Simplify, Simplify, Simplify.

Back home?

I am seated at my kitchen table in Anchorage. If I listen very carefully, I can hear the hum of my computer and the chirp-chirp of the carbon monoxide detector downstairs in the basement. (Does it want new batteries?) So different from the sounds of Port Alsworth.

The morning was crisp in Port Alsworth with dew on the windows, foreshadowing the coming of the fall. I ferried my things to the shop where the planes are parked, ate a little breakfast, and took a little stroll while I waited for Lee to show up. It was hard to leave on such a beautiful day, perhaps the most glorious bout of weather since my arrival more than a week ago. I consoled myself with the thought of the gorgeous flight that was sure to come.

The flight, like most things in Lake Clark, did not disappoint. I scarcely recognized Lake Clark Pass without all the cloud cover and silvery greyness that greeted me and Leon over a week ago. My ride with Lee was very different. By now, it was my third tiny prop plane ride, and aside from initially putting my safety vest on upside down, I was a real pro. (Thank goodness the zipper gave it away.) I had more time to stare at the instruments in the plane, especially the GPS, and to ask Lee questions. We took the Cessna 206 out (the same one that brought me in). It turns out it was built in the 70s (the font on the instrument panel betrayed its age) but had a new engine with only 100 hours on it. The pilots always think I’m nervous and afraid of flying when I ask them questions.

Lee and I talked about his work for the park and the difficulty of policing such a vast land. Lake Clark has three rangers for an area roughly the size of Connecticut. That the rangers can even figure when a moose has been illegally killed in the Park amazes me. I asked Lee more questions about his history – how he got to Alaska in the first place, how he ended up in Port Alsworth, when he learned to fly, etc., etc. This was how I learned that he, too, used to fly supplies out to Dick Proenekke. Lee did an impersonation of Dick, and although I have nothing on which to judge it, I hope that it’s dead on.

He said that you could tell if Dick was around if the flag was up at his cabin. (Dick was among many other things, a patriot.) When Dick saw the plane, he’d grab his green duffel bag of tools, and Lee would pick him up to fix whatever was ailing Port Alsworth. Dick was able to fix just about anything but was always muttering, “Simplify, simplify, simplify.” I only wish I could have met Dick Proenekke. I am at least very lucky to have met his old friends.

We somehow got to talking about Lee’s commute to and from Anchorage, where he also keeps a place, and he mentioned that his wife no longer likes to fly, having lost too many friends to the skies. He mentioned one friend, a fiery redheaded pilot with killer piano-playing skills, who died right at the opening of the Pass on a beautiful day just like today. His engine had caught on fire, and Lee was the one who found the wreck with the lone survivor inside, a teenage boy in the back who had been traveling with his father.

Lee said he still thinks of this friend every time he flies by there, and I felt our little cockpit fill up with something heavier than air – an old kind of sadness. I thought this ranger might just start tearing up, but soon we were out of the Pass and the bright skies with the sun blinding our eyes seemed to encourage us to look ahead.

As a modern traveler who regards planes as mostly inconvenient long hours spent on business trips, I have little fear for air travel. The big bellies and big engines on those planes make it easy. But it is ignorance, the kind that you get when you don’t spend hours in a tiny plane that sometimes feels like a second skin rattling in whatever Mother Nature has in store for you that day. In Lake Clark, flying is serious business. Legend has it that Leon is in a family feud with his uncle because the man insisted that Leon’s brother fly in bad weather once, and his brother perished in that flight. It is hard to imagine kind and gentle Leon, a man so fond of butter, bearing any kind of grudge, but apparently, he has not forgiven his uncle. I’m not sure if I would either.


As the flight went on, I found myself taking fewer and fewer photos, not for lack of views but due to a desire to fully appreciate Mother Nature’s work. I don’t know if anyone who has flown over these precious parts of Alaska and has gotten a glimpse of these aerial views could possibly ever create anything that would rival Mother Nature’s art. There are so many details she has thought of that would escape even the wildest imagination. On a sunny day like this, Lake Clark Pass is a studded showcase of glaciers with chiseled ice blue features. The mudflats in the Inlet are smooth and glistening, like the surface of a whale’s back or the puckered skin of an elephant wet from rain. The land glows as if pregnant with rich, unthinkable surprises.

And this is why I felt a little drop in my heart when I saw Anchorage in the distance. My, how sophisticated and urban Anchorage looks when you’re flying from Port Alsworth! I don’t know how many times I’ve made the approach to Anchorage and never ever thought it looked like the “big city” it was today. For a moment, I had a pang of regret. I had left today’s quiet cloudless skies of Port Alsworth for this?

Port Alsworth, founded by Leon “Babe” Alsworth (Leon’s grandfather), is a Fundamentalist, born-again Christian town. It is impossible to spend a week there without spotting the church camp in the bay, that unmistakable cross reminding the earth that man, too, lives here. There are numerous references in Dick’s journal entries to Babe’s Bible-thumping ways. Babe hardly ever dropped off supplies to Dick without also dropping a few words from God. Sweeping his hand over the skies and land ahead of us, Lee told me that Babe used to say, “All this here is a dung pile compared to Heaven.”

It’s not surprise that Babe Alsworth chose Lake Clark to be the setting for his missionary work. Flying in these skies, standing before the lakes in the region – it is hard not to feel the presence of something extraordinary, and if you have no particular words for it, you might just think it is God.

Lee told me that at the time he moved to Port Alsworth, he had a dream of living in the bush for a year. (He ended up spending seven years in a cabin that didn’t have running water – until it burned down.) It’s true that it’s hard to spend time out there, whether it be on Babe’s dung pile or in God’s heaven on earth, without wanting to do the same.

In the meantime, far away from the bush, I’m trying to make the transition home. My first stop after dumping my bags at the front door was my garden. Gone for nine nights and I scarcely recognize my children! The nasturtiums are still blooming but are finishing up their work. To my surprise, the gladiolas are already budding. Seeds I snuck into the ground just before leaving have offered up their first tender leaves. And the fava beans, as I predicted, a few of them have toppled over; I arrived not a moment too soon for staking. The late-planted snow peas also turned into gangly teenagers while I was gone; soon I will see the fruits of their growth spurt.

The few fireweed I had accidentally blooming in the yard last year have multiplied into a mini-meadow. The fireweed makes me nostalgic after observing all the lone fireweed in Lake Clark. I cannot help but think of my time there when I see one. I am growing a soft spot.


The compost pile looked almost compacted so before going inside, I gave the leviathan a good turning. It’s hard to say what the weather is like here in town apart from noting it is not what it’s like in Port Alsworth today. Regardless of the weather, my part of Alaska is still beautiful nonetheless. Billowy clouds are hugging the Chugach Mountains at various altitudes today, and perhaps they will part to make my first day home a good one. In the meantime, I am sitting at the kitchen table with my jar of historic starter, a little bit of Lake Clark that I’ve taken home with me.

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