Fire and Ice: Tales From An Alaskan Volunteer Fire Chief

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PREFACE

The people in your city have placed a trust in you. You defend them by whatever means you have; whether it’s in the streets, the back country, the chambers of your city council, or the legislative halls of your state capital.

This country’s volunteer fire/rescue service has been doing its thing for 275 years. Our toys have improved, but nothing can improve who we are.

You know, you can follow mankind’s bloody footprints from the caves to the settling dust of the Twin Towers, and not find much that speaks well of human nature. Yet, you can visit a fire station and note the character of those who will not stoically watch the suffering of others, will not turn a deaf ear to their needs.

And even though the media may electronically inject into our brains the sights of Ground Zero, one can look inside any fire station and see 275 years of a steady increasing testimony of what’s good in man.

If people cannot depend fully on their fire service, then nothing is sacred. Remember, if a tragic event puts your neighbor up against the wall—go get him. That’s who you are.

AERIAL VIEW OF CORDOVA, ALASKA

Photo By Ron Niebrugge

HOW BIG IS ALASKA?

SECTION I

OPERATIONS

KATALLA DIVE

It was a gray Sunday late in May when Alaska State Trooper, Gerry Denison, called me at home and asked if I would do a dive for him. It was a body-recovery operation. Four bodies, actually. Of course I agreed, but explained that since commercial fishing season had begun, as well as other summer activities—like construction projects—I would try to avoid asking other divers in the volunteer fire department to help, if possible. Naturally, if it were a rescue operation, that would be different.

Well, you can’t do this alone he said.

What happened? I asked.

It’s near Katalla. Oh, Christ. Katalla was a town site 50 miles east of Cordova, halfway between us and the town of Yakutat. Really, it no longer existed. It was the site of Alaska’s first oil field after the turn of the century, but the oil field was destroyed by fire in 1933 after three decades of production. The town remained for some years after, but slowly disappeared. The only things remaining now were a few trappers’ cabins buried in the trees, west of the Katalla River near the ocean. The ocean beach, east of the Katalla River, is known for its abundance of razor clams, and clam diggers travel there exclusively in wheeled planes and land on the hard-packed beach at low tides. Like Cordova, the only ways in or out are by air or sea.

That morning, a plane from Cordova was already there, and the party was digging clams when they looked up to see three planes from Valdez come down out of the skies. The first two landed without incident. The third plane, carrying the Joy family, circled and watched the other planes navigate the tricky crosswind as they landed. Mr. Joy, a novice pilot, had arranged to accompany the other planes so he could have this family outing with his wife and their two young sons.

The crosswind that came down out of the mountains blew across the beach at about a 45° angle and on out to sea. Mr. Joy circled the area four or five times, sizing it up. Finally, he approached in, gripping the wheel and pushing pedals in anticipation of gusts. As the wheels touched down and he eased off the power, a sudden gust of wind slammed the plane and lifted the left side up, pushing the wing into the air.

Reacting, Joy gunned the throttle and banked to the right toward the ocean surf. He poured on the power, trying to recover and stabilize. He powered up, but the heavy gusting tailwinds proved too tough for him. The plane yawed left and right, the wings dipped, and the engine and propeller screamed. The onlookers watched helplessly.

Heading straight out to sea, he could not pull up much above the tops of the breakers and in fact, snipped the tops of some of the waves on his way out. Under full power, he tried turning the plane, and water sprayed up from the wingtip or wheel hitting it. Then one wingtip dug into the water and the plane began to cartwheel across the ocean. It stopped in a spray of water and bobbed momentarily upsidedown.

The witnesses could see the belly of the plane on occasion between large waves. They saw what may have been someone clinging to it, or it could have been one of the wheels. They couldn’t tell for sure. They ran down the beach searching for something that might float that they could use to get out to the plane, but there was nothing. They tried entering the water, but because of the heavy pounding waves and frigid temperature, they couldn’t. Then, the object disappeared from the plane. One of the Cordovans, Bill Bernard (an old co-worker of mine from Cordova’s Public Works Department), ran back to the Cordova plane and radioed Chisum Air in Cordova for help.

Chisum called the public safety dispatcher for an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT). Volunteer EMT Stan Shafer (captain of our EMS division) boarded Chisum’s DeHavilland Beaver and they were off. After toning out for Shafer, the dispatcher—as per our protocols for incidents outside the city limits—notified the state trooper.

