rie
muñoz
A five-part story written by Rie Muņoz,
published in the Alaska Sportsman magazine in 1962.
PROSPECTING
Is Our Life
By Rie Muņoz
Part two
|
A five-part story written by Rie Muņoz,
PROSPECTING Is Our Life By Rie Muņoz Part two |
|
|
Our
destination was the Ketchikan area, which had produced a number of small
copper mines. We scheduled five days for the three-hundred-mile trip. It
took more than three weeks.
Just miles out of Juneau we discovered that the Pushka did not plane when heavily loaded. Instead of making eighteen knots we were barely dog-paddling along at five. We were no sooner beyond Gastineau Channel than we made another discovery: the smallest seas pounded relentlessly against the square bow, threatening at times to rip the boat asunder. In short, unless the water was glassy smooth, traveling was nearly impossible, and glassy smoothness is not characteristic of Southeastern Alaskan waters. One of Taku Inlet's sudden storms caught us when we were about halfway across. There was no advantage to turning back. so we plowed on through seas three feet high and a raging wind. Cups and saucers crashed to the deck and for a while it appeared that we might lose the Shoveka, our tender, which for some odd reason we had fastened to the bow, thereby lowering that part of the boat even deeper in the water. |
|
Crossing Taku Inlet, Hiccup
finds Hiccup. quivering with fright, could find comfort only between Juan's feet. He had all he could do merely keeping the Pushka headed into the wind. "Get the darned dog out from under my feet!" he yelled above the noise of the storm. I tugged and pulled, kicked, pleaded and threatened, but our hundred-pound beast remained in the one place he considered safe. A few big logs bobbed past our bow, missing it by inches. It wasn't until several hours later, in the calm of Taku Harbor, that Juan admitted that one of those logs bashing into the Pushka would have put an end to our boat, and most likely to us. We spent two days in Taku Harbor, working up the nerve to continue our voyage. Our next adventure came in the form of motor trouble. As we approached Port Snettisham, our next stop, we saw the Swan, a U.S. Geological Survey boat, anchored there, so we tied up to her. Aboard her were some Juneau men whom we knew, so we spent an enjoyable evening with them. Next morning we said goodbye, and Juan pushed the starter button on the Pushka. Nothing happened. He opened the engine box and poked around for a while, but had to admit defeat. Fortunately the skipper of the Swan knew about engines. By evening he had found and repaired the trouble, and we spent another enjoyable evening with the Swan group. The next morning, bright and early, we pulled out in spite of a fog that was forming. Out in Lynn Canal we saw a few small icebergs which had broken loose from one of the numerous glaciers nearby. That evening we pulled into Sumdum to spend the night, and in the morning we awoke to find we'd shared our anchorage with about two dozen icebergs. We got out before one of the bergs floated up against the three-quarter-inch hull of the Pushka, and with the first sight of whitecaps on the sea, ducked into Hobart Bay for shelter. Going around a point of a small island in the bay, we were surprised to see a sweet cabin with beautiful flowers on one side and a vegetable garden on the other. Smoke was coming from the chimney. A trail led from the cabin to the sturdy dock where we tied up, and while we were pumping the boat a small, elderly man came down this trail. He gave us a curt nod and proceeded to bail his fishing boat, which was tied to the dock. One of our friends on the Swan had told us that Alaska has a number of hermits, and it is unwise to make the first overtures with strangers in isolated places. As an example he had pointed to a partly hidden cabin on the beach of Snettisham and said, "Doc Boucher, there, sometimes shoots over people's heads if they come ashore." We weren't sure whether this friend was pulling our leg, but we chose not to take any chances. We returned the nod with a "how do" and continued with our work. When the man had finished bailing, he came over to us and said simply, "Come in and meet the wife if you like." At the
Wildes' cabin in Hobart Bay, The
next day the sea really was glassy smooth, and we traveled the record-breaking
(for us) distance of sixty miles to Petersburg. Here we took on gas and
supplies and left quickly, as a storm had been forecast and we were eager
to make as much mileage as possible before the water became rough. Sad
to say, we did not get more than ten miles beyond Petersburg. After a few minutes things calmed down and we had a chance to look for the cause of our near disaster. Plowing silently around a curve in the very narrow narrows was a huge freighter. Her wake had caused the fragile Pushka to bash time and time again into the dock. We retired again, thanking our lucky stars that the Pushka had survived, little knowing we'd be up at least half a dozen more times during the night, facing the same type of destruction. Finally at dawn we went to the beach, built a small fire, and enjoyed a motionless breakfast. Two days later the storm had subsided and we made it to Wrangell. Here we filled the tank again, bought more food, and looked up a few friends. This was to be our last gas stop before Ketchikan.
