Chapter 24 - Quonset Hut in the Aleutians

The culture of this Alaskan crab cannery is singular. Russian immigrant women work here, their hair covered with babushka scarves. They speak little English. There are frontier hippie people (rather nomadic, like me), Aleuts, regular Alaskan Indians, and white settlers. As the large wire containers of king crab are lifted into the warehouse, they are plunged into boiling water. After being cooked, the legs are torn off, blown free of white meat with pressurized water, and farther down the conveyer line I sort white from red meat with other workers.

We are allowed to consume as much crab as we want…but after a few days I can’t eat any more. It’s cold, wet work. I am glad to sit at lunch resting my legs, while I eat my sandwich and sip coffee with other workers.

I pray for these people. Many seem emotionally weary, somewhat hardened, bruised from the storms of life. In time a couple of women from the mission join me, as they need extra income also. I am grateful for this work—we have almost depleted our savings from the long trip north.

The mission team meets from time to time, and Ray shares that he plans a trip to Port Heiden, a small village on the Aleutian Peninsula. He wants to build a church with a tiny apartment attached where mission workers can stay. As more Aleuts accept the Lord some can be trained at the Bible school in Homer to minister to their own tribe. In a few weeks he will fly builders down to work on the project.

Zach is interested…I am curious. What will the remote village be like? The Aleutian Islands are windswept and desolate, we hear. The tribe make most of their living from seal trade.

Weeks roll by as Zach and others build a new duplex on the mission hill. I continue to sort crab and get to know the workers. We invite a couple of the men from the cannery over for a rabbit stew dinner one evening. Somehow the liquid boils away, so we eat burnt rabbit! We joke, tell stories, share the gospel, and listen to their tales of laboring in the frozen oil fields further north.

Ray Arno makes preparations for the three week expedition to Port Heiden, and Zach and I offer to go, packing clothes and sleeping bags. I quit work and am to be the chief cook and dishwasher for the team of five. We fly near snowcapped peaks, south across blue ocean as Ray searches for landmarks among the islands. After an hour or so we land and bounce down on a hard packed beach.

Climbing out. I am amazed at the landscape. Terns and ptarmigans wheel through the pale blue sky, dark waves wash tawney sand, the wind blows strong over flat, scrubby land. No trees…no trees at all! Just a few white painted houses in the distance, some curved quonset huts, and a small building that houses the generator. It will be started up each night, so the village can have electricity.

Ray greets some village men, and we all drag boxes and bags into an empty quonset. There are cots in the large room, a small refrigerator, a two-burner stove, a table with chairs. And an outhouse!

For three weeks I cook meals—lunch and dinner, that is. For breakfast the men fend for themselves and I get up to dress after they leave. Ray flies back and forth a couple of times from Homer with lumber and supplies. One evening while he’s there we have a village gathering in the schoolhouse. We sing worship songs, hear a Bible story geared for the numerous children, end with cookies and candy.

I meet the village schoolteacher and chat. “You must be really dedicated to live in this isolated village for so long, teaching all the grades together in one room!” I exclaim. It reminds me of my Sentani grade school years in Irian Jaya.

“Well, yes, I care for the children or I wouldn’t be here. A good education can make a lot of difference. Sometimes their home life is not so good.” I squeeze her hand as I leave, and her lined face lights with a smile.

During the long afternoons I visit some of the homes, and especially make friends with Jenny, an Aleut mom in her 30’s. We chat over coffee.

“It must be lonely in the long winters here, huh?"

“Yes, especially when Jeff is gone for weeks working in Anchorage. And sometimes the people here drink a lot—that’s hard on their kids. I’m not a drinker. I want our kids to grow up strong.”

“That’s great, Jenny. So, do you read the Bible when you get lonely? Are you a Christian yourself?”

“Well, sort of. I gave my life to God a long time ago. I don’t read the Bible much.”

I keep visiting, our friendship grows. One day Jenny prays with me, giving her life back to God. I encourage her to teach her kids Bible stories, to pray with them.

Occasionally Zach and I walk the long beaches, picking up seashells and green glass fishing bobbers. Gulls wheel overhead and screech, the wind blows incessantly. Waves washing, wind whirling across dry grasses. The land is grand and bare, scoured clean by the weather.

At night, sharing the cot with Zach, I listen to the wind and the distant chug of the generator. Soothing, but it could be lonely, unless God has planted you here. His Presence would fill the emptiness, press in meaning.

One morning toward the end of the three weeks we are jolted by hard knocks at the door. “Is there a nurse here? We’ve heard there is one. A guy at the old radar base down the road shot himself in the leg—we think he was drinking.”

Zach and I jounce down the dirt road to the World War II military outpost. The middle aged man is in pain, his calf muscle pulled away from the bone, hanging loose. I am shaky…what can I do? They have some first aid supplies and have called for a military plane.

I close the gaping wound as best I can with a clean cloth, take the man’s blood pressure and pulse. They are stable. “Do you have any medicine for pain?”

“We have Darvon here, and aspirin.”

The man swallows the Darvon, and I keep taking his vitals every 15 minutes. He is more sober now. We pray with him…and when we hear the drone of the plane at dawn I am enormously relieved. The doctor checks him, I report the vitals, then the plane takes off.

“I don’t like emergencies like that,” I confide to Zach. “I’ve only worked in a hospital setting—not on my own!”

In a couple of days we fly back to Homer with Ray. The church is nearly finished…we are the first load home. Taking off on the beach I gaze out the window. Caribou graze in herds among the island grasses. Climbing higher, looking north I see white peaked mountains—ranges of them. Petra must have a lot of faith to have Ray fly back and forth so much. “Does she worry?” I wonder. If their lives are God’s, all is on the altar. They are living sacrifices poured out.

We are heading back to the Lower 48 now that winter is coming, but it’s too cold to ride by cycle. So we have the Harley shipped to Phoenix where Zach’s parents are, say goodbye to Ray, Petra, and the others.

Catching a plane in Anchorage we land in Phoenix, shocked at the heat, happy to see Mom and Dad Smith. We decide to buy a truck, since we can’t ride the cycle in the Minnesota winters. We find a white one in a car lot, with payments!

My family are now in Nyack, New York where Dad will teach the fall semester at Nyack Seminary. Having missed so many Christmases together, I am excited to spend the holiday with them. We celebrate early with Zach’s parents, and laden with gifts and cookies we drive long miles northeast and feast again with my family in snowy New York.

Mom and Dad, Danny and David and Romaine. How fulfilling to be all together by the Christmas tree after so many years. No Ilaga Danis, no pig feast, but Jesus is here with us in a small apartment near Nyack Bible College.