As you have seen in the previous posts, we covered a lot of territory in Alaska just a few months ago, in the Fall of 2021. One of the primary goals was to get several interviews shot for our upcoming Documentary and at the same time to capture background shots of the area where our engine ran. We had Donnie Rosie fly in for just three days while we were in Nome and Council just for that. With all of the videos he shot Donnie and his crew created a short update video piece to give our Friends, Fans, Donors and other Team Members a better idea of just what the area where Climax A-313 ran was like. So kick back and enjoy the next 6 minute short video from back in August and early September 2021.
The next morning (the day after Donnie Rosie headed home to Corry) Norm and I had a couple of more appointments in Nome before we began packing up to catch the 1:00pm flight to Anchorage ourselves.
Later that afternoon we checked into our hotel in downtown Anchorage and found a great Mexican Restaurant just two blocks away for dinner. This part of the trip had originally been scheduled for the beginning of our trip to Alaska …to meet up with Erik Christenson and to be able to spend several days again looking through the various storage units and the log-cabin areas in search of the now-known missing parts. Erik’s work schedule ended up getting flipped which changed everything for us… not the way we really wanted to conduct this trip… but it was important that we do the best we could to accomplish as many of our objectives as we could this year… there was no way for us to maintain our original itinerary.
Erik arrived late that evening from the North Slope and the following morning he had several appointments and wouldn’t be available until that afternoon, so we did a bit of walking around downtown Anchorage that morning. We got to check out the sister engine to the “557” being restored in Wasilla… the “556” has been on display in Merrill Park in downtown Anchorage for many years. the 556 was a sister engine, both being US Army Consolidated engines, type S-160’s, Both engines were shipped to Alaska early in WWII. Of about 2200 of them built, only22 or so exist today. We had a late breakfast at one of the well known eateries in Anchorage, unbeknownst to us, the White Spot Cafe is rated by the periodical “Food & Wine” to have the best sandwich in the State of Alaska. If I had realized that, I might have tried one of their “Fresh caught Halibut Sandwiches” instead of a regular burger… I noticed the sign on the way out the door. Erik picked us up and over the next day and a half we spent time in search of the missing parts.
Not much was found on the first day. A key was missing for one of the locations, which was disappointing…. and we developed nothing new in the Storage unit we were able to get into. We were able to stop by and see Pat Durand at the 557 shop and give him an update on the Nome portion of the trip. It was getting late as we headed back to Anchorage where we were going to grab some dinner… but it seemed that every restaurant we went to had a two-hour wait… we finally ended up back at the Mexican restaurant for a good meal.
The next morning Erik called and he had to spend some time with a contractor getting him situated on a project Erik is involved with. By the time Erik could break loose and pick us up, we headed straight to the next units… not much of anything in the second unit but within minutes of getting into the third unit we did locate several of the most important missing parts. We also found some outstanding photographs we had not seen before.
Erik’s time off this trip was filled with some minor surgery and Dental appointments and several other scheduled annual tests and interviews, so our time in Anchorage was compressed. In fact Erik was scheduled for surgery the next morning. There are still some places we weren’t able to get into that haven’t been searched completely yet… Hopefully Erik will be able to get into them this next Spring. It was getting late and we headed back into Anchorage for a quick meal and then bid adieu… till we meet again.
With the extra parts accumulating from Nome and Anchorage it became a juggling act in making sure our bags weren’t overweight now that we were bringing back about 60lbs of extra parts, pieces and materials. We had rescheduled our flights home, and the next morning we were flying out, headed back to Corry. With the re-booking it put Norm and me in different rows… and of course it was a full flight with our stop over changing from Minneapolis to Chicago, and with barely enough time to make it to our connecting flight to Cleveland. Our good friend and supporter, Tom Grice picked us up in Cleveland and he came fully prepared with water, coffee, soda… whatever we wanted and a assortment of munchies as well…. even bags of popcorn…. Thanks Tom! We arrived home in the very early morning hours of Labor Day…. Thank goodness… it was going to take me most of the day to unpack and do laundry… and then a few days to get my body back on East Coast time.
What a trip… met a bunch more interesting people from all over, including some from right here in Pennsylvania, imagine that!! We learned about some of the ins and outs of the Archive systems in the University Library… found some interesting photos and videos… made some great connections in the Fairbanks area… were able to lay our hands on some original Climax Parts which very few have ever seen… got some important measurements we didn’t have before in order to make templates for some parts… thanks to Donnie we conducted more than a half a dozen taped interviews and gathered more “B” roll for our future Documentary… made some interesting discoveries about some unknown engineering items from Climax not seen before or reported on… met the folks out in the Council area, and I think we are invited back … and spent time familiarizing ourselves with the Ophir and Council mining district… found and saw some Climax items which we never knew existed previously… located about 60# of missing parts… and to top it all off we were given, and brought home, the one and only Climax A-313 Builder Plate. Another successful mission.
As with most investigations, you learn a lot, but a lot of what you learn tends to raise more questions which need to be answered. Will there be another Alaska trip? Quite possibly… we have scratched the surface, and now dig deeper. Funds will have to be raised to make it happen. Anyone who would specifically like to help fund those future searches and investigations and add to the Climax knowledge base, we would love to hear from you… a special one-on-one update as to some of the things we would like to accomplish could be arranged. You can email me at corryrails@gmail.com. That’s the end of the update on the Corry RAILS 2021 Alaska trip.
