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