Monday, October 25, 2021

Miracles


A prudent pilot leaves their plane tethered to the ground when fog rules the skies.  However, a co-worker whom I'll call Joe (by coincidence his real name) failed to return from a moose hunt the previous evening.  We had to do something, anything, so Lyman (actually his real name, too) offered to start an aerial search.

The call reverberated through our office.  Any volunteers to add a pair of eyes?  So there I was sitting in the back seat of a red Citabria headed towards a snow encased birch forest west of Talkeetna, Alaska.  Never mind that visibility in the area could be compared with peering through random keyholes while Lyman squeezed the plane between the frozen tree tops and a dense fog bank, a layer of air barely wide enough to accommodate the plane, it’s red-painted wings the only color in our line of sight.  Down below we knew searchers reinforced our efforts, but the thick mantle of snow on the trees obscured any sign of them -- and of course, Joe.  Undeterred, we persisted.


We knew it would take a miracle to spot Joe, but the point of the entire exercise, we were doing something and you can never spot a miracle in advance. 


Now, daylight, if you want to call it that, ends early in November at that latitude.  That also coincided with our similarly dwindling fuel supply.  Reluctantly, we turned towards Anchorage in the early afternoon.  That's also about when a voice in Lyman's headset gave us the news.  Searchers had found Joe, or was it vice versa?  Either way, he had simply lost his race with nightfall to get back to his car the previous evening.  Other than a frigid night and feeling embarrassed, he had a story for his grandchildren. 


That's also about the time we crossed the Petersville Road.  Now remember, we constituted the filling between a white layer of fog and a white layer of snow-covered tree tops.  What we did not know was a power line had been added to that filling -- strung along that road, just above the tree tops.  That frost encased line bore a striking resemblance to everything above and below it.  Talk about cammo!


That was the moment the lights went out in some homestead along the Petersville Road.  However, all I felt was a slight hesitation in our forward momentum.  That's all.  No sparks, no flying wires, no Hollywood-style pyrotechnics, just a momentary hesitation.  Lyman turned to me and muttered, "we just screwed up." 


With that he banked left towards Talkeetna to make a stealth approach.  We landed far out at the end of the runway, hoping our landing gear was intact and to escape notice.  Lyman leaped out of the cockpit and dashed around the plane to make a hasty inspection of the plane's exterior. Satisfied that the apparently thin wire hadn't inflicted any obvious damage we roared off into the gathering twilight aiming south towards home.  Joe was safe, we were safe, and we’d let someone else puzzle over the mystery of the severed power line.


Today, well beyond 40-years later I wonder why we survived.  I've read multiple accounts of aircraft encounters with power lines.  The wires always won.  Always.  Except this time.  Like I said, you can never spot a miracle in advance.


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Lacking any digitized photos from the days of this event back in the 1970s, this seems like the time to augment a post with some of Karen's images that include, surprise, fog.  


Wise "aviators" remaining grounded waiting for fog to lift.

A commercial fishing boat sails into fog in SE Alaska.

Fog bank over Frederick Sound, Alaska.




Saturday, October 23, 2021

Disaster at Five Finger

While getting my second covid shot, a member of Alaska's Five Finger Lighthouse Society asked me to create a piece of artwork to be auctioned off in an online auction.  The auction will fund needed maintenance projects at the lighthouse.  What could I say?  No, I was not the only artist they asked.  I had just missed seeing two previous email requests sent to a number of artists.

Possible subjects swirreled around in my brain until I settled on the idea of another gnome painting figuring it would be something different from what other artists would produce.  Of course it needed a story to go with it.  As I painted my idea expanded and my level of fun in creating the piece and story increased. 

             Disaster at Five Finger    12 x 16 inches     Alkyd on canvas

                                      Excerpt from Whackopedia

During the early years, a colony of seafaring gnomes inhabited the site of the later years Five Finger Lighthouse.  Technologically advanced, they invented a powerful light consisting of a candle flame magnified with the lenses of the eyes of five giant squid and one bald eagle.  For thousands of years, they argued they didn't need sophisticated technology, that their manual "lighthouse" used the best available science. 


Thus, generations of "keepers of the "light" positioned themselves on a rock outcropping to warn passing ships of the danger posed by the islands -- until that fateful night.  Ole, the current keeper of the light, had an addiction.  Sadly, the demon, lutefisk, wrapped him firmly within its clutches.  It also kept resident gnomes from checking on how well he performed his duties.  They only connected the heavy scent of lutefisk on his breath and clothes with the same scent along the shoreline surrounding the "lighthouse" and the pile of noseeums laying on the ground gasping for breath each morning.


That night, after succumbing more than usual to his addiction, Ole snoozed during his shift.  Some say he passed out as did the first rescuers who inhaled the lutefisk fumes upon discovering the disaster.  Either way, a grizzly scene greeted the remaining rescuers left standing.


A passing gnome transport vessel, the captain lounging in the galley refilling her plate with, you almost guessed it, leftse, failed to notice a large land mass looming dead ahead.  Ole, unable to perform his duties, did not signal the ship with the light, nor with his back-up warning method, a stern three blows from his nose followed by a trebled burp.


Fortunately all aboard survived the ensuing shipwreck, but responsible area residents decided time for a more reliable solution had come.  There would be no more drama of this sort.


And thus, Ole had to file for temporary unemployment compensation as the colony moved to a quieter, still undisclosed location while construction of the first iteration of the present day structure began.  Some say they moved east.  Others, west.  Still others, north and small contingent, even further north.  However, on foggy nights a tiny speck of light on a neighboring island suggests they are still present warning passing vessels of dangers hidden in the gloom.  However, now as backup, the odor of lutefisk in the air alerts ship captains to the dangers that lie nautical miles ahead.