Change

Alaska Coastal Grumman Goose in Pelican

This is vacation time around America. People take to the road, to the air, or to the sea. As I look back at the Twentieth Century, I am amazed at the changes that took place in air travel and in transportation in general during that time.

Now, 19 years into the Twenty-First Century, the changes in technology, and in communications, affecting every phase of life, would shock even my grandparents, who had lived through nearly a century of change. These only represent all of the changes we encounter in life that can amaze or unsettle anyone.

Every summer as a child in the fifties, I flew on an Alaska Coastal Airlines Grumman Goose from Juneau to Pelican, Alaska, to visit my Personeus grandparents for two or three months. The eight-passenger amphibious plane took off and landed on the waters of Southeast Alaska, where no roads connected the many islands, large and small. It flew up close and personal over the tops of snow-capped mountains and blue or stormy seas.

Since 2000, my husband and I have driven across the continent from New York to Washington State almost annually to visit friends and family, six to ten days each way. Now, we jet across the continent in six hours.

Born in 1888, my grandparents had already witnessed the transition from horse and buggy to the automobile and the Wright Brothers first flight by the time they went to Alaska in 1917. To get there, they traveled by train from Rochester, New York, to Buffalo, where they caught a steamer across Lake Erie to Detroit. From there, they again boarded other trains to take them across the country to the West Coast. In Seattle, they boarded another steamship to sail up the Inside Passage to Juneau. The entire trip took two months.

Regularly scheduled air travel around Southeast Alaska didn't begin until the mid-thirties, first with Ellis Airlines out of Ketchikan, and a few years later, with Alaska Coastal Airlines out of Juneau. Most people, however, traveled by boat--steamers, mail boats, or private fishing vessels. My grandparents didn't fly. Grandma was afraid to try it.

Fairtide II in Pelican 1948

After World War II, their son, Byron, began operating a gospel mission boat, Fairtide II, around Southeast Alaska. My grandparents joined him and his wife on the boat. When my parents returned to Alaska from Bible school in Pennsylvania, bringing me, a two-year-old, and my younger brother, Uncle Byron met us in Ketchikan with his mission boat and took us to Pelican to join the rest of the family in building the Pelican church. My earliest memory is of a big storm on that boat trip.

When my folks moved to Juneau for the birth of my sister in 1948, my dad was hired by Alaska Coastal Airlines as boss of cargo. As an employee, one of his perks was free air travel for him and our family. I began flying to Pelican when I was 3 years old. My father would put me in the seat next to the pilot. My grandparents would meet me at the float in Pelican, When it was time for me to return home, my dad would arrange for me to again sit by the pilot. My dad met me in Juneau.

Alaska Coastal Airlines Grumman Goose at the Hangar in Juneau 1953

Grandma was in her early sixties by then and had decided that flying was more than she could handle. The boat trips around the islands were bad enough, but to fly through thin air was more than she cared to experience. She thought she was too old to fly.

But one day as she put me, her eldest but still preschool-aged grandchild, on the Grumman Goose and saw me sit trustingly in the cockpit with the pilot who would deliver me to my father, she thought, "If that little child can put so much trust in her father's wishes, then I must overcome my fear of flying and trust my Heavenly Father to take care of me." After that, Grandma flew all over Alaska and the continental United States many times over the next 30 years.

PNA "Connie"

In 1961, as a teenager, I was flying home from Seattle alone on a Pacific Northern Airlines "Connie," a popular, four-engine plane. As we flew over the rugged Chugach Mountains toward Anchorage, the propeller outside my window fluttered to a stop. My heart nearly stopped too!

The pilot made no announcement so I surmised we could make it to Anchorage on three engines, but staring down into sharp, snow-covered peaks that yawned like an open shark's jaw below, I shivered to think of crashing.

Then a still, small voice reminded me that "underneath are the Everlasting Arms." Since then, whenever I fly, I remind myself of that verse and sit back and enjoy the flight.

In 1968, Alaska Airlines bought up Alaska Coastal and Ellis Airlines, built runways in the towns along the Inside Passage, and began flying cargo and passenger jets into towns on islands with no road connections. Private and tourist float planes still land on the water in tiny villages such as Pelican and on beautiful inlets and coves to see glaciers and waterfalls, but jets now land on runways built out into the sea in the larger towns..

