American Pioneers

After watching the first episode of "Alaskan Bush People" it got me to thinking about what my father told me about his family that lived in Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona and Texas from about 1912 to 1927 when their father bought 2 1/2 acres with a house on it in Lake forest park. It was covered with Cherry and Apple trees and had it's own well and also had raspberries and blackberries growing there which I sampled whenever I could along with the Black Cherries up until I was 4 years old when we moved to San Diego.

In watching Alaskan Bush People on TV which is a new reality Series about a family of 9 people who has lived in the Bush in Alaska together for about 30 years now, it made me think a lot about my father's father who often strung trap lines in the 1920s during the winter for a break from the kids while the rest of the year he was an Electrical Contractor all over the states from Washington through Texas, Arizona and California. The family traveled with them in their Dodge touring vehicle with their two hunting dogs tied to the running boards outside. They were outside dogs that weren't house broken because they weren't meant to live inside with people but to protect the family and to tree raccoons,chase deer for hunting or chase bear which my grandfather hunted until 1925 in Washington I believe.

So, the wildness and physical strength and intelligence and adaptability I saw in my Aunts and Uncles because of the training of my grandfather  who was a very intelligent man and Electrical Contractor. And my grandmother who came from Texas from a wealthy family there. The types of life choices the Alaskan Bush Family  are making now were also often made by American Pioneers who lived in the country especially up to about 1950 when things started to get much more civilized. Paved roads started to go in by the 1920s so wooden wheels which were better on dirt roads and could absorb shocks better at speeds under about 25 mph were replaced by Steel wheels when there weren't rocks and ruts everywhere and when you just mostly couldn't drive anywhere at all if it was raining or snowing usually.

Then when nuclear Weapons created the Cold War between Russia and the U.S. President Eisenhower created the freeway system across the U.S. so people could leave cities quickly in case one city or another was nuked. Also, Darpa created what eventually became the Internet by creating Computer redundancy in all major cities connected by phone lines where large mainframe computers all carried enough information to keep the government and state governments running no matter who died in a nuclear war.

So, looking back from here something as interesting as paving the roads in the U.S. led to incredible prosperity on places like Route 66 which many people still travel for fun even now that large freeways criss cross the U.S. from north to south and from East to West.

If you watch Alaskan Bush Family you can see this interdependence and group survival techniques for staying protected and well fed and well house from any and all comers whether they be Animals (like Grizzly Bears) or smaller ones or even humans. This has always been this way since the U.S. was first settled by white people in the 1600s. So, you sort of get an idea about what type of people settled this nation moving west from watching Alaskan Bush Family which I find very interesting.

Even I found I liked living off the grid when I did with my family from about 1980 to 1985 when we bought a business and returned to the Northern California coast. The oldest was 12 and asked to return to public School on the coast. Since we honored our children we bought a business and moved away from our Mt. Shasta Wilderness Family experience. I think in some ways for my now ex-wife and I we never were really happy when we left that life style ever again. There is nothing to compare to that wild and free lifestyle. Nothing can replace something that amazing. Even though there is danger all the time it more than makes up for it in adventure and laughing and crying and being very very alive.

However, you do have to be really good with tools and handy and willing to learn almost anything technical to survive in all wilderness settings.

Strangely enough, for me, one of the most difficult things to deal with was a porcupine. I couldn't shoot it because my wife and kids didn't want me to. But, every night all summer long it came into an outside storage room and toilet over the septic tank and started eating the glue out of the plywood on the inside of the roof and floor. No matter what we did he kept coming back for the plywood glue that he like to eat. However, withing a month or two of this my neighbor shot him because he was afraid he was going to maim his dog with quills when he wouldn't go away from where people lived very far without coming back again and again. Skunks and porcupines aren't smart at all so both are pretty scary animals for dogs or cats to deal with and survive. For example, a dog getting skunked in the face by a skunk can die from lung problems and go blind from it if his eyes are open when he gets skunked. If a dog comes up behind a porcupine it will get quills in it's mouth and face and those quills will work there way eventually into the dog's brain if there is no human there to pull them out or to take the dog to a vet.

I have participated in pulling the quills to save a dogs life twice. Once with a friend's dog and once with my own both during the late 70s and early 1980s. You have to hog tie the dog but this only works if the dog is good natured enough not to bite you or fight you. Otherwise you have to take the dog to a vet to make it unconscious or I suppose you could get the dog drunk on whiskey but then you might kill him if you gave him the wrong dose of alcohol. So, whatever works to keep your dog alive in the end.

There were a couple of touch and go experiences while we lived there. One time after we bought land but before we built a house we still owned my wife's VW Westfalia 1971 Camper van before we sold it to buy enough lumber to build our house with. That day it was about 34 to 36 degrees and raining. This is one of the worst situations to be in without water repellent clothes because you can get hypothermic very quickly and your brain won't work well enough to save you.

We were high on the mountain at this point and the  Camper got high centered on the road where I couldn't get traction. We decided the rain would turn to snow in a couple of hours and things could go from bad to worse. Our kids weren't with us that day so it was just my wife and I and we were both about 32 then. So, we decided to run several miles down the road to a friends cabin and break into it and start a fire and likely he would come home from work and help us dislodge our VW Camper van with a rope or chain and his large 4 wheel drive truck before too much snow came down that night.

About 3/4 of the way there we started hallucinating because we couldn't stay dry in the rain so we were soaked to the bone. So, we both encouraged each other just to keep running for our friend's house. Eventually we made it and his upper story I was able to break into and to start a fire. Not a moment too soon as we were very close to passing out from being so chilled and were shaking terribly. So, once I built a fire we had to take our extremely wet clothes off and try to dry them on a line above the wood stove. Luckily, we thawed out enough before my friend came home from work and we ran up and pulled our camper van out before it got snowed in for a week or more.

Another time I had driven up after my wife and I bought our new business to spend Washington's birthday (a four day weekend) at our mountain house. We drove up from the Northern California coast and I got stuck driving into our house area on a dirt road there with my 4 wheel drive. It was about 2 am at night and I worried that no one would help me get the kids several more miles in the 2 to 3 feet deep snow to our house on 2 1/2 acres. Luckily, one lady got up and helped us move our children and a few things to our house. A real life saver. Later, a day or so later it was a sunny day and I walked out and got my 4 wheel drive loose from where it got stuck and drove it to our house.

Another time we were driving to town in another car we owned then, (a 1976 VW Rabbit). It's fan belt broke and the engine was overheating even though it was about 15 to 20 degrees out. I was scared because we were miles from anyone then and we would be lucky if 5 to 10 people all day came down that road. So, I was kind of worried about my three kids (all between 5 and 10 then) weren't going to make it. I knew in an emergency my wife and I could likely walk 5 miles back to our house in the cold but wasn't sure the kids would follow orders to walk back that far. So, a man with Alaska Plates on drove up and said, "What's the matter?" I told him that my fan belt broke which incapacitated my VW Rabbit. He said, "I think I've got a fan belt that size behind my seat." He flipped his truck seat forward and sure enough it was the perfect size. He even had the tools necessary to put it on and he did. Then I said, "You've just saved my kids lives. How much do I owe you?"

He said, "I'm from Alaska where we always help each other. Just help the next person who needs help that you see." I thanked him profusely and was very surprised as well as very grateful. However, you can bet the next people I saw stranded I helped and the next and the next. It sort of changed the way I saw things more after that and living out in the country at that time.