Lost and Found in Alaska. Questo articolo non è disponibile.Lost and Found in Alaska

Joel Rudinger takes us to Alaska when statehood was brand new, its frontier breathtaking--and dangerous. His is a physical and cultural journey where life, without exaggeration, is lived on the edge.

Growing up middle class in Ohio, Rudinger wills himself towards the extraordinary. First, with going to Alaska--of all places--for graduate school. Then taking on jobs for which he had no training or visible aptitude. Later he's hitchhiking the Alcan Highway with a lover, pushing himself repeatedly to physical and spiritual limits.

Rudinger tells his story in striking first-person detail. Events six decades old are told as though they happened just last summer, raw, not romanticized. Having left Ohio in 1960 a man-child, he returns four years later deeply experienced in all the ways of the world.

"Lost and Found in Alaska" is a must-read. For its history. For its exquisite capturing of frontier life. For the sheer courage of its author.

~Kurt Landefeld, author of Jack's Memoirs: Off the Road

27: Back in Fairbanks: Leda Revisited



With money in my pocket, the next day I flew into Anchorage. I got a taxi at the airport and went directly to the railroad station for a ticket to Fairbanks. The next train out wouldn't leave until the following morning, so I walked over the bridge to the Hofbrauhaus on Third Street for a beer and a sandwich. After my lunch, I went over to the piano and noodled around with my "Moonlight Sonata". Like the first time I was there, someone sent over a beer. I waved at a guy at the bar and wondered what he would have sent over if I had played "Danny Boy."

To walk to and from the terminal from town, you had to cross over the Ship Creek bridge, a narrow wooden walkway. A dozen fishermen lined the banks on both sides of Ship Creek trying to catch a salmon or a trout. I stood on the bridge, leaning on the railing to see if there was any action. After half an hour, a native man in a flannel cap and a parka snagged a fish and reeled it in. It was at least a foot long and enough of a catch to keep everyone else casting and reeling. I stayed to watch for half an hour, but no one else snagged anything so I went to the station to hang out and take a nap. The train was scheduled to leave Anchorage around 8:30 and I didn't want to miss it. It would be a long day. The train ride could take as much as ten hours if there were a lot of off-the-grid commuters or transit riders waiting along the tracks, and at this time of year there usually were.

When I got back to Fairbanks, I found out the deal I thought I had for the room was off the table. The Polands, the trailer park owners, had had a change of plans while I was gone and were not going to travel south. So, just back from Juneau, I had no place to stay. But I didn't dwell on it. Something would happen. The moving hands of the clock bring constant change.

I got a coffee and a slice of hot apple pie at the café across from the Fairbanks post office and, carrying my duffle and backpack, caught a ride with a student to the university. I went to the Bunnell building to see if Chuck Keim was in his office, but he was out. I peeked into my old office. It was empty. My next stop was the bookstore. As luck would have it, Leda was there. I told her about the Juneau trip and that the Polands had backed out of their offer. What she heard was that I was homeless. Again.