Read Coming into the Country Online
Authors: John McPhee
Coming into the Country (23 page)
Along the road near Talkeetna, some years ago, the state sold off ground for something like a hundred and twenty-five dollars an acre. Five thousand dollars will buy such an acre now. Under the aspens and birches by the roadside, fresh signs appear beside the unbuilt gates of unbuilt subdivisionsâSPORTSMAN ACRES, RUSTIC WILDERNESS, TIMBER PARKâand into the woods run new roads with earth plowed up to either side like banks of brown snow. Parka Parkway. Lichen Drive. Grizzly Way. The new capital is not the only fetal town in the Susitna Valley. Where the committee hovers, speculation hovers as well.
It can be worth your life to visit such a place. Nose a car in under the cottonwoods, have a look around. Before you can back out, a salesman has appeared from behind a tree and placed you under house arrest. He has a contract in his hand, and the lots are going fast. “No” is a word he does not comprehend. He tells youâerroneouslyâthat the man who owned the computer firm in Anchorage that did the feasibility study for the Capital Site Selection Committee sold the computer firm and bought lots in this beautiful subdivision, and so did eight others in the same office. Hurry, buy a lot, you may be too late. This little beauty is almost two-thirds of an acre, and the price is fourteen thousand dollars. The distance to Anchorage is eighty miles, but the distance to the capital of Alaska will
be a great deal less than that. Meanwhile, consider the view. The lot is on a high escarpment above the Susitna, and beyond the river are broad spruce and muskeg barrens and beyond them the white mountains. That big one on the right is McKinley. The Indians called it Denali, which meant “You'll be sorry if you don't sign now.” Would you like to see some wildlife? Let's go down to the airstrip. Take you up and show you a moose.
be a great deal less than that. Meanwhile, consider the view. The lot is on a high escarpment above the Susitna, and beyond the river are broad spruce and muskeg barrens and beyond them the white mountains. That big one on the right is McKinley. The Indians called it Denali, which meant “You'll be sorry if you don't sign now.” Would you like to see some wildlife? Let's go down to the airstrip. Take you up and show you a moose.
The salesman whose trap line I had happened onto one summer evening was named John Leifer. He had lived until recently in Juneau, he said, but had left because Juneau had had it. Juneau was dead. This was where things were happening nowâup here in the Susitna Valley, where the capital would be. He had flown an air taxi in Juneau. “Just like a taxi-driver, but in a planeâunder six-hundred-foot ceilings, two-hundred-foot ceilings. In Juneau, you fly them or starve. You get to know every curve in the shoreline.” At full throttle, in a Stationair, he jumped off the airstrip and across the Susitna, and began to search its sloughs and its tributary streams for moose. Skimming trees, banking at such steep angles that his stall-warning horn was constantly sounding, he swooped and circled in the hunt for wildlife. Printed on his company's brochures were moose, beavers, bears, and wolverines, but there were none in sight beneath the plane. In wider and wider arcs, he expanded the search, diving, climbing, and repeatedly saying, “I can't understand it, I can't understand it. Where are all the moose?” Finally, in the arriving dusk, we flew over a black bear. Turning, making a tight one-eighty, he lined up the Stationair for a second view. He throttled back, and we glided silently down on the bear, which stood still, in nearsighted perplexity, wondering where the sound had gone. Then, suddenly, Leifer advanced the throttle and buzzed the astounded animal, which ran across the muskeg in a kind of rolling cringe as we passed over and then gained enough altitude to clear the trees.
I was to learn, much later, that John Leifer crashed and was
killed close by the Susitna on the same autumn day that the Capital Site Selection Committee was crisscrossing the skies above.
killed close by the Susitna on the same autumn day that the Capital Site Selection Committee was crisscrossing the skies above.
Earl Cook spotted a moose from the committee helicopter. It did not so much as lift its headâjust stood there in its muskeg pocket like a horse in a pasture. We circled low over Amber Lake, a site under consideration, and then turned west and crossed wide stands of balsam poplar and broad muskeg meadows, beyond which, on a clear stream, were a couple of homesteadsâone a crude assemblage of shacks, the other a tidy collection of small cabins, with a rectangle of timothy and an airstrip so short it looked more like a driveway. Homesteadersâwith their big (hundred-and-sixty-acre) blocks of landâstood to make or lose the most if the capital should settle near them. They could lose their remoteness, with nowhere comparable to go; new homesteading in Alaska was shut off indefinitely in March, 1974. On the other hand, homesteaders in the Anchorage Bowl had sold out for many hundreds of thousands of dollars, and analogous deals might be offered in the Susitna Valley. Meanwhile, some homesteaders who had “proved up” on their landâthat is, had lived on it for three years, built a habitable dwelling, and grown a crop on an eighth of the acreageâwere already selling at prices that guessed the future. Only a few weeks before, a Susitna Valley homestead had sold for a hundred and forty-eight thousand dollars, and, like the ones we were flying over, it was many miles from the road.
