October, 2021: I wrote the fireside talk that follows several years ago, while visiting a “History of the American Wilderness ” student, Brian O’Riley. At the beginning of the class that year — as this year also — the students introduced themselves online. It turned out that Brian, an EWU student, then living in an Alaskan indigenous village of about 200 souls, was taking my class. Sensing an unusual opportunity, I asked Brian if I could come and visit. The next thing I knew I was living in an unused school faculty apartment next to the school where his wife taught. I spent a week there while teaching my online wilderness class. I wrote this journal during that visit.can wilderness.
October 17, 2017
As I write this entry I am within about an hour of boarding a little bush plane and flying from the isolated village of Koliganek back to Anchorage. I’ll spend one night there, then it’s Delta back to Seattle and Spokane.
During the past week I have been completely absorbed in the life of the village and the surrounding landscape — I have been guest teaching in the local grade school and high school (about 57 students total), slogging across the tundra outside the village, going upriver in a “skiff” to a cabin even deeper in the wilderness, and learning all that I could about this isolated village and its people. Now I hope to post a few journal entries, with the idea of posting more about this amazing trip for next week’s class reading.
In the meantime, I’m “looking forward to” one more immediate adventure: flying back to Anchorage. Flying here was a grand journey — we went through a mountain pass with hillsides and cliff sides on both sides of the plane, over the extraordinarily long body of water at the heart of Lake Clark National Park, and swept down onto the short runway at Koliganek.
As I flew over, I was not in the least worried what with a sturdy, albeit tiny and old, plane and a seasoned pilot. What could go wrong? And nothing did. Heading back, I’m a little less cocky. I feel a tad like Bill Bryson reading those books on bear attacks and other things that could go wrong in the wilderness. In my case, the “panic kit” came with stories from Brian and his wife, Diane. Over dinner last night they told me these among other small plane stories:
1) There was the local girls’ volleyball team whose pilot clipped an obstacle at the end of the runway while taking off and had to land on two wheels instead of three at its destination. (Fortunately, no one was hurt.)
2) Diane described one local flight she took where the pilot came on board quite drunk. Not reassuring, but he took off and landed successfully.
3) Another regional plane hit an eagle, lost control of its tail rudder, crashed, and killed the pilot and the two passengers.
So now, thanks to the O’Rileys, I know all I need to know for a FBLP.
Thanks guys!
Later
Well, my plane to Anchorage stopped first about 15 miles downriver at New Stuyahok, another native Alaskan village. I had not yet decided whether or not I was in panic mode, although I found it interesting that the pilot flew over the runway in one direction and then banked sharply and landed in the opposite direction. This did make it easier to study the terrain since I was on the downside of the plane on the turn. The disadvantage was that I was on the downside of the plane during the turn!
But we landed safely and as we taxied along the runway, I noticed a crashed plane in the grass alongside. This one, in fact.
I was contemplating whether to abandon all hope as we left “New Stu” and climbed into the clouds. My conversation with myself went like this:
“I cannot see anything out the window. I know that it is OK in a big plane with modern instruments, but what kind of instruments does this plane have? Could there be another plane in this soup? a mountain top?”
I was more than a little grateful when we rose above the clouds, and I was even more grateful when the clouds cleared and far below we could see this:
and this:
For me, as for Tyler in “Never Cry Wolf,” after apprehension came wonder. As the plane cruised along, smooth as silk, and I looked and looked at the glorious scenery below, I sensed what John Muir called the “good tidings” of the mountains.
All too soon, we crossed the coastal range and glided down to the small planes airport in Anchorage….