Now this is one of the highlights of the trip…. one of many, some of which we aren’t talking about yet.. since we are still researching and making connections. BUT, this is what we could say is the “Crown Jewel” of the trip… it made it all worth the effort.
Let’s go back a few years…. January of 2018, right after we were first able to make contact with Erik, to see if there was a way we could bring this locomotive home… after 5 months of attempts… and shortly after we began talking about exactly what was there and where it was stored… what kind of condition… and some photos taken by Keith of parts… Erik made mention that the one thing that his dad did not have was the Builder Plate for A-313.
Beginning in the mid 1890’s, Climax began using the round Climax Builder Plate we are all used to seeing attached to each side of the boiler on the Class B, and later also on the Class C units. On the Class “A” locomotives they only used one Builder Plate, and it was bolted with 4 bolts to the front Running Number Standoff on the Smokebox door on the front of the Boiler. The Builder Plate for this engine had been removed by someone as a trophy well before Chuck Reader hauled Climax A-313 into Nome in the late Fall or early Winter of 1969.
In follow-up conversations with Erik, he thought he recalled his father, Keith, mentioning sometime that the Builder Plate might be on the wall of one of the Bars on Front Street in Nome. Erik had also been to Nome previously, and he thought he recalled that the Bar was the Polaris Hotel & Bar…. located near the end of the Iditerod Dog Sled Race on Front St.
Not long after I had heard this, early in 2018, I discovered that in October of 2017 a fire had destroyed the Polaris with one person perishing… it wasn’t completely burned to the ground, but it was a total loss. My mind raced as I wondered at that time… “Could the Plate have survived?… did someone rescue it?” Bronze can withstand 1700 degrees. Not long after that I found a front-page story in the Nome Nugget, probably published in December… the City Council had voted to knock down the building so that no one could potentially get hurt… the owner was in South Korea receiving medical attention and not available. On the front page was a photo of… Charlie Reader in his Q-Trucking Co. excavator knocking the remains of the building down… how ironic, I thought… here is Charlie Reader, son of Chuck Reader the man who dragged A-313 into town and at onetime an owner of the Polaris Bar, tearing down the building which might have the Builder Plate on the wall… Is that wild???
Well… I would have to wait to see how this plays out… if we can pull this acquisition off… and if I can get to Nome… to see if we can locate the Builder Plate.
Jump forward to the Fall of 2019…. during the Summer we had reached an agreement with Erik and we were planning on being in Anchorage packing up the locomotive parts in August or September. Well, a whole lot of circumstances happened in August which didn’t allow our trip to happen… there were a lot of pieces of the puzzle which had to all align… So, we made the decision to put the Rescue Trip off until June or July of 2020. In the meantime we needed to figure out all of our transportation angles and that was difficult to do here in Corry, PA. At the last minute Tom V. and I made the decision to fly to Anchorage to begin locating equipment and tools we would need for re-packing and to see if we could arrange for the container to be transported to Seattle. Through an introduction made by Pat Durand of the 557 Project, we had dinner shortly after we landed in Anchorage with Jim and Vicki Jansen (another fellow Vietnam Seabee) and Pat Durand. Following dinner and after showing Jim and Vicki photos and info about our Project, Jim offered to transport our container to Seattle on one of his Lynden Transport Barges… OH, My!! We were elated, to say the least. Thank you Jim and Vicki, we are grateful for your generosity… and Pat… for the introductions and all the help along the way.
As part of my planning over the previous year, I had been looking on Facebook to see if there were any Seabees I could make friends with in Nome… I had found that there were a couple… but one in particular just seemed to be the right guy… so I Friended Toby Schield… I had tapped into Toby to see what info there was up there having to do with the old Railroads in general and also the Climax locomotives which had been in Nome during the early 1900’s, all of which were built here in Corry, PA by Climax Manufacturing Co. Although not familiar with that part of Nome’s history, Toby was able to find some good information for me over several months. Toby had been running the Water Dept for a bunch of years and was due to retire in January of 2020, when he would be moving to Nevada, so if we wanted to have Toby’s knowledge available, we needed to make it happen right now, while he and his wife Trish were still in Nome. We really wanted to get up to Nome to see what we could find and see some of the territory where the Wild Goose Railroad operated… and I wanted to meet some of the family of Chuck Reader, who had brought the engine from Ophir and Council to Nome where it sat behind the Q-Trucking building for 10 years before Keith Christenson purchased it. And… oh, yeh!!… then there was always that tantalizing question of “What happened to the Builder’s Plate? … and could we find it.”
A few days before we flew up to Alaska, I called Toby and filled him in on just what Tom V. and I were up to, and that we wanted to come up to Nome for maybe three days to see the town and meet some of the people. A big-hearted Seabee… Toby & Trish offered us a couple of beds at their home… “Come on up!” That was all it took for us to say “Heck, yes!” So, after a wonderful dinner with Pat, Jim and Vicki, we caught a good night’s sleep at out hotel and the next day caught the 11:00am flight to Nome.