A homestead on the highway system would be worth a great deal more than that. I had visited one, some miles south of Talkeetna, where a young couple, Don and Patty Bender, had moved onto the land in 1974 and had lived in a camper while they mixed concrete, poured a foundation, and, together, built a house. It was a small, handsome place, with a steel-drum wood stove and big windows of insulated glass. Mount McKinley was framed in one window. Sometimes bears were too. Don Bender had a .300 Magnum but had not yet used it on a bear.
He used it for his annual moose, and through the winter he and his wife ate mooseburgers, moose sausage, moose steak. They had eggs, too, and bacon coming. Near the house was an A-frame combination coop and sty. A pig lived in one end, chickens in the other. On cold nights, the chickens found a way to get near the pig. The Benders were in favor of the capital move. “Juneau is too inaccessible,” he said. “Therefore, many of our politicians have hidden from their constituents.” They did not want to lose their homestead, though, no matter how much its value might appreciate. They said they hoped the new capital would “not destroy our personal place of life.” Their property, theirs for living on it, would probably be worth half a million dollars by the time it was proved up. If the capital came near, that sum could multiply, and the Benders would feel some pressure to change their minds.
He used it for his annual moose, and through the winter he and his wife ate mooseburgers, moose sausage, moose steak. They had eggs, too, and bacon coming. Near the house was an A-frame combination coop and sty. A pig lived in one end, chickens in the other. On cold nights, the chickens found a way to get near the pig. The Benders were in favor of the capital move. “Juneau is too inaccessible,” he said. “Therefore, many of our politicians have hidden from their constituents.” They did not want to lose their homestead, though, no matter how much its value might appreciate. They said they hoped the new capital would “not destroy our personal place of life.” Their property, theirs for living on it, would probably be worth half a million dollars by the time it was proved up. If the capital came near, that sum could multiply, and the Benders would feel some pressure to change their minds.
They had so far cleared ten acres, in conformity with the rulesâdense, closed-forest acres of spruce, birch, aspenâand had planted timothy and oats. Although the homestead was in the Susitna Valley, the terrain was rough with sheer-sided hillocks, and the Benders' ten acres under cultivation looked less like a field than a bald lumpy spot on a high mountainside, the crops clinging to serpentine contours. The appearance of it all tended to suggest mockery of the Homestead Act, which was written to offer farmland to an expanding nation, and this minimal “farm” had been hacked absurdly from a steep subarctic forest. The Homestead Act, though, had a venerable history of mocking itself. It had worked well only east of the hundredth meridian, where there was enough rain to serve a farm, and homesteads in the range country and semideserts of the West had made, if anything, less sense than the homesteads of Alaska. In general, the Alaskan climate is not much more severe than the climate of, say, Montana, and the soil under Alaskan cottonwoods could be richly supportive of crops. The growing season is not prohibitively shortâroughly mid-May to the first of Septemberâand in various fruits and vegetables
sugar content will build up to unusual levels in the cool air and the long northern light. A potato developed by Curtis Dearborn, at the University of Alaska's experimental farm in the Matanuska Valley, is eleven per cent sugar and can be eaten like an apple. Dearborn also developed the Alaska Frostless Potato, which survives frosting at twenty-seven degrees. Potatoes could be farmed very successfully as far north as the Yukon, and may be someday, if the idea ever takes hold. Agriculture, though, is among Alaska's foremost undeveloped assets. There is a so-called “farm loop” north of Fairbanks, with broad cleared fields and haystacks under tarpsâa Pennsylvanian scene, reminiscent of the mother country. Rampant subdivisions, of late, have been eating it up. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline winds among the farms. In the Matanuska Valley, which forms a V with the Susitna Valley around the Talkeetna Mountains, the soilâloess soilâhas the color and consistency of Hershey's cocoa and is rockless two feet down. Farmers from the Middle West were brought to the Matanuska Valley during the Depression and, after a disorganized beginning, established successful farms. In many parts of the valley are fields and gambrel-roofed barns, with the Chugach Mountains rising to alpine snowfields beyondâa phenomenal sight from a farm. Matanuska notwithstanding, of arable Alaska not much is plowedâfar too little to be expressed as a percentage. As Alaskan land, in huge segments, is divided up for various purposes, agriculture fails to make the list. But the strawberries are delicious enough to make you drunkâSusitnas, Talkeetnas, Matareds. You can grow carrots, beets, spinach, broccoli, rhubarb, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, zucchiniâall in the heart of Alaskaâand wheat, barley, alfalfa, oats, and white sweet clover eight feet high. Peas are particularly sweet and aromatic. There is virtually no need for pesticides. Cabbages grow to be two feet in diameter and can weigh seventy pounds. They look like medicine balls. If Alaska would get up off its past (the boom philosophy), it could be the world center of sauerkraut-cabbage
production. That sounds laughable, but the state might come out of it economically sound. The new capital city could be sterile and governmental and given to one purpose, or it could be an island in a sea of farmsâthe state of Alaska, from one end to the other, being green about half the year.
