RICHARD EUGENE CLARK I've been out with the dogs when the northern lights have been moaning and doing their thing, and the dogs would lie down in the trail and wouldn't move; it scared them.
I was born May 1, 1948, in Skagway, in the old White Pass Hospital. My mother's name was Ester. I never met my father. I was in Skagway until 1959 and then moved to Haines. In 1960, I moved to Sitka with a foster parent.
In 1962, my foster mother got a job with the state teaching in the bush, and I spent two winters in Nikolai. It was a new experience, lots and lots of fun, lots to do.
We picked blueberries, hunted moose and grouse, and did just about everything you do in the bush. I snared rabbits just about the whole time I was there.
I got to see the real Alaska before it became what it is today. At the time, there were only three ways to get to the village of Nikolai. You either flew in, took a riverboat from Medfra or, when there was snow and ice, you dogsledded. Now you can snowmachine; they didn't have snowmachines then.
I can remember when the first snowmachine came into the country. I never did see it -- it didn't come to Nikolai. The first snowmachine that came into country came into Bethel.
We heard about it from "the sourdough net," a ham radio operator network. I was sitting in the radio room one day and this guy was talking about this dog-less carriage. It was an Arctic Cat with a steering wheel.
The post office and grocery store was in Medfra. I had to mush our dogs 13 miles to get the mail. Dogs are nice; they have their good qualities and bad qualities. The best part is, when you're running dogs, it's quiet, it's peaceful and there is nothing but the bark of the dogs and the swish of the sled runner.
I've run dogs at night when the northern lights were streaking across the sky -- red, green, purple and all kinds of stuff. I've seen St. Elmo's fire on the bushes in the tundra.
I've been out with the dogs when the northern lights have been moaning and doing their thing, and the dogs would lie down in the trail and wouldn't move; it scared them. You're out in the middle of nowhere and trying to get home and the dogs wouldn't move no matter what you did. That was scary for a young man wondering what's going on.
We moved from Nikolai to a little place called Nyac and spent a year there. Then we moved to Sand Point in the Aleutian chain.
I worked at a crab cannery and when I turned 16, I went to work on a crab boat in the gulf. It was terrible. It's the most hazardous job in Alaska, working the high seas. I did that for one season. It was too rough for this old gray duck.
After that, I lived in Fairbanks until I got drafted. One time, I went out hunting with a couple of friends, and two of us decided to go back to town to get some supplies. When we got back, we couldn't find our partner.
We got to looking around, a bear had been in camp, and we found where the bear had killed him. We figured that the bear came into camp looking for food and our friend came back from the moose stand and surprised the bear and there was nowhere to go.
UNCLE SAM WANTS ME
At the time I got my draft notice, I was running a trapline in Fairbanks. The notice said I had to be in such and such a place at such and such a time.
I had to pull my traps. Well, I didn't get a hold of anybody. I just went to go pull my traps, and when I got back, the MP's were standing at the door to take me to the airplane to get my physical, cause the state troopers weren't going to chase me all over Alaska.
The law says if you're going to leave your line you have to pull your traps. That's just the way it is, and I wasn't going to break the law. I got escorted to the airport.
I was 20 years old. I was in Vietnam for two and a half tours. When I got to 'Nam, I had one chance to grow up or die -- that's it, case closed. You either grew up right now or that's it.
I came back into country at Fort Lewis and then got shipped to Fort Carson, Colo. I didn't know what to do with my life, so I re-enlisted like a dummy and I went into the Hercules missile field and worked for RADCOM.
I got stationed in Minnesota. That's where I met my wife, Betty, and we were married in 1971. Next, I got shipped to Seattle and then I was transferred to Korea. Before I left, I brought my family to Haines. I have two children, Richard and Jane.
MASHED IN THE MACHINE
I was in Korea for four months when I found out my brother was dying of cancer. I took an emergency out and came back to Haines. I went to work at Schnabel's lumber mill and was there for several years.
One day there was a hang-up in the conveyor. I shut it off but I didn't pull the fuse. I crawled into the conveyor to fix it. Well, there's another switch at the other end, and while I was in the conveyor, someone turned it on and got me hung up in the conveyor.
My leg went down between two tail drums and I was in there for four minutes before I got someone's attention. It took them 20 minutes to cut me out. I lost part of my thigh and hurt my back. I couldn't do anything for quite a while.
Now, I plow snow and run bobcat and basically pick up work wherever I can. I take photographs and do a little prospecting. During the summer, I go out and look for precious metals and gems like gold, silver and platinum, and in the winter I go back to plowing.
My daughter worked for a tour company and some tourists asked about prospecting, and she told them, "If you're looking for a pot of gold, forget it. My dad's been looking for 40 years and hasn't found anything yet!"
There is one story from my childhood the old-timers used to tell about how Nikolai got where it was.
Prior to the gold rush years, the military was going to put a telegraph line from Fairbanks to Nome, and they were surveying the country. When they heard about the gold, that was the end of the telegraph line, and they let their horses go in that area.
One of the Natives had traveled up the river on a moose hunt and he shot a horse. He'd never seen a horse before. He cut the tail off to take back and show the chief what kind of moose they had up there with these funny-looking tails.
As the old-timers tell it, the chief moved the village up there, and it's been there ever since. I don't remember where the village was to start with, but when you're 12 years old, what do you remember?
Ed and Milinda May are the owners of Insight Passage Productions. They have produced two audio CDs "Stories of the Last Frontier and Fishing Tales". Their latest audio work is featured in the movie "Baked Alaska", a documentary on the changing environmental landscape of Alaska. Their web site is www.alaskanlifeportraits.com.
