Skagway: Jewell Gardens Tour, Part 1

Jewell Gardens
The Historic Henry Clark Farm

“Welcome to Jewell Gardens, showcase of Alaska’s Garden City!” I’ve just jumped aboard a huge tour bus. I’ve exchanged “hello” and “how are you today?” with the driver. To the tourists I say, “My name is Brenda; I’ll be your tour guide this afternoon. I understand you’ve been up to the Yukon already today? Yes? See any bears? Well, my goal in Alaska this summer is to not see a bear.”  

Ha ha.

“FYI, I used to be a college composition instructor; and a student once summarized his experience with me as being a bit like sitting on a tour bus. Over here on the right—” I point to the parking lot.“—you’ll see a lovely one-inch margin. While over here on the left—” I point to the Gift Shop.

Gift Shop

 “—is an equally divine one-inch margin. And, straight ahead—” And here I swivel so everyone can see the double gates. “—are twenty-two rows of immaculate double-spacing."

Ha ha. Ha ha.

“And you thought you were on a holiday, didn’t you?”

Ha ha, ha ha, ha ha.

Double Gates and Entryway

“So now that you’ve realized that you’ve just fallen into your worst nightmare—back in English 101—I’ll have you follow me off the bus and through the double-spacing, I mean double gates, where we’ll meet at the blue interpretive wall just inside.”

One of two "O" Garden Beds

Honest to God, I have yet to experience a tourist come through the double gates who did not slow down and jam the entryway, agog, amazed by all they see and smell—an assault of the senses that lifts a person into another world altogether. It is a bit like stepping into Oz. The color, the Eden. The glass. The air laden with the perfume of lilacs and scent of sage oil. I have to encourage my guests to move over to the interpretive wall where Charlotte Jewell, owner and creative mastermind, has pictures of the first garden ever planted on this site more than a century ago.

I leap up onto a log bench, gain my balance, it wobbles a bit, and I begin my spiel.

“Very quickly, let me give you the lay of the land so you know where you and what we’ll be doing. To my left you’ll see a lovely 1” margin— No? Sorry. To my left are the restrooms, just past our conservatory there, where we’ll be feeding you in just a bit. Be careful, though. Rumor is that Colonel Mustard did it  in the conservatory with the lead pipe.”

Conservatory

If I’m lucky a smart ass will pipe up, “I think it was Mrs. White with the knife!”

“You,” I say, pointing to the smart ass. “What is your name?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you!” I hop off the bench, go over, shake his or her hand, exchange names. “Okay, Charlie,” I say, hopping back up on my perch, “I see that I’m going to have to keep my eye on you,” and he becomes, just like that, my handy sidekick, handy because sidekicks always pull the group together and transform strangers into friends. This is a good thing.

Conservatory and Bridge

“Okay, where were we?” I give a thumbs up to Charlie, who laughs. “Oh, yes, lay of the land. Restrooms over there, conservatory next. We’ll be entering the flower side of our garden just in front of the conservatory, via that wee bridge right over there, but again be careful because we have a troll who lives in our garden. We never know which bridge he might be hiding under, this one or the other down at the other end. So watch your toes and turn right. We’ll circle into the flower side of the garden clockwise.

Hoop House

"Half way around, we’ll pass through the fence right behind you and move into our produce section, come up alongside the Hoop House just off your shoulder there...

Eric in the Glass Blowing Studio

"...the glass blowing studios to my right, and, after tea, when it’s time to go...

Gift Shop Exit

"...we’ll exit through the Gift Shop. Are you ready?

Nods.

“Okay then. Let me begin by pointing out the Double O beds directly behind me, filled with Pink Marguerites, Dusty Miller, Nenesia, some Halo Dogwood shrubbery.

One of Two "O" Beds

The flowers bursting off the fence are Radar Love Clematis.

Radar Love Clematis

"Over by the Gift Shop you’ll find Artic Beauty Kiwi—a fruit that holds 20x the Vitamin C as an orange. 