In the 45 minutes it took the Beaver to reach the area, the winds on the far side of the Ragged Mountains had picked up and it was beginning to rain. The ceiling dropped. Reaching the site of the downed plane, the Chisum pilot dipped his wing way down and nearly spun on an axis over the area of the oil slick. In the bucking wind, squinting through the rain, Stan, who had been on many of these trips in snotty weather, suddenly wasn’t feeling well. It was a combination of the motion, the steep, unrelenting sideways angle, the roar of the engine, the rattle and vibration of the interior, and the hot oil smell of the engine. He leaned over and told the pilot, I think we’d better land soon. The pilot sympathetically compromised by making the circles wider and more gradual. Stan was appreciative. He just quietly threw up in his hat and kept looking.

Shortly after, they spotted the body of one of the boys washed up on the beach. They landed, retrieved the boy and flew back to Cordova. There, Stan briefed the trooper who then called me.

Knowing the time of submersion, or even time in the water, the suit-up time and flight time, any thought of a cold-water drowning save was out of the question. Gerry called his post headquarters in Glennallen while I drove to the station to meet him.

Gerry understood that because of the season, I was low on manpower and couldn’t leave the town unprotected to do a recovery operation. But city police officer, Fred Brady, said that he would dive with me. Gerry (not a diver himself) contacted Trooper Jim Alexander from Valdez who would come over.

Well, in that case, I said, maybe the Valdez Fire Department dive team could come, too. No sense in flying a near-empty plane over. I called the Valdez fire department and they agreed to send over four of their divers. The Valdez Volunteer Fire Department is a combination department with about 12 paid, and 60 volunteers. Valdez isn’t much bigger than Cordova, but it has a hell of a tax base—The Trans-Alaska oil pipeline terminus and one of the world’s largest petroleum tank farms. Hence—12 paid firefighters.

It was an hour’s flight from Valdez, so in the interim we looked at maps, called for weather reports, and talked to the Chisum pilot that would take us to Katalla. Incidentally, we had an agreement with Chisum Air that they would always drop whatever else they were doing and provide air transportation—either fixed-wing, or chopper—for our search and rescue operations in exchange for $50,000 annually. We also purchased a radio for dispatch to communicate directly with their aircraft. For the most part, however, any expenses we incurred on these out-of-town operations were reimbursed by the Alaska State Troopers (AST).

Anyway, Gerry said that the clam diggers had found an old, red crab-pot buoy and used it to mark the spot where the plane was last seen. Sort of. They walked inward from the surf to the edge of the brush and tied the buoy down. It was the best they could do.

About an hour later, Gerry, patrolman Fred Brady, and I drove to the city airstrip on the edge of Lake Eyak, where the Valdez crew would be landing. I was glad to see Trooper Alexander leading the party. Young, tall, and muscular, he knew his business in search and rescue. A real outdoorsman. Even though his hello was pleasant, it was plain he wasn’t ecstatic about being here. On the other hand, the crew of Valdez firefighters disembarking from the plane, young (in their early twenties), tough and nervy, all waved and yelled, Hello, and said that Tom (Chief McAlister) said to say hello and to be careful out there.

I knew the Valdez crew from previous conferences, schools, and state functions. They had also come to Cordova the previous year when we hosted the annual Alaska State Firefighters Association (ASFA) and Alaska Fire Chiefs Association (AFCA) conference here. Alaska is a huge state, but the population is small (about 600,000, at the time of this writing), so it doesn’t take long to meet lots of people in your field.

We stuffed the assembled equipment into the Beaver aircraft: air tanks, lead weight belts, inflatable boats, an outboard motor, a gas tank, ropes, and body bags. The pilot took three guys and headed for Katalla.

An hour and a half later he was back. Fred Brady, the Blackburn brothers, (Valdez firefighters), and I seat-belted ourselves in the plane and we were on our way. By the time we passed the Sheridan and Miles Glaciers, the dull marsh lands below and drone of the engine drugged us passengers into silent staring. By the time we reached the Copper River, 27 miles east of Cordova, and moving into an ever decreasing ceiling, the day was dripping. The rivers and streams were brown with run-off from the interior and a dungeon-gray shroud of mist now descended halfway down the mountain range on the other side of the river. The dreariness was thick in the cockpit.

