Some Notes about Hawai’ians
(excerpt from a book in progress)

In 1973, my friend John Bose was writing a column for a local paper, and asked to join me on a trip to Molokai where a meeting of the Aboriginal Lands of Hawai’ian Ancestry, (ALOHA Association) was taking place. I was unable to be a voting member because of my position as manager of substantial Federal Land. But like many beginning organizations, the association was spending a lot of time arguing over penny-ante monetary issues instead of discussing potential land claims. I volunteered to be the treasurer and straightened out the books.

John attended the meeting as a journalist, and after the meetings were finished, I took him to Pukoo to see where my family had come from. One of my Grandmothers brothers lived in the old house and invited us in for a cold drink. Uncle Jack was a throw-net fisherman, and his walls were decorated with items he had found while fishing. One unusual glass float caught John’s eye and he said, “Oh! I really like that one.” Uncle Jack immediately took the float off its perch and handed it to John. “Here,” he said. “Take this with you.” John replied, “I can’t take this.” And then a discussion ensued between the two with Uncle Jack insisting and John trying to give it back.

The upshot of this was that John took the float home and wrote a column advising people not to admire things in the houses of Native Hawai’ians. Saying you “like” something is tantamount to saying you want it. Hawai’ians, particularly those old timers raised in rural Hawai’i, will insist that you take it with you. The innate generosity reminds me of the generosity of American Indians. They helped early immigrants to survive and were rewarded with the loss of their lands and livelihoods. They guided the vanguard of Euro-Americans across the continent and were killed and rounded up onto reservations. In Hawai’i the people lost their own government most of their land and most of their culture. Young Hawai’ians are making serious attempts to regain some of what was lost but the population of Hawai’ians, now down to about ten percent in their own islands, has an uphill battle ahead.

On leaving Molokai, Uncle Jack handed me a white wrapped hind quarter of a deer. I asked when he had shot it. “Oh no,” he said, with a big grin. “Da buggah ran down from da hill, Sistah opened da freezer and da buggah jump right in.” So, when my luggage came down the ramp at the Maui Airport, amidst much Hawai’ian hilarity, it was accompanied by a leg of venison that may or may not have been shot during hunting season.

My fondest memory of Hawai’ian generosity is of a drive I took around the unpaved portion of East Maui. At one point in the graveled road near Kaupo there was a one way stretch that wove down into a gulch and back up the other side. Cars and trucks couldn’t pass so you looked down to see if anyone was coming, and when you saw the dust cloud you waited your turn. On the day in question I was returning the back way from Kipahulu. I looked down and saw that an old truck, travelling very slowly, had started down the opposite side. I was stuck in the heat with nothing to do but wait. After what seemed like an hour, but was probably ten minutes, the old truck crawled up the hill and as it passed, an elderly Hawai’ian man reached over and handed me a can of beer from a cooler sitting next to him on the seat. He said nothing and drove on. Sitting in a government car in uniform on a blazing hot day, I considered the propriety of the situation, cracked open the ice-cold can and sucked down the coldest and best beer I can ever remember drinking.

 

The Cabin in Gustavus is as solid as ever. I keep expecting something bad to greet me when I show up in summer and I am always pleased when it doesn't. Narda spent a week and we got in a couple of short Kayak trips and lots of bicycling. Sitting around the wood cook stove in the evening is about as cozy as can be. I stayed another week and a half to do some cabin maintenance, read some interesting books and get some writing done.

The outhouse without walls has not been pushed over by bears and, in the unlikely event that vandals invade Gustavus, they won't be able to find it anyway. I painted it red so visitors who drank too much could find it when they wander back in the woods for a visit. It may be the most photographed potty in the western hemisphere. If you are wondering about the lack of walls, we wanted to be on the lookout for bears. I even thought of having a couple of rear-view mirrors from some wrecked cars installed but never did. Believe it or not, an outhouse in the middle of ten acres of woods is the best of many options for dealing with waste. People who have installed Clivus-Multrim or other ecologically recommended systems here have often had to heat them and keep little fans running to keep them operating. I keep a porta-potty in the cabin for bear-seige events.

My friend Jim Mackovjiak invited me to fish with him so I didn't even launch the skiff this year. Due to his largess I came home with 25 pounds of halibut all frozen and shrink wrapped by Pep's Packing. At around twenty bucks a pound at the local markets it's gold. 

There is a small Saturday market outside the Sunnyside Store where people sell local crafts, art, a few veggies and locally made cosmetics. I parked the Cabella's folding chair Narda bought for me out in the market and sold and signed more than a dozen copies of Kolea. The chair is equipped with what I'd call a fold out beer table and the store sells lattes and hot soup and sandwiches, so I was having a pretty good afternoon shooting the bull with all the aging hippies and buddies I have known for going on five decades.