On October 16th, 2019, we landed in Nome and Toby was there to greet us and help collect our luggage… and then he introduced us to his wife Trish as she was the Alaska Airlines Ground Crew… the same one who was unloading the baggage and would also be the one refueling the plane for its return flight to Anchorage… It was a very quick “Hello”, “How was the flight”… “Hey, gotta run… see you for dinner!”…. and she was off… what a package of dyn-o-mite! That’s Trish.
We had arrived in Anchorage Tuesday afternoon… then arrived in Nome on Wednesday about noon… were in Nome Thursday, Friday and Saturday… and then flew back to Anchorage with Toby on Sunday. Toby had an annual State Water Board meeting to attend for a few days. In those 4 days in Nome, we covered a lot of territory and met a lot of interesting people… even met Jeff and Peggy Darling who were both from Frewsburg, NY, only 25 miles from Corry… It truly is a small world. I’m going to skip a lot here… suffice to say that we met some great folks… saw and photographed literally tons of stuff we never thought we would ever see and laid the ground work for getting back to Nome in the future. On Friday and Saturday there was an accumulation of about 11″ of snow, the first one of the year, and after an overcast Wednesday and a beautiful, clear and sunny Thursday. Mind you, the temperature never got over 37F.
So, fast forward to Friday morning… Toby, Tom and I hit the road… first stop was Q Trucking to see if Charlie Reader was in… he was not… not surprising, the man gets stuff done!!! …but the word was that we needed to show up about 5pm for the “Weekly Safety Meeting”… and OBTW,, BYOB!!! nothing else needed to be said… we would be there. We made a few more stops around town and then stopped by Hanson’s and grabbed some donuts… and we were off headed out to meet Ron Engstrom… Ron comes from a Pioneer Gold Mining Family and lives out on the Shelton Highway at Basin Creek. The closer we got to Ron’s the lighter the snowfall had been… being only about a one to two inch dusting at Ron’s house. What an incredibly enjoyable few hours we had chatting with Ron…. or rather listening to him chat… and looking at some of his photos…. Ron had the floor. Story’s flew… about his Speeder for getting to school… his propeller driven snow machine… his mom and dad bring in the Dredge with a 60 horse team… dragging the steel bridge in… WOW… we finished up the afternoon walking around in his fields looking at some of the discarded iron… the rusty history of Basin Creek.
Our plan was to come back to Nome the next year after we were done re-packing A-313 in Eagle River , and to spend at least a day on the Dredge with Ron and to interview him for our Documentary. This should have happened in June or July of 2020, except the Covid19 Pandemic got in the way. When travel restriction loosened a bit in July we quickly reinvented our itinerary for getting to Palmer and Eagle River in August of 2020, but we could not travel to Nome because of Covid restrictions… we didn’t have the time to sit in quarantine during the trip. Unfortunately, life is just too short, and you just don’t know what other plans God has for any of us. Ron passed away just a year ago last week, 11-20-2020. But, what memories we have of that afternoon, just a year before.
We said our goodbyes and Tom left Ron with a Corry Rails hat, and we were off to take a tour of the Water Dept facilities in Nome and to checkout one of the Dredges. Then it was time for that “Safety Meeting” appointment… aahemm!! We stopped and picked up a couple of brewskies and made it to the Q-Trucking Shop on-time. We met up with Charlie Reader and several others of the Q-Crew and told them the story of what our plans were for Climax A-313 and enjoyed a couple of cold-ones together. Then, after a bit, Charlie says.. “You really do need to talk to my sister Cussy… she’s the historian in the family!” We had heard that Cussy had been having chemo treatments and that can really drag a person’s energy level down, and Toby asked Charlie if she would be up to it? “I don’t know, let’s find out” Charlie says… and he calls Cussy… tells her about us, and Cussy says “Send ’em over”. So, more goodbyes and by 6:30 we had stopped and picked up Trish and we are at Cussy’s meeting and greeting… For the next couple of hours Cussy holds court and keeps bringing out boxes of stuff… information overload…
I’m sitting on the floor looking over maps and photos and books… We’re kids in a candy-store… trying to absorb as much as we can while listening to the Professor intently. I only wish we had had the foresight to have a video recorder, or at least a tape recorder, going the whole time… what a hoot!!! …sooooo much information in such a short time… I want to do it again… Thanks for the memory Cussy!
Then… I asked Cussy about this rumor I had heard… about the Builder Plate being on the wall of the Polaris Bar… Cussy looks at me and all she said while shaking her head was “You need to talk to Stan Andersen”… and Cussy was instantly on to another subject. Well, Stan Andersen’s name had come up earlier in conversation with Toby… Stan was a Seabee also. Stan had also been on the City Council in Nome and Cussy had worked in the City offices for 34 years… so Toby’s and my eyes met and we nodded to each other with raised eyebrows… as more stories flowed. We finally decided we were all hungry… none of us had had dinner.. so with Cussy all bundled up, it was off to the Pizza place for dinner and a beer…. WHAT an evening… what a day… not a bad day in Nome, even with the snow on the ground. Plans were made that we would all meet-up at the VFW for dinner on Saturday night.
