Bruce lands in Tenakee Springs after a kayak trip.
Dimitra with Evelyn Donovan in Utqiagvik.
Wedded in 2024, in a joining I call Gandalf marries a Hobbit.
Dear Readers: We invite you to contribute to a new column "I used to ..." where you can regale us with a story of your most memorable time living in Alaska. And tell us what you're doing now to cope with not being able to do what you did!
I met my husband Bruce Ware, on the M/V Columbia parting out and my first impression of him was, "Must be from Haines, they don't make hippies like that anymore." But he was from Tenakee Springs and was biking down to California "to party with the hippie chicks." Instead, he followed me to the East Coast like a puppy.
We've been together for 12 years now but only married in 2024.
When I alerted him to our anniversary this year, he asked "Is that a thing?"
I don't think I could be married to anyone other than an Alaskan. Who else would listen to my stories of being a journalist from the shores of the Arctic Ocean to the Aleutian Chain?
I don't have to explain the terms, or the thrills, or the terrors of living in the Bush.
His love of extreme kayaking in blizzards and mammoth waves, when he once slept on a beach and a bear walked across his face.
Or when he had a sailboat he didn't know how to tack and took it up Lynn Canal, narrowly avoiding being rammed by a cargo ship.
Or the many times he ran into a bear and they both agreed to ignore each other.
The three years I lived in Utqiagvik as editor of the Arctic Sounder, although I was the only one there, I flew across the tundra in planes ranging from a two-seater helicopter to a C130.
The fear I felt when hearing the pilot say as we once neared the Brooks Range, "The pass is snotty, I'm taking the back door," or "I know I saw a hole down there. I'm going back to look for it."
We are amazed to still be alive.
What now?
One summer we were lighthouse keepers of the coast of Massachusetts, another time we drove our 10-year-old hybrid Toyota Prius from Vermont to Alaska by way of Canada and hung out in the Yukon for a while.
The good thing about being a former Alaskan is the ability to sleep anywhere, so we just pulled into a side road or trail at night and inclined the seats. One time we tried sleeping in the back, but Bruce found it too claustrophobic and just threw himself on the ground.
We want to do that again.
As former adrenaline junkies, we've had to pursue other challenges.
Bruce goes to the local Y and lifts weights and at 70 is almost at his goal to press 225 pounds. He's losing weight before his knees give out.
At 76, I go there to the pool to recover from a knee replacement caused by an injury sustained in 1994, when I was catapulted off a freight sled on the shore-fast ice off Utqiagvik on my way out to a whaling camp. Luckily, I was a bike rider, even in the Arctic, and my quads sustained me for decades.
When the flocks of sandhill cranes pass over here and we hear their prehistoric cries, we run to the windows and are still in awe.
Only a fellow Alaskan could ever understand that.
Send your story to editor@seniorvoicealaska.com. The article should be under 750 words and also send a couple of high-resolution photos of what you did back then and what you're doing now. We await your story with anticipation.
