There's no genuine logic to living in the Copper Valley. It's in an awkwardly remote location, even for the sprawling Alaska road system. The Copper Valley is just a little too distant from the port of Anchorage, 200 miles away, and all that a coastal city has to offer. Things like plywood, and apples, underwear and chairs, movies, McDonald's, Walmart and Costco. 

Not having easy access to those things makes the Copper Valley somewhat ragged around the edges. This is a place where you have to do without. And where if something has to be done, the fastest, and often the only way, is to do it yourself.

Today, the drive to Anchorage, in a modern car takes about three and a half hours. But it hasn't always been like that. Not long ago, it took five hours and more. Many people refused to "go into town" for weeks, even months, because the trip was so arduous,

The roads are better now. In the past 15 years, the narrow Glenn Highway that links the Copper Valley to Anchorage, has been gradually improved, through road projects that remove mountains, straighten the road, and improve the grade, slowly bringing the Glenn Highway more into compliance with what a typical American "2 lane" country road might look like -- and less like what it was until quite recently -- a paved over trail through the wilderness, that wound back and forth, up and down hills with huge drop offs, with a most no line-of-sight for cars. In many parts of the Glenn, one side of the road is smack against a steep, boulder studded cliff -- and, especially during the springm those boulders suddenly hurtle down onto the road. On the other side, the cliff continues downward, to the Matanuska River, far below. Frozen matanuska river. 

And there ar eno guardrails. Just you and the empty miles of highway, high on the edge, surrounded by unnamed mountains across the wide river valley, in the distance. 

It was so stressful, driving back and forth  to Anchorage over the Glenn Highway, back in the 1980's and 1990's, that local travelers would turn, coming from either direction, exhausted,at into Eureka Lodge after going only 50 miles, to rest up, drink some coffee, and talk to the welcoming lodge owners. 

In many ways, Eureka operated then like one of the old roadhouses -- but instead of being 10 miles along the trail, as lodges were in the old days when people walked, it was five times as far. Because that was 

After the stop at Eureka, loal people would continue on their trek into Anchorage. 

It may seem that a paved highway like the Glenn highway -- a primary rouite through an entire state -- would have certain standards. But then, and even today, it is lacking common highway amenities in ways that can terrify the uninitiated. Locals just suppress their fears of huge falling boulders and steep drop offs 

For example, even on this arterial rouite, there are frequently no guardrails. And it's not as if the drop offs on the Glenn are little gullies. There are no guardrails, for miles -- and the drop offs head straight down, hundreds of feet, off the mountain you're driving along,  to the glacially-fed, wild and uninhabited Matanuska River.

Copper Valley Alaska EMT's. If You Didn't Help, Who Would?

EMT's In The Copper River Valley: Above & Beyond The Call Of Duty

Copper River EMT's in 2014, including Bill Bowler (left) who was an EMT
back in 1991, too. 

In a place like the Copper River Valley, helping people was a way of life. The obligation of stepping up to the plate was taken very seriously.

Take for example, emergency medical assistance. In 1991, Dozens of volunteers took courses spanning weeks in order to learn how to help their own famlies and their neighbors. 

A May, 1991 list was printed in the Copper River Country Journal, and revealed the extent to which locals were willing to put themselves on the line. 

Copper Center: Pinky Becker, Tom Carew, Bob Olson, Margie Steigerwald, Chuck Thomas.
Gakona: Danese Devenport, Suzanne McCarthy, Fran McMahan.
Glennallen: Cherie Ansell, Rocky Ansell, Bill Bowler, Terry Cunitz, Dan Hoadley, Patty Hutchings, Milt Peters, Sarah Rush, Larry Scribner, Win Stieffel, Tom Symmes, Mike Thomas, Darlene Windsor.
Kenny Lake: Rick Ackerman, Janelle Eklund, Jim Fant, Mollie Flack, Craig Gardner, Terry Gilmore, Mike Huntley,  Jim Jordan, Curt Lain, Sharon Lain, Janet Luce, Earl McClanahan, Crystal Pwoning, Daryl Schierholt.
Chitina: Catherine Fletcher, John Gilbert, Art Koeninger, Darlene Wright.
Nelchina: 
Cheryl Holland, Jim Manning, Elaine Manning, Jim Odden, Mary Odden, Kahren Rudbeck, Lisa Smayda. Tom Smayda, Joe Virgin, Peg Virgin.
Paxson: Gary Alcott, Stan Brown, Wanda Brown, Nate Callis, Wndy Callis, Larry Gondek, Hannah Hays, Bob Hays, Kris Howk, Murray Howk.
Slana: John Beeter, Marilee Bibeau, Jim Hummel, Mary Hummel.

