Just home from a six weeks away from my home in Southeast Alaska. Although I had half a day of freshwater boating on Keuka Lake in western New York, and a short saltwater kayak trip in the Atlantic,
I’ve been craving my weekly time on the fjords and channels, the network that separates the islands of the Alexander Archipelago.
A Gift halibut Trip from a Friend
So I am grateful to my friend Bob for inviting me on a halibut trip today, one of the most beautiful days of 2017: sunshine, light breezes, and easy water.
Alaska Halibut Fishing with Nathan and Eleanor
A happy day with Bob, his son Nathan, and friend Eleanor. In 7 or 8 hours of fishing, we caught a few halibut (although none as big as my 50 lb. first halibut of 2016) with a smorgasbord of octopus, herring, and pink salmon heads, so a successful freezer-filling day. See the pictures of Eleanor and Bob for examples of our big saltwater reels.
Channels and Currents Offer Food for Salmon and Halibut
My friend Bob knew that I needed time on the water
More importantly to me, we anchored where currents from multiple channels mix and flow as the tide changes (a new high or low every 6 hours). These are my favorite saltwater places in Southeast Alaska. With the flood tide bringing in a moderate high tide of 14.6 feet in the morning, and then dropping down to about +3 feet, the currents were strong enough to drag our anchor several times. Look at the textures in the surface of the water in Photo 3: at least a half-dozen different smooth and riffled edges, tiny white-capped waves, the underlying small waves. This place can be extremely crazy in rough weather.
Chatham Strait with the Chilkat Range in background. Mixing zones have ever-changing textures and waves.
With a bottom that is mixed rocks and sand, shallow near points of land that separate different bodies of water, down to more than 1000 feet deep in Chatham, the lower and upper layers of water mix, making food available for salmon and halibut. I could have taken a new picture every 15 minutes with completely different surface conditions.
I love the spectacular view of the Chilkat Range of mountains on the Chilkat Peninsula that separates Chatham Strait from Glacier Bay. Other than the shoreline, these mountains are rarely penetrated by humans.
Ahhh … sharing special places with friends, the never ending ebb and flow of tides and life, saltwater and wilderness… home…
People walk on carpet to protect feet from hot flagstones, Jama Masjid mosque of Delhi
With only a single day in Delhi, Prabhu took us into the streets of Old Delhi to visit the Jama Masjid mosque. The first day in a new place often overwhelms me. Cities like Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam or Athens, Greece or Delhi overload my senses and thoughts with dizzy swirling colors, smells, activities, and people.
But even on a first day, if I focus on a few small details, watch one person for a few minutes, or study a building, I begin to sense the rhythm of life, the order within the chaos.
Delhi Street Food Vendor
Prabhu helped us enjoy this first day. We sampled street food from a vendor he knew was safe, took a short bicycle rickshaw ride through narrow allies, and then walked to the Jama Masjid mosque of Delhi, one of the oldest and largest mosques in India.
Shah Jajan, the 5th Mughul Emperor, began construction of the Jama Masjid mosque in 1644, the same year that he completed construction of the Taj Majal (although work would continue on both for 10 more years).
Jama Masjid mosque of Delhi
He was one of the richest kings on Earth, presiding over an empire that included what is now India, Pakistan, and much of Afghanistan, with a 1-million-man army. These beautiful structures were built not by slaves, but by paid workers at tremendous expense.
Today, the Jama Masjid mosque is one of the most important landmarks of Old Delhi.
Jama Masjid mosque of Delhi
We visited it on Eid (pronounced “eed”), the last day of Ramadan. Crowd of people from surrounding villages and cities were also visiting. The outdoor courtyard can hold 25,000 worshipers during the call to prayer. However, we visited between prayers, walking through the corridors and arches at each of the gates with hundreds of other people.
Jan, Fiona, Mary, Stephanie, and Deb in Jama Masjid mosque of Delhi
Before entering, our six women were given long tunics to cover their shoulders and below their knees. Although general photography is not allowed without a permit, I was able to purchase a permit at the entrance.
Why do ancient and holy places weigh so heavily upon me? The feeling is not oppressive. Rather, I think it is the atmosphere of long history and my desire to be respectful to the people and religions that continue to seek spiritual fulfillment there. It is a weight of feeling that I seek rather than avoid.