Saturday, Toby, Trish, Tom and I headed out Shelton Highway again, further this time… past Salmon Lake… almost out to Shelton… and pulled into the cabin of Carl Emmons. Another one of the guys who REALLY knows the history and background of a lot that happened in the early days in Nome and with the various iterations of the Railroad…. OH, My!!! more great conversations… and there wasn’t any snow yet that far inland from the Bearing Sea. After a couple of hours with Carl, we headed up the road to check out some flatcars off the side of the road, and then headed back into Nome to make sure we were in line for Dinner at the VFW.
At the Vets Club, we all grabbed a table by the window and Cussy and crew showed up… and Toby and I head to the bar to get a couple of beers. We are at the bar when Toby says “Oh, hey… you need to meet this guy”… I turn around and Toby introduces me to Stan Andersen. Toby takes the beers back to the table leaving Stan and me talking about old times, the Seabees and Vietnam… and what units we were in. Dinner was being served and we made room for Stan at the table as we continued our conversation. I was out of Port Hueneme, CA in MCB-3 at Camp Haskins South in Danang and Stan was out of Gulfport, MS with MCB-133 up at Camp Campbell in Phu Bai, I believe. Neither of us were getting much of our delicious steak dinners eaten… but “It was getting deep, never-the-less”, if ya know what I mean! We eventually transitioned the conversation to our project, the acquisition of Climax A-313, the little engine which had been in Council and Ophir.
Finally I asked Stan about the rumor… and told him that I had asked Cussy, but that she deferred and had only said to “…talk to Stan Andersen…”. Stan takes a sip and says shaking his head, “That plate was never on the wall in the Polaris!” …a long pause, and I’m silent… waiting… and finally he says, “It was on the wall in my Bar… the Bering Sea”… more silence, and then… “but I sold the bar ten years ago or so”. Finally I asked “Did the plate go with the Bar?” to which Stan replies, “No, I kept all the memorabilia on the walls… I’ve got it somewhere, but I haven’t seen it in 5 or 6 years… when I find it, I’ll let you know and see if I can get it to you.” Incredible… Tom is sitting next to me and the look on his face, and probably mine too, had to have been a sight to see… here we are 3500 miles from Corry and we have just found the guy who has THE plate, and possibly we have been offered the Builder Plate we were looking for…. Unreal! Another great day in Nome!
Well, the story gets better as Stan tells the tale about his folks going out camping at Council every year as Stan (and his twin brother Steff, and their sister) was growing up… and on occasion they would drive over to Ophir… about 14 miles away, around the mountain… and one time they spotted this old wooden locomotive (our Climax A-313 of the Wild Goose Railroad, and later the Golovin Bay Railroad – same trackage)… this would have been in the late 1950’s, and they took a couple of photos with the twin brothers hanging on the engine, and with their Dad Steve sitting on the headlight stand in front of the smokestack… and there on the Running Plate is the Builder Plate.
Stan told us that it was then that he said he wanted that Builder Plate for himself… he wasn’t sure if it was that year or the next that he came back and unbolted it. The boys interest in locomotives and trains goes back to when they were 4 or 5 years old, as seen in the photo with their sister on one of the locomotives of “The Last Train to Nowhere”. Later in life, after the military and Vietnam, and returning to Nome and becoming a Bar owner, he placed it on the wall of the Bar where it stayed until he sold the Bar. I think he said that the Bell at the Bar to ring for buying rounds was mounted in front of it… I would like to find a photo or two of it on the wall in the bar, if anyone has one.
Sunday morning, after Toby, Chef Extraordinaire, had prepared an sumptuous Breakfast (Eggs Benedict ala King Crab), we said quick goodbyes to everyone in the area, stopped by the Nome Cemetery to say a quick goodbye and a salute at the gravesite of Chuck Reader, the three of us headed off to the airport to catch our 1:00pm flight. In Anchorage for a few days, we would be making more contacts for the repacking and doing more research, with Toby’s help, when he didn’t have meetings scheduled, before flying home to Corry.
SKIP FORWARD A FEW MONTHS… Out of the Blue, Stan calls me…. “I just wanted to let you know I have found the Plate… I was talking to my brother Steff one day and I mentioned to him that I couldn’t find it…. and Steff says to me ‘What do you mean… I know exactly where it is! After you sold the bar you gave it to me to hang on the wall of our cabin in Council'”. …and then Stan says “I’ll let you know when I have it.”
A few more months go by and I get a note from Cussy and she mentioned that Stan had been in the hospital with some serious issues and had been taken to Anchorage… she asked if Stan had found the Builder Plate, and I filled her in. More back and forth happened over the next several months, and both Stan and Steff were in the hospital at times. When we were planning this trip, and re-planning it at the last minute, to be in Alaska in August, I let Stan know that we were planning to come to Nome and hopefully out to Council at that time. Stan wrote back saying that Steff and Patty, who hadn’t been up in a couple of years, were planning on being in Council also.
