In May of 1989 I was hitch-hiking out of Whitehorse, Yukon Territories, with Alan Green, a British chap I had met a few days before. He, like me, was trying to get to Alaska.
How I got to be almost 1,600 miles north of the US/Canadian border with a young Brit (Alan was 21 years old at the time) is a story for another time. This story is about the generosity of a unique Alaskan family.
Alan and I had succeeded in getting rides from three different people (a camper who took us 2 miles up the road, a genuine Yukon Mountain man who was driving around with a shotgun across his lap who took us another 10 miles or so, and a semi-drunk German kayaker who got us about 40 miles further along the Al-Can).
So we stood on the side of an unpaved road in the middle of nowhere, cold as ice cubes. We walked constantly to stay warm, and jumped at every sound that came from the dense forest all around us. Large RV's would come into view every 10 minutes or so, and drive right on by - we looked, I'm sure, like two card-carrying members of Charles Manson's little clan.
Then a white Toyota minivan blazed on by. We didn't think much of it, just another vehicle that we cursed as it flew on past.
Five minutes later however, that same minivan approached us from the direction of Alaska. It came to a stop across the road from us and a young man's face poked out of the window and he asked us where we were headed.
I told him the both of us were trying to get to Alaska, at least Haines Junction. He replied that he and his brother were driving up to Fairbanks, and we were welcome to ride along.
The two brothers were Mike & Kirk Maynard - they had driven down to Whitehorse on an errand for their Dad, and now were headed back home.
The Maynard brothers lived in Fairbanks, which, though still 400 miles from Anchorage, was at least in Alaska and much more civilized than where we were standing. I had been on the road for over a week, unshaven and unwashed, and must have looked like Charles Manson's taller, fatter brother - but they gave Alan and I a ride in spite of that.
The brothers were both in their late teens, and very friendly. They asked what the hell we were doing in the middle of nowhere, Canada, and I told them I was making my way to Anchorage. They didn't pry as to the why I was making my way to Anchorage, which I appreciated, and our conversation stayed light and impersonal for the most part.
Alan regaled them with his adventurous trek from Merry Ol' England and across Canada as I drifted in and out of sleep.
It took about two hours to get to the nearest town northeast of Whitehorse, and they stopped there for fuel and to get some pizza. I didn't have much money (I think I was down to my last $20.00 at this point), but they wouldn't even hear my or Alan's offer to chip in - just told us half the pizza would go to waste if we hadn't been there with them.
I was very tired, and sleep kept winning me over as we continued northeast towards Fairbanks. I can't recall how long we spent on the road but I do remember one of the brothers waking me up at the U.S./Canadian border checkpoint when we made it to Alaska so I could show the border guards my ID, but everything else is a faded memory.
We got to their home in Fairbanks in the late morning hours on this day almost exactly 23 years ago. Their mother (Mickey) welcomed us to their home and gave us blankets and pillows and showed us two sofas to sleep on.
The next thing I can recall was being awoken by a boy of 10 or 12, and him telling me that breakfast was ready. I remember I washed my face in the bathroom before joining the Maynard's at the breakfast table.
The Maynard's included Dad (Ed), Mom (Mickey), the two older boys, and the younger son (Christopher). Everybody was as nice as people could possibly be. Mr. Maynard explained to Alan and I that he would be driving down to Anchorage later that day and we were more than welcome to ride along with him. I asked if there was anything we could do to repay their kindness, and Mrs. Maynard said we could help her clean out her horse's stable if we really wanted to.
So Alan & I did just that. We went out to the paddock with her after breakfast (the rest of the family having dispersed to their own chores) and grabbed shovels and pitchforks and cleaned away. It actually felt good to repay in this small way what to me was a tremendous act of kindness on the part of this family that did not know me from Adam.
Mrs. Maynard took us on a little tour of Fairbanks after we finished with the paddock. We paid a visit to a caribou and musk ox ranch and the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, and saw a few of the more prominent frost heaves.
Mr. Maynard was back at the house around one in the afternoon, and he and his wife took Alan and I out to lunch at a favorite local restaurant of theirs. That was another meal they would not let us pay for.
After lunch Mr. Maynard, Alan and I headed south along the George Parks highway to Anchorage. It was generally overcast and intermittently rainy, which, I was to learn, was the norm for May in Alaska, but we still were able to take in quite a bit of the grandeur of the Alaskan wilderness.
The drive was over 8 hours, but it seemed to go fast as I was overwhelmed by the vast expanses of forest and the incredible vistas that never seemed to end.
I clearly recall stopping at the Sheep Creek Lodge, a really nice, really huge log structure that I would return to many times after that initial visit, and seeing Mt McKinley (Denali for you purists) for the first time - there was very little cloud cover, unlike as seen in the photo above which I took a year later. In fact, Mt McKinley always seemed to be shrouded in clouds every time I had a chance to see it after that first sighting on my first full day in Alaska.
Mr. Maynard drove us to the Youth Hostel in Anchorage. I thought we made extraordinarily good time, for it seemed to be late afternoon. Mr. Maynard wished Alan and I the best of luck after we got our gear out of the trunk of the car and then sped off. I have never seen him or any other member of the Maynard family since, but they remain some of the best people I have ever known.
As we walked up to the check-in desk, the clerk mentioned that we were in luck, as he was about to close for the evening. I was stunned and asked what time it was - it was 9:30 at night - that was my introduction to the endless day of the Alaskan summer.
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