Today was honestly sunny, and so the Chief deemed it a paint day. So once again, I donned on the noisy yellow suit and spent the morning masking and painting green trim on the headquarters building.
It took a long time for the crew to get mobilized. I find in general, time passes twice as slowly in Port Alsworth as in Anchorage, not in a bad way but in a way that has left me feeling as though I’ve lived in this “neighborhood” and known these people for two weeks, not the mere one week I’ve been here.
Around lunchtime, word was out that I’d likely get to join the Park Ranger Lee in dropping someone off at the ranger cabin at Twin Lakes. I tried to keep my expectations low so that if all I ended up doing for the day was getting green paint on me, it wouldn’t matter. But Lee arrived in town and gave me a green light and soon, I was running to the shop to get my backpack and go.
To land at Twin Lakes, you land on the lake, literally, so Lee flew us out in a float plane. Before taking off, I helped pump water out of the skids (floats). We circled in the bay a few times and then started to take off. Sprays of water flew out from underneath the floats. Because of the good weather, everything was blue, turquoise, and green. I could not ask for a better day for my first float plane flight. It is undeniable when flying from Lake Clark to Twin Lakes that anyone looking out of the plane would declare this is beautiful country. Magnificent country really. That it still exists and has been seen by my eyes makes me feel unbelievably fortunate. Even during the short thirty-minute flight from Lake Clark to Twin Lakes, the landscape is varied. Lush woods. Open tundra. Our great Alaskan mountains. Swampy bogs. Turquoise lakes. Any vista someone might desire can be found along the way.
I was not prepared, however, for how stunning the Twin Lakes would be. Sure, I’d been reading Dick Proenekke’s journal entries these last few nights but thought a lake is a lake is a lake. But the Twin Lakes are truly something else.I haven’t had a full chance to explore Lake Clark which is so large and stretches so far that sometimes I forget it is a lake. The Twin Lakes are such that you can see where the lakes begin and end. Perhaps it is because you can grasp the full context that it feels so isolated and remote, even deeper into the wilderness.
The flight to Lower Twin (where the ranger cabin is) and seeing the inside of the cabin were real treats, but I did not realize that my day was only going to get better. We took off from Lower Twin and flew toward Upper Twin. On the radio, a friendly woman’s voice crackled, inviting us in. As we landed, a woman and a man in boots were standing in the lake to greet us. I suppose this is what happens when you live at a stunning lake – you greet your visitors by standing at your water “door.”
Kay and Monroe must both be in the 50s or 60s, but I cannot describe them as old. There is a vitality, a steady unbreakable energy in both of them that defies their physical age. Kay quickly ushered me into Spike’s Cabin which is where Dick Proenekke stayed while he build his own, now famous, cabin.
Spike’s Cabin, which has been Kay and Monroe’s abode for the last eight summers, is actually more like Spike’s Room. I would estimate that it is less than 10 X 10. It has bunks, a stove, shelves, and a cold box (a hole dug into the permafrost which serves as storage space for Kay’s eggs and yogurt). What I found most remarkable was the floor of nice cool gravel. Kay did note that she had just “cleaned” the gravel, meaning they had just changed it out for fresh gravel from the shore.
I wasn’t sure how long we had before taking off, but Kay asked Lee if we had time to show me Dick’s cabin (!), and so leaving the men to catch up with news and headed off on a path that passes by Hope’s Cabin (a larger cabin built by Dick and Spike and named after Spike’s wife), and then finally, leads to Dick’s place.
The first thing you see on the path is a chair, Dick’s chair, where he spent his days observing the infinite faces and views at Twin lakes. It is the chair of a solitary soul and in one piece of furniture, sums up the ethos of this man.
Only a few days ago, I had picked up One Man’s Wilderness at the visitor’s center as additional reading during my time at Lake Clark. It was thus a fortuitous happening that no sooner had I finished reading the entries detailing his completion of his cabin by his own two hands that I got to see with my own eyes what Dick was talking about. I’ll admit that one of my first gut responses to Dick’s entries was that he was so self-aware, so self-satisfied … almost smug. But when I saw the cabin, I instantly understood.
