This week we’re hearing from Doreen Cooper from Skagway. She’s working as a volunteer at the Arctic Inter-agency Visitor Center in Coldfoot.
COOPER: I came to Alaska in 1992 to work for the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park as an archaeologist. And that was kind of my midlife crisis. I had visited Alaska once in 1986 and I was just like, “Yeah. I’m ready for something different.” And so, I did. And I was really tired of the summers in Texas. So, now I’m tired of the winters in Alaska.
I worked for them for seven years, and while I was there, I met my husband, the man I’m married to now. And he was from Skagway, and so I stayed in Skagway. After my job with the Park Service ended, I worked for the White Pass and Yukon Railroad and I was Skagway’s magistrate for a couple years. I continued to do archaeology and I was also an office manager for some people in Skagway who owned four stores. And we retired in September, and now we’re up here volunteering.
My husband was working on the Chilkoot Trail and I would hike up every other weekend, to his trail camp above the Chilkoot Trail and just spending weekends there ’cause it’s the most beautiful place in the world. They have a small cabin up there that they actually built by hand, bringing up rocks from the river for the foundations and they had tents on rocks around them and they actually had hot and cold running water from a creek that was close by. So, they didn’t use it, but I sure did. And we’d go up there and we’d listen to the radio — we’d listen to NPR on Saturday mornings — and then they went off to work and it was just a great place to read and kick back. And the rare sunny day, lay out in the helicopter pad, which we weren’t supposed to do.
Maybe next year, we’re looking at Bandelier ruins down in New Mexico. We’ve talked with them about doing some volunteer work and next summer, haven’t quite decided whether Alaska or… Roy hasn’t seen any of the great parks of the West, so we’re kind of open.
Wesley Early covers Anchorage life and city politics for Alaska Public Media. Reach him at wearly@alaskapublic.org and follow him on X at @wesley_early. Read more about Wesley here.
Rashah McChesney is a photojournalist turned radio journalist who has been telling stories in Alaska since 2012. Before joining Alaska's Energy Desk, she worked at Kenai's Peninsula Clarion and the Juneau bureau of the Associated Press. She is a graduate of Iowa State University's Greenlee Journalism School and has worked in public television, newspapers and now radio, all in the quest to become the Swiss Army knife of storytellers.