"As I move into the history here—this place, this land, this bit of earth underneath our feet—some of you may like to mill and take a closer look at what Charlotte Jewell has planted here in the courtyard. You’ll notice right away that her philosophy is to let random seeds bloom where they land.” I point out the lavender poppy rising out of the Pink Margurites. “It’s actually not a bad metaphor for life,” I add.

Two poppies flirted--lavender and red fringe.
The pink with the lavender center is one of their offspring.

Some begin to mill, others stand tight.

“So let’s talk about this place, this land, this bit of earth under our feet,” I say. “Look down, stomp a bit. Go for it, it’ll feel good.” I stomp my feet a little; we are standing on courtyard stone. 

Courtyard and Interpretive Wall
Two "O" beds flank the walk.

“This land was never settled by the native Chilkoot Tlingits. Too windy. Worse than Chicago. Skagway is actually a native term that requires an entire paragraph to translate, but the essence is “wind.” And after living here a bit, I can see why they avoided the place. The first person to actually settle here in Skagway Valley was a Canadian by the name of Captain William Moore. 

Captain William Moore in Tlingit Clothing

"For about twenty years before the big Gold Rush in 1897, pockets of gold were being found up in the Yukon, and the Canadians were getting a bit nervous, not wanting a repeat of lawless Americans storming into British territory. So they sent out a bunch of surveyors to mark the international boundary line—pretty much the continental divide,” and I point up the ridges of our mountains to the east. “They hired Captain William Moore, a man who’d made and lost many a fortune on the frontier, to find a way through the Coastal Mountains here.

Skookum Jim
in White Man's Clothing

“His Indian guide, Skookum Jim, took him through a rarely used and torturous, at times narrow trail due north.” I point. “The Canadian surveyors planted their stakes atop the summit—which they named White Pass after some mucky-muck Canadian no one’s ever heard of, and made plans to send up the Mounties. Moore, however, turned back and staked 160 acres at the beach, right where you all came in. He so believed in the eventual big Gold Rush, that he, like Kevin Costner, believed that if he “built it, they would...”

“Come,” chorus the tourists on cue.

“That’s right, and the safest way to get rich, he figured, was not to fetch it himself, but to fleece it off the minors foolish enough to do all the hard work. They’d need boots and biscuits, and booze. Who better to meet the demand with supply? And so he began widening his White Pass Trail, commenced building a 60-foot wharf right where many of you disembarked, and sat back and waited.

"And waited.

"Ten years he waited. But then, out of the blue on July 29, 1898, his ship came in, literally. Two hundred miners came tumbling of the steamship Queen with news that was electrifying the world. Gold! The richest gold strike in history!

"How many Americans in the group? Does anyone recognize the name William Howard Taft? Charlie,” I ask. “Do you know who he is?”

Someone usually does.

I say, “Whether our 27th president made his fortune on gold, we don’t know. We do know, though, that somewhere along the line, he made enough to finance a presidential campaign 10 years later.

“So what about this land? This patch of earth under our feet? We’ve got Captain Moore down at the beach. Between there and here a tent city of 10,000 sprang up almost overnight. But here? Where we stand? Untouched earth since the beginning of time?

“Well, not long after President Taft made his appearance and stepped into history, a fellow by the name of Henry Clark stepped off some boat, gold fever in his brain and, unusually enough, a packet of rhubarb seeds in his poke. He had been a dairy and truck farmer from Wisconsin who, like 100,000 others, had abandoned home and hearth to strike it rich.

Dead Horse Trail, White Pass, Alaska, 1898

“However, Captain Moore’s White Pass was proving to be a death trap for horses and brought out the worst of humanity. It quickly became known as the Dead Horse Trail, some 3,000 of them, and who knew how many dead dogs and men. Henry Clark decided at some point along the way up the trail that this was not his cup of tea. He also noticed that many of the returning miners were suffering from scurvy. This, too, was not his cup of tea. So he turned around and headed back and was coming down into the valley, when he said that the whole valley opened up to him. He had those rhubarb seeds, rich in—can you guess?”

