When I walk around Wrangell these days I keep hearing, “Welcome back,” and it’s hard to explain to people that I actually, in fact, returned to Wrangell on March 1, over a month ago. But with my work situation of traveling and working from home, I’m not in the community as much as I used to be as a newsperson. It’s also occurred to me that people outside of Wrangell aren’t quite sure where I am, so I’ll explain.
I left Barrow on February 22, a week after the Kivgiq festival and seeing polar bears.
While I did leave Barrow earlier than expected (I was supposed to be there until May), I found myself sad to go. It was only when I knew I was leaving did I start to really enjoy everything, most of all the people.
I met some great friends in Barrow and looking back now, it was one of those moments in time when a group of people found each other in the most peculiar of places and are better off. Well, at least I am better off.
I went to Anchorage for the last week of February with two other StoryCorps facilitators, Pat from Fairbanks and Sandra from Nome.
We had four successful recording days at the Anchorage Pioneer Home, the Alzheimer’s Resource Agency of Alaska, and the Alaska Humanities Forum. Each of these organizations really welcomed us and were happy we were there to record stories. It was at the Pioneer Home that I met Ed Myers.
Ed and I both graduated from Horace Greeley High School – Ed in the late 1940s, me in 1999. Afterward, he went to Swarthmore, met his wife (who also grew up in Chappaqua), and then returned to Chappaqua to teach. He knew Douglas G. Grafflin – the man, not the elementary school that I attended. I had never heard anyone refer to Grafflin, the person. Ed said Grafflin was the superintendent and a great friend before he died of cancer. Ed continued to teach in a few schools in Chappaqua and eventually beyond. He said he moved to Alaska only a few years ago when him and his wife got a divorce. Shortly after the move, Ed had a stroke, and now he lives in the Pioneer Home. It was a great coincidence to meet Ed – two individuals from the same small town, decades apart in age, who meet in a sitting area of the Anchorage Pioneer Home.
I left Anchorage and landed in Wrangell on March 1, my first day back in over five months.
It was happiness overload to see friends, trees, mountains, to be home. Scott picked me up at the airport and when I stepped into our house, a group of friends burst out of the bathroom to welcome me home. I’ve never been surprised like that. I cried.
I was home in Wrangell for a little over a week, before I left for Dillingham.
Dillingham is a place I’ve spent roughly an hour in. A few may recall that this is the site of where my commercial fishing experience abruptly ended, where the Glory B went dry, where my fellow deckhand and I jumped ship and flew back to our respective homes. Now, Dillingham is also where I spent three busy days in the Kanakanak Hospital recording 21 interviews and hung out with Dillingham facilitator Tom Tilden and his girlfriend Jodi Sykes, who are both a riot.
After Dillingham, I returned to Wrangell for one week before taking off for Bethel.
StoryCorps had plans to record at the Bethel Senior Center three days and at the high school for their Cama-i Festival two days. Mt. Redoubt had other plans for us. The volcano, which ended up erupting 18 times in one week, changed plans for many people. After being forced to overnight in Anchorage, I arrived in Bethel a day later, which didn’t affect the trip too much. We still heard some great stories from Bethel elders and saw amazing dancing at the Cama-i Festival. Getting out of Bethel proved to be even harder than getting in. But two canceled flights and an extra 24-hours meant getting to hang out with Chris Pike, a former Crossings guide, his girlfriend, Leah, and their dog, Gus.
They gave me a copy of Flight of the Goose, took me cross-country skiing for the first time ever, and made caribou stew.
I left Bethel last Sunday evening and overnighted in Anchorage, again. The next morning, I was patiently waiting at my gate for flight 64, which flies from Anchorage to Wrangell via Juneau, when they announced that Redoubt had just erupted again and we should hurry up and board the flight or else we’d be stuck. So we did. Everyone hurried on and the plane took off. It was the last plane to leave before the Ted Stevens International Airport closed for a few hours. Everyone felt lucky since we were able to escape being stranded due to Redoubt. When flight 64 landed in Juneau to unload and load passengers, the plane hung out on the tarmac a little too long. A couple hours later, the flight was cancelled due to a mechanical, so I was stuck yet again, but this time in Juneau.
I went to the Mendenhall Glacier, which I had never seen despite all the times I’ve been to Juneau. I ate Chinese food at Zen and I watched bad cable in the Travelodge. At that point, I was sick of hotel cable.
I finally made it back to Wrangell on Tuesday afternoon, two days after I was supposed to be home. Not too bad, I guess, considering how much worse it could’ve been. So I’m back in Wrangell, at home. I have one more month of working for StoryCorps, which will involve some more traveling around the state, but when I’m not doing that, I’m home, enjoying the beginning of spring.