The pilot banked right and swung out over the gulf to make a wide arc around the mountain range. The wind picked up. He flew over the oil slick and pointed, then pointed at the red crab-pot buoy used as a marker. It was high tide, and there would be no landing on the beach. He headed back for the landing strip which was just on the other side of the Katalla River. Approaching it, we could see a couple of cabins in the trees up the river a short distance. The landing strip was little more than a small gravel patch that ran parallel to the beach. One end started in the trees, the other end was a six-foot bank that fell into the river.

The plan, according to Dennison’s recommendations, was to wade across this so-called creek, walk down the beach approximately a quarter of a mile to the marker, and then swim out and recover the bodies.

The Zodiac boats were already inflated and were being loaded. The 5-horse kicker (outboard) was mounted on one. Brady and I grabbed the one without the kicker, walked it into the water and started walking it across the river. Alexander and one of the firefighters climbed in the other one, started the kicker and began cruising downstream. The other three firefighters started forging across.

I don’t know if it was because of the rain or if the river always runs like that, but the current was getting very powerful and the river got deeper with each step. About midway across, with the buoyancy of my suit, my feet left the bottom. ‘Creek’ my ass! I’m not touching bottom, I informed Brady. Brady, being taller, naturally started laughing at me. A moment later he lost the bottom too, and we were drifting downstream, clinging to the Zodiac heaped with equipment. It was tough flutter-kicking—finless—to the opposite shore. We eventually found it shallow enough again to finish walking to the other side.

We watched with envy as Alexander, perched comfortably on his Zodiac, and moving effortlessly, passed us heading for the mouth of the river. As soon as the river met the surf, the boat dunked under a couple of times and the kicker was finished. They dragged the boat to the beach, took off the kicker, pulled the boat back out, and started rowing parallel to the beach toward the area of the oil slick.

Fred and I pulled ours down the beach in about a foot of water, taking turns. Even though we had to lean into the 45-mph rainy wind and wade, it was still easier than rowing. We reached the area marked by the buoy in about an hour, and still about half an hour ahead of Alexander and his diver.

We spread our gear out on the beach, but unable to see the oil slick from this angle, we took just fins, masks with snorkels, and markers, and swam out in search of the slick. We hoped whoever found it could free-dive down and tie a marker on it.

It was impossible to keep oriented since the swells were coming in at a slight angle to the beach and the wind and rain were hitting at a 45° angle to that. It was impossible to see the crab-pot buoy from out there. Swimming through the waves and breakers, compensating for the tide and wind was taxing and none of us could find the slick.

When Alexander made it to the area in the boat, he spotted the slick and the firefighter dove down, but the slick was coming up some distance from the plane. The underwater visibility was zero.

Our searching went on for several hours. Dusk was approaching and with the tide low again, the plane came over from the strip and loaded the equipment into it to take it back across the river. He asked which of us wanted to ride back across the river? Brady said he’d rather ride than walk anytime and headed to the plane. The rest of us looked at one another and started walking back toward the river carrying only our fins (for the swim across the river).

Of course, we had just barely started walking when the plane passed over us and landed on the other side of the river and waited. When we finally made it back, we stashed all the gear and three guys in the plane (which maxed out the weight capacity) and it took off for town.

We learned there were four cabins in the area and we were invited to stay in one of them to await the return of the plane. We were given a pot of coffee and some pumpkin cake. We needed it. Our energy tanks were on empty since we’d been running full RPMs for hours. I was so fatigued my body felt like it was a huge water balloon.

Before Brady, the two Valdez divers, and I and finally climbed in the plane for the trip back to Cordova, we had to push the plane as far back into the trees as possible, because the pilot said he needed as much runway as possible. He rapped the engine as high as he could while holding tight on the brakes. When he released the brakes, he gunned the engine as fast as he could to get maximum air speed before the airstrip abruptly ended at the river. It was like a take-off from an aircraft carrier. As soon as we ran out of airstrip, the plane dropped down toward the river but kept on flying and started climbing and banking to the right toward the ocean. Turbulence seemed more dangerous while banking hard, and air pockets dropping us down suddenly made most of us gasp loudly. Brady, riding in the front seat next to the pilot turned and laughed, Don’t scream—you’re scaring the pilot. We sat in embarrassed silence the rest of the trip.