Gate of the Jama Masjid mosque of Delhi (8)
The smiles from worshipers, the flowing colors of people dressed in lovely clothing as they streamed across the central square on narrow carpets to protect their feet from blazing hot flagstones in the Delhi sun, a short conversation with a young boy who approached, and delicious street food: these were the highlights of my one day in Delhi, my first day in India.
Kate Troll (katetroll.com) and I have just returned from trekking in the Himalayas of India, a trip initiated by our friends, Mary and Deb, and organized through Prabhu Singh Bhati, a very experienced tour and trekking guide. Over the next few blog posts, I’ll explore what we saw and what we learned—as much for my own benefit as for readers.
This is the story of 10 friends travelling together. Eight of us had deep connections over the last 20 to 40 years in Alaska. Two were newer and less known, but nevertheless happy and vibrant companions who are now special friends. All 10 of us are typically independent travelers. We’ve used guides for a day or two, but only two of us had ever gone on a totally guided/arranged trip.
Prabhu negotiates with rickshaw drivers in Old Delhi, India
India was different. Even though Kate and I have traveled to large cities and challenging destinations in Russia, Turkey, South America, Malaysia, Vietnam, and others, India intimidated us, primarily because of the sheer density of humanity: the magnitude of culture, population, chaos, and reputation for sanitation issues in Indian travel.
So we placed ourselves in Prabhu’s hands to arrange the trip, guide our first week and a half as we prepared to trek, and bring us together with professional trekking guides in Ladakh, the place of high passes in the Himalayas.
Prabhu discusses history of northern India
He introduced us to Old Delhi, gave us a thorough crash course in Indian history, and began the process of acclimating us to increasing altitude as we prepared to trek into the Himalayas: to live and sleep at altitudes as high as 15,000 feet; and to cross two passes of 16,000 and 17,000 feet during our 10-day trek.
We found the Indian people in every place, of all religions and philosophies, regardless of their economic status or caste, to be wonderful. They were irresistibly friendly and helpful, warm, and fascinating. The shared a love of good humor, and to be as fascinated with us as we were with them.
Buddhist Monks at Ladakh Shanti Stupa
I could provide endless examples of people we enjoyed meeting, laughed with, took selfies with, asked questions about each other, discussed politics or culture with. They included our guides, helpers, and cook, shopkeepers, kids who walked up and said Hi and started to teach 10 chanting Americans the alphabet, kamikaze taxi drivers, monks who blessed Kate’s book and monks who removed their tennis shoes before entering the same monasteries we entered,
the police inspector in charge of security at a Buddhist festival who dreams of continuing his law degree studies at Harvard in a few years, and those we danced and sang with. I traded email and Instagram account names with a number of them, so hope to stay in touch. They were college graduates fluent in English, pony men who pack freight between villages in the high passes of the Himalayas, and random people everywhere.
Bill Hanson trades photos with young woman at temple -Shimla, India
Many spoke or understood English, although we obviously couldn’t rely on this. They also spoke their local language (Ladakh language = Ladakhi), Hindi, and often French or other European languages. And of course, we all spoke laughter and smiles, waiving arms, counting by number of fingers, and pantomime.
Visitors arrive on early morning cruise Ship – Juneau, AK
As a 36-year resident of Juneau and Ketchikan, I welcome the annual flood of travelers who visit each year. It’s not the economic effect of more than 1 million visitors who will arrive by cruise ship in Juneau (population 32,000) this summer. Nor is it that my son is a helicopter pilot, although I’m happy he lives nearby. My openness to such a crowd is this: I believe that people who see and experience Southeast Alaska’s beauty and culture become owners of our landscape, taking home memories and feelings that support Alaska and Alaskan’s in the long run.
Three… no two… no one (!) day of comparative quiet remains in Juneau. One day until the parade of 1000-foot long cruise ships passes our house, up to six on the average day, each with 2500 passengers and 900 crew members. Float planes will roar off the water and helicopters will land on the glaciers of the Juneau Icefield.
What will they see and feel as they arrive and explore our place in the world? Will they take home a memory that leads them to support protection of our wildlife, wise use of our resources, respect for our culture? What will they learn from the rapidly receding Mendenhall Glacier? Will they see it as a signal of what may disappear from their home landscapes as climate changes?
I’d like them to gain a sense of what is important to Alaskans, to the people of Juneau from all walks of life. Today, the last quiet day in Juneau, I would like to share what counts for me in the everyday love of my place. And, I’ll suggest three of my favorite indoor places to learn about Alaska and Juneau, faithfully hoping that they won’t need help in finding the more obvious outdoor places.