Our caution does sound exaggerated, but we learned much later that it may well have saved our lives. Bob Wheeler of Juneau had built the Pushka some years earlier, in Sitka, and no one could know better than he what she could or could not take. When Bob heard that we'd bought the Pushka and were outfitting for a voyage to Ketchikan, he jumped into his car and drove to the small boat harbor to warn us that our boat certainly could not take the tricky waters of the Inside Passage. At the harbor a fisherman told him that we'd pulled out two days earlier. Bob told us all this a year later, and added that for days thereafter he scanned the newspaper carefully for any mention of our being shipwrecked. To get back to our trip to the Salt Chuck-we crossed Clarence Strait without much pounding, but by the time we approached the Indian village of Kasaan, in Kasaan Bay, the water was rough enough that we anchored in front of the village and spent the night there, bobbing in the swells. The next afternoon we pulled into the tortuous, treacherous entrance to the Salt Chuck. Once the Pushka had wound her cautious way through the narrow entrance, we found a beautiful body of water roughly a mile and a half long and a mile wide. On one side of a rather large island the water ,-.-as narrow and shallow. A wide. deep channel on the other side led to the head of the chuck where, according to the map, the remains of the old Goodro Mine should be. With one unsuccessful prospecting trip behind me, I was more conservative. Perhaps here, I thought, we'll make our fortune. Before long we saw an immense mill, and as we drew closer we could distinguish a number of buildings in various stages of ruin. Thin ribbons of smoke rose from several cabins. "What fun!" I exclaimed. "There must be other people here!" "Oh, no!" moaned Juan, thinking of possible competitors.
Warren invited us to his cabin, where we met his wife, Ann, and their six children. Ann stopped to pour coffee, then while we exchanged information she finished tossing some ingredients together and put the mixture into the oven. It emerged not much later in the form of a cake, which she called "Poor Man's Cake," and to this day I have not tasted a better one. When the tide began to go out we returned to the Pushka, anchored her in deeper water, and bedded down for the night. There were about eleven empty cabins in the chuck, and Warren had offered us the use of one. Next morning, having decided it was foolish to remain afloat with so many houses available, Juan scouted out the cabin with the soundest roof (it rains a great deal in Southeastern Alaska), and we spent the remainder of the day moving our gear ashore and setting up house-keeping. The slant of the cabin
made
A number of windows faced the waterfront-or mud flats, depending upon the tide. Before the first day was over, Juan had built a crude double bed and I, scrounging around in the adjoining cabins, had come up with a table, two chairs, several empty nail kegs and a 1921 issue of the Saturday Evening Post. If one was not particularly interested in current events, he could find no end of reading material around the mine. Just about every cabin had, I found, moldy stacks of ancient magazines, Sears catalogues, mining records, bulletins and maps. And if one really became desperate, there were several hundred issues of the Congressional Record. Warren contributed an ancient but functional pot-belly stove, and our first night ashore was spent in front of its red-hot belly. Before long we met the other inhabitants of the Salt Chuck, the Gardners, two families of them, brothers who had come with their young wives and children from Oregon that same summer to try their luck at logging-successfully, I might add. After putting in a good supply of firewood, Juan proceeded with his prospecting. Usually I joined him and we were gone from early morning to dusk. Occasionally I would beg off and devote the day to nosing around the old mine buildings and visiting with Ann Pellett, who by this time had become a close friend. On other occasions I would drop in on the Gardner wives and we would discuss the latest fashions as shown in the newest Sears catalog, or the progress of one or the other's pregnancy. Another Salt Chucker, the oldest in age and residency, was Charlie Wong, who lived on the opposite side of the