Looking for Alaska

by Peter Jenkins

He reached above his head and flicked some switches. He turned on motor No. 1, then motor No. 2. He wore old jeans and jogging shoes. At this point, the complainers spoke up. “What are you doing, man?”

  “I’m going to fly us to the village. I think I can do it,” Boyuk said, sure of himself.

  “No, please, we’ll wait, okay?” said a few of the now worried passengers.

  “That’s okay, I believe if I just push down one more switch and pull on something, we can go. We’ll fix ’em!” Boyuk fumbled around on the panel.

  At this point one woman and one man, not Native, got quite excited. They pleaded with him not to do it. Boyuk moved the plane forward just a bit, then informed them that he truly was their pilot and the freight they’d been waiting for was now ready to load. When I first began flying in Alaska, the experience that would become so casual was an adventure in itself, having to tell how much I weigh, flying through and over outrageous countryside. Now being in Unalakleet was nothing out of the ordinary, and Alaska itself was more like home to me.

  During the Iditarod while I was following Jeff King, I’d stayed a few days in Unalakleet (pop. 798). It is close to Nome and the finish line, but still distant enough that the race is far from over. It is the first village the racers hit on the frozen Bering Sea, a place that can be brutalized by roaring storms coming from Russia or even farther west. Jeff said it was one of his favorite places in all of Alaska, that the people were open, friendly, caring. As usual Jeff was right.

  When I first visited Unalakleet, it was March; normally I think of March as spring. In Tennessee the earth begins to seduce you again with its warmth. Little hints of green replace the brown and gold of the dead pasture. In Unalakleet, March is still raging winter. I recall sitting in a log cabin lodge at the edge of town drinking a coffee at Browns, the only place to get breakfast. I’ve never heard the winds howl and moan and whistle and roar as they did in this village. Man-made objects creak and shutter and rattle and flap. Across several snowbanks, I could see the top of a tiny wooden building, painted an odd green, that housed the post office. Walking by, you might not be able to see it because the wild winds filled with snow and ice crystals hid the building, but you’d know it was nearby because the American flag in front flapped so loudly. In front of the post office was a snowdrift so high it was almost up to the peak of the roof.

  When you’re in an Eskimo village like Unalakleet in the winter, you could curse the founding families for choosing this wind-whipped location. But now that Rebekah and I were here in the summer, we blessed their names, whoever they were, and understood how wise they were in settling Unalakleet, Deering, Kotzebue, Barrow, and Shishmaref, and hundreds of other villages. Just try leaving the strong breezes of the coastline in these communities in the summer, however short summers are, and you will know why even the caribou climb high into the mountains trying to stand on the remaining snowfields, why they go out on the remaining ocean ice, why they practically go insane.

  I’d been warned about the mosquitoes around here. It’s only the females that suck your blood, but there were so many inland around Unalakleet that I think I could go crazy staying too long with them in the bush with no way out. Several hard-core Alaskans, not Native, told me the mosquitoes were put here by God to keep people out of these parts of Alaska. The short summer season of the bloodsuckers and the flesh-biting gnats is another reason we were here now, in June. One of the two incredible women I’d met in Unalakleet this winter would be around the village now, both to avoid the bugs and because the king salmon were coming into the river soon and it would be time to make smoked salmon strips.

  As I contemplated the women I’d met in Alaska, I thought of two I wanted Rebekah to meet, women I would hold up to anyone looking for a role model. When you’re a parent, you give a lot of thought to whom your children hang out with, whom you’d like your children to meet. Both of these women lived in Unalakleet; one I met at the post office while mailing a postcard to Jed and Luke, one I’d met after I attended a basketball game between Unalakleet and Point Hope. One was Eleanor Sarren, postmaster of Unalakleet, and the other was Eva Ryan, Boyuk Ryan’s mother. Both were descendants of old blue-blooded North American families, respected families, families full of highly intelligent, accomplished people. One family has been in North America for hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands, of years. One has only been around a few hundred, but in North America if you’re smart and well educated, you can go places quickly.