In 2017, Bob and I flew back to Juneau for the 100th anniversary celebration of the church my grandparents founded in 1917. We flew the evening Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 "milk run." Our flight stopped at Ketchikan and Sitka before landing in Juneau.

When we emerged from the fog at sea level at Sitka, all we could see was whitecaps beneath us until the wheels hit the runway. Surrounded by mountains and sea, with frequent stormy weather conditions, and waves crashing against it even on clear days, the runway at Sitka is considered one of the scariest in the US.

Sitka Airport

I've been flying since 1948. When I think of all the changes, both good and bad, in my lifetime and add that to the changes in my grandparents' lifetime, I can't help but think of a line in that old hymn, Abide With Me:

"Change and decay in all around I see; O Thou who changest not, abide with me." 

And I am comforted that in all of life's changes, the Lord has been walking with me all the way. One day, He'll lead me safely Home.



If you'd like to read more about Alaska from gold rush to statehood and beyond, you may enjoy my historical books set in that time period. You can find them at my website (click here).

How to Start Being What You'd Like to Become

When I was a freshman at Seattle Pacific College (now University) in 1963-64, our dorm mother, Mrs. Marie Hollowell, often held meetings with us girls in her apartment. I'll never forget what she said at one such meeting:

"When are you going to start being 

what you'd like to become?"

The Cousart & Personeus Family in Pelican Parsonage
(I am front right of my brother & sister. My parents are on left.
Grandma & Grandpa in center.
Uncle Byron & Aunt Marjory Personeus on right.)

As I heard those words, I thought of my Grandma Personeus. She was my role model. My brother, sister, and I had spent nearly every summer of my grade school years with her and Grandpa in Pelican, a tiny fishing village on a large island in Southeast Alaska.

Pelican in 1953

Having young children night and day for three months is not easy when you are in your sixties, yet I could not recall Grandma ever speaking harshly or impatiently to any of us. She was always up and fixing breakfast when we got up in the morning and was the last one to go to sleep at night. After we were in bed, she wrote letters until the wee hours to keep up her correspondence with hundreds of people around the world in her beautiful schoolgirl handwriting. She was the sweetest person I knew, and she loved us and all the other children in town unconditionally.

The church in Pelican built by my family in 1948

I thought about all the older women I had known. Some were sweet, and some were crotchety. Oh, they were good people, but no one was as consistently loving and kind as Grandma. I decided I'd like to become a sweet little old lady like her. 

As I recalled the stories Grandma had told us about her childhood, I realized she had not had an easy life. Her father was demanding, strict, and harsh. 

One time, she was bitten by a beetle that took a small chunk out of her nose. As children will, she kept picking at the scab so that it was not healing. Her father scolded her and promised to spank her if she did it again. 

The next morning she awoke to discover that her rough-textured nightgown had scratched the scab off. At the breakfast table her father noticed and told her to go to her room and await the promised punishment.

A very sensitive child, she was so terrified of her father that when she tried to explain what  had  happened, she trembled so hard she couldn't speak coherently. Sobbing, all she could utter was, "My gruff gright grown scratched it off!"

Her mother had to intervene and explain what she was trying to say.

As children, we thought that story was funny, and that is how she told it, laughing at her twisted words. But thinking about it as an adult, I could see that it showed how much she feared  her father.

The eighth of eleven living children (two others had died in infancy), she was allowed to only complete the first eight grades, although she loved school and longed to go to high school. When her older brothers and sisters left home to be missionaries, Their father disowned and disinherited them for not doing what he wanted them to do. Grandma was forced to leave school and take over their chores of printing and distributing the newspaper her father wrote and published.

Grandma & Grandpa Personeus in 1959

When Grandma left home at the age of 21 to study for the missionfield, she too was disowned and disinherited. She was not allowed to return to the family home again. 

By the time I  went to college, she and Grandpa had spent nearly 50 years as missionaries in Southeast Alaska, living by faith under often less than favorable living conditions, but she never complained. She had survived many serious falls on ice and snow as well as several life-threatening illnesses, but she didn't let those hardships deter her from her mission, caring for the sick and taking in orphaned children, cleaning and washing clothes on a washboard.