Arriving in Cordova at 10 p.m., we decided to return early the next morning and be on site at low tide. Since it would be a minus tide, we hoped some of the plane might be visible.

At 6:30 the next morning we headed for Katalla. The weather had improved. That is, the winds had slackened but the ground swells had picked up due to a storm brewing several hundred miles to the southwest. When we landed, this time on the Katalla beach because the tide was out, we were not the first plane to set down there. Alexander walked up to the clam diggers and asked if they’d seen any debris from the plane or anything. The storm that was centered way out in the gulf generated heavy swells that pounded the airplane all night, may have broken it up or dislodged its contents. Literally, without looking up from his clam digging, one of them nodded yes he had seen something. Pointing back in the direction of the cliffs by the river, he mumbled body and kept digging.

The pilot flew Alexander and Brady to the beach on the other side of the river where they retrieved the body of Mrs. Joy and flew back to Cordova.

Even though the ground swells pushed waves up higher than the day before, we didn’t have to begin the day by dragging a loaded Zodiac across a river and quarter-mile down the beach. But about the third time out and back through the waves, and it was yesterday all over again. However, it seemed to me that the other guys (in their early twenties) didn’t seem affected by it. I was pushing 40.

About the time the tide began flooding again, someone spotted an object protruding from the bottom of a swell. It was so far out that we swam out in relays using markers tied together to reach the plane. It had taken about half an hour to reach the plane and tie it on, and that was the last we saw of it for that day. As the diver was tying line around it, a receding swell drew him out and an incoming one lifted him high and rolled him over the jagged metal edge of the plane. He managed to quickly attach the end of small nylon twine to it.

The evening low tide would not be low enough to expose the plane again. The subsequent attempts to dive down to the bodies on the plane were pretty hairy, but no one got hurt. We kept trying. We did learn that there was no way to dive straight down without rolling over and reaching bottom nowhere near where you started down. It was hard to navigate the undertow. And you had to do it blind—only outstretching your arms hoping to swim into something while tumbling. I was really afraid of being slammed into the jagged wreckage and getting cut up.

I’m not sure how long we were at this. It seemed like moments; it felt like hours. At times, we dived in a blind rage, determined to swim through it by sheer power and will. By now we were all in pain from exhaustion.

Eventually, Brady and Alexander came back. There are official things that must be done by law enforcement people when they have a body. I never envied them. They have to change persona so quickly and so often. I briefed Alexander. If the other two bodies were still in the plane, we could not get them with the tide flooding. And, quite frankly, I was too tired to go on any longer. The others confirmed that they had nothing left inside.

The tide for the next day would be lower still, and the lowest for the month, so on the flight back to town, Brady and I suggested that since the plane had been located and marked, the Valdez crew could be excused to go home if they wanted. We could come out the next morning and retrieve the bodies. Alexander said that was fine, but that he would stay also. Being a state trooper, this operation was in his jurisdiction and felt it was necessary that he be present until it was concluded.

That evening the Valdez firefighters flew back. Alexander, Brady, and I were on site before low tide the next morning and located the small line and had a larger line and buoy ready to attach in its place as soon as the plane was visible. The sky had cleared but the waves seemed worse yet.

We managed to snake it out to the plane—or nearly. I was pulling the end of the line toward the plane (on the other end, near the beach, was the buoy), Alexander and Brady were at the plane. Wading into the surf up to my neck, my lead belts helped keep my feet on the bottom. But the swells would lift me and push me back, then I’d advance quickly between swells; I would feel the undertow about the same time I’d become buoyant. So, after a swell would lift me, the undertow pulled me under, feet first, toward the plane. Being even more buoyant as the water reached my neck, it was a constant battle against the undertow pulling me toward the wreck. I was waiting for Alexander and Brady to attach their short length of line to the plane and bring the other end of their line to me, so we could tie the two heavy lines together. If anything caused the loss of the plane again, the heavy, extra-long line and crab-pot buoy would assure we could find it again.

