The Lodge

My name is Troy Reid and at 25, I had worked my way up to Forman and had saved quite a bit of money. Before starting high school, I wanted to be a mechanic. I work my way through high school and beyond with an apprenticeship at the local shop and two years after my apprenticeship, I earn my ASE truck master.

I decided I wanted to see some of the country, so I loaded my camper and pick up and took off for Alaska. I found a good job at one of the trucking companies and worked there for almost a year. During that time, I found that I like to fly and became friends with a Bush pilot named Bill Schuyler. I flew a lot with him while he was delivering supplies to the back country and remote villages.

The next summer work was slow at the shop I was laid off for a few months; I found a summer job at one of the hunting and fishing lodges in the back country. Not being experienced at being a guide, I did most of the grunt work of hauling supplies, setting up camps and cooking, it was something new, and I really enjoyed it.

That winter I went back to work for the trucking company. On a trip while flying with Bill, I have seen an old abandoned mining camp that sat beside a lake it had rolling hills and mountains on one side and downstream from the lake, a lot of swampland. Checking into the property, I found that it had been abandoned. Bill and I landed on the lake and checked out the property, on a trip to a remote village. The hills around the lake were full of game. The lake was teeming with fish; downstream around the swamp we found it loaded with moose. I managed to pick it up for a few years of back taxes that were due. So I now own the piece of property. As soon as work slacked off for the summer I loaded up my camping gear and enough supplies to last me for a month, along with my M1 Garand, my 454 Taurus, and my handheld radio and had Bill fly me in and drop me off. We made plans to contact each other by radio at six o'clock every night.

When the mining company abandoned the mine, they left most of their equipment intact. The buildings were in good shape, there was the cook shack and the bunkhouse and what I guess to be the workshop. Three hours later I had the cook shack pretty well cleaned up, and set up camp there. The doors and windows had been boarded up, which kept all the animals out. The shack was well insulated, airtight and had double pane windows. There were two rooms on the side of the building. One would've been the bedroom for the cook. The other was probably an office with an indoor toilet between the two of them. The place had been wired for electricity and there was a three holer, out back that was still workable. I brought enough wood in to last for a couple of days and made my bed in the bedroom. There was a can in the cupboard that's still had kerosene in it, I filled up two lamps and lit them and started a fire in the stove. It was smoking badly. I went outside and looked at the stovepipe, and it had a can over the top of it, which I remove, then the stove worked really well.

At six, Bill called and we talked for a few minutes. I filled him in on what I had done, and told him everything was okay.

I was up early the next morning and was exploring the camp some more. I removed the boards from the bunkhouse door. It was dirty, but in great shape it had 24 bunks and two potbelly stoves in the middle of the room with tables and benches. It had electric and three toilets and three showers. In the back, it had two rooms, with a bathroom between them. If I can get this stuff to work it's going to be a great hunting lodge.

I was beginning to get the feeling that they had not planned to abandon the mine. But only shut it down and plan to come back later, but never made it.

The workshop was very well built out of metal and still locked up solid. The two big sliding doors were locked from the inside, and the windows had metal shutters over them.

The small entry door had a good lock on it. Backing down the side of the building about 20 feet and pulled my 454 took careful aim and unlock the lock. It was dark inside, and I couldn't see anything I found the latch on the first sliding door and opened it. One surprise waited for me. There sat a Caterpillar 420E backhoe and D4 Caterpillar. They hadn't run for 10 years. It would take a little work, but I could get them running again.

All the machinery was still in the shop, including a good machine shop. On the other end of building was another door. I carefully opened it and with my small flashlight looked in, one more surprise. There sat an electric generator and a control panel. A water turbine turned the generator through a gearbox; fed by an 8-inch water pipe, with a diverter valve controlled by a governor and a shutoff valve, this was a real nice setup.

Outside behind the shed about 200 feet was the stream coming down off the mountain, going over to the stream, there was an old trail, going up beside the stream that was overgrown and hard to find my way, but eventually I found a cement building sitting beside the stream, which came out of a cave and a 8-inch pipe went into the cave. In the cement, building was a diverter valve that sent the water back out into the stream or to a pipe that was buried.

