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| Warner Mountains, near Alturas, CA. |
When I return to Seattle from Anchorage, at the airport, I stop at a little bookstore and grab a "book for the road," sort of speak. This past time I got Clair Fejes's memoir, "Cold Starry Night". It's about an artist who moved from New York to Fairbanks in 1946 to homestead with her husband. Mostly though, it's about a woman who left a major city with an already developed knowledge about art and culture to a remote and newly constructed town for the gold rush so her husband could strike it rich as a miner. Only, I'm gathering that never happened. Instead, she went from a social lively existence to extreme isolation and fear. She had never shot a gun, went fishing, and her idea of nature was the town park!
The concept of the story makes me think about what it must have felt like for this woman to make such a crazy transition in those years to a place dominated by men and where the temperature dropped to an average of 60 below in the winter. A transition from a house to a shack with moss as insulation! Again, at 60 below! And a wood stove that is used for cooking and heating at the same time! Remember those? Probably not. We had one when I was a kid on Whitlock Rd in Mariposa, CA in our green cabin. It was cool. We also had insulation!
Claire reports that when she arrived in Fairbanks, AK in 1946 the population neared 3000 people. And that it had dropped from around 5000 when the "rush" started to slow. And so that also got me to thinking...
Basically, this lady moved from New York, to Alturas, CA times 60 below!
When we got to Alturas, we hadn't expected a winter that would drop to 20 below. We were from the mountains, and we knew mountain life, and we thought we would move up there and continue what we already knew. But by the end of summer, the first time around, we knew we were in for a LONG winter! And long is was. In Mariposa, the snow would drop a foot or more. We would leave our car at the top of the driveway on Tip Top Rd. and hike down to our house through the woods. And a few weeks later the snow would have completely melted off. And we'd wait and repeat the cycle over and over again, until the season changed. In Alturas, or rather Likely, CA, an even smaller town twenty minutes out of Alturas, the snow fell that first year, and stayed the entire season, and more snow fell on it! And it was cold as hell! Reaching 20 below some days. Our truck wouldn't start, we got low on wood, and didn't have family around to turn to. Nor did we know anybody to turn to if we should need a hand. We moved back to Mariposa real quick! I read about how the the town folk in Fairbanks helped Clarie and her husband right away, as they knew she and her husband were going to be in grave danger by winter with no way to escape. And man, I just thought, would if we couldn't leave! Crazy!!
When we returned to Alturas the second time. We were more than ready. And we had brought my mom's sister and kids along with us this time, and made them stay there too! That time around we had family to turn to, and we made friends to lean on. I turned to the Hasting's and the Campbell's who were native to the area and learned a great deal about Modoc and about how to be a decent person in general. And as soon as the spring came, I would go out to Jess Valley with Danny and my mom and we'd ride horses and hike around the lake. It was a pretty cool existence. Growing up in the mountains for me, was not so much fun as it was normal. Thank the good God we hadn't tried to move to LA from Mariposa! Or to Fairbanks from New York, good God!
Anyway, I'm having a great time reading this book and liking this woman's story to my own. I guess everything has changed from 1946 to now. Except the simple life, it is still the same, only it has insulation!
~ "I went out there with nothing to lose but danged if I didn't lose that!"
Unknown