They finally made the wrap around something on the plane and swam the other end to me. Brady was tying the two ends together. Having made the first loop in the line, he stuck his fingers in to make the second loop when a swell lifted us all up and rolled us beachward. Brady didn’t roll. The loop cinched tight around his finger and broke it. Between surges, I worked at tying the knot while Brady and Alexander went back to the plane to search it. Alexander, seaward, grabbed the jagged wreckage, pulled himself down and reached in. He felt a head, and on the second try, felt a shoulder. He could not be certain if it were one person or two. Each attempt he made was a gamble. He was flung blindly into the wreckage with bone-crushing impacts. Brady tried it from the beach side by going down, the undertow tried to roll him under and into the tangle of metal. It was all they could do to hang on to the bit of exposed wreckage, let alone manage to free a body from inside of it. So we all headed for the beach.

The new plan was to lift the plane onto a boat and be done with it. So we flew to Cordova, hopped a floatplane and flew out to the flats and landed in the lee of Egg Island and boarded the Enforcer to do the job. The Enforcer was the State Fish & Game boat that was large enough of carry the plane on its deck, and a boom big enough to lift it up out of the water. It patrols the 35-mile wide area known as the Copper River Flats where the depth of the sand bars change yearly and 500 fishermen gillnet for salmon just landward of the pounding breakers coming in from the gulf.

We weighed anchor and headed out the channel toward the gulf, estimating a 4 to 6 hour run back to Katalla. Nearing the channel approach, the Enforcer ran over a fishing boat’s gillnet and got it wrapped around the propeller. John Stimson couldn’t believe he had not seen the 900-foot-long string of corks and had to stop the Enforcer. Just inside the breakers, we were rolling wildly in the swells as John reversed the propeller hoping to dislodge the net. It didn’t work.

I went over the side to cut the webbing out of the wheel while Alexander went in and lay back several yards as a safety measure. The stern lifted high up out of the water, then plunged way down. I grabbed the webbing with my left hand and my knife with my right. The rudder was scaring me as it rose and fell past my body. I yelled to have John spin the helm to move it out of my way. Some of the mesh kept hanging up on my inflation tube and yanking me around. I was really getting jittery. With the last two and a half days of ass-busting and then this—there had been a lot of potential for an accident; I was thinking this whole operation was jinxed. I looked back and Alexander’s face was showing some mileage, too. He was getting tense. Finally, I said piss on it and reached in as far as I could with my left hand and pulled myself down and under the boat, I wrapped my knees tight around the rudder shoe, grabbed the webbing on the propeller blades and started sawing away with my knife. It was hard to hold on, and it was eerie as it would get really dark on the downward plunge and light as I was lifted closer to the surface. But it had to be done or we would have to be towed back to town. Even though I was getting fed up with the entire operation, I wanted to get it over with, and the only way to do that was to stick with it.

It felt like I got most of it out. I surfaced and John reversed the prop to spin out any remaining webbing. Fred lowered the line, and Alexander and I took turns tying our tanks and lead belts to it. Fred’s broken finger must have been giving him some grief because he winced each time he grabbed the line to lift our gear up. Then Alexander climbed up the line. When I pulled myself toward the boat with the line, I stuck my feet out to cushion my contact with the hull, and my fin got stuck between the top of the rudder and the hull as it lifted out of the water. My leg then raised high above me, then down into the water again, but not far enough to pull my head under. I pulled up all of the slack on the line, and in a vertical position against the hull, I yanked my foot but couldn’t free my fin. Out of desperation, I finally yanked my foot out of the fin and let it go. Climbing back aboard I marveled at how many things had gone wrong. One fin is only good for swimming in circles. In addition, I had used too much air out of that tank.

Anyway, we headed out across the gulf. We had a following sea to the starboard quarter and the Enforcer wallowed the whole way—but it did increase our speed a bit. Poor Alexander knew from the beginning he would get sick. In fact, John Stimson nudged me just as we were leaving to draw my attention to Alexander’s chronic, and well-known predisposition to sea-sickness. As predicted, Jim headed straight to the berthing spaces and went to bed. I took him some crackers explaining that’s what we always did in the Coast Guard: lots of crackers and a little bit of water (or 7-Up if you’ve got it). It works great for the flu, too. He was grateful, but not consoled.

