To start reading from the beginning, go to May 11, 2008.
M.O. and Donny were home for a couple of weeks from school. M.O. from Duluth and Donny from Fairbanks. It may have been spring break but frigid temperatures and a thick layer of ice and snow covered any evidence of spring on the Seward Peninsula.
M.O. who rarely had much to say or do with me surprised me by inviting me to accompany him on a charter to White Mountain. I had been to White Mountain twice before. My snowmobile trip with Jimmy had been aborted but I had gone with M.O. and Sister to dig bits of charred bone remains from Koke's July crash. Another time months previous, in the summer, Donny had taken me with him on a charter flight to White Mountain on the Niukluk and the Fish Rivers.* On that trip, somewhere over Golovin Bay, a spiral of smoke rose from the plane's cabin floor beneath Donny's feet. A thin red open-ended wire was burning. Donny quickly began stomping on it until he vanquished the small smoldering flame.
Somehow, as a child, I developed the ability to shut down when confronted with threatening situations.† That little bit of wire could have easily developed into a life threatening situation. My "ability" to shut down when threatened and knowing it would do no good for my pilot, Donny, to have me panic caused me to simply ask when the smoke dissipated, "Was that wire important?" He replied simply, "Naw." I don't know if he was lying but, as a pilot, he knew it would do no good to frighten his passenger.
Some weeks later, summer's end, I was standing outside the store when Maggie burst out of the house. We had a clear unobstructed view of Donny landing his plane the other side of the village. He had just returned from a trip to Nome with a load of gas and oil in 50 gallon drums. Maggie was waving a towel and yelling at Donny in the plane. There was no way he can hear you I thought. I figured he had a phone call and thought it strange for her to be so adamant about his taking it. Normally the inconvenience of one phone in the store servicing the entire village caused everyone to be nonchalant or very patient about receiving or making phone calls. (This is pre-cell phone era.) But then I saw what she had seen in the house moments earlier. In the house she could see him arrive but, from the house he had to still be in the air banking in preparation for landing several minutes from actually touching down. Now Donny had landed and was taxiing to a quicker than normal stop and we all saw what the problem was. Flames were spurting from the fuselage. By the time I had processed it all Donny had jumped out of the plane then, to Maggie's and my horror, he jumped back into the cabin and began flinging the 50 gallon drums of fuel out and onto the runway.
I wonder now if that thin red wire was the culprit.
(to be continued) copyright Tamara Ann Burgh, all rights reserved
*My ancestry is of the Fish River tribe: White Mountain is a city in Nome Census Area, Alaska, United States. At the 2000 census the population was 203. The city is an Iġaluiђmuit (Fish River tribe) Iñupiat village, with historical influences from and relationships with Kawerak and Yupiaq Eskimos. 86.2% of the population is Alaska Native or part Native. Subsistence activities are prevalent. White Mountain is the only village on the Seward Peninsula located inland, not on the ocean. Wickipedia
†My elderly mother does this when I'm angry and adamantly trying to resolve an issue. It drives me absolutely insane.
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White Mountain Picture taken from http://www.google.com/
- NOTE: my blog will have a new address at http://tburgh.wordpress.com the end of May.
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