Alaska! Up North and to the Left

by Steven Swaks

  “So, are you familiar with those mountains?” My inquiry was legitimate, most of the local airlines, including Norton, rarely ventured into that area. During the summer, a couple of De Havilland Beaver pilots flew in and out of the range to drop off wealthy fishermen but they were the rare exception in the Y-K Delta. Of course, it turned out that Roman was one of them, but I did not know that at the time.

  True to himself, Roman did not bother to look at me, and answered with a dry, “no, I just have five hundred hours in them.” There was nothing else to say.

  We took off and turned to the east. I enjoyed the first few moments of the flight. I could almost smell the flowers and the scents emerging from the blooming nature. The tundra was exploding in a vibrant green. One by one, the lakes went by glittering in a thousand sparkles to the ever changing sunlight. Here and there, a few white swans were deploying their wings for a short flight.

  As I looked up, the spectacle was much grimmer. The Kilbuck Mountains were standing in our flight path. In a few minutes, we would face a wall of terrain covered by a sea of clouds and their screaming illegality. Clouds were for IFR flights where the routing was tightly controlled and pilots followed a different set of regulations than we did. We were visual, free to fly where ever we wanted but limited to visibility minimums, barely allowed to look at a cloud, let alone fly into one. I still did not know what Roman was thinking. His experience was on overdrive, hundreds of hours showing him the quickest way through the mountains to Bristol Bay. I kept looking south and its much safer embrace.

  As we flew closer to the mountains, a small opening emerged. A narrow valley opened its door for a fast track to the other side. But this easy access was filled with a procession of blind valleys and dead ends, a horrific labyrinth covered by a blanket of blinding clouds.

  We were approaching the mountain, my stomach knotting at the idea of entering the tight valley. Should I say something? Should I comment and offend my pilot? I had to say something. We were approaching the valley entrance.

  “Hey Roman, are you going to get in there?” I said with a forced casual voice.

  “You’ll see.” That was it, a cut and dry answer. I should have been used to it by now, but there was nothing else to get out of him. Even though I thought the route was raw madness, I did not want to start an argument, especially with two passengers sitting behind us.

  The valley was coming in, ever growing on the windshield. It looked like the monstrous gateway of a giant’s den. A misty fog was rapidly decreasing the visibility ahead of us. I could feel a tension rising with Roman. His right hand approached the throttle, why? The mixture maybe? It moved up to the GPS. A change of course perhaps? Please. Nothing. His hand dove back down to his lap. My heart sank. Roman’s head swiveled. He was looking out. What was he looking for? Why? What was he thinking? His head flew back inside. His sunglasses were hiding his eyes. What was he looking at? I could not help it, I was looking away and pretended to gaze outside, but I knew he was feeling my involuntary judgment upon him. My heart was pounding. Both personalities were facing each other in the arena, the public chanting for a fight. Roman was tied up by a critical observer, his free judgment impeded by the presence of the other one. The entrance was ever growing, suffocating.

  In a gentle move, the plane banked right to the south, the tortuous valley swung to the left. Wisdom had spoken and my relationship with Roman had received another bruise.

  As my blood pressure went down, I finally started to enjoy myself. The Kilbuck Mountains passed by; Bristol Bay was 35 minutes ahead of us. The bay and its summer rush, the small fishing vessels invading the sea in hopes of a short but fruitful salmon season. The increasingly present tourists in quest of adventure were there to join the feast. In the middle of the summer chaos, the beautiful Dillingham was welcoming the visitor. The small town sat on the shore of the bay, peacefully nesting a few miles away from the east side of the Kilbuck Mountains.

  Dillingham was the incarnation of the cute little fishing town. The people living next door were not neighbors but close friends always ready to help. One could enjoy a stroll in the quiet streets. There was no rush, only the simplicity of a small town. The white wooden houses were nicely aligned. A small store with a white framed window dressed with bucketed flowers was down the street and only added to the painting frozen in time. A child was playing with a watchful mother nearby. A handful of old but well preserved buildings completed the scene, proudly resisting the assaults of the cold and salty winds. A fishing boat was entering the small harbor. The fishing fleet could have used a fresh coat of paint, but the locals enjoyed them that way, along with the tourists. There was a warmth to the atmosphere, a tranquility everyone felt. There were two grocery stores down the main street, a few steps from each other. The high school kids worked behind the counter, unaffected by the latest fashion. They smiled to the customers, enjoyed chatting with their neighbors, and strangers were politely greeted.