As we approached the Katalla coastline several hours later, Alexander was up and bounding out on deck like he was feeling fine. Having spotted our buoy past the mine-field of crab-pot buoys, the Enforcer maneuvered her way through them to a spot as close as the fathometer would allow. Still not close enough to hook the buoy line with a boat hook, we dropped anchor and lowered the Boston Whaler over the side.

Brady and Stimson headed toward the marker to bring it back to the Enforcer where we would wench it aboard. A few minutes later they were back complaining that when they pulled on the line, it had come off of the plane. Attaching it in the first place was a major endeavor and assuring that the knot was fast or that the part of the plane it was attached to was sound was impossible. Now the plane was submerged and the line was off of it. However, the small nylon twine from the original marker was still attached.

The new plan was to dive on it, attach a long poly line from the Enforcer and finish the job. Loading gear onto the Whaler was as much a pain in the ass as everything else we’d done: Getting the vessels close enough to pass equipment but apart enough to prevent ramming together in the rolling sea. It took several passes to get all the gear and Alexander and me into the Whaler.

The four of us and our gear headed for the area of the plane as Alexander and I were gearing up. John was maneuvering over the area as I looked up from adjusting the size of the fin I borrowed and saw, coming in at our starboard beam, a sneaker. A sneaker is an abnormally high wave that old-timers used to call the seventh wave, assuming they arrive at a predictable sequence. I yelled, Holy Shit! Stimson looked up, gunned the engine and swung the bow around to face it. He faced it completely perpendicular rather than at a slight angle. We were lifted up high in the air, the wave disappeared from under us, and we dropped straight down and slammed hard into the water again.

I couldn’t believe that I was saying, Fuck this plane. I quit! Then I added, Maybe if conditions get better, I’ll try it again. But for now, I’m through. I told them I was not going to be thrown down onto a wrecked plane, getting impaled, to recover two bodies. I had never before, or since, left before an operation was completed. The others agreed. I oftentimes wonder if they were secretly grateful that I called it quits.

We weighed anchor and made an hour-and-a-half trip to the protection of Controller Bay to anchor up and radioed for a plane for Jim, Fred, and me. As an aside, of the three or four crab boats also anchored there, one was suspected of having a crewmember that had a warrant on him. So, while waiting for the plane, Alexander and Stimson (also a commissioned state public safety officer) put on their Public Safety jackets and took the Boston Whaler over to arrest him. Either he wasn’t aboard or the crew hid him when they saw the Whaler coming over. We finally got back about ten o’clock that night The next day I was contacted by the grandfather of the boys and he desperately wanted the body of the second boy recovered. I explained the conditions at Katalla and informed him that maybe someone else might try it (if they’re nuts) but I quit. I was too tired; it was too hard and dangerous. He understood.

I called McAlister in Valdez and thanked him for sending his guys over to help. He said that when they got back to Valdez, they had gone in to see him and told him that they would be glad to dive in the Valdez Arm or the entire Prince William Sound if he wanted, but Chief Whetsell can take that Gulf of Alaska and shove it up his ass. But, he continued to explain that they were already deciding which of them would come back if their help was still needed.

At any rate, within a day or two, the plane broke up in the storm that had been approaching and the body of Mr. Joy was found. The body of the other son was never recovered.

During that operation, I lost a mask, one fin, and ten pounds. But Brady gained a splint. He sold his diving gear within a week and never dived again.

I initially joined the volunteer fire department to fight fires, but in Alaska, that may be only part of one’s responsibilities.

CORDOVA AND PWS

I went from Detroit to Cordova, Alaska, in 1965 at the insistence of my employer, the U.S. Coast Guard. If they thought I was having too much fun in Detroit, they were right. In general terms, Cordova rests on the upper-most arc of the Gulf of Alaska. But more specifically, Cordova is located in Southcentral Alaska, on the eastern edge of Prince William Sound (PWS). Prince William Sound encompasses 15,000 square miles of tidewater glaciers, towering snow-capped peaks and calm waterways. Its 3,000 miles of shoreline is surrounded by the Chugach Mountains to the east, west, and north which rise over 13,000 feet. Fifty-mile long Montague Island, twenty-five mile long Hinchinbrook Island and several smaller islands form natural breakwaters between the sound and the stormy Gulf of Alaska. Because the sound was formed by millions of years of glaciations, its shorelines are heavily indented by deep fiords and many smaller bays. The sound has about 40 fjords including the one formed by the vast 35-mile long Columbia Glacier which produced the icebergs that the Exxon Valdez tried avoiding, causing it to run aground on Bligh Reef in 1989.