  Both families are filled with high achievers. There are professional airline pilots, archaeologists, world-class authorities on whaling and maritime artifacts. They have won numerous awards and been on the cover of national magazines. The mother of Eleanor, the postmaster, graduated from Vassar and was on the cover of Glamour in 1941. Inside, it read, “Dorothy Shapard, New Orleans debutante, has brown-gold hair, complexion fair as the moon—her beauty secret is a quick cleaning with Woodbury Soap before a date … her date book proves it.” One of Eva’s sons went to medical school and is a leading orthopedic surgeon in Anchorage. Her daughter graduated from Wheaton College and is a health aide in Unalakleet. Her sons and son-in-law are some of the top commercial pilots in Alaska. Eva herself won one of the top awards given to a person in Alaska, the Hunter and Fisher Award, given each year by the Alaska Federation of Natives. Eleanor’s father was educated at Andover, Harvard, and UC Berkeley, and he founded Plimoth Plantation. He was a pioneer in the field of historical archaeology. He dreamed of celebrating “the legacy the Pilgrims gave to America, including their relationship with the native peoples who helped them survive the hardships of the rugged New England Coast.” Today at Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts, there are not many Native Americans left, if any. In Unalakleet, there are about eight hundred and just a few whites. Most of the whites work for the Eskimo people as teachers or, like Eleanor, as a civil servant.

  If you had to ask the Native people of Alaska—say Albert and Walter Kookesh of Angoon in southeast Alaska; or Jerry Riley, Athabascan of Nenana; or Bill Thomas, a Tlingit from Haines; or Eva Ryan, an Inupiat from Unalakleet; or Max Malvansky, an Aleut from St. George in the Pribilofs; or Tina, her sister Jody, and her boyfriend Tony from Hydaburg on Prince of Wales Island; or Oliver and Annie Leavitt from Barrow—what is the most essential thing that must be protected to save their way of life, they would probably say subsistence. That is, their ability to be able to subsist on what they draw from nature, the ocean, the lake, the river, the tundra, the mountains, the valleys, the ice, the edge of the land-fast ice.

  They know what Eleanor’s father knew. The Native people lost their way of life back in Massachusetts. Now artifacts in museums and actors portray what was once their world. They appreciate all Eleanor does to serve them, to sort and send their mail, to bring in what they want from the outside world. Eleanor has even married one of them. And that’s why Eva Ryan is so proud of her Hunter and Fisher Award, even though she’s too shy and humble to have gone and gotten it in Anchorage when the award was given at the annual Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) convention. They mailed it to Unalakleet. It does hang on her wall, though, surrounded by the pictures of her many grandchildren, young people who spend much time with her, who look at her as their hero.

  Rebekah and I called Eva when we arrived; she was busy collecting driftwood with her four-wheeler, the SUV of Unalakleet. She goes to the beach when tides are right and collects driftwood to cut up with her chain saw into manageable pieces to stack for winter. Winter is never not on your mind in Unalakleet. All the hunting and gathering that goes on in the summer is to prepare for winter.

  We called back that afternoon. Eva invited us to come by. She lives behind her son Boyuk and his wife, Vicky, who is originally from Ohio. Inside and out, Eva’s house was neat and spare. I noticed some brightly colored knitted afghans on the two sofas. She asked us to sit down and complimented Rebekah’s hair. Her voice is strong, filled with a radiant warmth. Her laugh made me feel that I could do anything. She
told us about this award that she had been so surprised to get.

  “My friend called me up one day,” she said, “and asked me if I read the AFN newsletter. I said no.” The way she said no, it was as if the word had sunshine on it.

  “She said, you’re nominated for Hunter and Fisher of the Year. Oh, no, I said, now everyone’s going to find out I hunt and fish all the time.” I wasn’t sure how Rebekah would respond to this talk of hunting and fishing, not really her kind of thing.

  Eva won the award in 1998, the first year it was given. The award was statewide; there were several nominees, mostly men. Eva forgot about the nomination after a while, but then when they told her she had won, several tried to get her to go to Anchorage to accept it in person. With as many planes as her son and sons-in-law own, I’m sure they could have flown her there. But she said there was no way she was going to stand in front of all those people. This is why Eva spends so much time in nature—she loves it much more than cities or towns.