That’s all the background…. now, JUMP FORWARD TO THE END OF AUGUST, 2021: The next day, after we arrived in Nome, I sent a Text Message to Stan… Stan’s plan was for the four of us, Stan, Steff, Norm and me to get together the next morning at the VFW. That morning, Norm and I were at the VFW at the appointed time, and waited… and waited… I finally sent a text to Stan asking if he was OK? (since I new that both he and Steff had touch-n-go medical issues)… Stan hadn’t heard from Steff yet that morning, but he would call as soon as he did hear. We left the parking lot and about 20 minutes later Stan called saying that Steff was running behind for check-in for the flight to Anchorage, but could we meet in 15 minutes… SOOOOO ….Stan, Norm and I got together at about 11:00am that Tuesday at the VFW and after hand shakes and introducing Norm, and a bit more chit-chat, Stan reaches in his truck and hands me a bag with the Builder Plate from Climax A-313. WOW!!… it really does exist!! Inside the Club we had a lot more conversation, and some Hats and Shirts… and A-313 Builder Plate Hat Pins, calendars etc. were exchanged …. just can’t get away from those Great days in Nome… when magic happens!!! A replica Builder Plate is in the works to go back on the wall at the Anderson cabin in Council.
Later that afternoon we stopped by Cussy’s, and in the course of conversation she asked if we had talked to Stan yet… and I said we had… and she asks “…and the Plate?” “We have it”, I said. “Where is it?” “Out in the truck”… “Well, Go get it… I want to see it.”… which we gladly did… a fine celebration with a wonderful gal…. Thanks for all your help, history and information Cussy!!!
WELL…. So you see… That’s the reason for pulling this out as a separate topic. Now the Plate is back home and will be used for the time being as a centerpiece in our fundraising efforts until such time as it gets bolted back onto the running plate of the smokebox of A-313. Needless to say, we are pretty proud and grateful to have it in our possession. Thank you so much Stan and Steff!! You have been great caretakers … and everyone else who made it all possible. That made the entire trip worth it, if nothing else were to happen.
Stay tuned for Part IV of the 2021 Alaska Trip…. that will be Catching-up #6.
After returning our Motorhome we were dropped off at our hotel in Anchorage for an overnight stay before catching a late morning flight to Nome where they too have been having an extremely wet year. In fact, on the shuttle bus to the Airport we spoke with a gentleman headed home to Sacramento. He inquired where we were headed and upon hearing we were hoping to spend some time in Council he said that he had spent the last week there fishing… and, that the water in the Niukluk River was the highest it has been in many years and that it had rained the entire week he was there…. OH, BOY!!! more challenges!
After getting settled in Nome we ended up at Cussy Kauer’s chatting with her for a while. Cussy is the daughter of Chuck Reader, the orchestrator of the first Rescue of A-313 in 1969.
The next day we managed to get out and meet up with several folks I had met on the last trip to Nome including fellow Seabee Stan Anderson. I had sent a text to Stan the day before letting him know that we were in town. The next morning Stan called and said that his twin brother Steff, another Seabee, was coming to town from Council to catch a flight to Anchorage for a Dr.’s appointment, and he would like the four of us (Stan, Steff, Norm and me) to get together for a few minutes… he had something for us… so we waited… finally Stan called. Steff was running late and had to get to the Airport, but had left a bag for us… “Can we meet at the VFW in 15 minutes?” Needless to say, the answer was “YES!”… so, off to the VFW… That is a whole separate story unto itself which I will cover in the next segment… stay tuned…
Later that day we spent some time at the Carrie McLain Museum and the Nome Library, which are housed together. For those who don’t know, Carrie McLain was the first Historian and collector of photos and artifacts of early Nome. The first Museum was her home… she was also Cussy Kauer’s Grandmother.
It was difficult to schedule time in the Archives since they were just beginning to reopen from Covid, not open on weekends and trying to get ready for the beginning of the School year… luck wasn’t with us there. We managed to catch up with Carl Emmons for a couple of hours to discuss the old railbed of the Wild Goose heading towards Shelton. Much of the first few days was spent trying to communicate with folks in Council to try to make arrangements for a couple of days out there… phone service is non-existent, and text or email is very sporadic, and it is a two-plus hour drive out there… and when you get there, you need a way to get across the river.
Our Videographer, Donnie Rosie, flew in on Sunday… it was still overcast and rainy… so, not a great opportunity for scenic shots, but after getting Donnie oriented to Nome, we managed to do a couple of interviews. Monday morning we were headed to Council but still hadn’t made much contact out there. Just before leaving town we stopped at the Snowmobile Shop to see if they had heard from a fellow Seabee from Council, Doug Doyle, and just as we pulled up so did Doug in his baby-blue (Seabee shoulder stripes, E-1,2 & 3 are Baby Blue) military 5-ton truck. After introductions, we headed towards Council and would wait for Doug to catch up with us at the River.
Doug showed up a couple of hours after we arrived and soon enough we were across the River and in Council… Doug arranged for us to stay in his sister Linda Conley’s cabin. Soon we were off on foot exploring the area, making it down to the location where the Wild Goose tracks originated along the cliffs at the river’s edge. After exploring the area we stopped and introduced ourselves to Dan Stang who has been coming to his cabin in Council for decades. Dan gave us some good perspective on the local history. Time to head back to our cabin and catch a late dinner and a bit of conversation with Doug when he stopped by, before a good night’s sleep.