As I  pondered what made her different from so many others, I realized that she had allowed the trials of her life to make her better not bitter. She loved the Lord, communing with Him daily and continually putting the needs of others ahead of her own. She unselfishly served people out of love. Children and young people enjoyed being with her, listening to her stories of their early days in Alaska.  She often told us,

"The way spell true J-O-Y is to put 

Jesus first, Others second, and Yourself last."

My observations showed me that no one becomes like Grandma Personeus just by growing old. We become what we have practiced throughout our lives. Those who love and serve others in spite of their own difficulties grow sweeter, and people love to be around them. Those who think only of themselves grow even more selfish, and and people tend to avoid them.

As a freshman girl, I determined to become a sweet little old lady. That's been my life's goal. I've striven to that end. I'm old now, and I'm not completely there yet, but I'm still working on what I'd like to become--to be like Grandma, and to be like Jesus.

Are you becoming what you'd like to become? What do you need to change today?

To read more about the Personeuses, visit my website, www.annaleeconti.com, where you can order my book, Frontiers of Faith, the story of Charles C. and Florence Personeus, Pioneer Missionaries to Alaska, "The Last Frontier," 1917-1982, directly from the publisher.

The Personeuses are the inspiration for my Alaskan Waters Trilogy, a set of inspirational novels based on true stories they told. (The Penningtons in my fiction stories are based on the Personeuses.) They are also available from my website.

The Pelican I Remember

My Alaskan Waters Trilogy of historical Christian novels is set in Southeast Alaska, where I grew up in the fifties. As a child, I spent all of my summers visiting my grandparents, who pastored the only church in Pelican, a fishing village on Chichagof Island between Juneau and Sitka. I have fond memories of that town, and it is featured in my first book in this series, Till the Storm Passes By.

Pelican in 1953 ©AnnaLee Conti

The following is a piece I wrote years ago for a writing course. The assignment was to write a description. I wrote about Pelican as I remembered it.

"What a nasty southeaster!" grumbled the old fisherman as I passed him on the boardwalk.

"The worst we're had all summer," I agreed. The rain beat down on me, trickled down my neck, and ran off my nose. "An umbrella's useless in wind like this."

Pelican from the air

Activity had nearly ceased as I trudged down the main street of Pelican. By "main street" I mean a boardwalk that was about fifteen feet wide, built on creosoted, barnacled pilings over the waters of Lizianski Inlet. The houses and buildings also perched precariously on piling on either side of the boardwalk. The town stretched about a mile, curving with the rocky cliffs to which Pelican tenaciously clung. The tide ebbed and flowed under the town.

The red wagon in which my suitcase rested clattered and splattered as I pulled it over the rough, slippery boards toward the post office where the Alaska Coastal Airlines office was located. The rain continued to pound me mercilessly. Occasionally, lightning flashed. I counted the seconds to the thunder roll.

The fog was so thick I could not see the red light that flashed on the buoy at the entrance to the harbor. Seagulls swooped overhead like tiny white phantoms in the fog. The wind was tangy with salt water and fish slime. The odor of rotten eggs from low tide still pervaded the air.

A raven cawed frantically just above me. I jumped. As I glanced up to see what was the matter, my right foot skidded out from under me on the slippery walk and down I thudded. Icy water soaked through my clothing before I could scramble to my feet.

A few yards farther, I passed the two local bars. Raucous laughter rang out above the throb of the juke box. The weather-bound fishermen had nowhere else to spend their time and money. One old leather-faced fisherman in a black slicker tottered out of one tavern toward the other as I passed.

I slopped on through the rain toward the post office. Soon, the boat harbor became visible through the fog. The trollers and seiners rolled and twisted in their moorings as the choppy waves caught them, and the wind rattled their tall poles.

The tiny skiffs tied to the close end of the float were half filled with water. Except for several fishermen securing their boats, the float was vacant. Even the youngsters, who seldom left their favorite fishing spots except to eat and sleep, were missing.

Farther on, I passed the little firehouse, which sheltered the smallest fire engine I'd ever seen, and approached Pelican's only bakery. Even old Wobbly had closed up shop today, and I missed the familiar aroma of fresh bread.