“Yes, Vitamin C. Like Captain Moore, he realized a fortune could be made by mining the miners. So he purchased 40 acres, right here, where we stand. In all of history, then, it was Henry Clark who was the first to put down roots, literally, in this place. And we are standing on 6 acres of Henry Clark’s 40-acre historic farm.

“Charlie, where are you?”

An arm goes up. “I need you to pull that middle picture off the wall and hold it high. Can you handle that?”

Henry Clark

Whoever my Charlie is, he or she is happy to do it. And while he or she does this, I continue. “In this picture you’ll see Skagway’s King of Rhubarb.” I look around for a short person. “You in the yellow jacket, what is your name?”

“Florence.”

“Well, Florence,” I say. “By August, Henry Clark’s rhubarb will be taller than you and me.

“True, I say. Can you see that he has to stand on a box? It was Henry Clark who discovered that Alaska’s short growing season—only 120 days—can nonetheless produce some startling produce. Who would have thunk?”

I ask Charlie for the picture. I hold it in front of me. “Take a look at these two mountain ridges behind him,” I say. “Now look up. Do you see the same two ridges?”

Bursts of amazement come forth.

“We are all standing right where his rhubarb once grew.”

I leap off my bench, put the picture back. I start for the wee bridge. “If you’ll follow me,” I tell them, “I’ll take you into the garden now. Take note, as we come to the fence right there, you’ll find one of our Henry Clark rhubarbs. Yes, we still grow it. And, yes, we’ll be feeding it to you today.”

With this I lead the way over the wee bridge, and with this a wave of gratitude for this place never fails to wash over me. It’s beautiful, serene, full of life, and I am always excited to take strangers into this 6 acres of wonder.

Alaskan Bed

Skagway: 4th of July

A Canadian by birth and loyalty, an American by circumstance and choice, July 4 has always been a mixed holiday for me. My patriotism kicks in on the 1st—Canada Day—but then despite myself it diminishes slowly but surely into polite acknowledgment of the 4th—Independence Day—a sort of courtesy nod I guess to my American destiny. For some reason, I’ve never been able to get worked up over a national anthem spawned by war…“rockets red glare, bombs bursting in air…” However, I do get a thrill when I hear “Oh, Caaaaa-na-da, gloooor-i-ous and freeee!” There, do you see? The Mounties’ bugles snap into place, brass flashes, and now the swelling, majestic music mounts and expands and surrounds and bursts. “Oh, Caaa-na-da, we stand on guaaaard for thee!” The bugles hold the note, a note that, if I tip my ear, I can always hear. But this year? This year I am in Skagway, Alaska, and for the first time ever I felt a sense of pride at being an American.

The buzz of the day began long before the 4th arrived, everyone in this tiny town pairing up for the egg toss, practicing the sack race. My son Blake, bus driver for HollandAmerica-Princess Lines, decided to enter one of their HAPA buses in the parade.

 Blake Kent

The other drivers jumped right in, decorating, getting candy, costuming themselves. The idea was for Blake to drive the bus while the majority of them pretended to be tourists, cameras around their neck, and getting in his way, forcing him to hit the brakes with just inches to spare, and to emerge from the bus in an enraged fit of frustration. This would leave a handful of the drivers to act as stow-a-ways and Ethan—super hero Chock Man—the star of the show.

Ethan Lowe

This is how it worked. Every time Blake hit the brakes and came hurtling out of the bus to chew out the surprised and very innocent tourists, super hero Chock Man would leap out, too, snap open the luggage compartment, grab his chocks, and, but but— who are these stow-a-ways leaping out and running around and around the bus?

Jared and Jo

Mayhem reigned as Chock Man chased the stow-aways, gave up, and tried to chock little kids, big kids, even two token Mounties (US National Parks Department guides dressed up for the part), a sort of courtesy nod I suppose to the Canadian gold that built Skagway.

 The Mounties aren't cooperating!

And during all this Tony and I were throwing candy out the windows.

It was fun. I tried to toss to the little kids...

