Lessons from Alaska

By Jack Hodnik

Thinking about moving to Alaska?

You might find more reason to as author Jack Hodnik shares Lessons from Alaska.

In nine chapters, Hodnik tells you what to expect based on his thirty-six year experience in Alaska. Learn about Alaskas history and the unusual challenges an Alaskan may face. Extreme weather is to be expected and the author shares some exemplary personal stories of enduring and persevering despite this brutal opponent.

Using factual information and personal anecdotes, Lessons from Alaska tells life in Alaska as it is without sugarcoating the truth. Discover why people are drawn to this part of the world and how you can fall in love with your own Alaska!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 21, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453571699

Book preview

Copyright © 2010 by Jack Hodnik.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2010913130

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4535-7168-2

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4535-7167-5

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4535-7169-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

WHO IS AN ALASKAN?

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CONCLUSION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to thank my friend Bob Adkins for his assistance first in composing the front cover using his talent as a professional photographer and second for his frequent help solving computer problems without which this book would never have been finished.

I am also grateful to my cousin, Bruce Hansen, both for his encouragement to write the book but more for his volunteering to edit the first draft. Bruce’s suggestions certainly improved the final product.

Front cover image: The front cover photography and composition done by Bob Adkins Photography [e-mail]

INTRODUCTION

This book is not intended to be autobiographical or chronological. Rather, I’ve set out to condense the hundreds of amazing adventures I’ve experienced since coming to Alaska into several true lessons I’ve learned about Alaska’s cyclical economy, the challenges of wilderness living, lessons from her unique people, the omnipresent environment, the thrills of the hunt, significance of her native’s culture, lessons and rewards from the pleasure of teaching Alaska’s youth. As I fall ever more enamored of this land we call home, I share a picture of the opportunities I was granted to build a really unique life.

The book, then, is organized topically. A reader who tries to follow my trail by some other logic may become confused, for example, when my experiential examples return to Fairbanks or Adak Island. While any one setting did significantly define what I learned there, the point remains the lesson not the geography. For professional and personal reasons I shifted towards different opportunities which were often serendipitous. Hence the whole of my experiences may appear erratic and certainly lack coherence. If I wanted a predictable lifestyle, I would have remained in Aurora Minnesota.

Many have wrongly assumed that I left my northeastern Minnesota home in 1974 because the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline was about to be built and that I wanted to capitalize on the potential wealth. Actually, when I made my firm commitment to move to Alaska in 1972, I don’t even remember knowing such a project was imminent.

No, I desired a much more important wealth—wilderness-, in the fullest meaning of that word. I had, and still have, a passion for immersing myself, constantly, through hunting, fishing and exploring nature’s wonders, in her most pure state. While growing up in and near Minnesota’s forests, my ancestors taught me to respect and appreciate nature’s bounty by annual berry and nut gathering, or fishing for Walleyes pike and Crappies, and hunting for grouse, rabbits and deer. I was allowed hours to explore natural wonders on my own. My uncles and father taught me important ethics regarding hunting and fishing. Later on, I fished throughout The Boundary Waters Canoe Area with chums. By the end of my adolescence, I’d been inoculated, often, with unalloyed wilderness. I became addicted to the experience. I assumed the forest environs I’d come to know intimately, would remain the setting for any future life I’d build. However.by1972, environmentalists had forced restrictions on the use of the BWCA and, more importantly. The taconite-mining corporations had stripped away or posted off much of the woodland where I chased the Ruffed Grouse, harvested hazelnuts, and stalked Whitetail deer. Both groups were in a contest in which I could see only one guaranteed loser-me.

Where to go to have wilderness for the rest of my life? During my boyhood visits to my uncle’s house, their copies of Outdoor Life and Field and Stream suggested special people found profound adventure in Africa and Alaska. Alone, I might have moved to Africa but with a wife and five-year old boy even Alaska seemed daring.

When I drove out of Aurora, Minnesota, I had little more knowledge about the land I was destined for than what I’d gleaned from the flirtatious pictures in those magazines. But, I was convinced that if wilderness still existed raw, undiminished, Alaska was my place, in the United States, to find it.

I hesitated starting this book each time I thought about the men and women I’ve met whose Alaskan story was far richer and historically important than mine. I didn’t experience the Gold Rush. I didn’t live through the heyday of fabulous commercial fishing. I wasn’t a veteran of WWII. Nor had I been born and raised an Alaskan Native. My perspective, then, might be of little value and perhaps it is. But, I have lived and worked among some events, places and people enough to have learned some of the lessons they teach. We all can read factual histories of Alaska. To understand their significance requires more.