Next to the bakery stood the little white schoolhouse, which would open in a few weeks. The empty swings in the playground twisted in the wind. Part of the chicken wire fence, which had broken away, grated back and forth as each gust of wind hit it.

The Standard Oil dock and the salmon cannery opposite the school were closed until they could get more fish. No cheery "hello" rang out from the Filipinos who drove the jitneys, carrying loads of canned salmon to storage until the next Alaska Steamship freighter came in. The cannery's cookhouse, Pelican's only restaurant, was also closed until the storm passed.

The docks around the fish house and cold storage plant just ahead were vacant. Yesterday's fish had been cleaned and stored in ice, and now only a faint fishy odor clung to the deserted building.

Pelican boat harbor today

To my right was the post office, located next to the small general store and the offices of the Pelican Cold Storage Company. I grabbed my suitcase and dashed inside. By this time, I was thoroughly soaked and chilled to the bone.

Before I could ask the agent when the Alaska Coastal Grumman "Goose" was due in, through the static on the radio a voice cackled, "Due to lack of visibility, Alaska Coastal flight 2 now turning back to Juneau. Over and out."

"When will Pelican ever get telephones?" I grumbled.

Pelican Church in the fifties

Today, Pelican has telephones and televisions, and the Grumman "Goose" no longer flies there. The church, where we lived in the attached living quarters, still sits atop the hill above the cold storage plant, but the little trees now tower above it blocking the wonderful view of the inlet we loved to enjoy. City hall now occupies the old school building and the school has moved to a modern building at the other end of the boardwalk. The cannery is closed. Sports fishing and tourism are the main industries now. It's still a great place to visit.



Check out my Alaskan Waters Trilogy on Amazon. Book 3, Beside Still Waters, available in e-book, coming soon in paperback.

Coming Soon! Beside Still Waters, Book 3 in Alaskan Waters Trilogy

Wow! It's been a month since I wrote a blog post. I've been working through the editing process with my publisher on Beside Still Waters, the third book in my Alaskan Waters Trilogy. I thought you might like to see a quick overview of the entire series.

The Alaskan Waters Trilogy is the saga of the loves, tragedies, and second chances in a fictitious Norwegian immigrant family, the Pedersens, who must battle the beautiful but often dangerous waters of early twentieth century Southeast Alaska (where I grew up in the fifties and sixties) to find love and happiness in the midst of suffering.

Cover photo: Pelican

"Mommy! Wake up!" a little girl screams. 

But the woman on the beach lies cold and wet and still.

In Book One, Till the Storm Passes By, Evie Parker, a timid Rhode Island schoolteacher, is plagued by a recurring nightmare from her childhood. What does it mean? Who is the woman? She must travel to Alaska in 1953 to unravel the mystery of her nightmares and her mother's deathbed confession.

"Oh, Kristina, what have I done? 

No matter what you hear about me, you're the one I love."

In Book Two, A Star to Steer By, tales of easy wealth entice 19-year-old Norman Pedersen, a poor Norwegian fisherman, to immigrate to Alaska in 1920, asking his sweetheart, Kristina, to wait for him, but Norman becomes entrapped in a "prison" of his own making. Achieving his goal is harder than he expects.

Coming in May! Beside Still Waters, Book Three

Is she jumping from a city firetrap factory into a wilderness icebox? 

Lake Laberge, Yukon Territory,
Featured in Beside Still Waters
Courtesy Google.com

In the third and final book in the series, Beside Still Waters, Violet Channing, orphaned at a young age, is tossed about by life's turbulent waters when the aunt who raised her dies. Living in a Boston tenement in 1915, barely able to survive, she wants nothing more than to escape the firetrap garment factory where she is employed and become a teacher.

She accepts a job as a live-in teacher for a sick, motherless child in the harsh Yukon Territory. Just when her life feels as beautiful as her new surroundings, tragedy strikes again. Can she find a new reason to live?

Can Violet allow her losses to make her better not bitter and learn to love again?

Beside Still Waters is another story of love, family, and second chances in the Pedersen family saga.