Last Quiet Days in Juneau
Surf-Scoter
For now, I sit on my deck, listening to hundreds of surf-scoters diving for blue mussels in the shallow water of Gastineau Channel below. I’m 50 feet above them and a full street back, but their gabbling sounds like 400 black chickens excited to discover that they’ve evolved into super-swimmers and diving champions in the dark green saltwater. A barge approaches in the center of the channel, spooking several hundred scoters into whistling wing flight and I miss the chance for a video. Listen to the calls and wing whistles of surf-scoters at Audubon’s website.
Bald eagle landing on perch tree. Eagles like perch trees that provide a good view of the water as they search for food.
A bald eagle floats in from down channel, looking slow because it’s just gliding, not even a single wing-beat, but actually shooting along at speed. It adjusts its wings at the last moment and sweeps upward to rise the last 15 feet to a perfect standstill at the top of the Sitka Spruce tree behind our house. This is the same eagle that wakes us with its shrill warbling call… no not the scream you hear in the movies, which is dubbed in, usually a red-tailed hawk from somewhere to the south of Alaska while the eagle just lip-syncs. You can compare the calls at theNational Audubon Society’s wonderful website. Click the linked names here and scroll down to the Songs and Calls section for each: Listen to the Red-tailed Hawk.Listen to the Bald Eagle.
Barge arriving in Juneau. Without an road connection to the outside world, Juneau depends on barges to bring in groceries and everything else found in stores. Barges also carry fish from processing facilities and other products out to markets.
The scoters settle back into their feeding now that the barge is tied up on the far side of the channel. Those startled into flight circle back, their heavy bodies landing in white streaky splashes that from this distance almost look like Dall porpoises surfacing. I was going to say they calm down, but there’s nothing calm about the random chaos of scoters feeding: birds crowded together, swimming in every direction. And yet, the pattern of the flock isn’t random from my eagle’s eye point of view, bunched together in a 40-foot-wide crowd very close to shore where the mussel beds are best. And when not feeding, scoters can be as organized as the most disciplined ant colony, stringing out single file to play follow-the-leader.
Rufous Hummingbird watches Cruise ships from perch on caribou antler in Juneau Alaska. No caribou remain in Southeast Alaska, although there is evidence that they lived here during the ice age, when oceans were much lower.
Across the water, the docks and anchorages await the cruise passenger pilgrimage to Juneau. The ships will idle past our house early each morning, their bridge just about the height of our picture window, eyeball to eyeball with the captain; then disappear like brightly lit specters in the evening, just after the time the rufous hummingbirds go to their roosts.
Although traveling by cruise ship isn’t for me, I want these visitors to find what I’m always seeking when I travel: a sense of the place and people, what makes us want to live here. I want them to value not just Juneau as a city, but as a city shaped by its history and landscape, by the people who lived here before Europeans and Russians arrived. I want them not just to see, but to feel the power of this Southeast Alaska archipelago of 20,000 islands and rocks scattered across the channels on which the cruise ships float. I want them to love this landscape.
I want them to experience Southeast Alaska in a personal way: to touch the water, to walk a trail, to feel the gravity of rainforests, to see a whale or seal or salmon or eagle, to gaze at the mountains and glaciers and ocean. I want them to seek out some flavor of what I hold dear. At the very least I hope they explore beyond the cruise line-owned jewelry stores and souvenir shops near the docks. And I hope they seek out the shops still owned by local people. I don’t think these are so hard to recognize. I hope they look for local artists and writers and entrepreneurs. Yes, I know– that’s a lot of hoping. But I happily seek the same answers when I travel to far off places.
Special Museums and Cultural Center
Sealaska Heritage Foundation’s Walter Soboleff Center, Juneau, Alaska. The center features both contemporary and traditional art by Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian artists.
Here are three indoor experiences that are within easy walking distance of the cruise ship docks. Downtown Juneau has changed much in recent years, although it has always offered more than jewelry shops. Sealaska Heritage Foundation has created the Walter Soboleff Center, covered with pungent Alaska yellow cedar on the outside, featuring modern and traditional art by Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian artists. Inside, there’s a replica clan house, and a small but fascinating collection of traditional clothing and objects with explanations of how these fit into daily life. I remember the dedication ceremony for the Soboleff Center, named for Dr. Walter Soboleff, so long a beacon of hope and love and leadership in our community. I thrilled at the painted canoes that arrived from far points of Southeast Alaska. I watched the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian people in deep red and black blankets and clothing. We all laughed as Raven dancers surprised the crowd into jumping back as they clacked the beaks of their Raven masks.
