Looking for Alaska (25 page)

Driving in from the airport, the wind was either chilled blowing off the glaciers or warmer coming out of the wetlands. To the south was the Gulf of Alaska. Compared to Cordova, Seward was wide-open. Per told us that if we could walk to the nearest town, Valdez, which was west along the tide line, it would be 140 to 150 miles. By boat, it's only 55 to 60 miles. This illustrates why Alaska has more coastline than the whole lower forty-eight states combined, thanks to thousands and thousands of bays and countless islands. And Cordova has the fishing industry that goes along with this vast area. Some Cordova fishermen became “spill-ionaires,” renting themselves and their fishing boats to Exxon during the cleanup.

Neva Nolan in Cordova.
P
HOTO BY
R
EBEKAH
J
ENKINS

Per pulled up in town next to a ladder set up by a hanging basket spilling over with vividly colored flowers halfway to the ground. Neva, who grew up in Wrangell, took care of all the many hanging baskets of growing flowers on Main Street in Cordova. She stood atop the ladder, watering the basket carefully. She'd attached a greenhouse to the side of their trailer that was more than half the size of their home. It was instantly obvious, the way she lifted up the flowers to water them, the way she finished her job before turning to us, that she found much inspiration in the beauty, rich color, and delicate petals of her charges. Neva had an exotic look, almost Mediterranean. She said she took care of thirty hanging baskets in Cordova.

Cordova was not what I expected. Alaskan communities are competitive with each other. Don't ask a person from Seward what he thinks of Cordova. If you are in Soldotna and you want to know what Seward's like, don't ask a longtime Soldotna resident. They'll tell you all it does is rain in Seward, that moss grows on everything. And so it goes all over Alaska. I'd ask some people I knew in Seward what they thought of Cordova. “It's badly in need of a paint job.” “There are too many old hippies and eccentrics.”

The four of us stood on Main Street by Laura's Liquors, next to a flower box. Neva explained that here on the Alaskan coast she had to plant flowers that could survive wind and lots of rain. Daisies, pansies, petunias, lobelias, grew nicely until the end of October. The town was also adorned with brightly colored banners with sea otters, red salmon, waves, and wildflowers on them, which were hung from the streetlights. Imprinted in the concrete sidewalks were drawings of octopuses, starfish, and salmon. The sun shone down on Cordova and made all things bright.

Neva told us, “One day of sunshine is worth a week of rain.” I'd heard that at least ten times since I'd arrived in Alaska. People truly appreciate sunny weather in the summer. It's like a wonderful meal someone else cooked and left as a surprise at your house. The people who live here year-round earn their portions.

Around us, people were walking everywhere, living their lives here. Cordova was impressively set up for so small a town; after all, all this art and these banners and Neva's flowers were provided by the city and her neighbors just to inspire the locals. Visitors like us, newcomers, were welcome, but life in Cordova was not designed for them. The town's biggest yearly festival was the Iceworm Festival, held the first week of February, put on for the benefit of just the year-round folk. Cordova even held their Fourth of July fireworks in February because it didn't get dark enough in July until too late for the little ones.

Neva drove an eighties Nissan Sentra. It had few miles on it; how could anyone put many miles on any vehicle here? Rebekah was going to help Neva with the rest of her watering while Per and I walked down the street; the boat docks and Orca Inlet were on the block below us. Per said it was common to see two hundred or more sea otters just off the docks by St. Elias Ocean Products and North Pacific Processors in the winter. We headed to Orca Book and Sound and the Killer Whale Café. Inside, we could have been in Seattle in the late eighties. Kelly, the owner, was once a kayak guide; he used to be mayor, but he had lost the most recent election to Margie by one vote. Margie owns the restaurant and motel one block below called the Reluctant Fisherman and is a passionate supporter of the road and the tourism industry.

We got a couple of mochas from Scott and wandered out to the sidewalk. I began asking Per questions about passersby. Who is that coming out of that store, who's parking that truck? Who is that leaning against the front of the smaller grocery store in town—why does that lady seem too dressed up for an Alaskan fishing town? (Turns out it was Phyllis Blake, secretary of the Prince William Sound Aquaculture Association. She always dresses nice, Per told me.)

Per knew every single person who walked, bicycled, or rode by in a car, truck, motorcycle, or van. As I pressed him for information on each person, he could and did speak detail after detail about everyone we saw. He knew more about people in this town than a normal person would at their own family reunion. Then as a joke and I thought something of a challenge, I asked him to name everyone we saw from behind, without seeing faces. He did it. Mary, who ran Muscle Mary's, a workout place, was an easy ID. She had about 2 percent body fat. Few people I saw in Cordova looked like her, from any angle. Per said that if we hadn't spotted her from the rear, I would have noticed that she always smiled, was always happy. Mary always took part in Cordova's biggest adult-female event of the year held in late February or early March. The local women decided on a theme every year. One recent theme was Dressed to Thrill. Per served as a bartender for that one, and he remembered Mary's outfit because it consisted of paint. She painted on her Dress to Thrill costume. They'd had a disco theme, one with evening gowns, one to “dress as slutty as you could.” Per remembered one woman went wrapped in Saran Wrap for that one. Because everyone in Cordova knows almost everything about everyone else, having these parties is more like playing dress-up with your sisters.

Per acted surprised when he saw one fisherman with a woman he thought was involved with someone else. It reminded him of the often-repeated Alaskan mantra: “In Alaska you don't lose your girlfriend, you lose your turn.” If you're the type who can't live around someone you went out with or were married to, don't move to Alaska.

