Gustavus, Alaska…

                                    Fifty years behind and lovin’ it!

In 1913, an old steamship captain was telling a captive audience about a remote piece of flat land just due west of Juneau and near the entrance to Glacier Bay. He said it was surrounded on three sides by mountains and flanked by a body of water called Icy Straits.

Among the listeners were three couples and the two words that grabbed their attention were “remote” and “flat”. They had a dream of breaking ground in a new land and this report set their hearts in motion for plans to stake a homestead claim and start a new life of adventure in a place called Strawberry Point, which later became officially known as Gustavus.

The following year, with the aid of a hired fishing boat and a small skiff, they made their way across Lynn Canal, through Icy Straits and up the Salmon River to a land with no footprints, roads or shelters. They had each other and incredible determination and began to sink roots into a place, not only new to them, but also to the world.

The land you will see as you fly into Gustavus was recently covered with glacier ice, and the forest you see is roughly eighty years old, brand new, on the geological scale. When these first folks arrived, it was wide open grassland which they made use of for their crops and their cattle.

Seventy years later, in 1983, I saw an ad for ten acres of land for sale in a place called Gustavus, due west of Juneau. It said it was remote and bordered Glacier Bay Park and Preserve. Without hesitation, I purchased the land and made plans to fly over and see what I had purchased. I fell in love with the place and moved my family to begin an amazing adventure with nearly daily surprises and challenges.

Like the first homesteaders, Gustavus is populated by talented, creative and determined individuals who will remind you of the characters in the TV show, “Northern Exposure”. They are unique as individuals, but are quick to band together when the needs of a neighbor or stranger are made known. When an anchored boat breaks loose in Icy Straits during a wind storm, word goes out and trucks head to the dock so boat captains can get to their boat and help wrangle the loose boat back to its’ anchor. When a burn victim needs to fly to the hospital at 10 p.m., a pilot steps up to make the mercy flight by the moonlight. When pipes break in a cabin with the owners gone, someone is there to not only shut off the water, but also fix the pipes.

One of the early settlers was a man named Lester Rink and my land is off of Rink Creek Road. When we got moved in to our rented house, we had a CB radio and a generator for electricity, causing a near revolt from my kids! But, they learned to start the generator in the morning and knew to watch the one channel on TV before it was shut off for the night. They soon made many friends in the two-room, K-12 school and were usually too busy with some adventure to be home on the weekends.

Memories of a New Land Beyond The Ice

Gustavus is a new land, inhabited by people who are proud to be here and happy to be fifty years behind when it comes to their pace of life. Take in the beauty of the mountains, the wildlife and the openness of this land that is still rising from the weight of being covered by ice for eons. But also get to know the people that call this place home, and your journey will be filled, not only with sights and sounds, but with memories and stories of people living fifty years behind, and lovin’ it…