  I melancholically watched Dillingham going by, and waited for our destination. We dropped off our two passengers, and went home. I contemplated the endless limitations they would face. There was no road to expect help from; any specialized tools would have to come from Anchorage, light years away. Their ordered parts would have to travel through multiple hubs, until the final step, the small bush plane and the short gravel strip.

  My continuous interaction with Roman was coming to an end. Little did I know this flight was our last one together for a long time, not that I was really crushed about it. A few days later, Roman left Norton Aviation to go fly float planes for lower 48 hunters and fishermen in quest of adventure. He was scheduled to come back in the fall, but who knew what would happen in between. Autumn was so far away.

  The Legend

  May

  The company instructor Robert Allen was only preceded by his reputation and staggering numbers. With well over 14,000 hours of flight time under his belt, he was up there, soaring in the heavens of the skilled pilots. While waiting for Robert to train me, I wanted to find out more about him, and once in a while, my conversations with other pilots slipped to the Robert Allen topic. I was open to any comment about him, and the different perspectives mixed together formed a fairly consistent picture.

  There was Randolph who did not really care. Do not misinterpret, Randolph was nice, but his true hatred for the company had led him to semi-isolation. His bitter and frustrated mind was already away from Norton Aviation. I did not know what had happened to him, but I was certain that Randolph and Jim could not stand each other. There were rumors about an argument floating around. As a result, Randolph found himself dedicated to the Caravan and nothing else, especially not the Skyvan, ultimate upgrade and one way ticket to the airlines.

  Dax was another pilot who had patiently waited to build up enough seniority to access the captain seat of the Skyvan. Dax was the modern lone ranger unable to really plan anything long term. A long time ago, he had decided that life was worth enjoying and did not bother with any unsubstantial details. His late twenties’ youth was still blooming and his consequent stature was only the physical expression of a strong and outgoing personality. Every morning, Dax barged through the front door donning cargo pants and his now legendary ball cap deeply planted on his skull.

  Dax’s version of Robert was made up of an overall respect coated with a hearty dose of derision. Come to think of it, anything was worth making fun of for Dax, and Robert Allen was no exception. With his typical light tone, Dax was quick to answer the Rob subject. Slouched on the dispatch counter, coffee mug in hand, Dax looked at me.

  “Well, Rob’s a great guy, great teacher, knows his stuff, talks a lot. Sometimes, he gets mad, but nobody cares. We just give him a pat on the back, laugh about it, and move on.” His left elbow was firmly planted on the counter top and his hand was dancing along with the rhythm of his description. His hand stopped. Dax looked at me straight in the eyes. I had the deep sense it was time to pay attention. “Now, when Jim gets mad, tha
t’s a different story, can get pretty bad. When the Jim gets pissed, we all find a hole to hide in.”

  Ron, the older dispatcher, was standing behind the counter. Robert was one of his favorite coworkers, along with everybody else. Between two phone calls, with or without teeth, Ron enjoyed telling us stories about his Robby.

  “Robby’s funny. Sometimes he comes’n the morning and doesn’t say nothing. N’ sometimes you can’t get him to shut up.” Ron followed his speech by a short and dry laugh shaking his entire gangly body. During seldom down moments, Ron enjoyed bringing me up to speed about Norton, the do’s and don’ts of the hub, his crackling voice coming from deep down his throat.

  “You know Steven; you got to pay attention to your paperwork. Toad and the guys in Anchorage are gonna get back at you if you mess up too much.”

  “All right, thanks for the tip.”

  Jeb, the younger dispatcher, was jerking around, fidgeting from phones to flight manifests.

  “Dax, Kipnuk, next!” Jeb said like a recorder.