I oiled up the generator and loosened up the governor and oiled it. The shutoff valve was off. I went back up the mountain and turned the valve, which sent the water into the pipe. Down at the generator, you could hear the water running through the pipe. I slowly open the shutoff valve, and the turbine and generator started to spin; the voltmeter came up to 240 and held steady. All the lights in the power room came on; next to the generator set a very large air compressor. I thought what the heck and push the start button for the compressor. It came up to speed in about five seconds and 30 seconds later; the air pressure gauge was up to 50. I turned it off.

I turned on the circuit breaker marked cookhouse and open the water valve marked cook. The outside lights were all on to the shed, bunkhouse and cookhouse. Back in the shack the water was running in the sink, shower, and the toilets were full. I could hear the water heater filling up. There was a six burner electric range, two refrigerators and two freezers. I plugged in one refrigerator, and it started.

It was almost 6, and I called Bill. He was 50 miles north and heading back to base. I asked him if he had time to stop. I had something I needed to talk to him about. He said he'd see me in half an hour. A half-hour later, he made a pass over the lake swung around and came in for landing. As he pulled up to shore I could see he had another passenger with him. It was Kevin Ward, the game warden for the vicinity. I had met him last year when I was working at the other lodge. This was good timing because I needed to talk to him too. I showed them around, and they couldn't believe what I had. I talked to Bill about going into partnership with him to get people in and out of here and to Kevin to make sure everything was legal. Kevin told me the original owner, and his foreman had been killed by a bear one night, and the owner's wife wanted nothing more to do with the place. The mine had never produced anything.

I spent the next few days working on the cat. Bill picked me up and took me to town. I bought a lot of supplies and food and had a whole planeload with the parts and oil, lubes and paint. The next day I had the cat running and spent the following three days clearing all the brush and saplings from the yard. It really opened the place up. The next two weeks I spent cleaning and painting the buildings inside and out.

Bill was real busy bringing in other supplies; one refrigerator and one freezer were full. We brought in four boats and four trolling motors. The salmon was now running, and we were averaging four fishing parties a week.

The last time I was in town. I called my brother Eric to see what he was doing. He had been laid off and was not working. I told him to load my things that I left with him and to come up I needed his help.

Eric took the bedroom in the bunkhouse, and we started to rebuild the inside of the bunkhouse into eight separate rooms with four bunks in each room, giving the guest some privacy and a common area for all the guests. We brought in four more boats and motors. Fishing was now a high gear.

Even with my brother's help there was more work than I can handle. Cooking took a lot of time; I needed someone to cook. When I talked to Bill I had him put an ad in the paper.

Six people answered the ad. One was from a gal in Idaho; her name was Janet Woodlone just back from Afghanistan. She did two tours of duty, cooking at one of the bases. I called her on the next trip to town. She said she was tired of the 120° and the desert. I told her there was no desert here. The work would last about six months. Breakfast should be on the table by five with a sack lunch, with a break during the day, and supper around six. She told me that would be easier than what she did in the Army, and she would like to try. We talked another fifteen minute. I told her what to expect and what she would find here and to contact Bill's Aviation when she arrived at the airport.

I moved my stuff into to the other room where I had my Ham Radio gear set up and cleaned up things.

At 5:30, two days later Bill called and said he would be landing in about fifteen minutes.

Bill had a woman passenger with him. I figured it must be Janet. She looked to be about 25, brown shoulder-length hair, and wearing her Army fatigues.

As I approached I said, "How do you like my desert."

She was still looking around and said, "This place is definitely not a desert, and it's beautiful."

I told her I hoped you like it here. We unloaded her things, and Bill took off. We carried her things to the Cook shack, and I showed her to her room.

I said, "I'm sorry it's not any larger."

She told me this was almost a palace compared to the tent she had lived in, in Afghanistan. I showed her around the place; I introduced her to Eric, and a couple of the guests, back in the shack supper was a little late, but the guests didn't mind. Later, I helped her put her thing's away. With Jan working things were going a lot smoother and faster.