A red Ford F250 pickup pulled up in front of the bookstore, which was next to the office of the Cordova District Fishermen United. CDFU lobbied, followed political winds of change, and fought for the rights of local commercial fishermen. The guy who parked the truck was Mark King; in his mid-to-late forties, he was a second-generation Cordova gillnetter and seiner, like Per. Gillnet fishermen like Per and Mark are the cowboys of the Alaskan fleet, the fast runners. They are after the big-dollar fish, the kings and the reds.

Floatplanes often flew over downtown. All gillnetting for king and red salmon, which was the current season, is tightly controlled by Alaska Fish and Game and usually done in “openings” of twenty-four hours, sometimes only twelve hours. The Alaska Fish and Game office in Cordova is responsible for deciding when and for how long salmon fishing will take place. The openings were scheduled based on a sonar salmon counter fifty miles up the Copper River. A certain number of salmon had to be passing by to allow fishing in the ocean. When they're ready, they announce the time and duration of the opening, usually a day or so before the appointed hour.

All the Cordova fishermen, including Per and Mark, were trying to decide where to go next time Alaska Fish and Game announced an opening. The word was flying around town like a bag of money ripped open in a west wind that there would be an opening in the next few days. It took the fish nine days to get from the ocean to the Copper River sonar counter. Some of the Copper River fish went over two hundred miles upriver to spawn, and it's having to travel so far that makes these salmon so full of oils and good fat. Once salmon enter freshwater, they stop feeding and must survive from their own energy stores. The longer, more difficult, and swift a river they must swim up, the more body oil and fat they need. Some Alaskan salmon don't swim over five miles. Don't ask an Alaskan fisherman about the pen-raised salmon of Norway, the salmon most Americans eat. Pen-raised fish do not have to struggle to survive and to catch their prey; their meat is not as firm and rich. They do not spawn, they don't have the fat and oil that give Alaskan salmon such flavor. It is illegal in Alaska to pen-raise salmon, only the wild will do.

“Only the wild will do,” my theme for Alaska salmon, should be the theme for the state, exempting some federal government employees. “Only the wild will do” could be added to the state flag as a motto. Only the wild salmon will do. Only the wild bears will do. Only the wild eagles will do. Only the wild rivers will do. Only the wild whales will do. Only the wild Alaskans will do. There would have to be a committee appointed with Native and non-Native representation. Members of this committee could be named based on percentages of how the people voted in the last presidential election. Then these Alaskans, along with a couple state lawyers, would write up the definition of what makes a “wild Alaskan human,” what makes “a wild salmon,” and so on.

WILD GENE

Down our side of the sidewalk came a man that Per explained had been in a terrible motorcycle accident. He is partially blind and moved slowly. My first reaction was to try to help him, but that would have been the wrong impulse toward such a determined person. Per said he was headed to shoot pool at the Alaskan Hotel and Bar, a block or two down toward where we'd first seen Neva.

Several people walked or drove by, but Per didn't say anything about who they were. When he noticed I was waiting, he quickly rattled off their identities: a teacher, one of his fishing partners from the state of Washington, one of the stars of the high school basketball team, one of his neighbors from the trailer park. Then he told me about someone we hadn't seen, a Cordova resident who had died several years ago.

“Watching the people with you reminded me that I hadn't thought about Wild Gene in a while. Seems like most towns in Alaska had someone like Wild Gene in the seventies and eighties, but you don't see people like him much anymore,” Per said.

Neva and Rebekah were getting closer to us as they watered the hanging baskets.

Per explained that Gene just showed up in Cordova one day; Per didn't know why or how Gene had chosen their town. Some people just materialize in Alaska. When they choose a town like Cordova where most everyone knows each other, they are not really paid much attention at first. They could be a tourist who got off the ferry and stayed. They will usually leave in a day or a week or after the summer. If they make it through a winter, some people will begin to notice them and open up to them, perhaps not fully accept them as one of their own, but open the door.

Gene didn't look too different at first, especially since he got here sometime in the seventies. Per graduated as salutatorian from Cordova High School, class of 1979, one of nineteen in his class. He remembers Gene being around during his later high school years, even during the time Per drove off the dock with his girlfriend in the car. (That's another story.) After Gene had been around awhile, people began to find out things about him. He was from the Seattle area; his family members were important people in that state, wealthy people, and it turns out caring people too. People found out that Gene had been raised by nannies. He had grown up wearing blue blazers; he had graduated from an Ivy League–type college. People noticed that members of Gene's family would come to town and visit him; he didn't have a phone, so surely they got in touch with him through the mail. Per knew Gene got mail because Per's mother, a high school English and drama teacher, belonged to the Fruit of the Month club and so did Gene. Per's mother and Gene started having tea together, partly because they shared a Fruit of the Month club membership, and because, although he was odd, Gene and Per's mother were both very intelligent.

Gene would often disappear into the wilderness for long periods and live off the land. Around Cordova even the locals don't venture into its extremities very often. Mountain-goat hunters, some of the most extreme outdoorsmen in Alaska as they have to hike up to the frigid mountain peaks, traveled as far out as just about any human ventured in Alaska. Gene would often surface more than seventy-five miles from Cordova. One time he just appeared, as if he could astral project, right after a couple hunters had shot a mountain goat. He cut the balls off and popped them in his mouth, unfried, fresh Alaskan mountain oysters. His appearances and his appearance shocked some, and Alaskans are the hardest people to shock that I've ever met.

People would see Gene out on the road, past the airport, thirty miles out of town, pulling a 150-pound log by some rope. He told people if they asked that he was training to walk across Russia. He would load his pack with rocks, shoulder it, and hike the mountains, cross the glaciers, and even wade the surging rivers filled with small icebergs.