Day two started with us walking the same road when a 4-wheeler came up with someone shouting out “That looks like a Seabee!” and there we met Steff Anderson, a fellow Vietnam Era Seabee. Steff and his twin brother Stan have been coming to Council beginning with their parents in the 1940’s. A short chat and he was off to check on his boat. Still heading down the road… we were on our way to meet with another local, Wes Perkins, and to tape an interview with him…
His Father was the last Schoolteacher in Council when people still lived there year-round… the original log cabin schoolhouse is next to Wes’ cabin. Wes had been the Fire Chief and an EMT in Nome. Wes was also mauled by a Grizzly Bear while hunting in 2011… what an inspiring guy! Through the efforts of Dan Stang and one of Dan’s sons, who were hunting with Wes at the time, and a whole extraordinary series of events, his life was saved…. what a story! Wes’ connection to the local history is amazing… his Uncle had worked on the Dredges in Ophir.
From there we stopped back at Dan Stang’s cabin and interviewed Dan sitting on the doorsteps of his son’s cabin… to this year, Dan has been involved in 144 Bear kills… OMG!!! He loves Council, the local history and, of course, hunting. After the interview Dan offered to drive us in his side-by-side out towards Ophir… the other end of the tracks that A-313 ran on. Off we went, not going over the mountain along the tracks but around the base of the mountain, on a one-lane trail, following the Niukluk River and then Ophir Creek northeast towards Ophir.
Seeing first-hand the miles of tailings across the width of the valley gives one a good sense of why there were 5 dredges working this area which proved to be the most lucrative of all the gold strikes in Alaska. No wonder Charles Lane established and purchased claims up the Creek and then put in his own Railroad from Council to Ophir to move his machinery, parts and people to the remote location of the gold digs. Some of this area is still being periodically mined, but on a much smaller scale. Most of the old Dredges have collapsed and haven’t been used in over 70 years.
It was getting late in the afternoon… we were still a mile or so from Ophir, but what an experience. Hopefully we are able to get back up to Council in the future and continue the exploration. Turning around we headed back towards Council. The top of the mountain on our left is about 4 miles away but you can make out a diagonal treeline coming down from the saddle of the bald top of the mountain where the rail line is located… that line visually disappears behind the front edge and onto a sloped plateau area which the tracks descend onto and continue to Ophir. The lower mountain and the Plateau contains a Pine Boreal Forest. Several times Donnie deployed his drone to get a better view and to shoot some footage of the area.
On the way back to Council we passed several places we had stopped at on the way out… several old mostly-collapsed mining building housing a water activated Pelton Wheel for electrical generation, maintenance buildings, crew residence buildings and camp kitchen… a still standing and mostly complete old bucket dredge last used in the 50’s …. a group of rusting and shot-up vintage trucks (30’s to 50’s)… an area covered with parts of a dryland bucket dredge with locomotive style rail propulsion… and other areas strewn with tons of gears, iron and remnants of years gone by. Dan’s dog lead the way out and back for nearly all of the 20 plus miles, just loving the freedom to run.
Not long after we arrived back at our cabin Steff Anderson came by and invited us over to his cabin, along with Doug Doyle, for dinner with him and his wife Patty…. what a treat… a great dinner and more stories and interviews about Council from both of my fellow Seabees, but we never took a photo of the three of us together… Darn!! That night the whole community was active with more vehicles showing up on the other side of the Niukluk River… the next morning was the beginning of Moose season… and EVERYONE was getting prepared for the hunt.
Being our last night, we took a walk down to Dan Stang’s and met one of his sons…. had a great conversation with them both and said our goodbyes… then did a little bit more exploring and found some interesting items we hadn’t seen previously… Stay tuned on that in the distant future. After we got back to the cabin we packed up in preparation for leaving in the morning.
In the morning we begged Dan’s neighbor for a ride back across the river and by 9:00am we were on our way back to Nome. We stopped at “The Last Train to Nowhere” for some photos, and we also stopped at the Swanberg Dredge, a Dredge now owned and maintained as a tourist site by the City of Nome. From there we were returning some borrowed equipment to Cussy Kauer and ended up taping an interview with Cussy and her Sister Ginny Emmons… The sun was out and it wasn’t raining so we went and checked out several of the Dredges around Nome as well as heading up to the top of Anvil Mountain and to Anvil Rock for Donnie to get some footage overlooking the whole coastal area of Nome. We had Donnie at the Airport by 4:30pm and at 6:00 his flight northwest to Kotzebue and then back south to Anchorage was in the air, as he began a series of flights heading home to Corry.
As I mentioned in the last posting, the planning for our return to Alaska to continue our efforts originally planned for 2020 and canceled / postponed due to Government imposed travel and access restrictions imposed because of the COVID19 worldwide Pandemic was difficult at best. It changed on a daily basis over the several months of planning. Inflation was rearing its head even beyond the normally higher prices found in Alaska. The fuel prices were surging because of the Government’s move away from energy independence achieved during the last few years. The micro-chip shortage affecting the auto industry’s ability to provide new cars to the rental agencies coupled with the major rental agencies disposal of over a million un-rentable vehicles in 2020 due to America’s restriction on travel has driven the rental prices through the roof… from $35 in 2020 to $265 per day in 2021, if you could find one to rent. We had the everything planned to be in Alaska in the last days of July but at the last minute Erik Christenson’s schedule was changed and we wouldn’t be able to meet with him until the beginning of September. We had to be in Nome and ready to go to Council in August, since that is when the Summer resident’s would be there, most for the first time in 3 years. It was becoming a nightmare to put it all together, and the costs were escalating with each change. The one thing we couldn’t afford to do was to put it off for another year… we needed to find parts, and we needed to interview people… some of whom were having major medical problems.
