|
|
|
Alaska |
|
|
|
Are we there yet?: Our trip to Alaska only took us about thirteen days to get to Anchorage, there was about 1200 miles of gravel road in 1959. I don't know how many flat tires we had but it seemed like there wasn't a day that went by we weren't fixing a flat. Well tires wasn't our worst problem. We had the frame of the truck break in half right behind the cab about the third day out, we were still on the pavement. Springs were also a problem because of all the weight in the trailer we were breaking Main leafs on the trailer springs, and that was my job since I was small enough to get under the trailer to place the jack under the axle, so I would craw under, jack the trailer up and unbolt the spring from the axle and then replace the broken spring with a new one, I did seven or eight of them by the time we reached Anchorage and you have to remember I was only eight years old . Probably the worst problem we had was when we ran out of gas about half way up a long hill, we had the 55 gallon drum of fuel so we siphoned the fuel from the drum into the pick-ups fuel tank loaded everything up and preceded to start up the hill....well the motor was wanting to go but the rear end said no, we tore the spider gears out of the rear end. So there we sit on this hill with no way to move it, well along came two trailer house movers with these big trucks that were traveling empty so they stop and said they could tow us to a town where we could get it repaired, so one of the trucks hooked on to the the Ford pick-up with a chain and when he went to pull us up the hill all he did was spin the tires he could not get enough traction to pull us up the hill so the second truck hooked on to the first on and the two trucks pulling together could not move us, so we had to back the truck and trailer down to the bottom of the hill to a road maintenance camp where we unhooked the trailer and my dad was so mad at this point he had one of the trucks tow the pickup to the top of the hill and unhook. My dad hooked the VW bug on to the truck and towed it about 50 miles into a repair shop, well it took three days for the repair shop to get the parts to fix the truck. When we got it fixed we went back to the trailer hooked on to it and went up over the hill on our way to Alaska. At night we would find a place to pull off the road and then we would let the rabbits out to eat some of the grass and then we would start up the generator mom would cook supper and we would catch the rabbits and go to bed in the trailer. In the morning we would have breakfast and off we would go. The only other thing I can remember which was a constant problem but nothing worth fixing was about half way there one of the water pumps went out on the engine (a flathead Ford V-8 has two water pumps) it was leaking so bad we would have to stop every so often and add water to it. There was another time we had to have help getting up a hill, it was raining and we crossed a rail road tussle which had been converted into a passenger car bridge because they were building a new bridge over the Priest River. Well all they did was put planks down so the cars could drive on it because the train still used it. The bridge had no guard rails on it and I remember the trailer house was hanging over each side of the bridge as we crossed it. Well when we got to the other side we started up this paved section of road and we just could not get enough traction to pull the trailer up the hill with it raining, well a nice Canadian man came along in a pick-up and said he would help us up the hill, I can still remember the two pick-ups chained together spinning there tires, and smoke coming off the tires as they slowly moved up the hill. Other than those few things it was a pretty good trip. We were always glad when there was a section of paved road, the rocks and dust on the Alcan Highway was like the Baja, and there were many miles of the road you wouldn't see anyone, most places were so remote they run generators for lights because there was no power lines to supply power. We were very happy to get to Alaska, and when we crossed the Alaska-Canadian border it was a big moment for us, only about 400 more miles to Anchorage, Alaska and half of that was paved.
|
|
North to Alaska |
Alaska |
Water and Electricity |
|
Web Page By: Pat Blair |
|
[Home] [Things] [Living in Alaska] [Alaska Photos] [Family Photos] [Quake Photos] [Places Photos] [Navy Photos][Personal Pictures] [Links] [E-Mail] |
|
|
