81 Days Below Zero

by Brian Murphy

  The Charley is something of an orphan.

  Once the first flakes of gold were found in eastern Alaska, just after the turn of the century, the floodgates reopened. It was the Klondike stampede all over again, with miners, assayers, and lonesome panners looking for pay dirt. The mania was spurred by a banner headline in Dawson City’s Yukon Sun on January 17, 1903—about seventeen months after Barnette and his wife were unceremoniously offloaded from the stern-wheeler. “RICH STRIKE MADE IN THE TANANA,” it trumpeted. The story—with breathless embellishments—was based on accounts from a Japanese-born Renaissance man, Jujiro Wada, whose Alaskan incarnations included cook, elite dog musher, ultramarathoner in prize races, and one of the surveyors who mapped out the famous Iditarod Trail.

  During the boom years, the Charley certainly had its share of prospectors on the watch for “color”—meaning the telltale hint of gold in the riverbed. Nothing made them linger too long on the Charley. There simply were easier, and more potentially profitable, streams nearby to try to strike it rich. One was Coal Creek, which roughly parallels the Charley River about fifteen miles to the west. Coal Creek never coughed up major riches with the small-scale prospectors, but later was the site for a new big-dig method to look for gold.

  The change started in 1933, when a Canadian industrialist and World War I general named Alexander McRae called the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines in Fairbanks. He had a proposition for the dean, Ernest Newton Patty. Help me find some promising gold mining spots, McRae asked. In return, you’ll be a partner and maybe get rich in the process. Soon, they picked Coal Creek and began to buy up the claims of the old-timers who were scratching out a living with a combination of gold dust, fur pelts, and dried fish. Their frontier-style days were coming to an end. The new concept was a dredge, basically the marriage of a steam shovel and a washing machine. It scoops up the riverbed and then sprays, tumbles, and filters the haul until—fingers crossed—bits of gold are captured by sticking to blobs of mercury introduced into the process.

  There was just one complication for McRae and Patty. There was no such machine around these parts. The partners ordered one from California for the then-princely sum of $156,000 and had it shipped in pieces to Canada. The crates then came down the Yukon River by steamer. While it was on the way, Patty left academia to turn his attention full-time to mining. He began traveling the backcountry, sampling the rough-edged charms of the Alaskan roadhouses—a bit like the bush version of a B&B. Sometimes they would offer a welcome touch of refinement, such as clean glasses and mattresses. Others could be little more than a hovel, with bare bunks and meals of whatever grub landed on your plate.

  “Young man,” one of the chow slingers at a roadhouse told Patty after noticing his decidedly urbane aura, “you are looking at the dirtiest cook in Alaska.”

  “My friend,” Patty replied, “you are looking at the hungriest man in Alaska.”

  The Coal Creek dredge started churning in 1936. A year later, the two partners had a similar operation going on neighboring Woodchopper Creek, which got its name as a stop for steamboats to replenish their supplies of logs for the engine room.

  Workers on the dredges came and went depending on the seasons, their moods, and their ability to hold their liquor. Drifters showed up looking for a place to hang their hats for a while and make some money. One skinny geezer refused to give his name and was known only as Man with an Ax. Another time, a deranged character rolled into camp calling himself the Devil. He had to be tricked onto a bush plane with the promise of a job in Fairbanks, where U.S. marshals were waiting to take him out of circulation. The cook at Woodchopper had the unenviable task of keeping up with the crews’ bellies. He also did his part to keep the varmints in check. He liked to show off his daily catch of drowned mice lured into a bucket of flour and water.

  Some diehards stayed year after year on the dredging rigs. Among them was Phil Berail.

  The third day out from Berail’s cabin, Crane found another hut. This one was little more than a ruin. Its ceiling had caved in. There was nothing but empty tins scattered about. Crane had no complaints. Just finding two more signs of life was hugely uplifting. Others had been here, and others presumably had made it out alive.

  Crane checked his supplies. About half were gone. It was time to turn back.