Prince William Sound exceeds the combined area of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. And yet fewer than 10,000 people live in the three towns—Whittier, Valdez, and Cordova—and two native villages—Chenega and Tatitlek—situated on the shores of the sound. No roads connect these communities.

Prince William Sound lies to the west of Cordova. To the east, after driving through a cut in the Heney Mountain range, is the 700,000-acre Copper River Delta. Going due east, the marshes of the delta lie on the right side of the road, but to the left are more mountains and glaciers. Still going east, 27 miles away, one crosses the Copper River and sees, straight ahead the Wrangell–St. Elias mountain range. The entire area is described as a 17-million-acre Copper River ecosystem to the east and northeast of PWS, ringed by the world’s tallest coastal mountains and supporting some of the most abundant and commercially valuable runs of wild Pacific salmon. Well, you get the idea. Incidentally, the world’s tallest coastal mountain range mentioned here are the Wrangell–St. Elias mountains. What that really means is that they are the tallest mountains that start right at the edge of the ocean. If you were to continue traveling east (actually, southeast), you would pass by the location of the Katalla (which no longer exists) and on to Yakutat (another small, land-locked fishing town). A lot of people find beauty in that panorama. I ain’t one of them.

Cordova’s average annual rainfall is much more than the official figure of 120 inches—which is measured at the airport, 13 miles east of Cordova and on the nicer side of the Heney mountain range. Surrounded by mountains on three sides and the Orca Inlet in front, it rains all…the….bloody….time.

Grey skies and rain greet most mornings, mountains disappear into the mist, and distant bays are obscured.

From out in Orca inlet, the town looked like a cluster of wooden boxes had tumbled down the slopes of Eyak Mountain and came to rest at the water’s edge. In 1965 Cordova was like stepping back in time to Dodge City: wooden plank sidewalks, mud streets and lots of bars (saloons). There was no TV, and the local radio station was on for 8 hours a day. But most distressing for me was that the only live music in town was a Julius Klein, who sat for hours in the Club Bar and played the accordion. He sure liked the song Harbor Lights.

In the pitch-black nights nearing winter, what was most striking was walking on the crunching gravel through the rain, past the small houses up on stilts hunkered down against the drizzle, muffled voices coming from behind oily, yellow windows. It created melancholy and inspired whiskey drinking.

But summer—now that was exciting. When the fishing fleet returned to town for the weekend, it was an invasion. Main Street’s two-and three-storied wooden buildings—built shoulder to shoulder—bristled with activity. The huge canneries—heavy timber and corrugated sheet steel—perched on trestles of creosoted pylons high above the water roared with work, under clouds of steam and swirls of squawking and diving gulls. All came with the fishermen in wool jackets, hip boots rolled down below the knees, tousled hair, faces red from wind, hands like hams, suspenders, loud voices, the smell of fish and diesel fuel. Bellowing laughter, roaring curses and tumbling wooden chairs, scooting tables, clacking pool balls, 45-gallon garbage cans filling up with empty beer bottles, one after another. And money—my God, the money.

Here’s the day that Al Clearwater quit drinking. All the old, rough and tumble, two-fisted drinkers would patronize the Alaskan Bar on Main Street. Al Clearwater was as hard a drinker as any of them. However, he was probably the only one that routinely would drink himself unconscious and have to be hauled home. One Saturday night, the thud of his head hitting the table signaled one of the other patrons to propose an idea. It was such an excellent idea that everyone agreed to help set it up. They volunteered for their assignments.

After phoning the mortician, several of them picked up a casket and brought it back to the bar. Others woke the local florist and got several flower arrangements. A couple of the guys went to Al’s place and picked up his suit, dress shoes, dress shirt, and tie.

They set a couple of tables next to the large plate-glass windows that looked out on Main Street and placed the casket on it. Several of them struggled to get Al dressed up in his suit and tie and they heaved him up and into the casket. Last, they placed the flower arrangements around the casket, and waited.

