Was a bitter-sweet first trip to Alaska on Northwest Airlines (remember them?) I was moving to the place I'd always wanted to live yet my three boys were in Portland, OR. The year was 1981; I think in was January. We left Oregon and it was about 40 degrees and it was 9 degrees when we landed in Anchorage. My Ex-wife and I had accepted jobs as fast food managers at a Church's Chicken franchise. Our friend who was my boss in Portland, got us the jobs within a month after he had arrived Alaska. We were there in weeks.
I thought about my boys everyday. I knew that their mom was a good mother but before we left the northwest I found my boys alone at home several times and I even complained to the police. In middle February around Valentine's Day, I got the phone call from hell. The state of Oregon had taken my sons into custody. They we put into foster care. I cried.
I din't know what to do. I had very little money because we had just started out new jobs, and my ex-wife had her two boys up there with us. To make a long story shorter, by the middle of April they were living with me in Alaska, thanks to a good friend who stood up for my character and help me get the guys a flight North.
The rest of that winter was pretty incredible. We (again it was me probably) decided to get a paper route to make ends meet. In fact we decided to get five paper route in Anchorage in the winter. The good part was that one was in the early morning before work and pretty close by. The others were the afternoon routes the kids had to do mostly by themselves. They loved it. Ha Ha!!
Of, course, on the weekend they all the routes were in the morning, so we all participated. We just rushed the neighborhood before the rooster crowed. Wait, there were no roosters. Well, it was early anyway.
One very early, cold dark morning I was in the warm car and the boys were out throwing papers into doors and over fences and into the wrong yards. My oldest son who is pretty tall, but back then he was a little shorter, was working in the back part of our route by himself. In fact the other side of the fence where his section ended was the 'crazy hospital', as we un-affectionately called it. This particular morning, no he didn't run into a 'crazy' person, but he did come face to face with a ten foot moose. Needless to say, it didn't take him long to finish that portion of the paper route and head back to the car.
Anchorage was and is a cool place. The largest city in Alaska and at one time, the largest municipality in the US. We lived part of the time in the eastern portion of town they called Muldoon near the Chugiak Range. With one of our first Alaska dividend checks we received we all bought cross country skies. My boys and I had so much fun back in the woods on a trail, that if we had chosen to, we could have gone all across town on skies. What fun in such beauty.
Another great attraction we learned about almost immediately was dog mushing. All over the big municipality there were dog kennels where caretakers would raise dogs to race. Not too far from where we live was the Tudor Track where they raced sprint dogs. Each winter a World Championship Sled Dog Race was held where dog mushers from all over the world raced sprint dogs 25 miles on a track set up to go from fourth street downtown and out to Tudor track and back to downtown. We had a few opportunities to watch that race. I remember on winter there wan't enough snow to race. Weird, huh?
Of course, we also had the privilege to watch the starting of the grand daddy of all dog races, The Iditorod. That was a great experience as well.
Living in Anchorage was cool and we loved it, but it's still a big city with big city problems; people. We eventually moved to the little town of Wasilla just 40 miles outside of the big city on the Parks high heading toward the north. We lived in apartments just past the Iditorod Headquarters on Knik Rd. We loved it accept that at this particular time I had a herniated disc and was suffering miserably. I'm a little baby when it comes to pain so I really suffered. We moved to the country to be able to see more but we didn't get to because of my back.
Eventually my back got better and we moved to a place that was called Meadows Lakes. just the name sounds great. We lived several mile off the highway on mostly paved roads. Our cabin we rented with five boys was right across the street from the Little Susitna River. (We called it the Little Su.)
This river was multipurpose. We fished it it, of course. We went duck hunting on the river and trapped it in the winter. We also took our trusty cross country skies and skied it. My boys got so sick of me saying 'we were going to go fishing.' To them it was work.
While living there in he Lakes area, I honed my skills on the chainsaw and built a dog sled and snow shoes with a chainsaw. The boys spent hours in the woods and doing the outdoor stuff our whole family loves.
Of course every good Alaskan has a few rifles and pistols, or revolvers. We had several rifles, a 30 06, a 30-30, a 44 revolver and a few others. One incredible day in the fall while preparing for hunting season, we had the lever action in the house. I guess the guys loaded the rifle. I grabbed it to check if it was loaded, I pulled the lever toward the handle and 'bang', the gun went off sending the bullet right through the ceiling of the cabin. Was fun explaining that one to folks.
Well, some interesting things happen to those who are adventurers and I'm one of them. It all started with a dream. Then the struggle came before we achieved our victory. Just one of many victories and there are many more to come. Alaska, I will return again.
David Erickson