  Dax looked at us rolling his eyes. “How’s the weather down there?”

  “It’s beautiful!” Jeb answered with a smirk of satisfaction.

  “Beautiful doesn’t mean squat! How many times did I tell you that? I need n-u-m-b-e-r-s!”

  Jeb picked up the weather clip board. “It’s… uh… yeah, two miles visibility, overcast 700, wind 240 at 20 gusting 25 knots. Told you, it’s nice!” Jeb was wearing a large grin of satisfaction.

  “2 and 700? That’s not nice, that’s barely legal! And the wind sucks! It’s straight across. The Skyvan can’t handle strong crosswinds! That thing is a sail!” Dax grumbled.

  “Yep, but it’s legal. Time to go. Chop. Chop,” Jeb replied.

  Dax snatched the flight manifest from Jeb’s hand and walked out to preflight the Skyvan.

  I had just witnessed a strange spectacle. A high school graduate and hardly trained dispatcher was directing an educated and licensed airline transport pilot with years of experience. The pilot was still the final authority and could cancel a flight, but where was the team work?

  Robert was scheduled to come back tomorrow. The elements were coming into place. In a matter of days, I would add up the required training flights and take the checkride. Soon, I would receive the liberating signature and finally fly on my own.

  Robert

  May

  Pilots were not slaves. We did not fly seven days a week from sunrise to sunset (and often beyond) at the mercy of a ruthless dispatcher with a ball and chain attached to our ankles. Thankfully, the FAA was there to attend to our welfare, occasionally throwing an old loaf of bread to keep us alive. The old bread in this scenario was a daily flight time cap. Thou shall not fly more than 8 hours a day and 1400 a year (for Alaskan pilots), or else. So, in order to comply with the regulations and because we flew so much, the local companies scheduled ten to fifteen days off a month. This morning, it just happened that Robert Allen was coming back from one of those breaks and I was up there soaring high on his priority list, or so I hoped.

  As usual, I had arrived early to take the time to check the weather and look up the scheduled charters for the day. I was by the dispatch counter on the computer looking at the online radar when the front door swung open. An unfamiliar face obviously well acquainted with the terminal walked towards us. The man was thin, clean shaven, with short and dark straight hair. There was no doubt he was the long awaited Robert Allen. The man walked through the terminal and glanced at me. He stopped.

  “Are you the new guy?” Robert said with a dull voice.

  I introduced myself.

  “Let’s go upstairs. We need to finish up your ground school.” Robert left the room and walked upstairs.

  The first impression was lukewarm, Robert did not say much. I followed him and sat in the break room. The first few hours were dedicated to reviewing the Cessna 207 in great detail. As Robert warmed up throughout the morning, we fine-tuned my knowledge of the systems and reviewed the emergency procedures. The early day coldness was one of his trademarks. Most of the mornings Robert walked in, stayed quiet, poured himself a cup of bad coffee, and woke up along with Norton Aviation. In a way, Robert did not fit the bush pilot mold, if there was even one. If Dax was the true incarnation of the bold adventurer ready to go on some extreme expedition, Robert was the opposite. He had been happily flying in Bethel for years and enjoyed his daily routine with his wife and children living down the street. His life was simple and comfortable and he liked it that way. Robert had been designated to train the new pilots and approve them after a test before letting them go with their own passengers, but I was already familiar with the Y-K Delta, and my training would be much shorter.

  After a few hours in the break room, Robert walked downstairs. “Jeb, I’m going to take Steven on a 207 run. Do you have something for me?”

  Jeb had a new toy to play with, another available pilot. “Of course I have something for you!” He fumbled through forms and dispatch releases. “Ah! Platinum! 900 pounds of mail and two passengers on the way back.”

