Why go to Alaska? It's far away and it has a reputation for being cold.
  Nonetheless, Upper Peninsula residents have been attracted to Alaska for years, some just going to visit or to work a short-term job, some putting down new roots there.
  Laila Whitfield of Marquette has two sons who earn their living in Alaska. Michael Hansen, the older son, could be teaching a sixth-grade class in the lower states but he prefers to teach in Chugiak, near Anchorage. He likes the kids, and he enjoys the camping, fishing, hiking and hunting.
  His brother, David Hansen, chooses to live in Bellingham, Washington, but he takes his thirty-two-foot boat, Eskimo Viking, to Bristol Bay for the months of June and July to fish for salmon. Four men, including his son, live on the boat as needed, bringing their catch to a processing plant in Alaska. He earns enough during those two months to support his family, but he, a bush pilot as well, takes caribou and moose hunters out in September and October.
  Norman Lind of Ishpeming and his wife Linda Pelto of Marquette moved to Anchorage about twenty years ago, lured by the favorable comments made by friends living there. Norman works in nuc-lear medicine and is an X-ray technician; Linda is a travel agent. They have become dyed-in-the-wool Alaskans in spite of the fact that Anchorage occasionally shakes like a bowlful of jelly during earthquake activity. Anchorage is now a modern city of about 250,000, with a good school system, the University of Alaska, art museums, libraries and lots of tourists. Pearl Pelto of Marquette visits her daughter and her family almost every year.
  Moving backward in time, people have gone to Alaska to work in the oil fields at Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean, to build the Alcan Highway, and during World War II to protect our country from a possible Japanese invasion. About a hundred years ago, the discovery of gold lured many hardy adventurers. Next we'll focus on two couples who went there in the twenties and thirties for very different reasons.

James and Ida Wenberg

Mr. Wenberg of Senter, a location outside of Dollar Bay in the Copper Country, was unemployed. The copper mines and mills were closed for almost two years after World War I because so much copper had been stockpiled during the war effort. He got a job from the U.S. government, but he had to go to Alaska to do the work. He left his wife Ida with his parents on a little farm and away he went for three years. He returned to get his wife and they were off again to the little town of Bethel, which is almost due west of Anchorage.
  His job was to learn more about the herds of caribou. For one thing, he counted caribou as they crossed the Kuskokwim River and some of its branches.
  He carried an alarm clock on a thong around his neck under his Eskimo parka to keep it warm; it helped him determine how many crossings there were in a specified length of time. After a lengthy period of time, the counters had to move up the river to another crossing spot. They lived in a wooden shelter which they would knock down and use as a raft. Their team of sled dogs ran along the bank and helped pull the raft upstream. At the new location, the raft was once again converted into a human shelter.
  Wenberg had some days off which he used to chop wood, hunt for food and run a trap line. Often his wife accompanied him as he trapped. Eventually they lived in a tent and cooked outdoors. Game and fish formed the major portion of their diet. But she somehow managed to make bread, too. Where he kept his alarm clock, she kept sourdough starter to prevent it from freezing.
  There were few white people in the area and the Wenbergs enjoyed learning about the indigenous Eskimos and Indian customs. Mrs. Wenberg was able to get pictures of some of the festivals they attended, but it wasn't always easy, for the women turned their faces away or giggled and hid behind their hands. She found some of their customs to be rather odd, and they were surprised by some of her actions, as well. For example, when she wore her high button shoes, they laughed and said she had "legs like a bird."
  During their years in Alaska, they acquired a son. A woman died shortly after giving birth to the baby. Her husband asked the Wenbergs if they would care for him while he was checking his trap line. He never came back, so they brought the baby back to Dollar Bay with them and adopted him.
  Mr. Wenberg, all told, spent ten years of his life in Alaska living in a primitive fashion. Mrs. Wenberg spent less time but she often said that in spite of the hardships, those were the happiest years of her life.

