Joe

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It's worth a trip to see Alaska's vast wilderness and majestic scenery. But its people are at least as impressive. Characters like Bill, I reckon, are more common there than in the lower 48.

I met Joe while working as a deckhand on a "Captain" Mobley's barge in the Yukon flats in 1977. I got the job because a previous deckhand had broken his arm while winching off a sandbar on Birch Creek. Mobley hadn't wanted to pay for a proper boat pilot so made the mistake of going up the smaller mouth of Birch Creek and was frequently grounded. That trip took weeks instead of days, and the barge was behind schedule.

We loaded up at Fort Yukon in late June: 50,000 gallons of diesel fuel for the village generator in Chalkyitsik, on the Black River. Joe knew the river, so Mobley hired him to pilot. Joe lived in Fort Yukon with his wife, Diane, and an assortment of dogs and buildings, one of which he let me sleep in. His dogs would occasionally join others in town at night barking at some real or imagined threat. In a brief lull I could hear Joe say "Shut up," and all his dogs (at least) would cease their barking.

The barge headed up the Porcupine to the Black River, water levels dropping. On the Black we found ourselves scraping bottom. It was late when the hull slid onto a sandbar that we couldn't winch off of, so the captain let us sleep; we would try in the morning. Before going to bed we put a stick in the bank of the river where the water met the shore. Next morning the water had dropped four inches. The barge wasn't going anywhere before the next rain, so Joe and I took a canoe back to Fort Yukon.

Joe and I corresponded occasionally after that summer. I had intended to write about Joe, but reviewing a letter he wrote in 1979 convinced me I couldn't improve on his own account. So I'm publishing his letter here, including an endorsement of a now defunct company, as a snapshot of life on the last frontier.

January 5, 1979

Fort Yukon, Alaska

Tim,

Received your letter a few minutes ago and since I’m sitting home “babysitting” I thought I’d get a letter off to you.

I don’t know how to type but I’ve owned a typewriter for over ten years now and thought it’s time to get some use out of the thing, so I’m trying to learn how. Please bear with me and maybe you can make some sense out of this.

You asked quite a few good questions, and you’re sure to be interested in some of the answers. Then I will have a few questions to ask you.

We are going to have another baby this summer, then it will be four. Also we are down to two dogs now and using just snow-goes for transportation. We bought a 1959 Dodge flatbed truck and shipped it in on the barge. I use it in the summer and fall. Mostly to haul water and firewood. It’s a lot easier to cut and haul wood in the fall by truck than waiting and doing it in the winter with the sno-go. I’m always too busy trapping in the winter anyhow.

You sure couldn’t find anything around here for $45 a month, if you could even find a place for sale. [I had told him of the land contract we took over for our first home, 600 sq ft for $6500.]

The dog you said you found on Birch Creek? Well I have a little background on that one. Shortly after you left Fort Yukon the State Troopers found a car parked near the Birch Creek bridge on the Steese Highway. The car belonged to a fellow that had escaped from the federal prison. He was doing time on a cocaine dealing charge. Well he escaped; met his girlfriend in Anchorage; bought 10 rifles, 3 pistols, 15 cases of ammo, grub, winter gear, etc. and started floating down Birch Creek on a raft. He planned to build a cabin on the creek and spend the winter there while things cooled off. I guess the police figured out what he was up to and flew up and down the creek looking for him. He had planned to hold off the police with all of the firearms he had, but they landed downstream from where they saw him floating along and waited for him to come floating by. I guess they caught him floating down the creek like a sitting duck without a shot fired. Jim and I sat in as jail guards when they brought him into Fort Yukon. He said that he had a dog and it ran away and was left behind on Birch Creek. It’s my theory that is where your dog came from. How’s that grab you?

We’ve been having what we call mild weather here: it hasn’t been colder than -50 degrees f. more than a few days so far. A little more snow than usual.

Trapping has been good, though it could always be better. Pres. Carter is doing his best to put us out of business though. When Carter signed the Antiquities Act into effect last month it put 10,600,000 acres of the Yukon Flats into National Monuments in which trapping will not be allowed as we know it now. That is we will be able to trap to some extent, but will not be able to sell the fur. This will put me out of business since the majority of our income is from trapping and selling our fur. Jim and I are now in the process of packing an outfit to move over to his cabin on Kevinjek Creek, some 175 miles east of here. It is just out of the boundaries of the new National Monument, which means we will be able to trap and sell the fur, but since is is so far away we won’t be able to come in and visit our wives since travelling the 175 miles to Fort Yukon would be impractical, expensive, and too time consuming.

