This week we’re hearing from Bruce Gordon in Excursion Inlet. Gordon works as the watchman for the Ocean Beauty cannery.
GORDON: Excursion Inlet is about 60 miles west of Juneau as the boat goes and 45 minutes west of Juneau as the crow flies. And my neighbor to the west is Glacier Bay National Park.
I started coming to Alaska in 1971 with Northern Radio Company. And Wordsco Packing Company hired me in 1976 to be their communications supervisor for the corporation. And Wordsco sold out their Alaska assets in 2003, and I got sold with the cannery to Ocean Beauty Seafoods — just like a generator or an iron shank. Just part of the package.
There’s nobody around except for my local neighbors, and there are never more than, like, 20 of those at any one time.
We had a murder at a cabin at the head of the bay two years ago. Because there’s no communications up there except for marine radio, I’m sitting in my chair that I’m sitting in now and I hear this radio call on channel 16. “Bruce! Bruce! Bruce! Bruce! Hello! Bruce, are you there?!” And it was one of the neighbors up there, and he says, “I got kind of a situation, and I need the troopers!”
And even if we called for a Medevac, and they launched the second we called, they’re still 45 minutes to an hour away. So, your golden hour is shot to Hell by the time you get here.
And they finally convicted that guy about a month ago.
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.