  Platinum it was. It turned out it was one of my favorite destinations, well south of Bethel on the shores of the Bering Sea. I was told to handle the flight as a solo run. I was not there to observe, I was there to run the show. Everything was coming into the new equation. I had to compute the weight and balance on every leg, check the weather, preflight… I had done that a thousand times before, but there had been no pressure, no expectations, no customers waiting for me. The students and I had the time to wonder and ponder about the weather, weigh the options and maybe postpone or cancel the flight if there was anything we did not like. Today, everything was different; I was in the big arena running with the major league, or my employee version of it. I had a boss and passengers who counted on me, and I could not back off from a flight because we were not in the right mood or the weather might have been remotely questionable. It all seemed overwhelming now, but in a few weeks, I would be doing this while sipping a cup of coffee.

  Robert was standing back watching my every move. In a newbie rush, I kept running back and forth between the plane and the terminal. I had to get the paperwork, gas up, pick up the passenger’s seat from the hangar for the return trip. Forgot the passenger seat belts. Where was my clip board? Rob was watching, smiling. Where was my stupid pen? Forgot the pen in dispatch. Run back. Did I forget something else? No, I did not think so. Check all the doors of the plane. Rear right first, locked. Passenger right, locked. Nose compartment, locked. Robert was already seated in the front passenger seat and was waiting for me, his head swiveling around to follow me as I went back and forth.

  I sat in the cockpit, closed my door, and fastened my seat belt. I took a deep breath and looked at him. Sweat was dripping out of my forehead, what a sight. Robert was wearing an entertained grin.

  “Are we ready?”

  “We are ready.” I smiled at my complete lack of organization. Not that I did not know how to prepare a flight, I was just very green with the details entailed in a commercial flight.

  The rest of the trip to Platinum was more professional. We took off and turned right to the southeast. Our cruise was punctuated by a superb succession of landmarks. The small villages of Eek and its 300 mainly Yupik residents, the bigger Quinhagak at the end of the scenic Kenektok river, the curvy Jack Smith Bay, the Kilbuck Mountains just east of us, and finally our destination. Platinum was a tiny village with forty souls huddling together on a peninsula between Goodnews Bay and the Bering Sea. Its surroundings were a beautiful conglomerate of tundra covered hills and occasional short cliffs plunging into the frigid waters of the bay. Here and there, a lazy walrus sprawled in the spring sun on a black sandy beach.

  My first two passengers were workers for the platinum mine, a few miles away from the airport. As we taxied in, they were already waiting for us by the town’s only store. The little business was nothing much, just a simple wooden house adjacent to the aircraft ramp, in the middl
e of the town. Often, I enjoyed its proximity to the plane; I jumped out of my ride and found some temporary comfort in the spartan interior. If it was modest, it offered anything I was looking for, some heat and shield from the cold, a few snacks, and even a working pay phone. It had the typical look of the rural Alaskan store without postcards and fake last frontier souvenirs. The little store was built to meet the harshness of the area with small and sober windows, along with a shy rusted sign giving some approximate hours of operation. The inside showed the same austerity. A long time ago a motivated owner had nailed a few advertisement posters, but as time passed, the white walls became a dirty yellow and the posters faded. There were two or three aisles bearing products of immediate necessities, cans, cereal, sometimes milk, and nothing really fresh. The thought of fruits and vegetables was an unreachable fantasy, a luxury reserved for other people far from the delta. Even in Bethel, the perishable goods were often at the edge of the ICU, giving their last battle before officially being labeled rotten.

  My two customers were both in their fifties, apparently Caucasian and lean but toughened up by multiple endless Alaskan winters. Deep creases on their faces showed the wrath of time and exposure to harsh weather. That was how locals measured one’s experience, by how many winters professionals survived in the area. I had two under my belt.

  I welcomed my travelers, picked up their gear, two large bags full of tools, a few back packs, and assigned them their seats. I was the little punk telling them what to do. That was at least what one of them thought, his long and cold look was enough to get the hint. I had not seen anything through my pure and juvenile commercial flying experience; I was too busy trying to be professional and not neglect any aspect of my flight to come.

  Looking back at the scene, I might have been wearing a slightly lame expression, excited about the upcoming event. Before this flight, I was behind the scenes watching Roman operate; now, I was projected to the front row. No more safety net, just the expectations of an instructor observing my every move. Once seated, my passengers were expected to listen to my well-rehearsed safety briefing, the very first one of a long series.