Close to 80 million acres of Alaska land are included in these monuments, with 666 trappers on record trapping within the boundaries, earning about $887,015.00 per year. I took these figures from a report I have concerning the Antiquities Act.

Last summer I worked for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game Division of Commercial Fisheries as a fisheries technician. During June and July I was in the Anvik/Grayling area on the lower Yukon River. I worked alone monitoring the commercial fishery. When fishing was closed there I moved back to Fort Yukon. Then in October I went back to work on the Sheenjek doing some data collecting and sampling salmon. It was interesting work and I hope to work there again next summer.

Diane’s sister Mabel is renting the large two-room cabin from us now. I sold the small frame building that you camped in and towed it away to the new owner’s property with a cat. Last summer we started building a new log cabin near where the frame building stood. The new cabin is 15’ x 15’ with a wood burning range and heater. Also a sleeping and storage loft. This coming summer we hope to have time, money, and materials to finish it.

Captain Mobley is another story.

I was called up a year ago last fall (the same season you and I worked for him). Mobley wanted me, my boat, and motor up at the barge where it was stuck when you and I quit.

I went up there and agreed to help him get the barge moved for $75.00 a day for my boat and $35.00 a day for me, he would pay all gas, oil, and groceries. We winched for a week and finally got the thing moved, but only after the water came up some. Before that the water got so low that the barge was high and dry and the river was only 12” deep at the deepest place. Mobley had hired some kind of expert bargeman from Homer and the two of us strung a cable and winched for 16 hours a day, while Mobley sat and watched us. When we finally got the thing floating Mobley got excited and ran it aground about 2 miles below where it was stuck before. Two more days of winching and we were floating again.

Mobley decided to park the barge in a slough and leave it there for the winter, which he did. The people from Chalkyitsik and Fort Yukon stole all the drums of gas and oil. Also propane, tools, etc. . Then when spring rolled around and the water started rising he thought the ice might freeze the barge down so he dynamited it out and cracked the hull. Finally he went belly up and sold the whole thing to Roy Smyth and Albert Carroll. Albert is Diane’s uncle and Smyth was the guy that lived down on the river-bank where you stored your canoe. Mobley never paid me for all of the work I did for him.

Do you remember the time Mobley’s motor quit on us at the mouth of the Porcupine River and he bought another one from Smyth? Well Mobley tore the two motors apart and overhauled them. He made the two motors into one. And the first time I took the boat out the thing threw a connecting rod. Some overhaul job.

Here’s the address to the place that I order my glasses from:

Prism Optical Inc.

10992 N.W. 7th Avenue

North Miami, Florida 33168

I have ordered about three pairs from them myself and Diane probably the same. One time they sent the wrong lenses and I returned them. They were good about it and straightened everything out for me. I have the catalogue here in front now and they have a 1/2 off sale on all frames. The average price for frames runs about $20.00 regular price and glass lenses go for $9.95 a set, so it looks like you could get a pair for around $30.00. I don’t know if there’s any difference in quality between $100.00 glasses and $30.00 glasses or not. I guess you can order a pair and find out.

I’m down to my last 1/2 sheet of paper so will start thinking of closing.

A few questions: How long did it take you to line up Birch Creek to the bridge? What did the people at Birch Creek Village think of your little expedition? No one ever mentioned seeing you that I heard about. Did you run into any other people along the way? Do you still have your Chevy Pick-up truck?

Don’t think we have any relations in Michigan named Firmin. My mother’s relations live there and the name is Morand. Most of our relations in Mich. live in Essexville, Bay City, Kalamazoo, Midland and that’s about all I can think of now. We do have some cousins in Essexville named Petty also.

Jim and I will be leaving for the trapline soon. Expect to be back in March. Maybe I will hear from you again by that time.

Do you still have the tent I sold you? Did you get much use out of it?

Your friend, 

Joe Firmin  

With trapping becoming less feasible, Joe got a pilot license and started an aviation company in Fort Yukon. In 1992, while helping a biologist from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conduct a moose census, he crashed and died.

I hope this letter describing his life in central Alaska serves as one small tribute to him. It was a privilege to have known him.