When he finally woke up, he sat straight up in the casket and started talking to the guys that were standing around the casket. The guys just pretended not to hear him and kept talked amongst themselves. It shook him up so badly, he quit drinking.

Anyway, for quite some time I regretted lugging my tenor sax to Alaska with me, but was glad that I brought my sea bag (duffle bag) of books. It was so heavy I had to stop people from trying to help me by carrying it. I got a lot of use out of those books for the 21 months I was on the buoy tender Sedge. During time off, when we were underway, I read. Even the sax came in handy during the duty nights when I was stuck on the ship in port; I would pace back and forth on the bridge and play. Other than that, my shipmates and I would drink. Some guys, of course, would go hunting or fishing or hiking. I would stare out at the windy, drizzly day and wonder why the hell anyone would do that.

I joined the Coast Guard in ’64 because nothing was happening in the world, and I thought search and rescue would be exciting. If I would have waited a couple of years, the government would have provided me lots of excitement in Vietnam. Anyway, the Sedge did a few search and rescue operations, but mostly it was there to keep navigation lights and buoys operating.

I eventually got married to a local girl, and Lou and I settled permanently in Cordova in 1968. I got a job working for the city in 1969 and that’s when I joined the volunteer fire department.

Lou’s mother and father were life-long Alaskans. Her father, Jack had been a commercial fisherman most of his life. His wife Ida accompanied him on the boat quite often during the fishing season, but not this one time, before Lou was born.

In the mid-‘40s, Jack deVille had been gone for some time chugging his way around the sound in search of salmon and had no way of knowing that wife, Ida, had been worrying over the deteriorating condition of their youngest infant son, Bob. Katalla had no hospital, doctors, or even radio communications to summon help from Cordova. The trip from Katalla to Cordova by boat—assuming weather was conducive to the trip—was tedious and very long. Without radar, piloting a boat in the dark when approaching the waters off the Copper River Delta with its sandbars and breakers would have to be a matter of life or death.

On such emergency occasions, the powerful radio at the St. Elias lighthouse on Kayak Island would contact Cordova for help. There were times when this was difficult to arrange. When the weather was bad, a boat from Katalla could not approach the beach line of Kayak Island without being smashed on the rocks. But Ida was becoming desperate. At the kitchen table, she scribbled four notes which read, Someone sick. Need Plane. She folded each paper and stuffed them into four tobacco cans. She sealed the cans with wax and tape. Leaving her sons in the charge of a couple of teenage neighbor girls, she trekked out into the stormy weather and climbed into a neighbor’s boat who then maneuvered it into the deeper water and turned south-southeast. The engine, the reliable two-bits two-bits two-bits sound it made as it dutifully pushed the boat into the bigger and bigger swells, Ida and the neighbor squinted out of the pilot house windows, their eyes fixed on the rotating light of the lighthouse off in the distant darkness.

Reaching the south end of the island they paced back and forth directing the beams of spotlights at the lighthouse living quarters until they saw dark figures emerging from the building, which, with flashlights in hands, made their way to the beach. The spotlight on the boat was now directed onto Ida on deck, so the Coast Guardsmen could see she was holding up a can. She then flung it into the water. Then she did the same with the other three cans. Now it was time to wait for the waves to carry the cans to the beach. The Coasties could be seen walking up and down the beach, scanning their flashlight beams on the incoming waves. After a period of time, one of them began waving, and the spotlight revealed that he held up one of the tobacco cans.

The next morning the small plane arrived. It was so small that Ida could only pack for Bob, no clothes for herself. She asked the two Hanson girls what they would like from Cordova as payment for watching the other two boys. Ice skates, they replied.

In the Cordova hospital, Bob was diagnosed with bronchial pneumonia. He was in the hospital for two months. During that time, Jack had pulled into Cordova and then learned about the situation. After Bob’s release from the hospital, Jack, Ida and Bob boarded their boat, the New Josie, and Jack loaded his new prized possession—his new Ford truck—onto the stern of the boat, lashed it down, and headed for Katalla.

In the gulf, in line with the Copper River Delta, the winds tore through the area with such force that crossing was impossible. In fact, turning the vessel around in those swells took timing, nerve, and luck to minimize the time spent sideways to the swells. He was lucky enough to swing the New Josie around to prevent capsizing, but not lucky enough