I’ve waited to write until I became convinced time had digested my personal experiences enough to produce an understanding of their significance to me and the land I love. Finally, then, this book is limited to one man’s conclusions from 1974 to the present. The reader I’ve kept I mind and directed my messages to is one who is already contemplating moving to Alaska to build a new life as I did. I assume this reader is interested enough in the geography and topography of Alaska to already own a decent map to study. Alaskans love a good story told well. I hope I have done so, for, in the end, it’s the story that matters.

WHO IS AN ALASKAN?

Over the last thirty-six years, for self-serving purposes, persons from outside have used the legal system to define who shall be considered an Alaskan resident. These court rulings have no more made these individuals Alaskans than putting a label on a can makes the contents soup. My companions and I use the code word aqua Velva to describe a man who tries to impress a group with what he has done in Alaska by reciting common knowledge facts which he never did or ever will actually witness personally. The term derives from an old 1960s commercial in which a man splashes on a superficial coating of aftershave as a woman soothingly intones, ‘There’s something about an Aqua Velva man’.

In1974, I had an eager desire to be an Alaskan but only had a vague notion of what that meant. However, I was determined that I could match up to the characteristics required. It’s only today, thirty-six years later, that I can define who we are.

In many ways Alaskans are, essentially, Nineteenth Century people or aspire to be. Many come to Alaska with the hope such a society is still possible. All of the stereotypical virtues and faults of the Nineteenth Century western frontier adventurer woven into the American mythology are true enough of non-Native Alaskans with one notable exception. Pioneers to other American geography were seeking the opportunity to create a better life in a recreated, better place. An Alaskan declares from day one that Alaska has always been and is that better place. Furthermore, An Alaskan will do all that is necessary to remain in Alaska no matter the cost, the struggle or the suffering. The prize of the place, itself, as it already exists, is worth any sacrifice or effort. In short, sooner or later, the individual doesn’t change Alaska; Alaska changes the individual. Life in Alaska, often to the surprise of the individual, forces each of us to become the fully new character we declared we wished to be. Alaska, therefore, is populated with more interesting eccentrics than the towns cities and states from which we migrated.

During my progress as an Alaskan, I have learned to see and seek opportunities for myself, and those around me, rather than accept the status quo. For most of us, for whatever reason, leaving behind the status quo of our former lives in the lower states or, in the case of Alaska Natives, their continent, this was an initial strong motivator. But after just a short while in this country, that attitude forms a way of life. Unfortunately, for some, escaped from the strictures of their hometowns lawlessness develops. For most, though, the shaking off of the prescribed social contract results in social isolation leading to eventual self-reliance. In America this person might be called that strange guy. In Alaska this phenomenon produces whole neighborhoods of highly unique and fascinating characters writing and starring in their own dramas to act on an idea regardless of what others think. But don’t misunderstand. An Alaskan’s neighbors and friends are less likely to censure a screwball idea or enterprise than to almost immediately consider how they might facilitate the success of the project with ideas, materials or labor in the hope that the dreamer will pull it off.

You see, we want to be extraordinary not just different. An Alaskan believes that he has a responsibility for the success of, not only himself, but also his neighbor, his friend, and most of all, the State which has come to identify him. Because, over time, an Alaskan’s reverence for his fellow Alaskans, his personal opportunity, and the place itself causes a feeling of personal affront when outside interests presume to exploit its natural resources for economic or political gains. How dare those outsiders tell us what to do. Or worse, outsiders assert that Alaskans are willing to destroy the last frontier in order to enrich themselves. Alaska is our home; not their playground or national park.

An old saying goes Alaskans are either misfits, mercenaries or missionaries. An apt summary of her history and I’ll admit, in a sense, that I have been all three at the same time. As for missionaries we still have an overabundance of the standard variety; Catholic, Russian Orthodox, evangelicals, Pentecostals, fanaticals (mostly via radio) Moravians and a few Presbyterians, plus environmental, educational and sociological evangelists. Our history is legion with mercenaries and our new crop will write their own chapter. Being an Alaskan, by definition, includes the adjective Misfit. New Alaskans are said to be either running to or running from something; generally true, also. I was doing both. Regarding the latter, I learned a hard lesson. Many people transplant here to avoid disagreeable situations back home. But often, instead of mitigating their circumstance, the social isolation and a lack of preparedness focuses and sharpens the original causes. Most importantly, our own culpability in our misfortune becomes all too obvious since the one actor we can never escape is our self. A couple, for example, might try to resolve marital problems by a dramatic change of geography. From what I’ve observed, a move to Alaska quickens and complicates the dissolution. Perhaps, with today’s telecommunications, this effect is lessened but I doubt it. We bring our problems with us, as the saying goes.