It happens that there is a writer's group in Gustavus. I think my novel is at least the twentieth book published by Gustavus authors. People get together once a week for coffee and read and criticize each others work, The attendees vary from a seventeen year old young woman who writes very good poetry to some of us over seventy who have written novels, memoirs and other works.

There are also music groups. The library bought a bunch of ukuleles and people gather for strumming on a weekly basis. There is also a music night at the library. You have probably not experienced music played by guitars, both acoustic and electric, mandolins, saxophones, flutes, violins and whatever anyone else plays, executed by folks with varied amounts of skill, all at the same time. When solo time comes around, a mandolin accompanied old English folk song, performed by a matronly lady, may be followed by some hard licks on an electric guitar pumped out by an under twenty guy. Somebody usually has some kind of drum. 

The music stuff reminds me of the odd phenomenon one finds in remote places. In the bush, people of really varied backgrounds share recreation and other social happenings. The national profile of divisiveness has modified that for the worse, but when we had a forest fire a few years ago, people who get their politics from Rush Limbaugh and Fox News were shoulder to shoulder with Vegans and those who get their politics from Mother Jones. There is a friend of mine who is very conservative. If I have a heart attack, I expect it will be her, a volunteer EMT on the fire department that does the most to keep me alive. Looking at the current national political silliness, I think about the bumper sticker I saw: Less Barking, More Wagging. Maybe Less Shouting and More Strumming.

Gustavus, Alaska August 1, 2015

 

It’s seven A.M. and the Alaska Ferry, M.V. Le Conte is leaving the Auke Bay terminal in Juneau and headed for my second home. Forty seven years ago, with a young family, I made this same trip in a Grumman Goose sea-plane. Since my assignment as a Park Ranger at Glacier Bay National Monument in 1968, the magic of the place has drawn me back every year but one. Back in the day, there was no ferry and no visiting cruise ships. The eight passenger Grumman amphibians either landed on the old military field at Gustavus or plunked down in Bartlett Cove, ran up on the beach at the newly constructed Glacier Bay Lodge and unloaded the luggage from the cargo hold in the nose of the plane. Today, with the fog down on the water, this is probably a lousy day to fly in a small plane, so Narda and I are taking the ferry.

In 1974, I left the Park Service and took a self-funded “sabbatical” year and, with my family built a cabin with a chain saw and hand tools. The cabin has lasted well. Unless bears have ripped into it, everything should be fine and awaiting a couple of weeks of deceleration. Even if they have, as long as they are not in residence, it just means clean-up and repairs; not uncommon in the north. Bears have never bothered my cabin. Rigorous care with food waste can keep them from bad behavior. The little community of Gustavus runs the best waste recovery and recycling programs of any community I know of: big or small.

The Gustavus portion of the foreland was carved out of the National Monument because of homesteads occupied by some hardy souls trying to scratch a living from the land and hoping to strike it rich on mining prospects up in Glacier Bay. The glaciers have retreated sixty or seventy miles in the past two centuries, and early miners could follow mineralized zones with no soil or vegetation covering them. Plenty of minerals were found but no big mining operation ensued before the congress made it a National Park, and mining was closed down. Today people prospect for fantastic views of the glacier ice calving small icebergs into the water, and frequent views of whales, bears and many extraordinary birds.

Gustavus has become a gateway town for visitors to the National Park and a home to artists, writers and people who want to live (semi) off the grid. During summer, a daily Alaska Airlines Jet brings people out and there are many options for small plane connections all over Southeast Alaska. A small hydroelectric plant supplies almost everyone with electricity. My cabin is one of the last hold outs. I suspect if I wintered over here, I’d plug into the grid, but it is peaceful out in the woods and in summer. I can read by the light of the long days just by sitting at the window. There’s a hand pump and rain gutter for water, and an outhouse back in the woods. Narda got tired of bucket-bathing on the pallet behind the cabin and made me put in a shower tent for privacy. We hand-cut firewood each summer, and ride our bikes to get groceries or to visit, and I always come back home more fit than when I arrive.

Sometimes I can climb a ladder and stick my head out the upper window to make a cell phone call, but it usually requires a bike ride to areas a mile or so away that can get cell signals. A bike ride four miles to the volunteer run library gives internet access and entre to a wonderful supply of reading material. There are stores for groceries and supplies and a gas station for the cars, trucks and boats. I keep a fourteen foot outboard skiff available to catch fresh fish and for trips to islands in Icy Straits. There is also a folding double kayak in the cabin for wilderness paddles in the park.

I consider myself a lucky person. Three of my grandkids, my parents and one sister and lots of Narda’s Family have visited and shared the beauty and solitude.