AK State Library-Archives-Museum with Nimbus sculpture opened in 2016.
The newAlaska State Library, Archives, and Museumis also downtown, a world-class building with exceptional exhibits, including special summer exhibits that feature the art collection of the museum, as well as art on loan from 30 artists around the state.
AK State Library-Archives-Museum interior with life size eagle nest tree exhibit
Alaska State Museum exhibits touch on indigenous cultures, Russian Alaska, mining, and the history since Alaska was purchased from Russia 150 years ago in March 1867. The State Archives and Library on the second floor is no less handsome, and worth visiting.
On July 4, 1959, the 49-star U.S. Flag was raised in front of what is now the Juneau Douglas City Museum to celebrate Alaska statehood. Across from State Capitol building
The Juneau Douglas City Museum is Juneau’s own display of history in a town (the highly competitive towns of Juneau and Douglas became one in 1970) that grew up around three of the largest gold mines in the world from the early 1900’s to 1940. It’s a museum easy to miss, but is only three short blocks from downtown, across the street from the State Capitol Building and on the way to the Governor’s Mansion.
On the 4th of July, 1959, Alaska celebrated statehood in front of what is now the Juneau Douglas City Museum. The flag with 49 stars was raised, and a bell was rung 49 times. Fast forward to July 4th, 2009, when all but one of the living Alaska State Governors gathered again to celebrate Alaska’s 50th anniversary of statehood. For me, this ceremony was very special. The place, the museum, and the moment brought home much of what I feel about Alaska as a state. I joined the throng and celebrated with my heart in my throat, so grateful to make my life here.
Visitors will find many other exhibits, museums, trails, recreational opportunities, and tours worth experiencing, both downtown and farther afield. Zooming out, Juneau rests within the landscape and region of Southeast Alaska, just one of 32 communities, each with its own story, some with origins in Tlingit, Haida, or Tsimshian communities reaching back in to the past, others like Juneau more recent upstarts. Their stories are there to explore.
Alaskans have strong traditions of sharing gifts of the land, hospitality of our homes, and the landscape that we live in. I ask only that our visitors treat the land and people with respect. I hope they will seek new experiences, whether in rain or sunshine. I hope they will take away a vision and love for the place that I love.
After Note: Please Express Your Support
This blog post was prompted when the City of Juneau announced that it was considering closure of the Juneau Douglas City Museum, a great loss in my opinion. Since then, the Borough Assembly has removed the museum from the 2017 budget cut list in response to strong support from Juneau residents. The cultural centers and museums in Juneau and other Southeast Alaska communities need your support. As you visit their websites and when you visit them in person, please express your support to their staff, on their websites, and through donations.
An Iditarod musher drives their dog team down the Yukon River between checkpoints of Tanana and Ruby during the 2017 Iditarod. Bob Hallinen Anchorage Dispatch News
It’s not just the dog mushing. I think I love the image of solitary pursuit of a goal. A quest. But not conquering nature, a concept and goal that I despise. I think it’s “adaptation”, although that doesn’t quite ring true either. The vision is that the musher and dog team fit into my concept of what the landscape tells me, and what I know. I’ve been alone and abandoned on the Windy Fork of the Kuskokwim River in -20 F winter, wondering if my conversation the night before about how mean moose get in the winter might be about to stomp me, considering how best to get back to a warm building if a damaged aircraft doesn’t send someone to pick me up. So is it loneliness? I don’t think so
The Iditarod Race is a strange beast. Racing across 1000 miles of frozen Alaska landscapes takes the fortitude and dedication, and especially the obsession required to be a dog sled racer… and of course to be a sled dog. It requires substantial money and financial sponsors to maintain and train a dog team capable of competing. There’s no question that the Iditarod symbolizes one of the great unions of animals and humans, requires its own brand of toughness, and fits the imagination of Alaskans and the people outside Alaska who dream of the Alaska mystique.
But dog sledding isn’t just the Iditarod. For some Alaskans, dog sledding still serves the same purposes it did before the Iditarod: a mode of transportation adapted to the winter landscape of the far north, a way to travel cross-country both for recreation and to live daily life, although much of the utilitarian function has been taken over by snowmobiles.