  “When the weather’s nice, my daughter calls me up and asks me, ‘What kind of mischief are you getting into today, Mom?’” After almost every sentence Eva laughed her all-over, feel-good laugh. It should be recorded and played for sad or sick people all day long. Already Rebekah was smiling.

  “The reason she calls is because I never stay home. All the guys in this village that hunt have been real nice to me. A lot of times I’m the only lady that goes with them,” Eva said, and laughed.

  “Are you a pretty good shot?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I think I am. I keep up with the guys.” She laughed again loudly. She explained she uses a .257 or a .270. For moose she uses a .270, but these days, now that her grandsons are old enough, she lets them hunt for the family. One of her grandsons, Donald, whom I recognized from the basketball game I’d been to this winter, came over. He said he was hungry and Eva told him to raid the fridge. She mentioned that Donald always seemed to be around when someone needed help. At his young age, in fact, he’d already saved a few lives and even found someone dead.

  Eva explained that she’d started hunting after she got married. Now her two sons-in-law call her and invite her to go with them. They each take their own snow machine way out north past Shaktoolik to around Koyuk, ninety miles or more each way.

  “One day my son-in-law said he was going out to hunt caribou. Then it got stormy, started blowing. We split up. He went over this hill and I went another way. I thought I took all my bullets with me. Then I got to a herd of caribou and shot one. I ran up to my snow machine to get my shell bag, there was nothing. Now it was beginning to blow and snow hard. I had to hurry and butcher this caribou I’d shot.” The warmth of Eva’s voice made the room feel small and cozy. Rebekah was now completely focused on Eva’s story; I was somewhat surprised she was so tuned in.

  “I was in a hurry to get the caribou meat and get back before the storm got too bad. Then this big bull caribou came and stood in front of my snow machine and was shaking its head at it like it was gong to attack it. I had no bullets, no ax. I was afraid it would attack my snow machine. So I snuck over and started it, hoping that would scare it away. Nothing.” Eva smiled; she is a powerful and confident woman. She was many miles from Unalakleet and a bad blizzard was blowing up a head of courage.

  “My son-in-law, I had no idea where he was. I was afraid that thing could attack my snow machine and break it. I’d be stuck out there. So—”

  “Eva,” Rebekah asked, “how far were you from shelter?”

  “I don’t know, far, but it was losing visibility, too.” Eva is maybe five foot five; her hands and face are wide. She is magnetic, the kind of person people wanted to be around, no matter what your age. Even her “with it” grandchildren wanted to be with her as much as they could.

  “It started blizzarding. I had this homemade ice chisel. The chisel, it is a big piece of iron. You use it to make a fish hole in the ice. So I revved up my snow machine and it just shook its antlers at the lights. The whole time it was just a few feet from me. I was scared it might come at me.

  “I was getting to be a nervous wreck. I knew if I started to move, it would probably charge me, so I went behind it and I had the chisel. I snuck up, it was just watching my snow machine. I clubbed it as hard as I could on the head. Then it dropped and I hit it some more. That was the only way I could get rid of it.

  “I never get nervous when I’m out hunting but … I had to then butcher both of them. I don’t know what was the matter with that caribou. From then on, I never leave without bullets in my pocket. When I got back to camp, I told my son-in-law what happened. He had never heard of a caribou doing that before.” Eva was fifteen miles from camp when she got the caribous butchered and packed.

  “You know, I am very stubborn and I really don’t like to talk much; now I can’t stop talking.”

  Rebekah nodded in agreement. I wasn’t quite sure what Rebekah was thinking now. Even though she’s my daughter, she is often a mystery to me. There was a knock on the door—it was Boyuk.

  “You still talking to Mom?” he asked. “Wow.”

  “Okay,” she said, “that’s enough talking.”