  The trip was a major success in Crane’s mind. He returned to Berail’s cabin with a sleeping bag, the location of a canoe frame, and, most important, a newfound optimism that he would find his way home.

  For the next week, Crane struggled over his next move. His food and ammo wouldn’t hold out until the end of winter. Any fresh attempt to hike out depended on having enough supplies and the ability to hunt. But again that question: why give up the security of the cabin for the perils of the open?

  Two overriding reasons were Louis and Sonia Crane back on Baltimore Avenue. The image of them mourning his death weighed heavily. His daily routines kept his mind engaged for a while, but his thoughts always circled back to his parents. How, Crane thought, can I wait out the season when my parents have emotionally buried their son? Then there were his two brothers in the service. What if they were gone? Could his parents bear it?

  Crane’s health was nearly restored. His stomach was full, and his hands were as good as when he left Ladd. If he made another push downstream, it would be for his parents. And, to a lesser degree, the war. It had been so all-consuming before the crash. Like everyone, Crane pored over the reports of battles won and lost. He joined his friends in endless strategizing about what Hitler or Churchill or Stalin or Tojo had up their sleeves. It now seemed increasingly abstract. It was as if the newsreel of the war had somehow gone dark when he bailed from his plane.

  It’s a hard thing for any soldier to process. The bedrock of military order is that every job, every act, is a vital contribution toward victory. Certainly, there is fundamental truth in that. A slipshod mechanic may cause a plane crash that may lose a battle, and that may tip the fortunes of the wider war. Signs at Ladd Field reminded mechanics that every bolt and weld counted. But what does it mean to be suddenly yanked away from everything and everyone? Crane felt a natural sense of duty to get back. But to what? He had no idea what had happened on the battlefront since that last radio broadcast of December 21 on the Rhineland bombings.

  What Crane had missed was some progress by the Allies. But no one was predicting an end to the war anytime soon.

  In Italy, Allied forces were attacking German paratroopers holding the bombed ruins of the hilltop abbey at Monte Cassino. The Germans would eventually pull back, clearing the way for the fight to move closer to Rome, but not until inflicting heavy casualties on American GIs. Meanwhile, U.S. forces with the 45th Infantry Division—loaded deep with Oklahoma farm boys who lived through the Depression-era Dust Bowl—were being pounded by German gunners at the Anzio beachhead. Before the rise of the Nazis, the symbol of the 45th was a swastika, one of the common markings used by the Native Plains tribes.

  To the north in Europe, the Red Army was pushing deeper into Poland. In the Pacific, British marines had taken a critical supply port in Burma, and Americans were preparing for the invasion of the Marshall Islands. At Ladd Field, the crews were enjoying what they called another warm spell, with the thermometer rising to a pleasant five degrees.

  Crane couldn’t stay put until a real thaw. There was at least some purpose in action. If nothing else, the knowledge that at least two other cabins dotted the river gave him hope that maybe he could simply cabin hop to civilization. The trouble was how to carry sufficient supplies for an open-ended journey that could be days, weeks—who knows. A sledge was the only real option. Crane got to work.

  He took two old boards from the cabin for runners and pulled away the wooden frame from a Plexiglas skylight. He nailed a washtub to the skylight frame. Crane fashioned a rope harness that would wrap around his chest and under his armpits. Packed with s
upplies, Crane guessed the rig weighed about 120 pounds. He gave it a few tugs to make sure the harness held. It did.

  He now waited for some sign it was the right moment to leave Berail’s cabin for good.

  Twelve

  February 10, 1944

  Charley River

  Crane was jolted awake. The sounds were both familiar and strange—like a language learned and forgotten.

  Something was breaking, snapping. But this was not quite like anything he had heard before. At first, Crane feared the cabin was collapsing. He tensed, waiting for bits of wood and moss to rain down. The structure, however, held tight. He listened closer. This was coming from outside.

  But what? It was too deep, too powerful, to be prowling animals. It reminded him in some ways of the sickening whine of wrenching metal when the tail systems failed on their B-24. An earthquake? Crane had felt a few tremors since coming to Fairbanks. He heard firsthand accounts of a 7.3 magnitude quake in July 1937 and how roads near Fairbanks jackknifed and window glass popped from panes. But the ground wasn’t shaking now.

