Inside The Rainbow
by
Sandy Sinclair
Copyright 2011 Sandy Sinclair,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0215-4
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Cover design by Kathy Campbell
Watercolor print at end of Ch 1 by permission of Rie Munoz copyright 1957
FOREWORD
I am neither an explorer nor an author of note but I am an Alaskan bush teacher who wants to pass on the wisdom learned from years in the wilderness, while it is still useable knowledge. The National Park Service has stated that this generation will be the last to know true wilderness.
Any writer, who has aspirations that his efforts might become lasting, should include how issues and conflicts of the time have affected his story. Because of that, my writing style is not of a popular norm. I am hoping INSIDE THE RAINBOW will be a work set apart.
The views expressed herein, like those of the majority of pre-statehood Alaskans, might offend the political correct crowd. My friends were the trappers, bush pilots, commercial fisher-folk and Native bush people, who lived a simple wilderness lifestyle using the natural fauna for food, footwear and clothing as well as for their cash flow. I make no apology for their livelihood, nor of mine.
This story is told through the eyes of a young couple who grow old together through four decades of living and teaching in the Alaskan bush. Their adventures might have been experienced under the watchful eye of a mystic guardian spirit, first contacted from inside a rainbow.
Sandy Sinclair
A DEDICATION
Every human longs to know if his or her life has had purpose. Some spend considerable energy to guarantee that quest. I, regrettably, fall into that category yet at this late stage in life, I’ve learned that my life partner has been the power behind any deep purpose my life has achieved.
My wife has been the lover, the teacher, the mother, the grandmother, the wholesome homemaker as well as the reluctant adventuress. Coming from a simple farm background, she wanted merely a modest, secure life so she could settle down and raise a family of whom she could be proud. Yet her life with me required a demanding, insecure, harsh and sometimes dangerous existence that no modern liberated woman could have tolerated.
The plot of our life story has been equal to any romantic thriller I have ever read or seen on the silver screen and I couldn’t have done it with any other leading lady. I am proud to have shared that place with you, Marie, as we have walked together, through the years, inside the rainbow.
SS
Sanak Island on a rare calm day
“We're not going to Alaska in that little thing,” screamed Marie, when first she saw the Motor Vessel GARLAND. It did look rather small alongside the Victory ship moored nearby on the waterfront. She never surmised that, for the next year, that little thing would be the biggest thing we'd long to see and whenever we did see the little thing that event would become the biggest celebration for everyone.
"That little thing" was the hundred twenty foot tramp steamer that moored in Seattle for ten days, before making the stormy twenty day freight run to the Aleutian Islands, the most westward part of North America. Our destination was one of those islands. That remote island was totally isolated, not only from the lower forty-eight but from all Alaska as well. It had neither an established radio contact nor any telephone communication. That GARLAND would be our only contact with the outside world. She’d bring us our mail and the supplies that we’d ordered months before through the faithful ol' Sears and Roebuck catalogue.
We’d been married but two months before and the ink was barely dry on our college diplomas when we faced the monumental task of ordering all the supplies needed for living a full year in the wilderness.
Marie and I met while attending Eastern Washington College of Education and after a whirlwind romance, I convinced my new bride to embark on a life of adventure and travel, as I envisioned we would teach our way around the world. Our friends were starting their careers in nice comfortable local schools, so it took much negotiation for her to agree to make our first stop the wilds of Alaska.
After making letters of inquiry, we received two job offers from Alaska. One was to teach in the Bureau of Indian Affairs Eskimo village of Ukivok on King Island. This community was perched upon pilings driven into a sheer rock face out on a speck of land between Siberia and Alaska. The villagers and teachers were delivered to King Island by the BIA supply ship North Star or even by a Coast Guard Ice Breaker if it was on duty in the locale. Everyone stayed there all winter without avenue of escape until spring, as they were ringed in by frozen sea ice.
The other offer was from the Territory of Alaska to teach on an equally isolated Aleutian Island. It was a big decision but after much consideration we both put our signatures on the dual acceptance letter we dropped into the mailbox. Our fate was sealed, we chose Sanak.
When we received our teaching contracts in the mail from the Territory of Alaska, we immediately started buying the things presumed needed, using borrowed money. That soon created a big mountain within our Seattle apartment. An even bigger problem was to get it all shipped north to our school location without any slip-ups. The situation was so insecure as there was no agent on which to give our list with the responsibility to have it arrive safely at the destination. No one sold shipping insurance for a secured delivery to such a remote location.
We had no clue about what food to order for a year nor did we know what clothing we might need. We weren’t sure if the Aleutian weather was sub-zero or mostly rain. We didn’t even know what was needed for our living quarters. All the written material about our assignment was stated in general terms. We wrote asking why the information was so tentative. Their answer was that the island was so remote that no one from their department had ever been there. Our pre-job indoctrination was merely second hand information. We took the job. They said "Good Luck!"
We got medical advice about pioneer living from our old family doctor who gave us big green pills from his own supply. My NRA rifle instructor rebuilt an old 30:06 especially for me. We got wilderness advice from my ninety year old uncle who had run pack horses up Chilkoot Pass during the Klondike Gold Rush but most decisions came from my naïve, “know-it-all” macho, judgment tempered somewhat with the common sense of Marie’s country girl upbringing. I was prepared to add my old bellows camera, some sheet film, photo chemicals and photo paper as I had been well trained in old style black and white studio photography.
The complete ingredient for every meal became a big deal, as we wouldn't be going down to the deli for any last minute items before dinner. Every need had to be anticipated accurately, acquired quickly, packed securely and delivered to the dock ahead of our scheduled departure.
