about the strange statement. “But we are in the U.S…” We frowned wondering what was unfolding. “Thank you… it’s ok… thank you… good bye.” She hung up.

  “What’s going on?” Jeb asked.

  “Jim asked me to order office supplies, so I went on the computer but it didn’t work. It kept telling me it didn’t want our mailing address. Then, I called and they say that Alaska is an international destination for their shipment, and they don’t do that.”

  “That’s stupid. Well, call a different store,” Jeb said.

  The phone rang again while Annie was browsing for another company. I picked up in gesture of solidarity to lighten her load, while Jeb was striking a calculator to finalize a load on the Skyvan.

  “Norton-Aviation-this-is-Steven?”

  “Hi Steven, it’s Tim at Romanzof, how you are you?”

  “Good, how about you?”

  “I’m doing well, thank you, hey, did you receive a small wooden crate for us?”

  “We did, I just saw it this morning.”

  “Great, we need it on the next flight.”

  “Ok, I’ll pass the word to my dispatcher. By the way, how’s Allen doing?”

  “He went berserk on us after the fog rolled in, we had to sedate him.”

  “Really?”

  “Ah, I’m just messing with you!” Tim said chuckling, “he’s doing much better! It was only some newbie anxiety!”

  We hung up and I passed the word to Jeb.

  “Hey by the way, you’re going to Nightmute.” Jeb said.

  “Ok… how’s the weather down there?” I asked.

  “Hum, Toksook was good, I’m sure it’s beautiful!”

  I shook my head and consulted the weather board. Bethel was a dire marginal, and Nightmute was illegal, there was no way around it.

  “Jeb, Nightmute is not legal. Sorry, not gonna happen.”

  Jeb looked at me, it was a chess game. He picked up the clip board with the weather charts. “Toksook is good, there you go, I have a load for Toksook.”

  I looked at him disconcerted, “Toksook is past Nightmute. I have to go by Nightmute to get to Toksook, you know that!”

  “Oh come on, don’t be picky!” Jeb said.

  “I’m not picky, it’s stupid! I’m not going to fly for an hour in crappy weather, only to find out that it is worse when I get there!”

  “Jeb didn’t change one bit… still doesn’t care…” Roman’s voice fell from his height.

  Nick was quiet. I did not want to know what he was thinking. Jeb did not respond, he stared at us and withdrew from the growing hostility.

  One More for the Road

  Whenever

  My Alaska came with multiple flavors. There were the summers filled with salmon fishing and sweet temperatures above freezing. The winters followed much too soon and plunged us into the dark ages. Life might have been hard at times, but it was fun, people made it fun. We did not care about the latest fashion, wome
n hunted down the next garage sale and men talked about their snow machine or a successful hunt. We were not barbaric or uncultured; we just had managed to stay simple.

  Under a proper microscope, Bethel was a maze of small castes. There were the State Troopers, proud defenders and airborne enforcers, there was the National Guard hidden far away at a remote corner of the airport, the hospital workers, mostly Liberals and free spirited, the airport people with the pilots on the top of the food chain (or so we thought), and the teachers along with their by-the-book approach to air transportation (the pilots definitely handled them with great caution). There was the strong hold of hunters, fishermen, hard core Conservatives who were proud of their Fords and the American flag. In the middle of the Gusik mess, the Yupik emerged and found some cohesion in their rapidly evolving world. The traditions were thrown out the window and internet came in to accelerate the mutation.

  The Yupik still very much enjoyed the subsistence life style, the art of living in harmony with nature, gathering food from their surroundings according to the season. They hunted moose and caribou, seals and whales. They fished halibut, whitefish, and salmon.

  But this life style had drastic drawbacks for a clashing encounter between the twenty first century and ancient traditions. The majority of Yupik Eskimos successfully managed the social and economic changes. They rode the wave of change with great success and thrived in the modern Alaska. They embraced the Internet, satellite television, and they flew their own plane to go pick up the carved moose they shot a few hours prior.

  Torn between two cultures, a few others went on a tailspin, unable to adapt to their new dynamic. It was the shock of two cultures, DSL meets the wood stove. Most might have walked out of the encounter with a few bruises, but they did fairly well. Other less fortunate stayed in the villages or moved to Bethel, only to face failure and disappointment in a frightening new world.