This first one is down the hall from the kitchen so I get to see it often. I love this watercolor. It represents a place that was one of our all time favorite vacations and adventures-Kennicott Copper Mine in the Wrangell-St. Elias Mountains in Alaska. Bob and I traveled there the summer The Scribbler was 1 1/2 years old.We tried to travel light which is nearly impossible when you have a toddler! We even took her Pooh Bear who was almost as big as her. She slept with him all the time and we weren't sure how she would sleep in a strange place without him. Just getting there was an adventure. We had to travel about 6 hours or more to this tiny little town of which the name escapes me now. Once there, we began to travel 60 miles on a washboard road which used to be a railroad bed. It took us over 3 hours. We found that if we traveled a little over 30 mph that we kind of skimmed the tops of the washboard. Otherwise it was quite a jarring ride! You had to be careful of the railroad ties as they would often work themselves up to the top of the road and then you would ride over one, getting it caught in your wheel well and then it would high center you! I know this because it happened to us. All we had to do to recover was to back up :) Once you reached the end of the road, you parked your car and then you had to travel over the Copper River. Anyway, it was one raging river and we had to travel in a tram that was hand operated. Bob traveled over by himself with most of our gear and pulled himself over. Once across, he was able to pull The Scribbler and I over. On our way over, she lost her hat and kept saying, "hat,.....hat.....". Bob finally told her her hat was gone. It wasn't the last one she lost on this trip! Once across, we got in the van that had arrived from our lodge to carry us the remaining way. We stayed at this awesome lodge with all meals included. They were served family style in the dining room and were amazingly fresh and wholesome for being so remote. In the evening, they served HUGE chocolate chip cookies hot from the oven served with milk that I thought was fresh. It turned out to be powdered which I did not remember ever having tasted! We enjoyed this sitting on the covered porch overlooking the glacier field. The next day we took a ride further up the mountain where they dropped us off with a packed lunch. From there we hiked even further, often slipping and sliding on gravelly slate. Bob carried The Scribbler on a pack on his back. Our destination? the mine where the copper was mined and sent down the mountain. We traveled most of the day and although we didn't reach the mine so we could explore it, we did reach a point where we knew it was time to turn back. It had gotten so slippery that we were often taking one step up and sliding back a couple at a time! We made it safely back to our drop-off point to learn we had missed the van back to the lodge. We began walking back down certain the next van would stop to pick us up. They zoomed by us on their way up and only slowed down enough on their return to hand us the hat that The Scribbler had dropped. I couldn't believe we had to continue down the mountain all the way! We were exhausted! We did arrive eventually and just in time for dinner. I remember we ate in our barefeet as my feet were so sore and blistered. We thought our little one would be famished and exhausted as well, but she didn't eat and didn't sleep much that night either. We think she may have been suffering from heat exhaustion. I think she even threw up!
The next day we took it a bit easier or so we thought. We decided to explore the buildings in the camp town as well as the mine pictured in our watercolor. However, upon entering one of the buildings, The Scribbler decided to push up in her backpack as Bob walked through a door banging her head on the door frame.
She screamed and screamed and we called an end to our exploring.
The story of this area involved the copper being found by two men who saw green in the hills. Thinking it was grass for their horses, they went there only to find a huge amount of copper ore. This company town sprung up around this find and the miners with their families moved in. Nearby another town sprang up, one that included the gambling halls, saloons and brothels where those "family" men could spend their hard earned money come payday. The railroad came in to haul out the copper, but it only came in with no turnaround so it had to back up all the way out. One day, when the copper had just about run its course, the train arrived and told them it was the last train in AND out. If anyone wanted to come they had to come now so families who were just setting down to supper, left their tables set with food and grabbed what they could carry to make the last train. After they were gone, the town of ill repute, used the company town as their "shopping mall" for awhile until all was gone and it became a ghost town.
It was one of our favorite places to visit during out time in Alaska and we returned with two other couples the following summer. We had a great time with them too, not repeating some of our previous mistakes. This watercolor was purchased on this last trip as a memory of our time there. I would love to go there again and see the further changes time has wrought.
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