sugar content will build up to unusual levels in the cool air and the long northern light. A potato developed by Curtis Dearborn, at the University of Alaska's experimental farm in the Matanuska Valley, is eleven per cent sugar and can be eaten like an apple. Dearborn also developed the Alaska Frostless Potato, which survives frosting at twenty-seven degrees. Potatoes could be farmed very successfully as far north as the Yukon, and may be someday, if the idea ever takes hold. Agriculture, though, is among Alaska's foremost undeveloped assets. There is a so-called “farm loop” north of Fairbanks, with broad cleared fields and haystacks under tarpsâa Pennsylvanian scene, reminiscent of the mother country. Rampant subdivisions, of late, have been eating it up. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline winds among the farms. In the Matanuska Valley, which forms a V with the Susitna Valley around the Talkeetna Mountains, the soilâloess soilâhas the color and consistency of Hershey's cocoa and is rockless two feet down. Farmers from the Middle West were brought to the Matanuska Valley during the Depression and, after a disorganized beginning, established successful farms. In many parts of the valley are fields and gambrel-roofed barns, with the Chugach Mountains rising to alpine snowfields beyondâa phenomenal sight from a farm. Matanuska notwithstanding, of arable Alaska not much is plowedâfar too little to be expressed as a percentage. As Alaskan land, in huge segments, is divided up for various purposes, agriculture fails to make the list. But the strawberries are delicious enough to make you drunkâSusitnas, Talkeetnas, Matareds. You can grow carrots, beets, spinach, broccoli, rhubarb, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, zucchiniâall in the heart of Alaskaâand wheat, barley, alfalfa, oats, and white sweet clover eight feet high. Peas are particularly sweet and aromatic. There is virtually no need for pesticides. Cabbages grow to be two feet in diameter and can weigh seventy pounds. They look like medicine balls. If Alaska would get up off its past (the boom philosophy), it could be the world center of sauerkraut-cabbage
production. That sounds laughable, but the state might come out of it economically sound. The new capital city could be sterile and governmental and given to one purpose, or it could be an island in a sea of farmsâthe state of Alaska, from one end to the other, being green about half the year.
Exceptions are glaciers, but they are only three per cent of Alaskaâthe big ones close to the gulf coastline, which reaches down and east from Anchorage toward Cordova, Yakutat, Haines, and Juneau. Something like seventeen thousand square miles are permanently under ice, while the rest of Alaska melts. Ninety-seven per centâhalf a million square milesâmelts. Even the great ice sheets of the glacial ages did not cover Alaska. An arm of the Laurentide covered the Brooks Range. The Cordilleran Glacier Complex, which covered the Canadian Rockies and the chains of the Pacific coast, reached out over the Alaska Range and across all the land between the mountains and the gulf. But the Interior and the Arctic Slope and all the west coast were bare. While much of New Jersey was covered with ice, most of Alaska was not.