Like horses in rural America, sled dogs can travel and work in terrain and weather conditions that stymie mechanical contraptions. I’ll admit here and now that I know virtually nothing firsthand about either horses or sled dogs. Okay, I’ve ridden a horse, and had a tourist ride on a dog sled. Does that count? No, not really… Not at all. And yet I still sense the partnership that horseback riders and mushers share with their horses and dogs, the personal relationship between living, working creatures. No matter how much personality we attach to our pickups and snow mobiles, it’s not remotely the same as the mutual relationship with horses and dogs.
But I started with the question: What is it about the photo of the musher and dogs on the Yukon River with the mountains in the background that grabbed me by the uh… heart, and say this is GENUINE?
What if the musher had been riding a snowmobile? Would I have felt the same? Well… yes. Partly. Snowmobiles have replaced sled dogs in most ways for most people in Alaska. They are essential to life for many places. So I would still feel that I was witnessing a genuine image of everyday life in an iconic landscape.
But sled dogs represent something more. Perhaps it’s my tendency toward nostalgia, my admiration for life before modern machines. Or maybe it is my admiration for living within the confines of the local landscape. I think this is closer to the truth. Dogs require food, it’s true. As far as the Iditarod goes, this is anything but reliance on local landscapes. Food is formulated for the race. Mushers seek out every possible source of meat and fish that would otherwise go to waste during the year.
But dogs can live just fine on salmon and other fish caught by local people. Horses can live by grazing on local plants. As long as the plants and animals within a landscape are sufficiently productive and abundant, horses and dogs offer work partners relatively free of the outside world. Yes, I realize that today we provide many products and services to our animals that come from far away, but it’s this inherent ability to live within the landscape that I think is at the core of my reaction to the photo of the dog team and musher in a vast beautiful landscape without other visible humans or animals.
The partnership between the dogs and the musher, like the partnership between cowboys and cowgirls and their horses is the other reason why I find this scene so compelling. It’s a relationship, not just putting fuel in the gas tank and maintaining the machine, a relationship built on trust, understanding of limitations, navigating personality differences and emotions, and dependence on one another. Okay—I cuss out my truck once in a while.
The black specks of the musher and dogs on the sweeping band of the river, the forever far away hills, brings together my sense that humans have a place within this landscape, a communion between the world and our place within it.
Billy Hanson’s Straight Razor with case. Plastic handle. Still sharp.
Today with our electric shavers, disposable razors, and depilating creams, “the razor’s edge” might seem like nothing more than an idiom attached to an antique shaving tool, the straight-razor (aka open razor or cutthroat-razor!). Surprisingly, however, the straight razor is making a big come-back thanks to a scene in the James Bond movie, Skyfall. (Read more about this: The Straight-Razor Start-up Package: How to get into the boutique, nearly lost art of the wet shave, Outside Magazine 9/29/2016). More about Eve, James, and Skyfall below.
What the Hell do I Know About Shaving?
Of course, my friends would probably say: “Who the hell are you to talk about shaving?” A good point. Take one look at any photo of me on this website (or in my entire photo collection going back to 1977), and you’ll be hard-pressed to find me without a beard. Without clothes, maybe, but not without my self-defining beard. I once shaved it off without warning Kate and my kids (who were probably about 6 and 8-years-old). Kate told me she wanted divorce, and refused to talk to me until I grew it back (or at least for the first three days). I have to admit my face looked very short in the mirror. Erin said, “You don’t look like an Alaskan anymore.” That really hurt. As for survival of our marriage, it was a close shave (Yeah, I know, stupid. But irresistible).
Billy Hanson’s leather strops for sharpening straight-razor. Top: Torrey’s Best- patented 1901 2-sided; Bottom: Sheffield’s Magic Strop- 4 sided.
For most of Billy Hanson’s life, shaving meant using a straight razor. Later, he adopted the “safety” razor (first patented in 1901). How do I know? It turns out that Billy seems to have had an affection for his razors, perhaps unable to let such a personal tool go. In his trunk, I find several straight razors and worn-out strops for sharpening them, safety razors, and a supply of razor blades. Perhaps “affection” is unfair. Living far from town, where even groceries required a 40-60 mile drive, and ordering from the “Monkey Ward” (Montgomery Ward) catalog was a staple, I think I’d save these potentially useful tools as back-ups as well.