Where I Get My Ideas

Cover photo: the church at
Pelican
built by the Personeuses

The novels in my Alaskan Waters Trilogy are entirely fiction but are based on true incidents I uncovered while researching my nonfiction book, Frontiers of Faith, which tells the adventure-filled story of my maternal grandparents, Charles C. and Florence L. Personeus, who went to Alaska, "The Last Frontier," as missionaries in 1917 and spent 65 years there.

My grandparents knew the real people behind my characters in my Alaskan Waters Trilogy--Evie, Norman, Kristina, and Violet. These stories tickled my imagination. They would not leave me alone until I fleshed them out and wove them together into the life-and-death saga of a fictitious Norwegian immigrant family representative of the many Scandinavians living in Alaska's Panhandle.

Other characters are composites of people I knew. Some of the events are based on real occurrences and historical events. Others are entirely the invention of my own imagination, but the setting is the Alaska I knew and loved while growing up there.

Me at Beavertail
enjoying the waves

Now that I live in New York State, Beavertail Lighthouse in Rhode Island, featured in Till the Storm Passes By, is still a favorite one-day getaway for my husband and me. We discovered it while we were stationed in Rhode Island in the U.S. Army when my husband came back from Vietnam. Our son was born at nearby Quonset Point Naval Station.

My Uncle Byron Personeus operated a mission boat in Southeast Alaska from 1945 to 1957. As a two-year-old, I traveled with my parents on the last leg of our move from Philadelphia (featured in A Star to Steer By) to Alaska on his boat. I had a face-to-face encounter with a bear in Juneau when I was four.  When I was 13, I spent a week on a troller fishing for salmon near Pelican, one of the places featured in Till the Storm Passes By. These experiences and more inform my writing.

My uncle's first mission boat,the Fairtide II, in Pelican, 1948

Where to Get My Books

If you haven't read my books yet and want to read them before Book Three comes out, you can purchase them through my website book page at www.AnnaLeeConti.com,, at Ambassador International, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble (bn.com), iTunes, Kobo, Vyrso, Christianbook.com, or they can be ordered through bookstores. All of the books in the Alaskan Waters Trilogy are available in paperback and ebook (all readers). Frontiers of Faith is only available in paperback.

To receive email notification of my weekly blog posts as well as the release of Beside Still Waters, please complete the coupon at the right.

He Took My Lickin'

Since Labor Day signals the start of a new school year in many parts of our country, I thought you might enjoy a true school story I heard in church when I was young.

I attended eighth grade in a two-room school in Pelican, located on Chichagof Island in Southeast Alaska about half-way between Juneau and Sitka, accessible only by boat or float plane. A fishing and cannery town, Pelican had a population of about one hundred people in the winter. Grades K-3 occupied one room and 4-8 in the other, taught by a husband and wife team, who lived about the primary classroom.

Pelican, Alaska, in 1953. Photo taken by my uncle C. Byron Personeus

Perhaps that's why I could relate to this true account that took place in an old-fashioned, one-room school in Kentucky and never forgot it. But I think there's an even more important reason why.

Old Pelican Schoolhouse that now serves as City Hall

One by one, several teachers had been driven off by the students' rebelliousness in that old Kentucky school. A new teacher was due to arrive that day.

Jim, a 17-year-old third grader, bragged to the other boys. "We'll run this one off before sundown if he gets bossy."

In their first session, the new teacher said, "If we are going to have a good school, we need to have good rules."

A few of the boys snickered, but they sat up in surprise when the teacher added, ""But I'm not going to make the rules. You are."

One by one, the students volunteered what they thought would be fair rules and set fair penalties for each offense--five to ten hard swats with a large wooden paddle.

The teacher proved to be warm and friendly, firm but fair, and all went well for several weeks. Then one morning, the teacher solemnly told the class that someone had stolen Jim's lunch. To uphold his authority, he knew he had to carry out the penalty, but his heart was heavy.

Deep sobs broke the silence. Little John, timid and frail and loved by all, confessed his guilt. Everyone knew John was poor and often hungry. But the law had been broken, and the penalty must be paid.

As the teacher lifted the paddle, Jim cried out, "Stop! It was my lunch, and I forgive him!"

"That's kind of you, Jim, but you made the rule, and we all agreed on the penalty. I'm sorry, but it must be carried out." He again raised the paddle.

Jim stepped forward. "Then I'll take his lickin'. I can take it better than he can."