  Then it came to him. The river ice must be buckling.

  For a few days, the temperatures had risen by a few degrees. It’s the eastern Alaskan version of a winter warm spell. This modest, and fleeting, feint toward spring was enough to unsettle the ice layers on the Charley. In places, the ice was four feet thick and would not give up its hold until at least April. Alaskan bettors keep close tabs on such things. Near Fairbanks, the annual spring ice breakup of the Tanana River is a major event for wagering. The spring before Crane’s arrival at Ladd, the official ice-break moment was set at 7:22 p.m. on April 28, 1943. It has occurred as early as April 20 and as late as May 20.

  Yet, as Crane knew well, the ice was inches thin in other spots, with water percolating through some holes. Tons upon tons of ice were now rearranging in a creaking, groaning, pressure-easing churn.

  Such fluctuations in winter temperatures are common even in Alaska’s icebox interior. Low-pressure systems or wobbles in the jet stream can pull warmer, more humid air from off the Gulf of Alaska—like the brief spell above freezing in January in the Fairbanks valley when the transport plane carried Ragle’s crash report on the Iceberg Inez. These midwinter temperature rises are rarely high enough or sufficiently sustained to melt river ice. But they can weaken the seams and weak spots in the ice, setting up a domino-style movement, as one shifting section bumps against another.

  In that instant, Crane’s plans were changed.

  After the burst of determination to build the sledge, Crane had moved back to his old rhythms at Berail’s cabin: punching a hole in the calendar, slowly fixing his meals, hunting. The desire for an all-or-nothing push north hadn’t faded. It just wasn’t so easy to give up the predictability of life behind four walls. Crane carefully rationed his food and the fuel for the Coleman lantern. Some days he tried to convince himself that waiting until spring maybe wasn’t such a bad option. The reply in this inner dialogue was always the same: You have no idea when spring will come and what it will be like. The river will certainly rise, and that could leave you cut off. Crane had gradually come to some understanding of the backcountry winter and what was needed to survive it. The great annual melt would bring a new set of challenges. For all he knew, it could be worse, with soaking rains and chill winds. Those are, after all, the main ingredients for hypothermia.

  The morning of the angry ice spurred him back into action. Crane decided not to risk becoming prisoner of an in-between dilemma: still not spring, but the river ice becoming too fractured and fissured to handle him and the sledge. Now was the time to leave.

  Crane began to pack the sledge. The pile soon grew higher than the experimental load when he had first tested his design. Every bit of gear, every morsel of food, suddenly seemed indispensable. Crane rationalized the extra weight. It was, he decided, an acceptable price for the security of being prepared. He knew the temperatures would sink back into minus double digits. And how could he be sure there were any cabins beyond the ones he found on his January scouting expedition?

  Crane filled the washbasin that served as a cargo holder on the sledge: a sack of flour, beans, cans of dried eggs, two frying pans, soup pot, tent canvas, the sleeping bag, an ax, and more. Crane planned to mush with the snowshoes found in Berail’s boxes. Yet he could make no sense of the shoe’s ties, which were caribou-hide straps that wrap around the toe and heel. The design is simple and effective, but not obvious to the uninitiated. In frustration, he slashed off the binds and made loops of rope. That left the snowshoes without a toe anchor. They twisted in all directions with each step. Crane pitched over like a drunk. Forget it, he thought. I’ll trudge along in the mukluks. He tossed the snowshoes onto the sledge, figuring they might come in some use later. If nothing else, he could toss them in a fire.

  All was ready at dawn on February 12, fifty-four days since the crash.

  Crane made one last hole in the calendar, ripped away the cover with the Alaska map, and looked around one more time at the place that had saved his life. He used some tent canvas to patch the skylight that was dismantled for the sledge. The weak winter daylight flowed through the gaps in the weave, making the canvas seem dotted with rhinestones. Crane had nothing except some charcoal to attempt to write a message. He abandoned the idea. I’ll track down this Phil Berail later when I’m out, Crane thought, and thank him in person.