Billy Hanson’s Gillette safety razor in leather case. Metal container with blades and spares.
The straight razor had the advantages that it was durable, could be resharpened, gave better control, shaved closer, and didn’t need electricity. The safety razor had the new advantages that it greatly reduced the chance of bloodshed, had extra sharp disposable blades, and still didn’t require electricity.
Several brands of razor blades in Billy’s safety razor box.
The electric shaver advantages are obvious – easy, no shaving cream. But for my minimal shaving, I still use the safety razor and shaving cream, perhaps because it takes me back to Billy.
Hollywood Loves Razors (and I love movies with cool shaving scenes)
Straight razor from Billy Hanson’s trunk. Devon Mfg. Co., Germany
If you haven’t ever seen a straight razor, watch Eve (Naomi Harris) shave James Bond (Daniel Craig) in Sam Mendes’ Skyfall: “Keep still. This is the tricky part.” The straight razor has been a favored murder weapon in the movies, but I think imagination is sufficient to give us the picture, so won’t include a clip here.
Billy Hanson, however, never seems to have retained more than a neatly trimmed mustache, and that was in the early days. In 99% of his photos, he is neatly clean-shaven.
Billy Hanson (50-60 years old) always looks clean-shaven.
I remember him as always very particular about shaving, a daily routine that I occasionally caught sight of. More than that, the shaving cream had a distinct fragrance, sharp and masculine. When I was 14, my grandfather gave me two suede leather coats that he had worn for many years, mostly for work in spring and fall. I loved those coats and wore them every day. And even more than the feel of the well-worn leather, I loved the smell of his shaving cream, still distinct and wonderful, that somehow transferred his persona to my brain.
Fragrance of Billy’s shaving lotion takes me back to being near him. Betty & Billy Hanson, Betty Sue (age 3) & Bill Hanson (age 4) 1957.
With all this, I’m completely surprised, and happy to discover that the shaving mug in the chest STILL, even after at least 60 years of disuse, has that same aroma of his shaving cream! Suddenly, I’m no longer looking at his photo. I see his eyes, feel his hand on my shoulder, hear him say, “Hello, Bill,” with that thin dry smile as I arrive for another adventure.
Billy Hanson’s friend Art “larning this pig to sing.” See the full note from back of photograph. Horse-drawn wagon in background. Wyoming. probably 1910-1920.
As I look back at the written materials in Billy’s chest, I find, old postcards of the ranch, greetings from friends, occasional tragedy or loss, and mundane business records. Even the driest of these take on new interest for me, as I watch him purchase additional land, or borrow money for “chattel” (non-land or building property=cattle and horses). Like Billy and Betty (or perhaps it was mainly Betty), my mother and father (Milt and Helen Hanson) were diligent letter writers. Mom saved all of the Christmas cards from their friends across the country. Each week throughout the following year, Mom and Dad wrote back to 2 or 3 of the friends who had sent these cards and letters.
When email became available, Dad initiated a blizzard of dispatches to many, many people, becoming the first family spammer. On the other hand, Mom never liked the impersonal feeling of email, and wouldn’t even respond at all. She held fast to her pen and paper, writing in clear cursive. Largely because of Mom, I think, Dad continued to write by hand as well, letters that were much more likely to be read than his email spam.
And yet… despite Dad’s torrent of shared news articles, this blog post reminds me that my email conversations with Dad were much more frequent, more detailed, and more substantive than my pre-email contacts with him. In fact, I’ve discovered research we did together on the history of Billy and Betty and the ranch in emails I had long forgotten.
Helen (Hawkinson) Hanson, Bill’s mother, typed letters on her this portable Smith-Corona.
Another snail mail archive became important to my parents. My sister, Bet Ison, transcribed more than 90 letters written by Mom to her family while she was a social worker in post WWII Germany. Mom typed her letters on a portable Remington typewriter in 1949-50, leaving behind a chronicle of her efforts to find homes for refugees and her travels in Europe. The letters were written to be shared around the family.
Letters: A Balm for Dementia
In the first decade of the 21st century, as Mom experienced more and more severe dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, Bet suggested reading the letters out loud to her. For the last few years of her life, it was one of Mom’s favorite entertainments, a chance to listen to her own history in a time period from which she still had memories. It was fun for us too, as we had interesting conversations with her. Even when she couldn’t quite remember what she had for lunch an hour earlier, she could identify people and tell us about learning to ride a bicycle as she embarked on a multiple-day cycling trip along the Rhine.