With each painful swat Jim received, John felt his own guilt deeper and deeper. When it was over, the teacher wiped his eyes and put his arm around the two boys.

"Class, it was a wonderful thing Jim did. He was innocent, but he volunteered to take John's punishment. That reminds me of how Jesus, the sinless Son of God, voluntarily took our punishment when He died on the Cross for our sins. Jesus took our lickin'."

Courtesy Google.com

And that's why I have never forgotten this story. Not because it took placed in a one-room school, but because it illustrates so beautifully what Jesus did for us when He died in our place. He took my lickin'.

"All have sinned," Romans 3:23 tells us. And "the wages of sin is death," according to Romans 6:23. But while we were yet sinners, God in His great love and mercy provided His remedy. Christ, God's innocent Son, stepped down from heaven's glories, lived a sinless life, and died for us (Romans 5:8). Now, through Him, we have eternal life.

Every year as children go back to school, let's remember how Jesus took our lickin' and give Him our eternal thanks and gratitude.


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God's Law of Returns

Courtesy versaday.com

When I first read that verse in Ecclesiastes 11:1, I was puzzled. Since I don't even like gravy on bread, that word picture of soggy bread didn't appeal to me.

Then I came across this translation in the New Living Translation: "Send your grain across the seas, and in time, profits will flow back to you." In other words, "Give generously, for your gifts will return to you later."

Now, that makes sense. Here's how it worked out in the lives of two people whose names you will recognize:

The son of a gardener on an estate in Scotland dreamed of becoming a medical doctor. Neither he nor his dad could figure out how such a huge financial undertaking could be met.

Weekend visitors arrived at the castle. One of them, a boy, went swimming in the pool. He developed cramps and was about to drown when the gardener's son leaped into the water and saved him. The father of the swimmer was so overjoyed at the rescue that he offered to reward the rescuer.

"What can I do to help the lad?" he asked the rescuer's father.

The gardener related their dream that the son become a physician. "If you could help him to go to school, that would mean more to my son than anything else in the world."

Upon hearing the request, the swimmer's father said, "That's it! We will see him through his education." And through this generosity, Alexander Fleming became a doctor of medicine.

Years later, the boy who nearly drowned, Winston Churchill, became Prime Minister of England. While on a trip to Egypt, he was stricken with virulent pneumonia. Aides thought he was going to die.

A new drug, however, had just been discovered by Dr. Alexander Fleming--penicillin. Dr. Fleming heard of Mr. Churchill's illness. He flew to Egypt to administer the new medication. The results were miraculous, and Churchill recovered completely.

c AnnaLee Conti 2002

In 1948, my grandparents, Charles and Florence Personeus, pioneer missionaries to Alaska, were asked to build a church in Pelican. The town donated land, but it needed to be cleared. Windfalls twelve trees deep covered the site, and my grandparents had no tools. An old logger they had befriends thirty years earlier supplied them with hand tools for the mammoth task.*


When we planted a new church in Gloversville, New York, in the late seventies, we spent much time over a two-year period ministering to a young couple that was separated when we met. God saved their marriage (see God Saved Our Marriage), and they became faithful workers in the church--until a job-transfer moved them out of state. We knew God was building lives, not just churches, but their move was a great loss to our new church.

That summer, our Fellowship's biennial General Council was being held in St. Louis, Missouri, in August. We really felt the need of going to receive personal encouragement and fellowship, but as pioneer pastors, we had no funds available for such a trip.

Then a letter arrived from the couple that had recently moved away, thanking us for all we had done to help them reestablish their marriage. They enclosed a check and a note telling us to use the money for something special for ourselves. It was the exact amount we needed to go to General Council.

We have learned that we can never outgive God. It may not come back in kind, but God has promised, "Give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom," (Luke 6:38, NKJV).

I'd love to hear about a time when God has proven that promise in your life.

*Excerpt from my book, Frontiers of Faith.

How Alaska Inspires My Writing

My twenty plus years in Alaska from 1948-1970 provide the setting for much of what I write. There's a good reason Alaska is called "the Great Land." I've been in forty-six states and several foreign countries. I've seen many beautiful sights. But in Alaska, everywhere you look is grand and big and and beautiful with plentiful and varied wildlife! I have lived most of my adult life in beautiful New York State, but I'll always be an Alaskan at heart.

