Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma

Remembering the little Eskimo girl

On July 4, 1976, the United States of America celebrated its 200th birthday. On July 27, 1976, I celebrated my 50th birthday. I was one-fourth as old as our nation.

Did these events trigger a midlife crisis? Maybe so, but I didn't buy a red Corvette. I quit a good job at Southern California Edison's Terminal Island Power Plant, and the week following my birthday I signed the workbook at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union hall in Fairbanks, Alaska. I was going to work the big job – the big job. My going to work on the Trans Alaskan Pipeline was not a certainty, so my wife, Ann, went with me. We would at least have a vacation together. We rented a car and drove to Mount McKinley National Park, which has since been renamed Denali National Park and Preserve. After a week of touring central Alaska, Ann returned home, and I found a place to live while my name worked its way up on the out-of-work book.

A woman, whose husband was working as a carpenter on the pipeline, had turned her three

bedroom, one bath home into a rooming house. She put six Army-surplus double bunks in

two bedrooms. Trying to sleep with the sounds and smells of 11 other men in close proximity reminded me of my journey home on a crowded World War II troop ship. My first job was a short one in maintenance at a line camp high in the Brooks Range. Each day crews would ride busses from the camp and build sections of the 48-inch pipeline. My duties were in camp maintenance, getting all the barracks oil burning heaters working before the first

snowfall.

My second job was at Pump Station No. One where the oil from the two sections for ARCO

and BP of the North Slope oil field is metered and sent south to the tanker port at Valdez.

The electrical circuitry in the metering building was interesting, challenging and even fun, but my fondest memories are of pulling on my parka and walking to the warehouse for tools or material.

It was cold. As cold as 50 degrees below, but I had the proper clothing. I'd felt colder when I worked in Wyoming at 10 degrees above.

During the Arctic winter days, the sun did not rise above the horizon. There would be a rosy

glow at the horizon, blending into a faint blue that graduated darker and darker to a star filled

blackness. I saw the Northern Lights dance across that blackness. I stood and watched the

contrails of jet planes flying the polar route. I watched as those trails closed from opposite

directions, passed and paralleled in the blackness. I pictured passengers seated in warm

cabins with cool drinks in their hands.

I paused and risked frostbite when making a contribution to the amber bell curve that rose in height until the summer melt down. But my destination was the "tool crib" and "the little Eskimo girl." I would have another lesson in the Inuit language. The girl was not a village girl. She was a city girl and a college graduate. English had been the only language she knew and the only language spoken by her parents. After her studies at the University of Alaska at Anchorage, she could converse with her grandparents in their native language.

The student of language was now the teacher. She would write words and phrases phonetically

and coach me on pronunciation, laughing at my California accent. I acquired a 50–60-word vocabulary, maybe more. I got passing grades on "hello," "goodbye" and "have a nice day." She was the "professor," and because of my white hair, I was the "arctic fox." But unlike the fox, my hair did not turn brown in the summer.

When working 10-12 hours, seven days a week, you need to steal a little time for fun. The little Eskimo girl's fun-loving personality made her even "cuter" than her picture. I asked if it was true that Eskimos rubbed noses to show affection. Without hesitation, or lost motion, she rose up on tippy toes, leaned though the Dutch door, put her hand to my neck, pulled me down, rubbed her nose across mine and with a wide smile answered, "Only with people we really like."

When I returned to my Southern California home, I lost my bilingual skill. There being so

few Innuits with whom to strike up a conversation.

 

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