Almost 50 Years and Counting
The phone rang and the caller said there
was a message for one of Saxowskys' neighbors. "A moose has been
hit on the highway and is dead. Are you available to pick it up?"
It was late evening and Denvy went to get the road kill and notify the
neighbors. The moose was harvested and hung in the carport.
In
the morning, Denvy set up some sawhorses in the driveway and started cleaning
the meat. It was a cool clear day. Denvy noticed two large sedans drive
by in front of the house. Moments later they came back by the house but
they turned into the yard. As Denvy continued to butcher two tall men
stepped out of each car. One carried a large commercial video camera.
"We're from CBS news. Do you mind if we video you butchering?"
"Sure, but you weren't driving up and
down the highway looking for someone butchering a roadkill?"
"No, we just finished covering the Eskimo
Olympics in Fairbanks and we're just doing a story on how Alaskans gather
extra stuff around their places. It almost seems like trash."
After a couple more exchanges and some video
shots outback where "surplus" was piled, Terry Drinkwater interviewed
Denvy, which showed nationally a couple days later. The story upset Alaskans
greatly as it negatively showed Alaska as one big heap of garbage. Critics
often said that the interview with Denvy was the only positive highlight of
the story.
Despite the poor press Denvy was appointed
to the borough Planning Commission. Years later Denvy chaired the commission.
Gail and Denvy have never seen the interview which aired about April 21,
1982.
In Trapper Creek, snow in the winter is
not only common, it's typically excessive and longlasting. Probably three
feet on the level was common. The tractor we bought our first summer came
with a simple dozer blade which cleared the drive while the shovel cleared
the walkways.
Despite
the common features of each winter, each also was distinct, like the year
the grassland just beyond the garden filled with water, enough to float
a canoe and offer the kids some short time recreation. Routinely the the
grassland produced a crop of grass as tall as the tractor wheels. One
year Denvy cut the grass with a scythe and raked and stacked it by hand.
That was plenty of motivation to invest in a tractor mounted mower with
a neighbor. Either way the goats enjoyed it during the winter snows, the
beginning or end of another cycle.