Today, with our kaleidoscope of electronic social media, handwritten letters sent through snail mail have substantially decreased. Perhaps we have lost some measure of the thoughtful letters of the past. And yet, many of our letters of the past communicated simple news of the events in our lives: the health of our families and other commonplace information that seems little different from what we share electronically now. A thoughtful, caring email can be as endearing as any handwritten letter. With one difference… I find that handwritten notes or cards still feel more personal because the sender actually touched that paper, and felt the pen in their hand, and watched the ink flow out onto the paper.
On the side of email, I think we are more likely to retain our electronic archives than we were to save letters. I would dearly love to have an archive of emails sent by Billy and Betty that I could search through with keywords. But although they had the seen the beginnings of automobiles, airplanes, household electricity, telephones, and fax machines, my grandparents died before the advent of email. And so, I will have to “read between the lines” of the few letters, postcards, and pencil scratches on the backs of photographs for the history in the Alaska Billy Blog. There’s just something special about larning a pig to sing!
“I hated Sundays when I was a kid,” said my Dad (Milt Hanson).
To say I was surprised would undersell my reaction. He was 82-years-old, a devout Lutheran, and read the Bible every day.
Always send an expert to get the mail. What year and model of vehicle is that? No not the car… the tricycle… photo by Helen Hanson
“Why Dad?”
“Because there wasn’t any mail delivery!”
Yup. Growing up as an only child on a ranch from 1928 to 1942, miles from the nearest neighbor, he lived for his letters. He had pen pals. He collected stamps. He craved contact with people outside his isolated world. The wide-open ranch landscape that I loved as a kid was lonely for him.
Like all remnants of the past, the photo of this little girl standing on her tricycle to open the mailbox poses something of a mystery. I don’t know who she is, but that’s my Mom and Dad’s 1950 Chevy Deluxe sedan in the background. It’s Wyoming (notice the vintage lawn): most likely Cody or Cheyenne. What model of tricycle?? Anyone know?
When my grandfather, Billy Hanson was born in 1881, and throughout his life, letters were the main means of communication with anyone who wasn’t an immediate neighbor. He and my grandmother, Betty, never did have a telephone until they moved to town in 1964. Loved ones in far off places, a nephew in the army, business correspondence: some, but not nearly enough of those letters have survived and will show up in the Alaska Billy Blog.
From Stagecoaches to E-mail
Typical stage of the Concord type used by express companies on the overland trails. Soldiers guard from atop, ca. 1869.
In the 1800’s stage routes brought mail to the cascade of settlers and communities that flooded across western North America. Mail contracts were a crucial source of income for the stage lines, much as today’s mail contracts provide an essential income stream for the small air taxi operators that move people, freight, and mail in small aircraft to the remote communities scattered across Alaska. Without the reliable mail delivery revenues, my guess is that the number of routes would have been limited, and the cost for passengers and freight would have been significantly higher.
In 1858, the Overland Mail Company established twice weekly mail service across the 2800 miles between Missouri and San Francisco. Visit the Legends of America website for more about stagecoach routes and the Pony Express. Transportation and changes in technology would figure prominently in Billy’s ranch life. For now, it’s enough to know that railroad expansion (finally transcontinental in 1869), and the coming of the automobile would eventually replace the stagecoaches.
Where’s the postman? Milt Hanson and Bob Hanson (Bill’s brother) survey the possible old stage route past the OH Bar ranch next to the horse gate.
My father once pointed to the dirt road that led from gate of the ranch to the pastures, the same gate to which I led Grandpa’s horse, Dolly, each morning to turn her out to pasture. “The stage ran through here,” he said. Perhaps. I’m relating a 50-year-old comment here. It crossed Alkali Creek, but the maps I’ve seen seem to show it a mile or two closer to its confluence with the Cheyenne river. The Deadwood stage was long gone by the time that Billy Hanson homesteaded in 1903, having discontinued in 1887. If you like tales of the Wild West, it’s hard to beat the robberies, murders, and wild times of Deadwood and the stage line. For a full account, visit the Wyoming Tales and Trails website.
Writer William Arthur Hanson (Bill Hanson) with his grandfather, Billy, and father, Milton. Fossil found by 10-year-old Bill.
