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Gary A. Bloxham Ebbtide Reporter Editor's note: This essay is a small passage taken from a two-month exploration of Alaska during May-June 2002. This portion of the trip, during late June, follows a 900-mile excursion up the Dalton Highway to Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean and back to Fairbanks. The drive to Eagle, Alaska, is a final indulgence before crossing over the border into the Yukon Territory and heading home on the Alcan Highway. Leaving Tok early in the morning is much like leaving most of the small towns in Alaska. You don't have to go very far to leave the city and people behind. It does have one unique advantage over most of the other small towns, though. Tok is accessible by road. That may not seem like a large claim, but for the state of Alaska, where the principal transportation network is the state ferry system, it is a significant economic advantage. Tok is located on one of the state's few highways.
Another major difference about the Taylor Highway is the elevation. As you drive north you reach a height of about 3,000 feet, and stay at that level until you approach Eagle on the Yukon River, or go east toward Dawson, also on the Yukon. The section of road between Alaska and Dawson City on the Klondike Loop is known as the Top of the World Highway. The name is appropriate. You can drive for over 100 miles at the 3,000-foot level. I stopped for lunch in Chicken, named when it was a mining camp around 1903. The miners wanted to name it after a local bird, the ptarmigan grouse. But as local folklore has captured the story, they were unable to spell ptarmigan and named the camp Chicken, the nickname for the grouse. While Chicken is a quaint and interesting stop, it has never come close to exceeding the potential of its name. Downtown Chicken consists of a mercantile store (gift shop), liquor store, saloon and café. One benefit of traveling alone to the remote parts of Alaska is that people take delight in finding an opportunity to talk. I took advantage of this to determine road conditions and to learn local folklore. The proprietor of the mercantile is Susan Johnson, and she was willing to give me the benefit of her knowledge about the local area. Susan explained that Eagle is her recommended destination. This historical stop has Fort Egbert, many turn-of-the-century buildings, riverfront accommodations and relatively peaceful surroundings with few people. On the other hand, Dawson City is a tourist trap with gambling, dance halls and lots of other activities. With food in my stomach and enough gasoline in my truck, I headed up the highway to Eagle. After stopping to see the Jake Wade Gold Dredge, I picked up a hitchhiker. Over the course of my life, my mother and my wife have both warned me of the dangers of picking up hitchhikers. But like many other of life's little lessons, I am determined to learn them on my own. Besides, this hitchhiker seemed interesting. His name is Wilbur Peterman. Wilbur is a tall, slender, sharply featured Athabascan native Alaskan in his late 30s. In spite of missing one or two teeth, he is a fairly handsome man. Both of his deeply bronze-colored forearms are covered in blue tattoos of an Athabascan native design. He said, with pride, that he did the tattooing himself. As it turned out, he lives in Eagle, and in exchange for a ride he would act as my guide. Anticipating over four hours driving at 25 to 30 miles per hour, I was glad to have someone along to share the ride. On top of a long, exposed ridge in the mountains, Wilbur and I came to the American Summit Gifts and Crafts shop. He asked to stop, and, by the way, could he borrow $20 until we got to Eagle. It seemed that he needed to buy beer for his buddies in town. That was OK with me, but I was surprised to find this store out in the middle of nowhere, between Chicken and Eagle, on a road that is only open five months of the year. Wilbur quickly answered this simple economic question. American Gifts and Crafts is exactly five miles from the local Indian settlement of Eagle Village. That's as close to the reservation as a store is allowed when it sells liquor of any kind.
Dropping Wilbur off with his friends, I headed for the Eagle Trading Co. to find food and bed for the night. Inside the store I found the proprietor and one of his customers. After arranging for a room I told them both that I had picked up Wilbur Peterman on my way into Eagle. Wide-eyed, the proprietor said, "You picked up the local felon and ex-con." "Yah, that's why I carry this," said the customer, opening his jacket to show a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol. Apparently, I had been traveling with the most disreputable character in the area. Clearly, I had fallen in with bad company. After dinner I retreated into my room to read. While at the gift shop in Chicken, one of my purchases was the novella, "Dark Boundary," by Anne Hobbs Purdy. Purdy was the real-life character in the popular book, "Tisha." She spent most of her life in Chicken or Eagle, so she had been a local celebrity. The semi-autobiographical, "Dark Boundary" takes place at the turn of the century and is the story of the collision between the white culture and the Native Alaskans. This conflict defines man's inhumanity and the consequences of extreme prejudice encountered by the residents of Eagle. It is an American tale of apartheid as it occurred on the Alaskan frontier during the winding down of the Klondike Gold Rush. After breakfast the next morning, I had the chance opportunity to have coffee with Jack Mason, a recent resident of Eagle. Jack is a musher who makes his living raising malamutes, a dog breed that he feels is endangered as a working animal. It is Jack's mission in life to preserve the malamute as a sled dog. Since Eagle is on the route for at least one major Alaskan sled dog race, it seemed that he chose an excellent community for his business. With a little more conversation, I learned that Jack had formerly lived in the town of Eureka, just north of Fairbanks. He further offered that he had moved to Eagle because he needed to escape the large population in Eureka. Since the road to Prudhoe Bay was built, he no longer had the isolation that he craved. There were too many neighbors and too many tourists intruding on his life. I don't think Jack has many drop-in customers. At the risk of intruding, I asked Jack if he knew Wilbur Peterman, the hitchhiker I picked up the day before. "Yes," he replied, explaining that Wilbur had acted as a salesman when he purchased his cabin. "Wilbur is a great guy once you get to know him. He is a little wild and has gotten into trouble from time to time, but you can trust him. "But," he cautioned, "you have to be a little careful who you talk to around here. There are some people who don't care for his kind."
Next to the buildings of the old fort is the headquarters for the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. On duty was Ranger Charley Longman. In talking with him, I learned that he was a native Alaskan. While he was not from the local settlement, he was related to the Han Kutchin Indians of Eagle Village, located three miles down the road. The Han Kutchins represent the mix of two tribal groups from central Alaska's Athabascan Indian culture. Unable to resist the opportunity, I asked Longman if the conflicts and prejudice portrayed in the story "Dark Boundary" were factual. Looking around to make sure that the local people were all in the other office, he said, "Local native Alaskans are reluctant to talk about the problems between the two cultures." He pointed out the separateness of the Eagle City and Eagle Village; even today they are not able to join together and enjoy the benefits of a combined community in a remote area of Alaska. As I was preparing to leave Eagle, I reflected on my visit. The town had certainly fulfilled my expectations. The setting alongside the Yukon River was certainly one of the more picturesque in my travels. The history of the area is unquestionably one of the more fascinating stories in Alaska. But my memories are shaped more by the inhabitants of Eagle than by the town itself. Clearly the troubled history of the people at the turn-of-the century established a pattern that is still clearly evident. I suspect that this pattern is far more common than we would like to admit. © 2003 Shoreline Community College™ |