Jan said her dad was a ham and was on the 40 meters net, at 7225 every night at nine. After supper and when the place was cleaned up. We sat around and talked for about an hour. Jan was easy to talk to and had a great personality and at eight o'clock, an hour's time difference, I turned my radio on to 7.225 fired up the amplifier, swung the antenna to the South, Southeast. Minutes later Jan heard her dad; I broke in and ask him to move to 7.240 up the dial. After protocol, I introduced myself as Troy, his handle was Mike; I told him I had someone here that wanted to talk to him.

Jan took the mic and said, "Hi dad,"

She talked to her dad and her mom Rita for about fifteen minutes and made arrangements to talk at 8:30 every night.

A couple of weeks have gone by. I couldn't believe how well things are going, in the morning I've been working on the road the minor's use, after ten years it was practically gone. It needed four new bridges and a lot of Cat work. In the evening, I cleaned the fish, package and froze them for shipment.

This part of the country needed an aircraft repeating station to help relay messages between the planes and town, so I put in a repeater.

Flying supplies in by air is very expensive. And the road is still very rough. On one trip to town, I went over and talked to my old boss. He had an army 6 x 6 out back that he hadn't used in a couple of years. I asked him about it, and he said they didn't have any more use for it. It was just too slow for the highway. I picked it up for a good price, as soon as I finished one more bridge with the 6-wheel drive, I could probably make it up to the lodge.

Jan and I work very well together, and we enjoyed each other's company. On the weekends when we didn't have any guests, she would ride with me into town, I really like being with her.

With the fishing season over, we were getting ready for the hunting season and to bring the game out of the woods; I would need a quad and a sled. And when the snows came I would need a snowmobile. When the game started coming out, I found that the old mine shaft was the perfect place for them to cool and air out, it had steel doors and other animals couldn't get in. The meat that the hunters didn't take or couldn't use went to the food bank. As the season was closing Eric went home and two weeks later Jan said she guessed she would be going to. She was here 6 1/2 months, and that's it was time. I hadn't thought about it too much, but I didn't want her to go. But then she didn't say anything, so I guess it was time for her to go. We had a bad front coming; in a couple of days, we would probably be getting a lot of snow; she made arrangements with Bill to be flown out. With the Storm Coming On Bill was very busy and called one of his friends to pick her up. Gene radioed and said he was ten minutes out and be ready to go. He was in a hurry to get to the other village and back to the base as soon as possible.

As he was landing I just looked at Jan, and couldn't say anything. She gave me a kiss on the cheek. I carried her things down to the plane, and told her good-bye as she climbed on board. It was starting to snow by this time, as Gene gunned his engine. I saw Jan looking out the window. All I could think of was why did I let her get on that plane and leave me? I wanted her, and it hurt to see her go. I was walking back to the lodge as the plane disappeared out of sight. As I opened the door, I was hearing Mayday, Mayday on the radio, I recognized the voice as Gene's and my heart sunk. The tower was talking to him.

He said he was not quite to Moose Jaw Pass, and his carburetor was icing up.

"Were losing altitude I don't think we're going to make it. We're going in, Oh! Sh..."

Silence, the tower was calling, but there was no answer. I called the tower. They said they were socked in from the storm and there would be no help coming. It was snowing heavily by now. I guess I was the only help, there was; I brought up the snowmobile and hooked on the sled loaded a sleeping bag, extra blankets and some gas, first-aid kit and shovel. I put on my heavy clothes; grab two flashlights, my GPS and my handheld radio. I called the tower told them I would be on the repeater station, and I was going to look for them.

It was dark, by the time I made it to the upper end of the lake. I went about two miles further up the canyon and started zigzagging back-and-forth, each time moving up. It snow heavily all night, having only the lights on the snowmobile. I tried to keep the last set of tracks in sight. I called the tower at daylight to see what was going on. They said they had blizzard conditions there, I told them I hadn't found anything.