Dick’s work, still standing, like the country between Lake Clark and the Twin Lakes and the surrounding area, is undeniably beautiful. I have never seen a log cabin constructed with such detail and grace – it seems to be a home created out of deep affection for its surroundings. Alaska has its fare share of cabins, and they truly run the gamut. Dick’s cabin is nothing short of a work of art at the far end of that spectrum.
I suppose the cabin is what you’d expect from a craftsman trying to build a home of a lifetime, or a home for a lifetime. My single favorite thing about the cabin is Dick’s Dutch door with a top half that swings open independently of the bottom half. Kay pointed out where the porcupines had worn down the door. But the most beautiful feature on the door is its hinge – something out of a Swiss clock! Dick seemed so pleased with himself when he finished this door, and now it makes perfect sense. 
There are endless other marvelous details. The wonderful sod roof (watering of which is part of Kay’s official job description, in addition to raking beach). Right now you can even see the purple flowers of monkshood growing on the roof. Even the outhouse, with its crescent-shaped peephole, has a great view. Inside the cabin, you can see the ingenious way this man lived, finding new uses for everything. I was experiencing nothing short of schoolgirl delight in making all of the discoveries.
I signed the visitor’s log, and recognized other items in the cabin from the book. The driftwood sculpture in the window. The hinge made from old gas cans. A birch spoon he made that perfectly measured enough batter for exactly one sourdough hotcake. Kay showed me a map that had pin points for every place Dick had explored (to tell people where to look for the body, as Dick explained). He also scrawled notes onto a calendar with meteorological data, animal sightings, and even records of his daily meals.
Speaking of meals, Kay showed me where she suspects Dick put his sourdough biscuits for rising. This got us onto the subject of sourdough starters, and I got to asking Kay if she and Monroe used one (seeing as how they are out here by themselves). She said in fact they use starter, and in fact, it’s Dick’s starter! There was a long story I didn’t quite catch which explained the chain of custody over the starter, but basically, when Kay and Monroe got it, it had been dormant or virtually dead for several years. Monroe “scraped off the black” as he described it, added some flour to see what would happen, and voila!
The starter was resurrected.
News of the historic starter was quite exciting, and I asked Kay if I could see it. When we got back to Spike’s Cabin, Kay told Monroe that this young lady would like a photo of him holding the starter. Monroe shyly said, well, maybe she’d like some starter. I froze with joy, and in moments, I had a little jar of historic starter, Dick Proenekke’s starter!
Kay also mentioned they picked their first quart of blueberries today, and I sampled a few along the path, the best blueberries of this season so far. All of the talk of starter and blueberries got Lee to thinking about a feast of sourdough blueberry hotcakes he had with Kay and Monroe several years ago. Our hosts, upon revisiting this memory, quickly got up and started making “sourdoughs,” as Monroe calls them.
Monroe’s Sourdoughs:
- bowl of sourdough batter/starter
- some salt
- 1 egg
- some oil
- handpicked blueberries
- maple syrup
Monroe makes a paste of baking soda and water and adds a spoonful to a small bowl that holds enough batter for two hotcakes. He says if he added the baking soda all at once, the last cakes wouldn’t have any rise left in them.
I think Lee ate six, and I ate at least four. We also talked about Bella Hammond’s blueberry pie. A slight revision to the description given by John – Bella used a secret ingredient – fresh blueberries in addition to the cooked ones.
The day had been full of history and memories. Dick’s most frequent visitor during the first year was Leon “Babe” Alsworth who flew in his supplies. In recent years before Dick's death, it had been Babe’s grandson, my pilot Leon, who brought supplies to Dick. My decision to pick up the book the day before magically turned into a visit to Dick’s cabin. And happy memories of a good hike and hotcakes afterwards brought us happy bellies today. After the sourdoughs, I fell into sleepy contentment in the midday warmness of Spike’s Cabin. Lee and I finally said our goodbyes and returned to Lake Clark an hour and half later than expected.
A good day.
It has been one week since my first night at Lake Clark. What has changed? More mosquito bites. Hands and fingers dry and chapped from maintenance work. Fingertips of my fretting hand hardened into callouses thanks to one week of dedicated banjo practice. A lower body stiff and full of lactic acid from trying to keep up with a sixty-year-old man. How did the little Chinese girl whose dad never let her camp outside ever get here anyway?
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