Growing up Alaskan 2

The Original Free Range Parenting

I had an unusual upbringing. My parents were what we’d call today “Free Range,” but it was common practice then. They allowed their six children to spend long days outside during the Alaska summers when the sun didn’t go down until nearly midnight. In the winter, we could spend an afternoon at a double feature movie or go to the local pizza parlor unsupervised. Parents worried less, so there was less control over the events of the day. The trouble we did get into we eventually grew out of.

Nothing was better than a summer day in the morning. You looked out the window and you knew: an eternity of day lie before you with nothing to interfere except maybe a sandwich. It was bliss!

One of our favorite places to play was the railroad tracks near our home. The tracks skirted the Cook Inlet whose waters stretched out far along the horizon with the majestic mountain, Sleeping Lady resting in the distance. On the train tracks we used to dare each other to run as fast as we could over the trestle that bridged a deep ravine of mudflats below the track. We would’ve seen and heard the train a long way off, so there was little real danger. Still, it felt exhilarating to run across listening for the whistle, just in case.  When we were not playing chicken on the tracks, we were picking wild raspberries or climbing on the granite boulders that lined the sides of the tracks. Rock climbing must be a universal delight for children, because we never tired of it.

Another place we played was the golf course in our backyard. We could scuttle through a narrow band of trees that separated our home from the country club and Presto, we were in! The golf course presented us with a forbidden world of adult fun to which we had access whenever we crossed that neat green sod and those rolling mounds that seemed to go on forever. We usually stayed hidden on the sides searching for golf balls and spying on golfers. Half the fun lie in knowing we not supposed to be there. One day, we were suddenly surprised by a security guard. He lunged at us and began chasing us and we scattered like escaped convicts back to our house.  As we neared our property line my father spotted us from our second floor deck. The guard stopped just short of our backyard and yelled threats at us as we reached our home. My Dad’s voice rang out above it all, “Leave my kids alone! Don’t you have anything to do beside chase a couple of kids?” My Dad looked menacing and after a few weak protests, the guard turned away, obviously surprised by my father’s angry confrontation. We had to avoid the golf course after that, and soon thereafter it was sold to a wealthy family and turned into a private estate. A big loss for the neighborhood, parents and children alike.

Winter presented very different challenges. Wind chill temperatures could reach 60 below. Days were dark, for when the sun rises at 10am goes down at 3pm all sense of time can escape notice. On some winter days I would forget to look out the window during a school day  until the  daylight had come and gone without even seeing the light. The long dark days tended to make us do whatever we set our  minds to regardless of what nature was doing. But we were smart about it, prepared, ready to take on the  elements but refusing to stay inside and hide too. In those days we didn’t have all the outdoor gear that is available on the market today, but we still knew how to put cloth over our faces while running in below zero temperatures so as not to freeze the lungs. We knew how to avoid bears on a hike by singing at the top of our lungs, and how to avoid a confrontation with a nearsighted moose. 

tune in next time!

copyright Julie Paavola

Growing up Alaskan

The Girl by the Lake

The glacier an unnatural blue and deathly cold. It was large enough that our mother convinced us we would be unable to get around it in one day, so we never tried. We never swam in it. Rather, it was something to behold, respectfully and from a distance, like an untamed animal.

The camp sites above the shoreline were cozy and spacious. In those days they never filled up. It was before camping became a craze among the circles of tired parents needing to get out of the house, with its endless chores and social media sucking up every moment of life. 

My mother loved camping. She saw it as a sacred human experience of the highest order. In the woods she could live as people were meant to live, uninhibited, without boundaries around them. Her favorite song was “Don’t Fence Me In,” and I can still see her hoping around the kitchen as she cruned the lyrics. Maybe that’s why she made the decision to move to Alaska-all that open space called to her and she couldn't resist.

It is by the lake that my story begins. It was mid afternoon my family was relaxing down by the shore. We all decided to go up and play cards, while my grandma said she would stay. Three-year old Annie said she wanted to stay with Grandma. Grandma fell asleep for some time, and when she came back up to the camp an hour later Annie was not with her. We decided she must have gone to sleep in the tent, but she wasn’t there. For a time we were simply puzzled, where could she have gone? The shoreline was not wide and when we looked left and right along the lakeshore we could see nothing but the smooth, round rocks circling the water. Suddenly we realized, Annie was lost. The nearest phone was over an hour’s drive away, and the territory was wild bear country. All at once, we started to panic. My Dad jumped in the car with my older sister and went for help. The nearest ranger station was hours away. He tore out of that camp ground like an Indy driver. Meanwhile Mom and the rest of us stayed back at the campsite to look for our lost little girl. We didn’t have a plan, we just called and called till we were hoarse and we asked everyone we saw, “Did you see a blonde little girl? She’s lost. Please tell us if you see a little girl. We’re at campsite nine. Thank you!” As time went by, we didn’t bother to hide the fear in our voices. “Pray the Rosary” my Mom told  us. There weren’t a lot of people at the campsite to help, and we felt relieved when we saw a group of men come our way. They might be able to help us. When my mom saw the guns and leaned they were hunters, she sat down at a picnic table and just looked helpless. She started praying, and she told me later that something I had said popped into her head, “Hey Mom, why don’t we go to daily Mass anymore, you know, like we did during Lent?”

Sitting at that picnic table, my Mom did something a person should never do who doesn’t want their life changed, she made a promise to God. “Lord, if we find our little Annie . . . I promise to take the whole family to Mass . . . everyday . . .”  In the same breath with which she made the prayer, she gave a little cry of hope as she looked up and saw a Ranger Truck. The Ranger had a radio. With the radio he called for help and a helicopter was sent up to see if they could get a visual on Annie. After what seemed like an eternity, they spotted her from the helicopter, miles down the narrow beach. It was getting late and they said we had to hope she didn’t go into the woods. As long as they could keep a visual on her, they would be able to send someone in on foot to carry her back to us. That night, at around 11pm, as the late Alaskan sun was about to set, we saw a man coming towards us with a little girl on his shoulder. I remember that moment vividly as we ran up to Annie and grabbed her from the stunned ranger. 

She had been gone for 7 hours. Now she was home! And our family would never be the same again.

Memoir

In the days ahead, I will be writing a series of pieces about my life. Many people have asked me to write in a more personal way about my faith and I've always resisted. While I don't find my life is that interesting, I do think what God has done for me is intriguing and, at times, quite perplexing. So, hoping to make some sense of it, I begin with the desire God will give me some insight into God's way with me. May it entertain if not inspire, and help others to see God working in their own lives, even when it seems that the Lord is absent or silent or long in coming...


Thanks for reading!