I was in the trees about halfway up to the pass the going was slow. About 10 o'clock, I came across a tree that was down, looking up the hill, there were a lot more trees down. It looks like I found the plane. I went to where the last downed tree was, I started probing with a pole about three feet down, I found the plane. Digging down another five feet to clear the passenger door, there was a lot of snow in front of the plane, brushing some of it away I found Gene. One of the trees limbs went through his chest. In the back of the plane, I found Jan; she was under some of the supplies. She was unconscious, there was blood on her face and hair was all matted; she had about a 4-inch cut in her scalp, a large cut across both of her legs above her knees, and her left wrist was broken. I bandaged her cuts and put a split with an ace bandage on her wrist. It took a little doing to get her out of the plane, and out of the hole. I put her in the sleeping bag wrapped it with the blankets and started for home. I called the tower and marked the spot on my GPS.

It was about two hours later when we arrived at the lodge, and I had to shovel snow away from the door before we could go in. It was warm inside, but I turned the thermostat up more. I put an electric blanket on her bed and a couple of towels. I removed her outer clothes and started to clean her up. I radioed the hospital and talked to Dr. Martin. He said I would have to take care of her; the storm was to last another four days. I cut her hair off around her scalp wound, sterilized a needle and some fishing line. I made a solution of water with a little iodine and some peroxide in it, washed out the scalp wound and wounds on her legs, sowed up the cuts, bandaged them and covered her up. She was starting to come around as she warmed up. I gave her some hot apple juice. She was fully awake now, and I gave her some chicken noodle soup. She said she needed to go, and as I helped her up, she found the cuts on her legs. In the bathroom, she saw what I had done to her hair. I had some plaster of paris that I was going to make figurines out of and paint during the winter. I cut the toe out of one of my socks and made a hole in the middle of it, slipping it over her wrist with her thumb through the hole. I mixed some plaster; I spread it over the sock with layers of gauze and more plaster, folded the ends of the sock back over and plastered them down, making the ends-smooth. I asked Jan if her hand hurt.

She said, "No it feels ok."

The first few nights I sat by her bed. The cuts were healing well, and she had almost all of her strength back.

On the morning of the ninth day after the crash, the storm was over; the Alaska State trooper's Search and Rescue team radioed me and wanted GPS coordinates of the wreck site. Fifteen minutes later, a medevac helicopter landed, two paramedics and Jan's mother came and bundled her up, put her in the helicopter and took off. Damn, they did it again. They didn't give either one of us time to say anything. I radioed the trooper and asked if I could hitch a ride. He said he had about two hours of work left, and would pick me up on the way out.

Upon arriving at the airport I walked over to Bills, Karen, Bill's wife said she would take me to the hospital. Dr. Martin was at the desk when we went in, I asked him how Jan was, he said she was great. They couldn't find anything wrong with her. The cuts were heeling fine, and the stitches could come out in a couple of days they even x-rayed her wrist, and it was set fine. So he released Jan, her mother said she was taking her home.

When I arrived at the terminal, another setback Jan's plane had left a half an hour ago. I asked when the next flight to Spokane was.

The agent said, "10 o'clock tomorrow morning."

I bought a ticket and said I would wait, Karen said, "No, you're coming home with me and Bill."

Later in the evening we were sitting around talking, they said to me, they knew there was something between us.

The plane landed at 7:00 PM after three stops on the way down. I rented a car and took off for Bonners ferry, three hours away. It was almost 11:30 before I found their home. Mike opened the door, and Rita was behind him; they wanted to know what I was doing there. I told them I had to see Jan. Rita said she had gotten moody and gave her a sleeping pill. I filled them in on some of the things that happened; I would wait out in the car until Jan woke up. They wouldn't hear of that and offered me the guestroom. After they went to bed, I went to Jan's room pulled up a chair and sat by her bed, a little later Rita came in and wanted to know what I was doing. I told her I had to know, one way or the other. Rita asked what I meant.

I said, "I have to know if she loves me because I love her."

Rita looked at me and then smiled and went back to bed. I must have dozed off; I felt my hand being squeezed, looking into her blue eyes and a pretty smile. She asked what I was doing here.