Montana oil and mining journal. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1931-1953, 1941-02-22
TEACHER FLYING
IN ARCTIC SKIES
FORMER MONTANA GIRL ENJOY.
ING WINTER IN LAND OF THE
MIDNIGHT SUN

about life IN the Arctic was sent
to friends by Miss Mae Walton,
former commercial and music
teacher in Teton County high
school, now teacher at Nonae,
Greetings from the Land Of ths
Midnight SUM-
A winter in the Arctic sounds quite
thrilling and TO tell the truth / an
enjoying It, Never saw so many sum
rises in my lifel In September the
days were the same length as was
used to at home. Then, quite rapidly
they began to shorten-nothing seemed
at all strange about it-just couldn't
seem to get a thing done before the
day was all over. Beginning the latter
part of December we began coming TO
school in the dark. The sun comes up
about 1920 in the morning and it is
a lovely, bright day for awhile and
| then, suddenly, 1t goes down about
| 2:30 in the south, and it's dark again.
/ Bering sea has been all frozen over
since early December. Now huge piles
/ of ice stick up like small mountains
here and there near shore and out as
| far as one can see When the weather
warns a bit the water melts and then
the wind blows and pushes huge cakes
of ice into piles where it freezes again.
We've had only one spell Of below
zero weather this wtnter-it was 20
below for about a week just before
Christmas.
Dog Teams in Use
Dog teams dash by and people fit
around on skis. Snowmobiles are used
instead of c;lrs.
Just before Christmas my eyes were
bothering me and I decided to take q
trip to Fairbanks for the weekend and
see about them while there. Our
superintendent called Wien Airlines
and got passage for me to Fairbanks
with the best pilot in Alaska, Sigurd
Wien, who Is also president of the
company. Nothing exciting happened
going over We made the trip easily,
arriving before dark, and I did some
shopping and saw few shows, in spite
of the eyes, which proved to be an
infection and cleared quickly.
Couldn't start for Nome Sunday be-
cause of bad weather but early Mon
day morning we began the homeward
flight.
Skim Over Yukon
We SKINNED along over clouds,
through occasional snow flurriess fol-
lowed the Yukon and crossed noun
tains until 1t began to grow dark and
"thick"-aS the radio would say, "viSi-
bility poor and ceiling low" He kept
talking to Nome and Fairbanks on his
radio and all at once we circled over
an Indian village and set ourselves
down by the river In front Of 1t. He
crawled out, opened the door Of the
plane and said, Here is nice little
roadhouse where Wen stop and spend
the night"
1t was showing in earnest by then. |
The village is called Koyukuk, and has
a population of about 100 native In |
dams. One white trader, an italian
with an Indian wife, and two school
teachers, man and wife, are the only |
white people living there. The trader
has a two-story log house and store
where we were made quite comfortable. |
They fed us moose steak-and it Is |
deliciouS-willow grouse, fresh fish, and
of course spaghetti, and served wine
with each meal. Each morning the
pilot would waken me about 5 o'clock
as he went down to warm up the ship.
Then we'd have breakfast and he'd
call all the stations for weather re-
ports. And about or 9 I'd go back
to bedl One night the wind blew so
hard that Sig and a couple Of boys
went down. and tied the ship to the
ice. We were at our roadhouse ex-
actly five days and nightsl
A plane appeared overhead flying
low and evidently lost, one evening.
The snow was falling steadily and 1t
was too thick to see far. The pilot saw
our plane and decided to land. In
stead of circling he came down, zoom,
landing with his wheels in the river
overflow which spun him around and
crashed the plane into a bank, tear
ing off the landing gear and crushing
one wing. The pilot was alone and
climbed out unhurt to join our now
r-fVv 0vAd vndffor1fIu cuoff
another plane and repairs from Fair
banks.
We spent a couple of evenings with
he school teachers. They had an old
,rgan which I played and we all sang.
Snow had been steadily falling for 4
lays and on the fifth day it was about
eight inches deep. Our plane, being on
wheels instead Of skis and so heavily
oaded, couldn't take off in all that ]
now. Z
Ties Log to Plane Ii
It looked as if we were in for the
Vinterl But Sigurd proceeded to tie a
og behind the plane and run the ship
,ack and forth up and down the field
until the ground was packed and swept
or a runway. We left for Nulato Fri
lay afternoon.
That night we stayed at Nulato, an
)ther Indian village Of about $50 /.
,eople. At Nulato and Koyukuk the
natives are Indian while at Nome they
ire EskimoS. There is a difference in
ooks, actions and customs. Next
morning we took off for Nome by way
If Haycock and Council and arrived
me week and two days after leavingl
/ wouldn't take a fortune for my trip
or / now feel I'm better acquainted
With Alaska.
Signed. Mae.