On a personal note, facing the sometimes uncertain life in Alaska, you need People around who you can depend on to keep their word. And in times of distress, you need people who love you despite your insistent self-reliance.

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CHAPTER ONE

Boom and Bust

Alaska’s history is often depicted as a recurring cycle of economic boom followed by bust. My experience has taught me that dramatic pattern is uncannily applicable to individual Alaskans, also, including me.

I’m sure the heads of my relatives and friends were still wagging when three thousand miles from my hometown, Aurora Minnesota, I crossed the Canadian border near Tok Alaska where the dawning doubts of the prudence of my bold adventure up the Alcan was causing my own head to wag. I had left a secure teaching position in Crookston Minnesota, left the support of family and friends, sold off most of my valuable possessions, and in July of 1974 packed up my wife, five year old son and dog Skippy along with two cases of corned beef, six spare tires, a steamer trunk brought to America by a Slovenian ancestor, one rifle, the $1000.00 cash required by the Canadian government into my new Ford 150 pickup with a camper top.

On entering Alaska, my strategy was to travel to all towns and cities along the highway system to seek a teaching job. I stuck to the road system because I had little knowledge of what was ‘out there’ and because my wife insisted she be able to congregate with members of her off-brand religion. Mainly, I understood that without decent employment, the trip would become a foolish failure. Day after day I applied at Tok, Glenallen, Palmer, Anchorage, then down the Kenai Peninsula to Soldotna, Kenai and Homer. Along the way, two poignant dynamics increasingly and paradoxically drove me on. First, I was running out of cash for gasoline, showers and groceries. Secondly, the more I saw of the Alaskan grandeur, the more determined I became to find a way to stay. Sitting in Homer, I realized that I’d missed a road at Glenallen, which led to Valdez where the Alaska oil pipeline was to terminate in the near future. While I planned my move to Alaska, I was totally unaware a pipeline was going to be built or that Alaska even had oil as a resource. I certainly, like most Americans including Alaskans, had no real concept of the consequences which would ensue from that project. But surely Valdez would need teachers for the expected population influx. And my hundreds of miles backtracking paid off. I received an interview with the principal and after he called a few school board members, I was offered a contract at four times my Minnesota salary. Surely I had captured my Alaskan prize and in the most gorgeous setting I’d seen in all my travels. But I did not appreciate what a booming economy could mean. I quickly checked rental rates for the very few apartments or houses available as well as grocery and utility prices. I took these figures to the campground picnic table and calculated that given the salary offered, I’d have to find a part-time job which paid at least $3,000/yr.just to meet basic expenses. After declining the contract to an understanding principal, I took my deflated ego back to the picnic table. I had $375.00 left with which to complete the trip back to Minnesota and the I told you so’s I’d inevitably face. But,I did have one more card to play. During the Great Depression, my Uncle Tony Hodnik had left the Iron Range to work in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with another local boy named Louis Krize. After the Japanese bombed Dutch Harbor, Louie decided to join the construction gang punching through the Alcan Highway. My uncle declined to join Louie and his brothers but my uncle said I should lookup Louie if I got to Fairbanks as he heard Louie now owned a department store and maybe he’d have a job for me.

I went to a pay phone and called The Fairbanks North Star Borough School District 1,000 miles away in interior Alaska to see if they had any teaching openings. No, the secretary said, all teachers for the coming year had been hired.

What to do? The paradox was squeezing me to a desperate nexus. Why didn’t you go to Fairbanks? I could hear my uncle asking. Because if I did, uncle, I would not have enough gas money to return to Minnesota. My whole heritage had taught me not to take chances. ‘You never know what can happen’, Jack. At this moment, I joined the image of those wagging heads. What had I done? What was I going to do? If I’d just taken a terrible chance. Was it likely my next move would prove worse?

At 6:00 a.m. I loaded our gear into the truck and headed back to Tok. After refilling the gas tank, I sat idling at the intersection in front of two signs-Alcan to the right; Fairbanks to the left. With $250.00 to my name, I flipped on the left signal and drove my desperation to Fairbanks. I drove the next two hours more or less in a trance. Alaska’s grand terrain melted minute by minute into miles of flatter and flatter stunted spruce until, without noticing, I had turned off the main gravel highway left onto another gravel road called Airport Way. No sign told me I had arrived to Fairbanks so I continued to drive right past it until I saw a campground sign where we camped for the night.