...but then friends ran alongside the bus. “Hey, Brenda! Gimme!” I tossed, they caught, and other friends came running, hands in the air. Others just waved. Some, like Linda, my Parks Department friend, threw me a hug.

Linda Coldiron

The parade route was only seven blocks long, so we were scheduled to circle and come back through town. Circle we did, but this time Jared, House Manager, started grabbing friends off the street and shoving them into the bus with Tony and me. “Get on the bus!” “You’ll miss your ship! Get on the bus!” he hollered.

Strangers started jumping aboard.

“Hey, Brenda!”

Zell, a glass-blowing tour guide at Jewell Garden. “Can I get on the bus?”

“Get on!” I yelled. Up she popped, standing room only; soon, not even that.

We pulled to a stop at the judging intersection and were announced parade winners. Blake was handed $100 cash and back at the parade start we all tumbled off the bus, congratulating ourselves on a job well done.

HAPA Drivers and Me

The rest of the day blew around like blustery gusts as small-town America unfurled on this chilly, overcast day: sack races, egg toss...

Katy and Eric

Natalie, Amanda, and Jess

 Ethan and Blake

Caught it!

the fire department dump tank...

Dinner at Bev and Kerry’s—my shipping boss at the Gardens.

Bev

Maybe ten of us crowded into their small downtown apartment before heading for the fireworks. By the time we reached the docks, it was just Zell and me. The crowds had swallowed everyone else. She and I pushed through to the end of the Broadway Dock in the half dark of an Alaskan night, as fireworks shot up from the far side of a ship and others competed from off a nearby barge. We must have stood half an hour before turning back and heading home.

I climbed wearily but happily into my sleeping bag, cardboard in place at the window to block the light, and I was just drifting off when the day’s niggling thoughts and emotions flitted into consciousness. A day of everything new in a very old way, and surrounded by strangers who’d become friends, we had one thing in common—we were Americans.

I was an American.

O! say can you see by the dawn's early light,

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,

Whose broad stripes and bright stars...

Skagway: The Butterbox

Friends, family, and foe keep asking, “So what’s your cabin like, now that you’ve painted, hung towel racks, and moved in?”

First, while Jim Jewell, the owner, might explain the effort to paint the interior as being a bit like “polishing a turd,” my Skagway summer friends, however, have taken to calling this converted storage shed where I currently live the “Butterbox”—due to both its shape and the interior paint so laboriously applied.

Yeah, so what’s it like? they all pester. Any pictures?

Yeah, there are pictures.

Butterbox

Butterbox sits tightly amongst Charlotte and Jim’s greenhouses, tucked under the low limbs of a Sitka Spruce where glossy black ravens caw day and night with unparalleled enthusiasm. “Good morning,” they cough through hoarse throats. “Good night!” For the uninformed, night is about 1 a.m. And morning is 3:30 a.m. The two and a half hours between, a time of dusk and hazy shadows, these friendly purveyors of carrion go somewhere else and sleep.

So enter, if you will. Welcome. The door hangs three-quarters of an inch off its hinges, so give it a shove. Don’t be shy. It’ll bounce just fine over the ceramic tile of the “entry.”

Kitchen: SE Corner

First thing you’ll notice is my kitchen. Note the tap. No running water. I do, however, have a wee frig, a microwave, a toaster oven, and camping stove. What more can a girl want?

Bedroom: NE corner

 

On the opposite wall is my bedroom, with a top-of-the-line Posturepedic mattress, I mean air mattress. And sleeping bag. Four feet up, yes, but easily assessable with the help of a green upside milk crate.

 Closet: NW corner

Behind the door is my medicine and vitamin cabinet. Also my clothes closet and accessory corner.

Office: SW Corner

And, last but not least, and built in under the window, is my office.

Like I said, what more can a girl want?

Skagway: Summer Solstice

"How do you spell ‘solstice’?”
 

Joe

I’d never before had the occasion to spell it, even talk about it, but living for the summer the Land of the Midnight Sun was going to change all this.

