Blogs from United States, North America - page 7078

When the Wien Alaska Airlines Fairchild F-27 touched down at Kotzebue airport, we were officially north of the Arctic Circle. The 1962 Alaska trip included a four day visit to Nome, Kotzebue and Barrow. I must say that I do not recall much about Nome. But Kotzebiue was by far the most interesting stop. Valene had been doing field work for her doctorate in Anthropology among the Inupiaq (Inuit) of Kotzebue. She knew many of the townsfolk personally. The indigenous people of Kotzebue are related to and speak a language similar to that spoken by the Inuit of Canada and Greenland. The houses of Kotzebue were rustic in 1962. Buildings were constructed of timber, plywood sheets, corrugated metal, tar paper and sometimes finished lumber. Whatever material could be sourced. (Construction in Barrow was similar, often employing ... read more

After calling at Wrangell and Sitka, Mañana II docked at Warm Springs Bay. Warm Springs Bay is on the opposite side of Baranof Island from Sitka. It would be called "off the grid" today. The accommodations were rustic wooden bunkhouses dating back to who knows when. There was no electricity. At night, we lit kerosene lamps for illumination. The facilities were out back. I felt like I had stepped into the 1961 film North to Alaska, about the Alaska Gold Rush era. A definite pioneer felt permeated the settlement. There were warm springs here for bathing, but we did not go in them. There was a day of trail hiking to Baranof Lake and exploring the wilderness. I fished for the first time in the Baranof River. Another adventure!... read more

The Los Angeles Geographical Society's 1962 trip to Alaska began with a Western Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Seattle. Before heading to Alaska, Valene had scheduled a day's stopover in Seattle to visit the 1962 World's Fair, the Century 21 Exposition. I was very excited to ride the World's Fair Monorail from downtown to the fairgrounds (now the Seattle Center). The Seattle monorail was built by the same company that built the Disneyland Monorail and was very similar to it. The Space Needle had been built as the fair's theme structure and became Seattle's icon. Among the things I remember most was visiting the World of Century 21 Pavilion, where librarians from around the country demonstrated advances in the nascent field of library automation under the auspices of the American Library Association. They produced on-demand ... read more