This list may not mean much to you, the reader -- but, to residents of the region, it was a list of their neighbors. Men and women. Ordinary people: ordinary neighbors; teachers, grocers, gardeners, store owners, nurses....over 60 people, who intuitively understood it was important for them to be available in every portion of a far-flung community, to be at the ready. 

These were people who would never be "recognized" for their willingness to take time from their home-building, their families and their work.  There was no pay. No honor. No status. No financial reimbursement. But, each of them -- just to be trained as EMT's -- had to leave their homes on evenings and weekends,. They had to contemplate the possible problems they and their family might find themselves faced with -- such as drownings, frostbite, fire, car accidents, heart attacks, and exactly what they had to learn what they, personally, would have to do in each circumstance.

Then, after they successfully passed training tests, they basically offered themselves up on the front lines. When anything happened, they had to be ready to drive dozens of miles, to a neighbor's burning home. Or rush to a mangled car crash 30 miles from Glennallen. Or arrive at the site of a grizzly suicide -- of somebody they knew --  in a cabin up the road. Not every local EMT had what is known as the "first responder personality" -- that confident, efficient air that self-selected paid professionals have. A paid emergency fireman or ambulance drivers  in a large city somewhere, is drawn from a pool of millions -- and, if the work doesn't suit him (or her) they can move on to something else.

But in an all-volunteer corps of Copper River people, where one out of every 50 people (and that's counting men, women and children) were volunteers and underwent the arduous training as an EMT, there was no EMT personality  These people's personalities were a mixed bag -- with many ordinary moms mixed in -- women who lived out along the roads who were motivated by a desire to be able to keep their children alive, on their own, if necessary.

Their job -- if this could be considered a job -- was to arrive at their neighbors' homes  or car crashes, or at personal tragedies -- well before the Troopers showed up. 

It was a  commitment that involved a full understanding of the precariousness of life in general -- and Copper River life in particular. 

In the Copper River Valley, there was nobody else. If you didn't do it -- who would? 

Copyrighted by Copper River Country Journal, 1991-2017. All rights reserved. 

The Ahtna Probably Played A Role In Russia Abandoning Alaska

How A Small Band Of Ahtna Villagers Beat Back The Russians In Interior Alaska & May Have Helped Pave The Way  

Celebrating 150 Years

Of American Rule

Far from the coast, in Ahtna Country, along the traditional border with the Tanana people, are some very old villages: Slana, Mentasta and Batzelnetus.

This is the historic heart of local Native legend. It’s the place where small cadres of Ahtna warriors played a very important role in America’s history. This is where Native villagers  beat back Russian soldiers who were trying to make inroads into their homeland. 

The Russians saw Alaska’s sea otters and coastal wildlife as raw material. Russians sailed on over, declared their ownership of Alaska lands, and began a wholesale slaughter of animals. They shipped their furs back to Moscow to be made into big fur hats. 

The Russians were brutal in every way. And the Ahtna, though separated from the coast by huge mountain ranges had heard the bad news about these invaders.

When various small groups of Russian soldiers forced their way into the Copper Valley, on exploratory expeditions, it never turned out well for the Russians. 

One Russian troop marched up the Copper Valley in the 1700’s. Vicious as ever, the Russians took to tying up and whipping the chiefs in every successive little Ahtna village, and stealing local women. Then they got to “Roasted Salmon Place” -- Batzelnetus. And that is where a small band of Ahtna killed them.

By 1848, the Russians had begun fretting about their deadly enemies, the British, who were headed across Canada on their own northern fur-gathering mission. The Russians tried again. They sent another small group of soldiers up into Ahtna Country. 

Once again, Russian soldiers slogged their way north across the wilderness. And they came to Slana, a little settlement very near Batzelnetus. 

Standing up to Russian soldiers; this was the danger that had been bred in the Ahtna people of this region for decades. In the night, as the Russians rushed out of their tents in their nightclothes, the Ahtna attacked. And hacked the Russian soldiers to death. 

Russians were getting the message. If they couldn’t make their way past a dedicated little band of Ahtna warriors, then they probably would have a hard time in the interior. Russia decided to cut their losses in Alaska. Only eleven years later, in 1859, Russia offered to sell Alaska to the United States. But this idea was put on the back burner when the Civil War erupted. After the war ended, William Seward, Secretary of State, bought Alaska for America. This was exactly 150 years ago, in 1867.