“S – O – L – S – T – I – C – E,” said someone.

The thing is, when you live where the sun circles the sky in ever decreasing circles, not the normal Ferris Wheel action of up and down, but more like a lopsided lasso spinning high above you, circling ever higher and ever tighter as June unfolds, Solstice is something to celebrate. It’s not just the longest day of the year but one that, up here, seamlessly blends the 20th to the 21st with nary a pause for daytime to blink and wake up to a new dawn. The sun is too busy chasing its tail. To celebrate?

Skagway has several parties that take up two weeks of fun and good times, but the actual night of? About thirty of us guides from just about as many companies decided to celebrate by hauling our bikes up to the White Pass summit and then, at midnight, riding down the 6% grade, dropping from an elevation of 3,000 feet to sea level in just eighteen miles.

The Summit

At around ten, those of us from Jewell Gardens loaded up Joe’s truck behind the Beek House with maybe half a dozen bikes, maybe more.

Isreal and Joe and Joe's truck

We drove over to the school where the guides from other tourist industries piled a couple more on. Several other vehicles were loaded. I’m not at all sure how we got everyone and everything up to the top—though it did take a good hour or more to organize ourselves.

Getting Organized

Earlier I’d asked Casg, leader of the pack, “Any advice?”

“Yeah, dress warmly.”

Getting Ready to Head Down
Skagway River Below

And so at midnight in the Land of the Midnight Sun, straddling the U.S./Canadian border at the summit of the tightly knit mountains that define Alaska and the Yukon, and despite my hat and mittens, I shivered. But then like a swarm of mosquitoes, everyone hopped onto their bikes and circled the highway a few times—whir, whir, whir—and then we all broke rank and headed like flies down the Pass.

I have to say, I’m the oldest. “See you at the bottom, Mama!” the young studs tossed off their shoulders as they hurtled out of sight.

All wobbly on my borrowed bike, with my friend Eric’s instruction on how to change gears fresh in my mind, I was nonetheless wondering if riding a bike again was as easy as “learning to ride a bike again.”

Amanda, Amanda, Moi

“You okay?” one of the two Amandas hollered over. The two girls had taken it upon themselves to ride tail with me. None of us had the testosterone levels the rest of the pack clearly possessed. Besides, we intended to enjoy the experience.

“I’m good!”

What can I say? It was a rush of adrenalin, riding down through a fairyland of cutting wind and cold on the face. Of skirling down through mountains that have stood their ground for thousands of years, one rising out of another, the lonely cut of a road wending through their ankles of rock and stone and plunging waterfalls.

Amanda, Amanda, and I quickly fell behind the others. It was just us, a trio in the austerity, the quiet so deep the world fell away, leaving only these mountains, this pass, and us.

There is a no man’s land that surrounds the summit. Because of weather conditions during the winter, both the American and Canadian governments have elected to build their customs and immigration offices away from the summit, a few miles into their own turf. Thus is was, about twelve miles south of the summit, Amanda, Amanda, and I rolled up to the U.S. Customs House (which for some bizarre reason was designed to look like an IHOP)  to the cheering of the others who had, for whatever reason, decided to wait on official American soil

I had my passport in my pocket, I slowed down.

“You the last of the group?” not Officer B asked. (Officer B is a guard around one particularly loves. A rather officious sort.)

“Yeah. We’re it,” I said.

“See you around."

I hit the brakes. “You don’t want our passports?”

“Nope.”

So not Officer B.

“Thanks!” I bellowed back, wobbling on my bike but picking up speed.

This was just enough interlude to give the others another head start and, with them this time, Amanda and Amanda. I was truly on my own. Just me in this icy, shadowy world, and another six miles to enjoy. I was thrilled.

Four miles later I spotted Eric walking his bike. “Hey, what up?” I slowed down.

"I have a flat tire."

I stopped. “What should we do?”

“I don’t know. It’s another two miles into town.”

We had some discussion. Do I walk in with him? Keep him company. Or do I leave him behind and go for help?

“I would feel more useful if I went for help,” I finally said.

