On Tuesday night this week, Don packed for a trip to Alaska. In hindsight, I was amused at how many people asked me if it was for business or pleasure, even though they knew I was not going with him. You see, my husband does not take vacations without me. His idea of testing the limits of matrimonial devotion is having a beer with friends after work and missing dinner. Household routines, family pets, and the reliability and comforts of home are irresistible lures; well, unless I have dreamed up an adventuresome (aka expensive) vacation, in which case he is the first one to pack his bag.
Don is traveling to an island near Kodiak, Alaska to look at a small, aging dam that creates the lake for the Kitoi Bay fish hatchery. These out-of-town projects are not particularly fun for me, as they require me to do twice the work at home. Our marriage has run smoothly for many years under a project management system, which is what happens when you are married to an engineer. We each oversee specific household tasks, chosen by ability – and, in some cases – on how much that task is loathed by the other person. So, when Don leaves town on business, my work at home is doubled. At this point, I’ve been known to mutter comments about him being a “dam” engineer. But I digress.
As he packs, Don relates the tale of his first business trip to Alaska in 1971 when he was 19 years old. He had just finished his freshman year as a civil engineering student at the University of Washington and was living in a fraternity house close to campus. He was thrilled to have gotten an internship for the summer at RW Beck & Associates, a large design engineering company. He was asked to travel to Petersburg, Alaska with hydroelectric power engineers who were assessing the condition of the Crystal Lake Dam for leakage or possible failure. Don’s fraternity brothers were impressed; what they didn’t know is that he was basically a human pack animal, summoned to haul equipment for the senior engineers.
The trip was Don’s first travel to Alaska – and his first airplane ride. Once the group arrived in Petersburg, they took a short helicopter flight to the dam site. They completed their study within hours as the weather worsened ominously. Low clouds and heavy rain prevented a helicopter ride back down from the dam. Don and the company bigwigs realized they would need to walk back down to the town on foot. Since Don was young and fit, the effort would be negligible.
But then there were the bears.
Don recalls a small band of black bears romping around the base of the dam, making a journey on the ground treacherous. There was an easy solution – sort of. Someone suggested walking back down on the top of the penstock, the large pipe that carried water from its source to the turbine in the power station. The penstock was less than two feet in diameter and was positioned 15-20 feet above ground. It was not envisioned, nor designed, as a conduit for humans; it is a steel, cylindrical conduit constructed for delivering water.
Having no gymnastic, balance beam, nor tightrope walking training, Don was terrified of balancing on top of the penstock; he felt more comfortable walking on the ground. He asked the seasoned engineers if the bears were likely to attack if he did, and they assured him that they would be happy to do so.
The crew began tiptoeing down the top of the structure. Don kept the bears in view, some of whom seem to salivate at the prospect of dining on a young college kid. Don was torn between the prospect of wimping out in front of company bigwigs, and the possibility of slipping and falling to the delight of the carnivores. He was relieved when a couple of the engineers dropped to their bottoms to shimmy down the penstock, giving Don cover to do the same.
The trip remains in Don’s mind as one of the highlights of his young life, though, as he relates now, “it was really great until the bears showed up.”
I chuckled at his story. As an afterthought, I ask him whether there are bears in Kodiak. He said yes, of course, there were Kodiak bears there, and then he began mumbling about what time he needed to get up to catch a 7:00 am flight to Anchorage.
My interest in his 1971 expedition is extinguished, and I run to my computer. I google, “are black bears or Kodiak bears more dangerous.” I am alarmed to learn the answer. It seems that Kodiak bears are second only to Polar bears in size and aggressiveness.
I can only hope that 60-something Don is less attractive fare to carnivores than a 19-year-old undergraduate.