rie
muñoz
Alaska
Juneau
in 1950 was a town of about 7,000 people, a fifth the size of the town
today. In her job at the Alaska Sunday Press, Rie quickly became
acquainted with most of them. In the course of her duties, she checked
regularly with the territorial government offices (Alaska would not become
a state until 1959) and the Bureau of Indian Affairs Alaska Native Service,
and compiled items on two topics that riveted readers' attention in those
days: Who was in the hospital and who had arrived on the Pan American
Airways Clipper. At that time, very few people vacationed in exotic destinations
such as Europe, and those who did invariably treated their fellow citizens
to a slide show/lecture upon their return. Rie dutifully covered them,
as well as weddings, parties, and birthdays, for the Sunday Press.
The part of the job she liked best, however, was selling ads. Once a week, she made the rounds of every merchant in town. She didn't always make a sale, but she and the client enjoyed "a good visit." Not very many weeks passed before all the business people in Juneau knew of the artistic newcomer from California.
MARRIAGE… At that period in Juneau, decades
before the construction of Eaglecrest Ski Area, the Juneau Ski Club played
a predominant role in the winter recreation scene. The club attracted
a crowd of fun-loving, energetic young people to its numerous social and
skiing events; predictably, Rie soon found herself painting posters for
the membership drive. Rie was twenty-nine years old and single. People
who knew her then remember clearly this "gorgeous blonde" who
was likable, openhearted, and full of vim and vigor.
One December evening, Art Kimball, a mining engineer and geologist who had met Rie through the Ski Club, agreed to a couple of drinks after work with a fellow geologist named Juan Muñoz. They sat at the bar in the Bubble Room of the Baranof Hotel, then and still the swanky scene in town, and ordered stingers. Kimball introduced his friend to the smiling blonde standing on a stepladder behind the bar painting a Santa Claus mural on the mirror. As he recalls the incident, Kimball, after polishing off the first stinger, confided that he knew Rie "slightly" and hoped to become better acquainted. He then went off on a two-week field trip. When he came back, Rie and Juan were engaged.
Juan Francisco Muñoz, two years younger than Rie, had graduated from the University of Arizona School of Mines, served in the Marines, and been married once. He had grown up in Philadelphia, but his roots were exotic: His father's family had emigrated from Cuba where they had owned the most important sugar plantation on the island. Their holdings had been burned over and ultimately lost as a consequence of the Cuban War of Independence. Muñoz had "ridden the freights" up from Tucson and traveled steerage class from Seattle, looking for a job, and found one with the Alaska Bureau of Mines. His Spanish/Cuban heritage added spice to his basic good looks. Like Rie, he was tall, blonde, and handsome—some people suggested they looked more like brother and sister than husband and wife.
Rie and Juan were married in the territorial commissioner's office that January. After the ceremony, they celebrated with a few friends at Mike's Place, a restaurant still operating on Douglas Island, across Gastineau Channel from Juneau. Slot machines were legal in Alaska then, and the wedding couple hit a jackpot and won a big pile of cash, which seemed an auspicious beginning. They honeymooned in Whitehorse, in the Yukon Territory.
Rie moved into the Quonset hut Juan was renting in Douglas, and they lived the life of young adventurers. Juan did not ski, but he enjoyed the outdoors; he and Rie would strap on snowshoes and go winter camping or tramp around in the woods. And they faithfully attended the Ski Club parties, where Juan, who had an excellent voice, sang Spanish ballads and accompanied himself on the guitar. They shared a near total lack of interest in material possessions. Art Kimball recalls being invited to dinner at the Douglas Quonset and arriving to find they had no table. With typical élan, Rie and Juan lifted one of the interior doors off its hinges and laid on the meal.
Juan had a good job with the Bureau of Mines but he had an aversion to big-job bureaucracy and wanted to get off on his own. His ultimate aim was to go out prospecting. Alaska offered a unique way to achieve that isolation and at the same time make a lot of money, and that was to get a "bush" teaching contract. At that time teaching positions in the isolated regions of Alaska were so difficult to fill that the Alaska Native Service routinely hired people with little or no teacher training or experience. It was an ideal opportunity for Rie and Juan to get together a grubstake: They would be posted to an isolated village with no place to spend any money; housing would be provided; and at the end of the school year each would receive a substantial check.
When Rie and Juan went to the Alaska Native Service office to apply for a job, the commissioner looked at his chart and offered them a choice of three locations: Barrow, at the Arctic tip of Alaska, which they had heard of; and two places they hadn't: Sleetmute, on the Kuskokwim River; and King Island, a two-and-one-half square-mile volcanic rock in the Bering Sea, eighty-five miles northwest of Nome. They told the commissioner they would take King Island. He warned them there was one drawback to their choice: Once they arrived, there would be no way off the island for nine months. He admonished Rie not to get pregnant.
| rie
munoz gallery 2101 N. Jordan Ave. Juneau, Ak 99801 800-247-3151 
907-789-7449 907-790-2157 FAX |