On this trip, Norm T. would be going with me since Tom V. was finalizing plans for a wedding. Norm had been with us in Alaska on the Rescue Team in 2020 and brings an excellent knowledge of all things mechanical with his strong background in Hit-n-Miss and Gas engines and his appreciation of vintage equipment. So it was off to Anchorage. Our 11 hour flight schedule had been changed to a 15 hour flight with a long layover in Atlanta. Upon arrival in Anchorage another Team Member, former Pennsylvanian Gene Augustine, picked us up at the Airport and took us to the Motorhome we were renting for a few days. The lady renting us the vehicle had invited the three of us to stay for a fresh Halibut dinner… a very nice gesture… she wanted to hear more about our Project. The Motorhome was a perfect way to go with the cost of rental vehicles, combining both our transportation and housing and eliminating the need to constantly change.
After dinner, we were off to Wasilla where we camped the first night in the parking lot of the 557 Restoration Project, a partner of ours in our Rescue efforts. In the morning we spent a few hours discussing both of our projects with Pat Durand, President of the 557 Restoration Company and Friend of A-313 extraordinaire… Pat was also a longtime personal friend of Keith Christenson and continues to lend new insights advice to our project.
That afternoon we were off to Fairbanks. The further north we went the more overcast it became and finally into the rain…. we never did see Mt. McKinley while driving through Denali with the low cloud ceiling. Rain had been the daily forecast for the previous week as well as for most of the time we were in Fairbanks. In the few days we were in Fairbanks, we spent time in Archives at the Univ. of Alaska Fairbanks. It was an eye-opener to realize the extensiveness of their collection and to realize that large sections are yet to be cataloged. We found some of the photos and information we had been searching for, but most importantly we made good contacts for future research.
Some of the impromptu connections we were able to make while in Fairbanks will be invaluable in future research on the history of our engine and the Wild Goose Railroad. We ran into Alan Armbruster at breakfast at Mikie-D’s early on… he spotted the “557” cap I was wearing and is a fan and contributor to Pat’s Project… from that hour long conversation came introductions to four more rail enthusiasts including Joanie Skilbred who just happened to be on the Board of Directors at the Tanana RR Museum. After a short phone conversation with Joanie we met up with her at the Museum that evening for a couple of hours.
What a great little Museum… it is within and area known as Pioneer Park which contains many original Fairbanks log cabins and a huge collection of historical artifacts, including a paddle-wheel steamer which navigated the Tanana River. Joanie was kind enough to take us to see the Climax Flatcar Trucks which had been retrieved from Council, AK by some of their volunteers 20 years ago…. An awesome sight, just amazing seeing them and being able to photograph them… Thanks Joanie and the rest of the Tanana crew.
Over the next couple of days we were able to meet up again with Alan and the Model RR group at their large display located at the Alaska RR Depot in Fairbanks where they open for the passengers on the departing train to Anchorage…. met with “Shorty” Wilbur and his collection… Willy Vinton and Tim Cerny at the Fountainhead Museum… what a gorgeous collection …. and spoke with several more over the phone. Angella and Fawn in the University Archives were extremely helpful even though things weren’t quite back to normal following the Covid lockdown. We wish to thank all of them for their outgoing friendship and hospitality while we were in town. From there it was back to Anchorage
Prior to our Rescue Team’s 4-day Work Session in Palmer, Alaska a year ago, in 2020, it was impossible to compile an accurate part’s list, although I had put together one based upon photographs, books and lengthy conversations with Grady Smith. It was probably 95%+ complete and accurate. Even more important, we had no way of compiling an accurate list of what parts might be missing or had been misplaced, either while Keith was still alive, or since his passing. Keith was the only one who knew where everything was and unfortunately he didn’t write it all down. Keith had parts stored in various locations… his home, his storage trailer, several storage lockers filled with boxes of goodies and a log-cabin with several storage containers located about 65 miles away from his home. Following Keith’s death, his son Erik was faced with having to move all of the Climax parts from the storage trailer and the house by pickup truck into a storage container located about 25 miles away… and all of this while still working on the North Slope in three-week stretches. Erik’s concern wasn’t to sort parts at that time, but to secure it as best he could.
When we first visited Erik to view the parts and pieces and were able to climb Inside of the Container, we were literally walking and crawling on top of a three-foot deep pile of pipes and parts. There were some boxes so heavy we couldn’t move them, let alone even get to see what was in them… We just had to get a general sense of what was there based upon our familiarization with photos and books, some of which we had with us. We took lots of photos in the 2 1/2 days we had in Alaska and covered a lot of territory. So, when we went to recover the Locomotive parts last year we had to remove virtually everything from the container in order switch the container to another trailer, since the trailer it was on for the previous six years had not been inspected, maintained or licensed in that time. It was not roadworthy to move the container to the Port.