DeWayne and Evelyn Stebbins

During the depths of the Great Depression in the thirties, practically no jobs were available so many families had to rely on relief from the government. President Roosevelt felt that if families were given a forty of land and assistance in getting started, they could become self-sufficient. From this idea, the Matanuska Valley project was born. Under this plan, 203 families were moved, at government expense, from Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota to a fertile valley in Alaska. Among those selected to go were DeWayne and Evelyn Stebbins from Iron Mountain.
  They were a young couple who had been married only six months. He was a good farmer, a good woodsworker and not afraid of hard work; he was exactly the type of person needed for the venture. He was working in the woods at the time so he was asked to quit and go on relief to make himself eligible.
  It was intended that the colonists would make the valley their permanent home (although they were free to leave if things didn't work out), so there were tearful farewells in May 1935 as they boarded the train in Iron Mountain to join others on their journey to Seattle. But there weren't only tears. At that station and at other stops along the way, bands were playing, flags were flying and people cheered and waved. The project had captured the imagination of the American public.
  In Seattle, they boarded a U.S. Army transport ship, the U.S.S. Mihiel. They were berthed in the lower regions of the ship with men in one big compartment and women in another. The Pacific swells made many of them sick but the crew had thoughtfully provided several fifty-gallon drums in anticipation.
  Mr. and Mrs. Stebbens acquired a dog in Seattle, to join the forty-seven already aboard. Several cats and one canary also went with their owners to the land. Four school buses were aboard although there was not a school in Palmer, the closest town to the remote valley. Nor were there any houses.
  Their rough 1,250 mile sea voyage along the Outside Passage ended in Seward. The men were taken to the valley that very day to scout the area and to draw lots for position in line when the drawing for the forties would be held.
  On May 23, the women left Seward going by train over and around mountains to Anchorage, which at that time had a population of 2,100. From there they took another train to Palmer, a whistle-stop with a post office and a small general store.
  The drawing for forties must have been exciting. Each man took his turn taking a numbered slip from a Bull Durham box. Mr. and Mrs. Stebbens got a forty about three or four miles from the post office with no road near it. Some people had tried to farm in the valley earlier but had abandoned their farms, so there was some cleared land. But the Stebbens' land was covered with small trees, mainly birch.
  Temporary camps had been set up, with each family getting a sixteen-by-twenty-foot tent with a wooden floor and wooden sides. Each tent contained a wood range and cots and mattresses. Log homes were to be built for each family before cold weather set in but until then their tent was their castle. There was no electricity, of course, and water had to be carried from central wells.
  Food was available from the commissary, which was surprisingly well stocked. Each family, depending on the number of children, was told how much they could charge at the store per month. Some spent lavishly and eventually had to settle up. Later they were given "bingles" to use like cash. When the salmon run started, the men fished diligently and the women had cooperative canning bees using tin cans which were provided rather than jars. Mrs. Stebbins canned about 100 quarts of amaranth (pigweed) the first year she was there. She liked it but her husband wasn't overly fond of it.
  Both blueberries and cranberries were abundant. Women generally went out in groups to pick because there was always the possibility of bumping into a bear. Mr. Stebbins insisted that his wife wear a small gun, which he taught her to use.
  The federal government loaned settlers about $3,000 at three percent interest for the forty of land and the house. It was a paper loan which the settlers were expected to begin paying back when their crops began to produce income. Many people have heard of the enormous cabbages and turnips raised in the Matanuska Valley, where daylight is practically endless during the summer months and where the soil is very fertile. But the first summer was so hectic trying to get land cleared and houses built that not much was raised. The Civilian Conservation Corps (another of Roose-velt's New Deal projects) sent several hundred young men to help in house construction, but a problem was that logs needed to dry for several months before being used. Some people became discouraged and went home; in fact, by the end of the first year, sixty of the 203 families had left the valley.
  Mrs. Stebbins had hoped for a log house, but with winter approaching she settled for a frame house, a lovely two-story home with three bedrooms upstairs. Her husband did much of the work himself.
Within a month of their arrival, some cows, pigs and horses arrived. There weren't enough for all who wanted them, so again drawings were necessary. The Stebbins drew a cow ($100 on their tab) and a pig ($48). The settlers really cooperated with each other. The Stebbins gave much of their milk to those who had drawn dry cows, knowing that when their cow went dry, they in turn would get milk from their neighbors. They added to their men-agerie by acquiring a small flock of sheep.
  They stayed in the valley for almost five years, during which time they had only one marketable crop. They turned their house and land back to the Association and moved to Anchorage.
  Mrs. Stebbins' brother Jack joined them in the valley after he graduated from high school. When they went to Anchorage, together the two men built a new house. World War IIwas fast approaching so they worked in construction as well, readying bases for service personnel.
  Mrs. Stebbins came back to the Upper Peninsula with three children, all of whom had been born in Alaska. Her husband came later. They became Marquette residents. Evelyn now lives alone, for DeWayne died several years ago.
  She remembers the beautiful mountains, the unending summer days, the visiting back and forth among the settlers, hitching rides in the backs of trucks, waiting for mail from the lower states which was delivered once a week, the rare vacation trips to Anchorage while they lived in the valley. The hardships seem to have been forgotten.

Although there is no longer any organized emmigration to Alaska, the call of its wilds continues to lure those who are looking for adventure and beauty, wealth and wilderness—much the same way the U.P. attracts its visitors and residents.

Note: Evelyn Stebbins wrote a regular column for the Iron Mountain News. Much of this information came from there; additional information was taken from the Internet from a section entitled "Arctic/Northern Culture."

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