The truly immense glaciers might be down in the southeast, but the glacier that was off to our right just now was in no sense modest. The helicopter had crossed Shulin Lake, and had circled it, tilting far over so the committee members could hang by their seat belts for a plan view, its big rotor blades biting the air with the sound of a working axe. Level again, it was proceeding west toward the Kahiltna River, the source of which, off to the north, was almost as preëminent as the mountains above. It came down out of the Alaska Range like a great white tongue. It cameâthe Kahiltna Glacierâfrom eleven thousand feet, from a high saddle between the peaks of Foraker and McKinley. And two, three, four miles wide all the way, it flowed fifty miles south into the valley, where it finally turned into river at an altitude of scarcely a thousand feet. This was the big glacier the climbers land onâand the fact that they land at the seven-thousand-foot contour has nothing to do with
the strategies of the sport. They do so because airplanes are not permitted to land in Mount McKinley National Park, and the park boundary happens to cross the glacier at that level. The river below us was the product of the sun, and even in autumn and from the helicopter's high perspective it was awesome to see. Most fast rivers are white, smooth, white, smoothâalternating pools and rapids. This one was white all the way, bank to bank, tumultuous, torrential, great rushing outwash of the Alaska Range. With so many standing waves, so much white water, it appeared to be filled with running sheep. The color of the water, where it was flat enough to show, was actually greenish-gray, and its clarity was nil. It carried so much of what had been mountains. Glacier milk, as it is called, contains a high proportion of powdered rock, from pieces broken off and then ground by the ice. The colors of outwash rivers are determined by the diets of the glaciersâschist, gneiss, limestone, shale.
the strategies of the sport. They do so because airplanes are not permitted to land in Mount McKinley National Park, and the park boundary happens to cross the glacier at that level. The river below us was the product of the sun, and even in autumn and from the helicopter's high perspective it was awesome to see. Most fast rivers are white, smooth, white, smoothâalternating pools and rapids. This one was white all the way, bank to bank, tumultuous, torrential, great rushing outwash of the Alaska Range. With so many standing waves, so much white water, it appeared to be filled with running sheep. The color of the water, where it was flat enough to show, was actually greenish-gray, and its clarity was nil. It carried so much of what had been mountains. Glacier milk, as it is called, contains a high proportion of powdered rock, from pieces broken off and then ground by the ice. The colors of outwash rivers are determined by the diets of the glaciersâschist, gneiss, limestone, shale.
Glacial erratics were all over the valley, and there was one below us now. The ice in the past had nosed southward these huge monolithsâsupermagnified bouldersâwhich had rafted along on the advancing terminus and had not become caught and ground. The one beneath us appeared to be as large as a three-story building, weirdly standing in the forest. It was so big that soil had formed on its upper surface, and trees grew from it like hair.
We crossed Lake Creek, which was not a glacial stream and was running so clear we could see its gravels. Ahead was Mount Yenlo, a four-thousand-foot rise in the western Susitna Valley, and the helicopter set down there, on a southerly slope of the mountain, to release the committee. Just below, and beside the clear stream, was the most remote site under consideration for the capitalâthirty-five miles from the highway and undeniably as beautiful a setting as could possibly exist in the valley. It was high grasslandâunder, but approaching, a thousand feetâwith white birches and white spruce scattered through it, big
trees for this part of the world, almost a foot in diameter. The mean January temperature was ten degrees, July fifty-six. The summit of Yenlo was above the site, to the immediate northwest, and due north, close across fifty miles, was the palpable McKinley. The committee spread out through berry fields, these laced with stands of fern. There was sign of moose and caribou. There were depressions in the grass where bears had slept.
trees for this part of the world, almost a foot in diameter. The mean January temperature was ten degrees, July fifty-six. The summit of Yenlo was above the site, to the immediate northwest, and due north, close across fifty miles, was the palpable McKinley. The committee spread out through berry fields, these laced with stands of fern. There was sign of moose and caribou. There were depressions in the grass where bears had slept.
In Alaska, when you ask people if they know a certain place âa river, a lake, a hill, a valleyâthey often say, “I've flown it, but I've never been on the ground there.” Alaska is too big to be broadly inspected in other ways, but looking at something from the air is nonetheless an inadequate perspective. Dimensions tend to be removed. There is no substitute for being on the ground, for experiencing a landscape close at hand, for feeling the earth underfoot. And this was frustratingly apparent now, for the helicopter had spilled us suddenly into a three-dimensional wilderness worldâfor a ration of tangibility, to last fifteen minutes. Its lights blinking, its engine guttural, it sent out signals of impatience. Waiting to take us away, it took away something of what it had brought us to see.
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