  The three of us walked out together. Eva said she needed to get her racks, where she hung the king salmon strips, cleaned and ready. A front-end loader towed a huge aluminum boat on a trailer past us, filling up the road. It had been used for the herring season that was just ending. We said good-bye to Boyuk and began walking in the dusty dirt road into town. A few four-wheelers passed us as we walked. Rebekah was quiet for a few blocks, then spoke up just as we’d reached the store.

  “Dad?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know that commercial, ‘I want to be like Mike’?”

  “Yes, I do. Michael Jordan, right?”

  “Well, I want to be like Eva.”

  “Really? Well, me, too.”

  Eva Ryan at home in Unalakleet. PHOTO BY PETER JENKINS

  We walked a couple more minutes to the post office. Eleanor had said she’d be done with work about now. A beautiful Native woman in her midtwenties who cut people’s hair stood at the counter, holding a round-faced baby who was about seven months old. Eleanor was cuddling him, asking her how was he getting so big, was he eating strips yet? In the interior they call this smoked and dried salmon “squaw candy.” Eleanor weighed the little boy on the electronic scale. The three others in line also wanted to hold him, give him a kiss. Everyone was talking about when the king salmon would arrive in the river. Normally it’s here by now. Based on U.S. government regulations, the post office should have been closed, but Eleanor had long ago converted much of her life to Eskimo time. It is one of many reasons why she has been so accepted in Unalakleet.

  Eleanor Hornblower came here just for a visit in 1979. She grew up around Boston. She was educated in private schools to prepare her to become a leader in established society. She remembers being a brown-haired, bright-eyed girl; in maybe third or fourth grade, someone at school had her stand in front of a backlit screen. She thinks a photo was made, but the idea was to analyze her posture. It was essential to hold yourself erect, chest up, chin up, nose tilted. She remembered being taught that what showed on the outside of you, your family, and your house were what mattered.

  Her mother, as bright and beautiful as a woman could be, grew up in New Orleans. In 1937, at Sophie Newcomb College, which is now part of Tulane, she was spotted by someone scouting for David O. Selznick, who was doing a movie called Gone With the Wind. They wanted her to be one of Scarlett’s sisters. She chose to go to Vassar instead, to lose her Southern accent. Eleanor’s parents split up; her mother became involved with a well-known Italian French-horn player in the Boston Symphony.

  Her mother had been on the cover of national magazines, but Eleanor was interested in being a photographer, not in being photographed. When it came time for Eleanor’s debutante ball, as she made her formal entrance into society, she could not take her boyfriend. His family was not in the black book, or
the blue book, or whatever color it was—the book that listed which families were acceptable and which were not for a date of Eleanor Hornblower’s. Eleanor thought it was absurd; one of her boyfriends’ parents taught at MIT. She does remember dancing with her dad, who had encouraged her through his letters to move anywhere her heart and soul took her.

  He wrote this letter to his daughter when she was nineteen, about Rebekah’s age when we first arrived in Alaska. Eleanor has saved it all these years.

  Dear Eleanor,

  I find it very difficult to write a definition of an acceptable philosophy of life and equally difficult to be critical of anyone’s. It seems to me that philosophy changes with the age of the individual, the objective of the person, the exposure to others and the degree of affluence (or poverty) of the ones involved. The happy people I have known and respected have usually been so engrossed with their work that they have had little time for casual associations. They rarely think in terms of money and because they are able, money flows to them.… If there is no objective, no drive to excel, that individual will probably be the unhappy one—he or she has no philosophy of life in which he or she feels strongly about and so will drift until the magic moment comes that motivations sets in.… There still remains the problem of getting your birthday present to you since you have not left a forwarding address. Lots of love from me to you,

  Dad

  24 Apr. 70

  She graduated prep school in 1969, the year of Woodstock. It sounds like a long time ago until you mention Woodstock. It was the year I graduated from high school. I could relate to Eleanor in many ways; I had a girlfriend then and I wasn’t allowed to be her date for her debutante ball either. A friend of mine, Craig McAllister, and I went to a thrift store, bought a couple sets of tails and some new high-top, black Converse sneakers, and went anyway. Everyone at that chandelier-encrusted ballroom in Manhattan was too polite to throw us out. We got the place jumping.