  Crane pointed the sledge downriver and looped the rope harness around his chest.

  He leaned forward. The rope snapped taut. His thighs tensed. The sledge wouldn’t budge.

  Crane tugged again. Still, not even an inch of progress. He leaned in, almost parallel to the snow. The sledge finally creaked forward. Crane hauled it over the riverbank and onto the ice. He had gone twenty feet and was already panting. Remarkably, MIT engineer Crane had disregarded basic physics. A flat-bottom sledge, something like a toboggan or the carriages used on dog teams, would have distributed the weight better and perhaps rode over the snow with less resistance. His addition of sledge runners would keep it on a straighter line, but at the cost of more struggle and exertion.

  He pulled. The sledge dropped onto the frozen river. It was little easier going in places where the snow was blown off the ice. But these clear patches were tucked between drifts that could run waist deep. There was no way around. Crane had to muscle through and hope the sledge would do its part and hold together. He glanced back just before Berail’s cabin disappeared from view around the bend.

  He knew if he ever saw it again, it would be because he had failed.

  Before the first hour was out, the agony of Crane’s choice was clear. In the snow, the sledge’s runners would sink as if in quicksand. It took leg-burning steps to keep it moving. The harness dug into his chest. He was making maybe one mile an hour. He refused, however, to ponder an alternative. The sledge’s contents could never fit into a pack. It was either stick with the sledge or grab the essentials and make a headlong trek as long as he could hold out. For now, the sledge would stay.

  It also became evident that the minithaw had reordered the ice sheet. Pressure bumps and jumbled blocks were everywhere. This definitely meant no travel at night. Snowfall, too, was as much an enemy as the darkness. Even a small coating could cover the patches of weak ice and turn them into traps that would swallow Crane or, perhaps even worse, claim the sledge and leave him alone with nothing. He learned to listen closely to cues from the ice. It gnashed and grumbled like some restless thing.

  There were other sounds as well. Crane’s time in the wilderness had retuned his senses, tapping into instincts long plastered over by city noises and city life. What he first thought sounded like a distant plane engine was, he learned, the communal clamor of wolf packs. They kept a distance for now. The closest brush was some paw prints in the snow Crane noticed while hunting far from Berail’s cabin. It always made him rush back toward shelter. It
’s unlikely that Crane knew the risks of wolves attacking a person were extremely low. But, even if he did, it’s not so easy to take solace in statistics. Fear is fear. The biggest threat is from wolves made aggressive and erratic by rabies. In May 1943, a rabid wolf fatally mauled a ten-year-old boy in the northern coastal outpost of Wainwright. The previous year, more than two hundred miles to the south, a rabid wolf attacked a Native hunter near Noorvik. The man later died of rabies. Yet attacks by apparently healthy wolves do occur around the world. In Alaska wolves killed a thirty-two-year-old woman in the southwest peninsula in March 2010 and fed on her body. An investigation concluded the wolves were not rabid.

  For Crane, it gave some measure of comfort to keep the rifle and ax lashed to the top of the sledge and handy to grab.

  For two days, he trudged northward. He was well behind the pace he had made in his out-and-back mission a month earlier. He remembered this stretch of river. The hills around the river were lower.

  To the west, they climbed gradually toward the base of the more than mile-high Twin Mountain and the rugged land beyond. Winds moved fast and steady across this valley, pushing the snow into formidable drifts. More than the cold, the wind tested Crane’s spirits. He had somewhat made peace with the subzero temperatures after finding the additional provisions at Berail’s cabin. It was the wind—even at modest levels—that was hard to battle. It found its way through every faulty stitch or paper-thin gap in his hood. Crane dipped his head low—like every wind-buffeted traveler through the ages—and tried to muscle on. It was so with the Lewis and Clark expedition, where the relentless winds on the prairies became a challenge to their stamina and sanity. A future Norwegian immigrant to the same flatlands, Ole Rolvaag, used the winds in his novels as a metaphor for the puny struggles of man against the boundless powers of nature.