“Okay.”

A mile later I remembered the bears and Eric's lonely walk, would he be okay? but a car was approaching, slowing. Kyle, a bus driver, stuck out his head. “You see the guy with a flat tire?”

“Yeah! A mile behind me!”

“Okee dokee!”

Vroom and Eric’s help was on the way. I was almost disappointed. I’d wanted to be a part of his rescue, but then I realized help always abounds in Skagway. It’s the personality of people who depend on each other all winter long and whose generous spirit filters down to all of us who come up only for the summer. Kindness is infectious. I was surrounded by it. I think this is, perhaps, how life should be lived. Perhaps the way it once was lived. Back before we all got so busy with life that, somewhere along the line, we lost it.

Another mile later and coming onto the bridge that runs over the Skagway River into town, I noticed a knot of people. Wait, here was Sarah, coming back. “Hey, Brenda!” she hollered. “I was just coming to find you!” She rode up, circled, came alongside me. “Yeah, it’s her!” she hollered up to the others. They waved, they dispersed.

I have to ask. Is it easy to feel part of something bigger than yourself when people linger and then go in search of you, a missing piece of the whole?

I wearily but happily rode my borrowed bike over to my boss’s apartment and tried to lock it up outside her bedroom window. For some reason, she and her husband had the window open. I could hear Sevren coughing. My frozen fingers could not get the lock into place. More coughing. Give it up already, I thought, and jumped into my car.

Eric and Joe

It had been agreed earlier that I would drive Eric and Joe back up to the summit to get their vehicles. By the time I reached the school five blocks away Eric was back, Joe too, and half an hour later we spotted their two lonely cars perched on the side of the road in the faltering light.

Joe headed down first. Then Eric. Now me. I followed their blinking brake lights as I again descended the pass, this time a little warmer, this time the light casting different shadows, this time the mountains even quieter, as if they too had fallen at last into slumber with the rest of the world. Was I the only one up? Eric and Joe had disappeared. Just me again on the road.

“You the last one in?” not Officer B asked when I again reached the customs office.

“I am.”

“I understand you drove the other two back up to get their cars.”

“I did.”

“Was the bike trip fun?”

“Fun?” I laughed. “Next year I’m inviting you!”

His turn to laugh.

I was so tired when I finally stumbled into my cabin and set the cardboard in the window to block the sunlight. Shivering, I slid into my sleeping bag without bothering to brush my teeth. The last thing I saw before plunging into sleep was the knot of friends on the other end of the bridge, Sarah back peddling toward me.

It’s rare that one experiences bliss. A oneness with the world, a peace, a harmony, a sense of well being so profound the reality of a physical self actually disappears. I slid into sleep hearing Sarah’s call, “It’s her! We’re all in!”

Summer’s solstice. A moment, a time, a rush of cold in the face, a knot of friends, a bath of kindness, a connection to the divine. Midnight’s sun shines down on us all.

Sometimes you simply can’t help but love life.

The Summit at Midnight, June 20th, 2010

It's A Bit Like Polishing a Turd

Skagway AK 2009 
by Christopher Prentiss Michel
used by permission but not necessarily as an endorsement this blog.

Skagway has a housing issue, there just isn't room for everyone. This town of 900 year-round residents live in a paradise hamlet just a few blocks wide and one mile long. Snowy mountains rise straight up to the east and west. This narrow valley almost immediately begins to pinch down from four blocks wide to three to one to a tight squeeze that zig-zags up the Klondike Highway to the summit of White Pass and into the Canadian Yukon beyond. A town conceived, birthed, and sustained by the Gold Rush of 1897/98, it’s a tourist Mecca. Almost a million people will pass through here before the summer’s end and it takes an influx of 1,500 summer staffers to man the plethora of jewelry stores and adventure getaways, everything from necklaces carved from woolly mammoth tusks to helicopter rides out to the glacier fields. Where do all us “summer staffers” reside for the five months of the season?

