It's an old stereotype that says that Alaska's a hard place to let go of once it gets its hooks into you. People who move Outside often think wistfully of the Last Frontier, remembering mountain vistas, white winters and vast stretches of emptiness. For those who fly across the Great Land, the nostalgia is only heightened.
Such was the case with one pilot, who left Alaska in 1991, but finds himself in 2011 still daydreaming about his 20 years of experience flying from Kotzebue. For that pilot, his fond recollections of flying in Alaska have translated into an online presence and three collections of short stories -- soon to be four -- based on his adventures as a bush pilot in the 1960s and '70s, and later this week, he will be back in Alaska for the Alaska Airmen's Association Aviation Trade Show beginning April 30.
His name is Gary Bakewell, but he is better known by and has gained a loyal following using his pen name, CloudDancer. His series of books -- collectively known as "CloudDancer's Alaskan Chronicles" -- draw their material from CloudDancer's many years spent as a pilot in Alaska.
CloudDancer has a long history with aviation: both of his parents worked for major airlines, he joined the Civil Air Patrol on his 13th birthday and took his first flying lesson one week later. He got his private license when he was a junior in high school. One day, he was sitting in a Denny's restaurant in Fort Worth, Texas and his next stop was a military recruiter's office. He was talking to the manager of the restaurant -- who was also a pilot -- when he had a serendipitous encounter that eventually brought him to the 49th State.
Don Ferguson, a pilot from Kotzebue and the nephew of longtime bush pilot Archie Ferguson, "... just happened to be in Fort Worth and stroll into Denny's that day as I was having this conversation," CloudDancer said. "Next thing I knew, I was going to Alaska instead of joining the Army."
CloudDancer had 263 hours logged when he arrived in Alaska, "waving my pilot's license for the dual purpose of showing it off and drying the ink," because it was so new, he said. He began flying for Ferguson's now-defunct Don's Safair Flying Service.
"The original plan was to spend six months in Alaska," CloudDancer said, "get some flying experience and a little money in my pocket." Then, one night in a Kotzebue bar, "I got a little confused," he said, and he fell in love with a local. The next thing he knew, he'd spent twenty years in the state.
Later, CloudDancer started flying for Leon Shellabarger, whose father provided the namesake for Shellabarger Pass in the Alaska Range.
When he talks about his old mentors, who gave him hands-on teaching and molding and polishing his flying skills when he was still something of a greenhorn in the vast Alaska wilderness, CloudDancer sounds grateful.
"I had this huge, immense, deep pool of knowledge and experience to draw from," he said, "and these guys taught me from the ground up and educated me."
In 1991, CloudDancer left Alaska and began flying commercially for a major airline. But he never forgot his time in the state, and found himself revisiting it often in his spare moments.
Then, on Valentine's Day in 2005, he began writing. It started as a single post on the popular aviation forum SuperCub.org. "I thought I'd be done in 10, 12 minutes," CloudDancer said. "It took hours." It turned into a series of around a dozen installments, titled "Hey Pilot, I Gotta Pee!" Another story followed, this one called "Some Days You Get the Bear," about being trapped in an airplane in Kivalina while a polar bear sniffed around outside.
"That story just really started hooking people," CloudDancer said. He kept writing. Eventually, the website gave him his own forum. Soon, he had enough for a book collection of stories. That collection turned into two. The stories were all lighthearted and humorous, recounting moments of adventure in the life of an Alaskan bush pilot. The time on the forums gave rise to his anonymity, as well as his eventual mascot: a stylized small plane, with a paper bag over the nose of the aircraft and holes cut out where eyes would be. The avatar came from an emoticon available on the forum. It was all in good fun.
Then, in the midst of a dark time in his life, CloudDancer sat down for what he thought was going to be one of his usual 25-30-minute writing sessions. It turned into a three-hour period in front of the computer, as he wrote the story of a 1977 disappearance of his roommate, who was 21 at the time, and his roommate's 19-year-old "soon-to-be fiance," whom CloudDancer described as "a stunningly beautiful Eskimo girl from the village of Kobuk," and who was like a younger sister to CloudDancer, who had introduced the couple.
She often rode with her boyfriend on his flights. Their disappearance without a trace on a calm, clear and beautiful November night under a full moon in 1977 as they traveled between Point Hope and Kotzebue impacted CloudDancer for life. The resulting story was much darker than he was used to writing, and it started as a form of self-therapy.
"The entire summer of 2009 I spent immersed, eyeballs deep, in these stories," he said. "For almost three years, people had been coming to me for humor, for laughter, and then I threw this at them."
The third book was subtitled "The Tragedies," and was a collection recounting some of the lives that had been lost during CloudDancer's time in Alaska.
"I lost sixteen friends or roommates," in 20 years in Alaska, he said. That first story, about his 21-year-old roommate who disappeared, was titled "Chains and Padlocks." The title is telling about where the story came from.
"I stuffed all of these events into a footlocker in the back of my mind," he said, "and wrapped it up with chains and padlocks."
At the end of each of the five stories, he includes a URL web address for each of the NTSB reports on the accidents. This meant getting permission from the family members of the people whom the stories were about -- not because he legally needed it, but because he wanted to make sure that the families of those who had been lost were OK with the stories.
"Only one family requested one very small change," CloudDancer said, "which I thought was a nice way of saying I'd done a good job." While he's proud of the stories that resulted from that summer, "I don't want to do it ever again," he said, because of the emotional toll involved.
CloudDancer has spent 20 more years away from Alaska, but he has always wanted to come back to live in the state, and hopes to do so soon. He still gets up to the state once or twice a year, and will be back in Anchorage for the Alaska Airmen's Trade Show on April 30 and May 1, to sign books at the SuperCub.org booth.
Ben Anderson is the editor of Bush Pilot. Contact him at ben(at)alaskadispatch.com.