Some thoughts on Cold Bay, Alaska. While I was working on an engineering project in Bethel, a surveyor mentioned that he had recently done some work in a place called Cold Bay and related some of the experiences he had with the weather. The words Cold Bay hit me like a hammer -- they were indelibly imprinted on my mind. That was in 1970. In 1972, I heard of an opening on a construction management team going to Cold Bay. I took it as fast as I could. When Reeves DC-6 landed, and we departed the plane in the driving wind, by soul or whatever, seemed to have empty places filled -- I was at my home. It seemed as though all of the characteristics of the place that discouraged others were special to me -- the darkness of the continual cloud cover; the wind and the rain that never seemed to cease; the cold that was around us and through us even on sunny days; the isolation; the remnants of the Army from WWII; the lack of stores, and other things found in the cities from which they came --- All of this uniqueness drew me to the place like no other placed I had lived in or visited. Then there were the things of beauty. Make no mistake -- Cold Bay in particular, and the Aleutians in general, are the most beautiful places on the Earth to me. The general views of the tundra seemed to me to be a beautiful, wet desert in its structure and overview. What seemed to be barren from a person standing on it, became a lush forest of flowers and trees when you got down on your hands and knees and really looked at it. In other places, you walked through the forest; on the tundra, you walked on it. The flowers were in profusion during the short blooming season, and their adaptation to the wind and cold made them even more special and attractive in their different beauty. How could so much beauty be contained in a flower that is, perhaps, an eighth of an inch or, perhaps a quarter of an inch apart? How could it pierce the heart so much that you came back year after year to the same spot on the earth where you looked for the same little plant to see what it would produce this year. After 30+ years, as I look at the slides of those flowers, I can still recall exactly where they were. Then there were the grizzly bears -- there is no more nolble animal on the earth than a mature grizzly. The first I saw was when I was standing at the whirlpool on Russell Creek, and the grizzly was about 400 yards upstream, walking along a sidehill. Even at that distance, the dignity and power of the animal was evident. Only resect and reverence could have described what I felt inside as I viewed him through my binoculars. Subsequent to that instance, I was around them in various situations -- some of them dangerous, some of them wonderfully peaceful, literally hundreds of times. I always came back with a heightened love of them. They enhanced the days of my life -- then and now. Around, on the tundra, were the remnants of the operations by the Army, Army Air Corps, and the Navy during WWII. The vast majority of people who saw them were offended by their very presence on the tundra. But I, as I walked among and through them, felt the presence of those who built and lived there, and who carried the war effort to the Japanese. There were the little evidences of their lives -- a boot here or there, drawings on the walls. the tables with plates and silverware scattered around; a broken pair of glasses and on and on. A person could not be unmoved when around them. They were not garbage, but small parts of peoples lives and the time in which they lived; and now a part of mine. Continued later...
Posted on: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 04:46:19 +0000
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