Employers often purchase or build housing or in some other way create places to live--from rustic to  historical landmark hotels. I was, however, hired late in the season and all these opportunities were long before filled. My son, a seasoned summer worker, arranged for me to stay the month of May with the Presbyterian preacher; after that, I'd be on my own. So I've spent five weeks trying to find a place to lay my head. At fifty-eight years old, I find the challenge a, well...a challenge. Even with my son assuring me “Something will work out."

Charlotte Jewell

Something was not working out and D-Day was imminent. Then one day my boss Charlotte, owner of Jewell Gardens where I'm working, slipped her arm through mine. "My brother tells me you're looking for a place to live. This true?"

"It is."

"He says you're looking for a five-star hotel."

I laughed. "And I want a chocolate mint on my pillow every night!"

"I have a cabin. In the back of my house. It's a half-star hotel."

We both laughed.

"It's not much to look at right now," she said. "We've been using it for storage and there's been a bad leak in the roof. A lot of water damage. I think there might even be mold in there. But if you'll give my husband some time to do some new dry walling--"

"I can paint!" I eagerly interrupted. "And I don't mind helping with the clean up." Little did I know.

Jim Jewell duly did the dry walling and I was told to go over and take a look--fully warned there would be no place to poop, cook, or keep clean. But she would get me a wee frig, a microwave, and a membership to the Recreation Center so I could shower.

I first saw the place five days ago. Here is what I saw:

What the pictures don't show is the smell of mold--or the detail of "clean up." I backed out and headed down to see my new friend Jess, manager of the gift shop at Jewell Gardens where we both work. We sat in her mezzanine office. “I don't think I can live there. My health,” I stammered, ever mindful of the precariousness of a faulty immune system and the fact that there is no doctor in this town, not even a pharmacy.

A few minutes later I again stood in the little cabin, this time with Jess, watching her pretty face. She looked around and finally said: “We can make this cute. I promise. It has potential. We can do this.”

I put my trust in her. And such is life here in Skagway. On her day off, she and Natalie, a server at the Gardens, plus my son Blake and his friend Ethan (my friend, too, another bus driver up here and a total cutie pie I’ve gotten quite attached to) all showed up and we went at the place—hauling out the stuff, bleaching down every square inch, painting the entire thing a pale buttercup yellow.

Blake pried off a window of plexiglass up by the bed, which had been stuck on tight with some kind of goo, then headed to the hardware store. He brought back hinges and weather stripping and made me a window that actually opens and closes, enabling much needed cross ventilation. The open/close window is critical. I need fresh air if I am to mitigate the mold, and now the bleach and paint fumes. He also brought back some screen mesh and nailed it up so the mosquitoes don’t come in—important here in Alaska and probably more critical than the fresh air!

White House B and B

It’s taking some work. The carpet, which I asked to have ripped out, and which won’t be ripped out, had to be cleaned—somehow. Miracle enough, after a day of cleaning and painting, Blake, Natalie, Jess, and I went down for a “pint of ale” at Skagway’s Brew Co, and one of the women from the preacher’s church overheard us talking about the place. She owns the White House, a lovely Gold Rush B and B just around the corner from my new digs. She offered to let me use her carpet cleaner.

Perfect strangers overhearing a conversation in the pub. Only in Skagway. But there’s more to the story. The next morning Jess and Natalie met Jim, Charlotte's husband, at the coffee shop.

"Hey, how's it going with the cabin?" he asked. "Getting the place cleaned up okay?"

They duly reported.

Jim laughed and said, "Still, it is a bit like polishing a turd, isn't it?"

Ha, ha.

I still can't tell the story without cracking up. And so despite my scattered existence in this faraway place called Skagway, Alaska, I find myself at last beginning to feel at home in this narrow valley of river and rock, squeezed in between high mountains. Housing can be a bit like polishing a turd at times, yes, but there's no shortage of humor and  friendship. If Skagway struggles with its housing, it doesn't suffer from lack of generous and warmhearted people--permanent and seasonal and all ready to step in--"something working  out"--planting me firmly in the warm and nurturing soil of humanity at its best.