Growing up in Alaska, surrounded by the beauties of creation, I was very aware of God. The Psalmist wrote, "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork" (19:1), and I was constantly reminded of His presence, no matter where I went in Alaska. I was never much for organized sports, but I loved to hike, climb mountains, row a boat, ride my bike, and enjoy God's handiwork.

Pelican, Alaska, in 1953

We walked a lot in Alaska. Walking home at night, I loved to study the sky with the Bear, the Dipper, the great North Star, undimmed by glaring lights that wash them out in big cities. The heavens portrayed a God bigger than His vast domain. Often, the aurora borealis flowed across the winter sky with its mighty swags of glowing, colorful bands as though God was painting with sweeping freestyle strokes, inspiring awe that the great Creator would care about me.

My parents operated a children's home during my early years in Juneau. We had a dog we named Taku. She was part wolf, Malamute, and German shepherd. On cold winter nights she would howl to the wolves in the woods, but with us children she was as gentle as a lamb. The little children would climb all over her, even stick their fingers in her eyes, and she never snapped or growled at any of us. One day she disappeared. We suspected the neighbors did away with her. They were afraid of her because she was part wolf. They didn't know her like we did. 

Big dogs sometimes ran loose in Alaskan towns. My grandma told stories of their early days in Alaska when they lived in Klukwan. The Tlingits allowed their sled dogs to run loose to forage for their own food when they were not needed for travel. They always carried big sticks and shouted, "Chook!" (the Tlingit word meaning "go away"). I was afraid of big dogs, so I always carried a large purse in case one came at me. I would swing it between the dog's muzzle and me, and trying not to act afraid, I'd shout, "Chook! Chook!" And I'd pray!

A highlight of my childhood was the times spent on boats. When I was two and a half, I arrived in Alaska on my uncle's mission boat. My earliest memory is of that trip. (That memory shows up in my book, Till the Storm Passes By.) While we lived in Juneau, my uncle often stopped by to visit us on his way to some village or cannery to hold church services. Gastineau Channel was too shallow on one end, so he would sail the mission boat down the channel and around Douglas Island to (or from) Auke Bay, on the other side of the shallow part. It took a half day. We jumped at every opportunity to sail with him. Often, we spotted whales, orcas, porpoises, seals, sea lions, and bald eagles. Sometimes we'd throw out a line, but I never caught a fish. But people often gave us fresh salmon or halibut. That was one way God supplied our needs.

When my father became the pastor of the church in the tiny fishing village of Pelican on Chichagof Island, one of the large Islands that formed the Alexander Archipelago and the Inside Passage in Southeast Alaska, we owned a dinghy. The town was strung out above the water along the cliffs on a boardwalk that stretched a mile or more from end to end. Rugged mountains that stood regal in their ermine capes rose on either side of Lizianski Inlet. When they reflected in the still waters at their feet, my foster sister and I would take the dinghy out and take turns rowing on the inlet in front of the combination church and parsonage where we lived on the hill above. When ferocious winds blew off icy blue glaciers, whipped up frothy whitecaps, and sent clouds racing, rowing would be folly. One time we were out rowing when the wind suddenly whipped up whitecaps all around us. We had some frightful moments rowing against the wind and waves back to the neighbor's dock. Again, I prayed!

One summer my dad worked on a salmon troller. The owner had to have a spinal fusion mid-fishing season, and his eighteen-year-old son needed a fishing partner. They would leave Monday morning and return on Saturday so my dad could preach the Sunday services. My dad took me along as chief cook and bottle washer one week. We sailed out Lizianski Inlet into Cross Sound, and the weather was cross! Again and again, the boat rose high on the crest of a wave and dove deep into a trough. (This experience informs incidents in several of my books.) Even though the seals robbed the lines of every salmon, I had a great time--and made memories I'll never forget and inspiration for novels I write.

In high school I began writing about the sights I'd seen and the experiences I'd had. When I began writing short stories for Sunday school curriculum, It wasn't hard to fictionalize stories of faith set in Alaska, stories that are carriers of truth about God's love, forgiveness, grace, and mercy, because I learned to know God in Alaska.