In the process of removing all of the parts we attempted to log them in against our previously produced parts and inventory lists. Additionally, we had to spend many hours in the several storage lockers and the containers at the log cabin retrieving items we had previously seen, and combing through boxes, shelves and piles of random materials, a lot of personal items, household goods, work related items, tools, and many items accumulated by Keith over his lifetime. At this point we didn’t know what all we were even looking for… other than “Parts for our Climax”… and sometimes the parts are obscure enough to not be readily identifiable as such.
Tom V. and I arrived 5 days earlier than the rest of the Team in order to get all of the logistics in place before the rest of the guys showed up (lifts, rooms, vehicle, tools, packing, a motorhome for a lunchroom, generator, lights, wood and crates for packing). The timing worked perfectly and at the end of the 5th day we picked up everyone at the airport and the next day began four concentrated and long days of unpacking and repacking. We were aided by another dozen “Team Members”, some from Pennsylvania, some transplanted from Pennsylvania and some Alaskans, without whom we could not have accomplished what we did. Each Rescue 313 Team Member received specially prepared Tee-shirts and ball caps in recognition and appreciation of their help in our endeavor.
Through the experience of Grady Smith, Steve Niederriter and Pat Durand, at the very end of the third day, and as we were nearly finished with re-packing the container, we had been able to compile a list of about 25 parts which we were pretty sure that we did not have, and knowing that all of them had been with the Climax when Keith purchased it. All of them would fit into a wooden box no larger than 12x12x24 inches and would weigh no more than 75 lbs. The next morning we finished packing and tying down and securing everything in the Container. The Container needed to be at Lynden Transport’s yard on that day, or its shipping would be delayed a week, and we wouldn’t be there to sign for it since we were leaving that night. It was raining as we finished packing and I was in the Motorhome working with Erik, and on the phone, completing our closing paperwork for our attorneys and initiating the transfer of payments. We still needed to return all of the borrowed equipment, check out or our rooms, follow the container to Anchorage, ship some excess baggage by UPS and return vehicles before our 9:30 PM flights home. We had no time to go back and do anymore searching for parts in the storage units before heading home. That would have to happen at a later date to be worked out between Erik and us. Actually we had just enough time for the seven of us to have a wonderful dinner at Gwennie’s Restaurant on our way to Steven’s Airport… and even had an extra hour or so to just kick back at our table in their back dining room and enjoy a much deserved desert. That’s the re-hash of the Rescue.
At that point we were already planning for a return trip to Alaska in search of the parts we were still missing. As with each previous trip it would have to be scheduled around Erik’s availability. Before Covid, our plans had been to add some time after the Rescue for Tom V. and I to do some more research at the University Archives in Fairbanks, to visit the Tanana RR Museum in Fairbanks in order to view and photograph some Climax artifacts which they have. We also had planned to go to Nome and Council to do video interviews with people we had met there the previous year who had connections to our Climax. All of this effort was for adding historical information and footage for our upcoming Documentary about Climax A-313 and the Wild Goose RR.
Included in this part of the journey was some time to get out to Council and Ophir for a couple of days, where A-313 plied its 8 miles of rail over 100 years ago. We wanted to see the terrain and experience the geography and desolation of the area which attracted 20,000 miners to travel 60 miles up-stream from the Bering Sea in search of their fortune in 1898… and at that time, 75 miles to the west, Nome’s population was only about 250, and mostly Alaskan Natives. Because of Covid, this part of our trip had to be postponed in 2020. So, along with finding some important parts which we would need to finish the assembly of our Locomotive, there were other equally important reasons for our future return to Alaska… The Winter of 2020-2021, that Spring and early Summer were spent trying to put this trip together… It proved to be more difficult than all of the planning which has gone into our first three trips all together. More dreams to come.
Well I left these two in Alaska. My job was to document only part of the trip. This was in Nome and Council.
We interviewed, photographed, filmed, explored, picked on each other, and they even shared a bed!
Carl and Norm are doing amazing things in Alaska for the history of Corry, Pa. They have worked hard, skipped meals, hiked, visited, and figured out things no one knew. True discovery.
Friends and Followers of Corry RAILS…. a short update to let everyone know what’s going on… Well, last year, along with getting the Climax A re-packed and shipped home to Corry, our plans had been to stay in Alaska a bit longer and to do research on the Climax… So… that couldn’t, and didn’t, happen because of Covid… we got the main objective done… the little Engine made it home!!! AND NOW….. we are back in Alaska to work on the research end of the project.
Norm Thomas and I (Carl W) arrived in Alaska early in the week and have been on the road… One of our first stops was at our sister project, the 557 Restoration Project in Wasilla, for a short visit with Pat Durand and the boys…. WOW!!! is that project looking great! They have it all jacked up to soon be rolling the Wheel Sets under her… the stainless steel snake-pit under the cab is nearly done…. and preparation is taking place for the front work deck for when the new tubes get installed… what a magnificent piece of work…. my hat is off to Pat, the 557 Board and the entire volunteer crew as well as all the vendors to the 557. If you get the chance go to their website and check it out… You will find them at http://557.alaskarails.org/ .
Then it was off to Fairbanks for a few days of research in the University archives and to sneak in a short visit to the Tanana Valley RR. As usual in Alaska, we have met some incredibly friendly and helpful people. Along the way we have made contact with some diverse and unique collections, and spent some time getting to know some of the people and characters involved… invaluable future research sources. We will most certainly continue to build on many of these relationships.