In launching the Alaska Billy Website yesterday, the photo shown in this post appeared in Facebook without the caption. My grandfather collected fossils and artifacts throughout his life. He knew they were petrified wood and remnants of dinosaurs, but didn’t investigate further as far as I can tell. When he and my grandmother sold the ranch and moved to town in 1964, they still didn’t have running water or a telephone; there was still a privy behind house. The costs were simply beyond their income level. And yet, Billy embraced technology like motorized vehicles and electricity when they became available in the 1920’s and 1930’s. What would his life had been like in the world of cell phones and the internet, I wonder.
This is just an update to yesterday’s post. I plan to post to the Alaska Billy Blog approximately every two weeks.
TheAlaska Billy Bloguses family history to consider how the landscapes of our past shape our future lives. Born in 1881, only 5 years after Custer’s Last Stand at the Little Big Horn, my grandfather and namesake, William Otis Hanson (Billy Hanson), grew up in a sod house on the Nebraska prairie. At the age of 15, Billy left home to become a cowboy in Wyoming.
I’m Bill Hanson (writing under my full name, William Arthur Hanson). The Alaska Billy Blog unites my desires to produce immediately readable work, interact with other writers and interested readers, and conduct research for my novels in an entertaining way.
Billy Hanson’s travelling trunk. Tin over wood with reinforcing wooden slats across the sides and the rounded top.
I’ll combine relics from Billy’s steamer trunk with memories of my grandpa’s ranch (called “The Billy” by neighbors) to link the society and history of life in the rural West from 1881 to 1964 to life in the present day.
Billy Hanson’s traveling trunk. Wood covered with metal. A junk and treasure trove from the early 20th century until 1964. Wyoming.
I plan to explore topics useful in writing my novel Spinning Heart, including themes, history, and changes in American society at the dawn of the 20th century: exploration of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, migration and settlement of new territory, and the changing roles and perspectives of women. At the same time, I’ll include thoughts about contemporary life, writing, and the relationship between landscapes in different parts of the world.
In the future, this first blog post will also available in the menu under the About Alaska Billy Blog tab .
William Otis Hanson – Billy Hanson
Grandpa Billy Hanson (left), Tom (right). Six gun and lariat. Chaps. Alaskan writer William Arthur Hanson uses The Alaskan Billy Blog to bring life in early 20th century Wyoming into his Alaskan landscape novels.
The Alaska Billy Blog originates in my grandfather, Billy Hanson, but if these writings ended in a simple family history, they would serve little purpose. A family tree standing by itself without the context of the culture in which our predecessors lived is a barren landscape.
Rather than a family chronicle, I want to learn about the origins of my own heroes and dreams. True, I’ll learn about my family, and hopefully come to understand my fascination with the stories of fathers and sons. My name, William Arthur Hanson, is a combination of Billy’s first and last names, with the middle Arthur from my maternal grandfather (whose middle name in turn, was Wilhelm). And yet, Billy was not a blood relative of mine. He was my father’s stepfather, so we’re talking about nurture here, not nature.
Grandpa Billy Hanson with Bill Hanson (Age 4,1957) with cattle on the OH Bar Ranch, Wyoming. The city kid, home on the range.
Despite our separate genes, I share a number of characteristics with Billy: my fascination with rocks and fossils, and my love of open spaces and wild places. Perhaps there are other shared interests as well. My father, Milt Hanson, found his first love of music listening to Billy’s records on the Victrola. Dad moved on to classical music in his own time, but I think that the universal presence of music in my life (encouraged by both my mother and my father) from birth until now can be traced back through the generations.
The Billy
O-H Bar Ranch House with neighbors’ brands. Billy’s OH Bar and WOH brands in center of lower frame, along with Betty Hanson’s Square and Compass brand. Painting by Dorothy Morse
There’s another Billy that looms out of my sense of myself. That would be ‘The Billy’, my grandfather’s ranch in the dry lands of eastern Wyoming. This is the first place that I can point to as a Place of My Own, a landscape that I had all to myself, a personal world in which to act out my dreams, explore and discover, to return to every year to explore again, recognize changes, and become part of.
Like Billy and Betty (or perhaps it was mainly Betty), my mother and father (Milt and Helen Hanson) were diligent letter writers. Mom saved all of the Christmas cards from their friends across the country. Each week throughout the following year, Mom and Dad wrote back to 2 or 3 of the friends who had sent these cards and letters.
