Memories of Alaskans from my Youth

Growing up on an island in Southeast Alaska was a great experience.  Sure, the weather was horrid, but I was a kid - I didn't know any difference.  I played soccer in the rain, I went fishing in the rain, I drove my motorcycle to school in the rain, and I created a gigantic replica of the Millennium Falcon behind my house out of scrap metal, skunk cabbage and cedar limbs...in the rain.

Other than being extraordinarily damp, my childhood was fairly normal.  Sure, my older brother was flying float planes before I entered junior high and my dad taught me how to gaff an eighty-pound halibut by age twelve, but growing up an Alaskan wasn't too different of an experience than the kids have down here in the lower forty-eight.  (Side Note - One extreme exception to this was learning to drive.  My home town of Ketchikan had less than forty total miles of road system.  The first traffic light didn't get installed until the early 80's.  I still remember the first time I drove in the Seattle area.  I went down a freeway on-ramp to enter I-5 and I just figured that there had to be a stop sign at the bottom of the ramp.  The guy behind me thought I was number one!)

What stands out most in my mind about my youth in Alaska is the extremely interesting cast of characters that surrounded all of us on that remote rock.  There was the kind, elderly native lady that always hitch-hiked around town, the Vietnam Vet that liked to scare tourists, Banjo Bob and his "stomping out" sessions, my buddy Mark that once spent an afternoon throwing dummies off a cliff, the guy that wore the police-siren bicycle helmet, the dude that lived in the tree-house, my buddy who always laughed at life despite being old enough to buy beer before his junior year in high school, the psychotic eighth-grade Science teacher that taught us how to survive in the woods, and countless other colorful people that seemed to gravitate to that island.

It was the recollections of these types of characters from my youth in SE Alaska that inspired many of the characters in my new book, Mink Island.  The novel is a mystery/comedy set in Craig, Alaska on Prince of Wales Island.  Follow Lieutenant Jim Wekle as he attempts to solve the murder of a bikini-clad young lady that he finds floating in the bay on his first day on the island.  You may also get a kick out of the antics of Jim's unlikely counterpart; a man simply known as Kram.

Mink Island will be released soon as an eBook on Amazon.