The next morning, a fellow camper told me to backtrack until I saw a sign reading Cushman. This gravel lane would take me to Fairbanks’ city center. About 8:00 a.m. I buttoned up my cleanest chamois shirt, laced my boots, washed my bearded face and headed downtown. Uncle Tony told me Louie’s store was called Rays or something. So I drove back and forth on the few streets until I spied a modest-sized building with a large sign reading Big Ray’s. How could that be the place? Shouldn’t it be called Big Louie’s or Louie’s? I didn’t see any other department stores so I pulled into a parking lot across the street from Big Ray’s and went into the store. Yes, they sold clothes alright and camping gear, too. I asked the first clerk I ran into if she knew Louie Krize? Louie?, yeh I know him. Why? Is he in the store, ma’m? No, she said, as she pointed out of the plate-glass window. See that silver building? He’s over there having breakfast". Well, I’d confirmed that Louie Krize did exist in Fairbanks Alaska but as I crossed the streets to the Northward Building I really wondered why he’d care that I existed.

When I entered the Lobby and saw the restraunt, I had no idea that this was the building, which served as the model for Edna Ferber’s Ice Palace nor that Louie owned it as well as the Bank Of The North to the right. I asked the waitress where Louie Krize was. She pointed to a well-dressed businessman sitting with someone in one of the red vinyl booths. I swallowed and walked up to the man.

Hello, I said, Hello, said Louie glancing up, who are you? I’m Jack Hodnik. Hoednik! (the phonetic pronunciation of my name in Slovenian.) What Hoednik are you? I’m Uncle Tony’s nephew. Tony Hodnik from Minnesota?! Yes, he lives in Milwaukee, now Well I’ll be Goddamned,—Tony Hoednik’s nephew?! Then he fired in excited staccato, What are you doing here?—Sit down, sit down. You had breakfast? How’s Tony? What do you do? I offered a wrinkled brow. I mean what’s your trade-what do you do for a living? How’d you get here?

I explained that I’d driven up the Alcan and that I was an English teacher. Good, good, he replied with enthusiasm, we’re going to need teachers." I explained that I had called the district and they said they had all the teachers they needed for the upcoming year.

No, he said, that can’t be true. Wait here-order some breakfast, I’ll be right back. You alone?

No, I explained, my wife and son are across the street in the parking lot.

Go get ’em—order breakfast for them, too, I’ll be right back.

By the time we all had breakfast, Louie was back and I introduced my family. He opened with You got a suit? You wear suits? Yes., I faltered, but I didn’t bring any with me OK, he said, after you finish breakfast, go over to that store Big Ray’s and tell them Louie said to give you a suit-no two suits-slacks, too-shoes and ties and shirts if you need them and meet me tomorrow morning in that parking lot at 9:00 a.m. Can you do that?

Sure, I said, but why do I need a suit?

I’m going to pick you up for a meeting with the Superintendent. I told him about you and he wants to meet you. 9:00 a.m. sharp, ok?

What could a man I’d just met tell a superintendent about me? It didn’t take long to find out after I climbed into Louie’s yellow Lincoln Continental f for my trip to district office which, at the time, was an AATCO unit plunked in the middle of a soon to be completed supermarket just off Airport Way.

Louie led the way in and as he breezed past the secretary’s desk he announced that Chuck was expecting him. And apparently so, as we entered Chuck Smith’s office. Louie and Chuck shook hands after which Louie told me he’d be back in ten minutes. Chuck Smith asked me to sit down. OK, he began, Louie said you are a good teacher. That’s enough for me. As he rocked back in his swivel chair, he pointed to a large building across the street. That’s Lathrop High School, you can work there. I’ll call the principal and set up an interview. I heard only one side of this conversation but it went something like this. Hi, this is Chuck Smith-I got an English teacher for you. No, you need an English teacher. Yeh, but you need this guy. He’s from Minnesota-good teacher. I understand, but when can you meet with him? Two o’clock? Jack, can you meet him at two?

Yes, of course, I responded.

OK, he’ll be there at two.

My breakfast had hardly digested by the time I was sitting in front of Principal Dumas’ desk. Well, this shouldn’t take long, he began. I really don’t need an English teacher but Chuck wants to hire you so that’s it. If you have a moment I’ll have my secretary draw up a contract. She did, I signed. Mr. Dumas explained I would fall at the $11,800.00 level on the salary schedule and I was entitled to a $700.00 advance. My last year in Crookston, my salary was $3700.00 for nine months of work.

I drove back to the campground stunned. I could hardly articulate to myself, let alone my wife, what had just transpired.