chuck, near the mouth. Charlie, I was told. was well in his seventies. He had come from China as a young man, had forgotten Chinese, and had never quite mastered English. He had been a cook at the time of the mining activity, and when the mine closed and everyone else went on to greener pastures, Charlie stayed on. He had built his cabin, put in a good vegetable patch, hunted, trapped, and in short lived a very good life. When I told Juan one evening the many things I'd heard about this wonderful old man, he suggested I pay him a visit. "There's a trail on the far side of the mill," he said. "It follows the shore to Charlie's cabin." The next day, minutes after Juan had left for "the hill," I called Hiccup and started down the unknown trail. Hiccup led the way through the dark forest, chasing a chipmunk or butterfly whenever one crossed his path. Presently I noticed that the trail was covered with Hiccup's footprints, both coming and going. I'd had no idea that Hiccup partook of private hikes and I wondered about this, until I noticed that Hiccup was devoting a great deal of attention to sniffing the tracks. Then it occurred to me, with considerable shock, that these were not Hiccup's tracks, but wolf tracks! I began to whistle loudly and increase my pace. No wolf pack pounced on us from the dark underbrush, as I half expected, before we came to a clearing in the middle of which stood Charlie's cabin. On our approach a number of cats scattered in as many directions. Before I got to the door, an elderly man came out to fetch some water from his rain barrel. "Ho!" I said. "Ho!" he said. I went up, shook hands, and identified myself as a newcomer to the chuck. Old Charlie smiled broadly, obviously much pleased that I had come to pay him a visit, and led me into the dimly lit cabin. The walls were covered with magazine pictures, most of them the sexiest I have ever seen, and pinned among them a few scattered prints of the Madonna. In one corner of the one-room cabin was Charlie's bed with what looked like a fur spread but was in actuality several dozen cats. On the other side were several benches, one chair, a small sink and drainboard, and on the latter a much used Coleman stove. Charlie put two glasses on the table, took a bottle of whisky from a shelf, and, as my eyes became larger and larger, poured each glass full of whisky. All the while he was chatting happily. Most of what he said I could not grasp, but this did not seem to matter. I could tell by the intonations of his voice that he was telling me things and not asking questions. When he halted momentarily to take a much needed breath. I said, "Golly, I'm afraid I can't drink all of this so early in the morning!"
Language Barrier Dissolved "It morning? Never mind, it all the same. Drink." I drank. I tried to nurse the drink along, but this brought frequent hurt looks to Charlie's face and the question, "You no like?" "Oh yes, I like," I answered, and gulped down another swallow, and finally when I could stand it no longer I gulped the works down to have the ordeal finished. Before long it seemed that Charlie was becoming more comprehensible, and indeed, I had quite a few interesting comments to interject. When I finally wove my way home along the trail, I had a feeling I could have taken on two wolf packs. "How can I possibly get out of drinking a tumbler of whisky next time I go to visit Charlie?" I asked Juan after I'd described my visit. "I simply can't stand the stuff so early in the morning!" "That's easy," Juan replied. "Next time go in the afternoon."
|
We
said we would like, so we followed him and found our hosts to be Mr. and
Mrs. Otto Wilde. Mrs. Wilde was a charming, vivacious person, and after
a number of cups of tasty black coffee we found our host was a veritable
encyclopedia on the history of Southeastern Alaskan shipping and mining.
We were invited to dinner, and at midnight, after promising to join the
Wildes for breakfast, we fell asleep with the wonderful feeling of having
met the unsurpassed hospitality for which Alaska is famous.
When
we anchored the Pushka and took our tiny dory ashore, we were met
at the dilapidated dock by Warren Pellett, whom Juan took to immediately
upon learning he was a logger instead of a prospector. So, Warren
informed us, were the men of the other two families in the chuck.
Cleaning
No Problem