It took another 20 years for Americans to successfully breach the Copper Valley. 

The Ahtna people changed the course of American history, by fighting off the Russians with their own Homeland Security forces.  Without Ahtna valor, Russia might have not given up and gone back home. And Alaska would still be “Russian America.”

 Coming Soon: Bearfoot’s book of true Alaska stories… 

Copyright, 2017. Northcountry Communications, Inc. 

2017 Marks The 40th Anniversary Of The First Oil Running Through The Trans-Alaska Pipeline

The Trans-Alaska Pipeline 

Passes Through The Copper Valley

This summer marks the 40th anniversary of the construction of the Trans Alaska Pipeline. The pipe, which passes through Glennallen, on its way south from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, was built in the 1970's. The time surrounding the construction of the Pipeline was, in many ways, chaotic. It was similar to the Gold Rush boom times of the 1890's. 

Both the Gold Rush and the construction of the pipe were  eras of enormous change,

The adventurers who came in the 1800's -- and there were thousands of them -- were no more prepared for the harsh realities of Copper River Country than the thousands of midwesterners, suburban kids and would-be homesteaders who arrived 8 decades later, as the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline catapulted this part of Alaska onto the national stage.

On the most basic level, living in the Copper Valley has always been something like being hurtled into a Boy Scout camp. But at 35 below zero. It's a world in which your new and unfamiliar life includes hauling water, chopping wood, and turning raw logs into homes…In both the Gold Rush and the Pipeline construction, challenges remained the same. There was nowhere to live.  Each time, you had to go it alone. In the 1970's,  people lived in mobile homes and trailers they had dragged to their lots near the road. They lived in buses and trucks And, like their 1890's predecessors, they lived in shacks and sheds, and half built cabins, with leaky roofs and uninsulated floors. Things hadn't changed. There were too many people, and too few homes -- just as there had been during the old Gold Rush of the 1890's. Same place. Same problems. And lots and lots of people.

Many of the newcomers who came to the Copper Valley during the 1970's were in search of work on the Pipeline. Any kind of work: "Bull cook" (meaning maid), or driving a truck, or cleaning up.,, It really didn't matter, because the pay was so good. The rush of would-be Pipeline workers was enormous, and men, women and children began pouring into the countryside, by the hundreds, and then by the thousands.  The pipeline company made camps for them -- "Man Camps."  When wives and kids tagged along, the incoming children filled up the schools.

Although lots of Pipeline workers were trained professionals, who had lived and worked in "The Oil Patch" -- in Texas and the Middle East -- a very large number who entered the Copper Valley were ordinary people,  with no particular education or experience -- but a strong desire to tap into the Pipeline and make money. 

The construction of the Pipeline was a difficult time. Medical services and ambulances -- operated by missionaries and volunteers -- were stretched to the limit. Overcrowded schools required trailer add-ons. Prices were high. The accidental death rate topped the nation. And, as is usual during boom times, prostitution and vice made its way into an otherwise sleepy little community. 

In the 1890's, when the Great Alaska Gold Rush swept through the Copper Valley, it was as if a cargo ship sank in the region. Early gold miners had brought with them tons of gear, which they left behind. That gear was picked up after they left, by the Ahtna people, who began using discarded hats, vests, American flags, boots, pots, pans, and tools. 

It was the same in the 1970's. Discarded gear worked its way into local culture, as Pipeline workers ditched brand new boots, saws, drills and other things, dumping valuable objects into Department of Transportation trash barrels along the roads. Locals found it worthwhile to scan the roadsides, trash barrels and dumps for something useful. The Pipeline provided lunches, including canned sardines. One local teacher retrieved an entire cupboard full of sardine cans for emergency use.  Local dumps filled up with the handy, sturdy wooden boxes that transported pipe. In Gakona, a BLM worker drove to the dump every night, picked up discarded 4 by 4's, took them home in his truck -- and then built himself a stacked log house from the beams. The large wooden boxes were used for garages and homes by locals. Even more valuable was the excess super high-density, high R-value, curved pipe insulation that was discarded and snapped up to insulate roofs. 

When the first oil moved through the Pipe in 1977, 40 years ago, the boom was over. But some Pipeline workers stayed. They finished building homes, raised families, joined the emergency medical service, formed businesses -- and made a life for themselves in this wild and elemental place. A place where they had intended to make a buck and then leave -- but which they found had kept them here. By taking hold of their hearts.