Who was this Louie Krize who seemed to be able to command such a miracle on my behalf? During the next year, I would learn more of his history. He had joined, with his brothers, the Alcan construction crew and they worked all the way to Fairbanks. With their high wages, they eventually bought all the bars on the infamous two street. Next, Louie and Frank Krize, as well as brother Rudy, bought Big Ray’s and Louie went on to the board of directors, which owned the ten-or twelve-floor shining silver Northward Building, which housed well-heeled tenants upstairs. I soon understood when Louie Krize called,you took the call; especially if you were the current superintendent of schools and former president of the local Teamster’s Union. I found Louie the next day to thank him for what he’d done. In the now familiar fashion, he peppered me with questions. Where would I live? No one with an empty house or apartment wanted to rent to the expected transient pipeline workers. A call from Louie secured us a two-bedroom apartment. What will you do until school starts? You need money until your first paycheck. He introduced me to his building manager Ben who hired me to work with a crew changing out all the windows on the third floor of The Northward Building. Also, Ben needed a night watchman Friday and Saturday nights. I worked this job for the next two years along with my teaching job Monday through Friday. Subsequently, just as I anticipated in Valdez, I had to take two and sometimes three part time jobs to make ends meet in the booming pipeline economy which struck Fairbanks with the same intensity as the gold rush but my fortunes had reversed within the space of only a few hours and, now, if I wanted Alaska, I just had to work for it. I was thrilled with the opportunity and I still am. Alaska was booming and I had my ticket to ride.

So what lessons had I learned? First, Alaskans are willing to help any newcomer realize his ambition if the newcomer seems seriously committed to an Alaskan life for the long haul. Secondly, Anyone coming to Alaska to start a new life would be advised to already have a profession or trade useful to the Alaskan economy. Thirdly, Opportunities abound for those willing to work hard and adapt. Finally, I was about to learn that Alaskan living is expensive, but worth every nickel.

Of course, one example of my personal bust to boom doesn’t prove anything. But perhaps another example or two will be proof enough; at least in my case. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline boom struck deeply and widely throughout Alaska. The most immediate impact on me was the influx of thousands of pipeline workers and their families. Fairbanks had only one high school to accommodate its 800 students but as men left their families behind to start jobs on the slope student enrolment climbed, within a year, to 2,000. The stopgap solution to teaching so many more, was to split shift the school day and school building. Some students and teachers, myself included, continued to be called Lathrop High School which met from 6:00a.m. until1p.m. At1:00 p.m. another English teacher took over my classroom and taught for a school called West Valley. Until 6:00p.m.At the time, I suppose this solution was the best possible but with the transientcy of the students coming from every state in the union, with every variation of high school curriculum. Continually revising the sequence of instruction predictably stressed both teachers and students. Sometimes the father only stayed working for eight or sixteen weeks then the family left. Either he got fired, couldn’t stand the working conditions or more likely his wife couldn’t put up with the -40 F to -60 F below zero temperatures and perpetual darkness living alone in an apartment far from relatives. Of course the departing students were replaced with a new batch and the cycle repeated. Discipline and academic focus were not only strained by this dynamic, young men and some ladies naturally heard about the big money to be earned on the pipeline. While their peers in the Lower 48 worked at McDonalds or bagged groceries, some of my students aspired to quit high school education entirely and start as welder’s helper or house keeping staff at the camps. I tried to convince them of the long-term benefits of a solid education but the lure of immediate wealth was hard to overcome. One hardworking bright junior boy told me he was quitting to work as a welder’s helper with his father and he could get me on, and I could quit teaching, too. I’ll be making more money than you, he argued.

Not hard to argue when he paid a return visit two months later. He said, with overtime, he was making $3,000 per week while I was netting $900.00 per month. Even with the part time jobs, I barely could afford rent, food and gasoline for my family. An economic paradox persisted in Fairbanks for the next two years. On one hand inflated prices put most store bought goods out of reach for non-pipeline workers. $100.00 dollar bills became necessary pocket money while ones, fives or tens were silly nuisances. Apples or oranges sold for $1.00 a piece in the only supermarket next to the post office. Longtime Fairbanksans knew when and how to hunt moose or net salmon or burn firewood for their subsistence. Newcomers like me didn’t know where to begin. On the other hand, even when I had the cash I could find store shelves swept clean of goods a day after the weekly shipment arrived. We really didn’t eat much fruit but I distinctly remember saving up enough money to include it in the next week’s groceries and walking up to the produce section to find empty bins. Years later I had the same experience while teaching in the Yupik village