TO LIVE OR DIE ON THE TIDE

A curious thing about living in Alaska was the extreme tides that occur there. I lived in Anchorage which is on a peninsula surrounded on three sides by the Cook Inlet. The huge inlet that was discovered by Captain Cook the same guy that gave us the Hawaiian Islands. Therefore there was a lot of shoreline within the city and all around us. Some beaches but they were usually black sand or small pebble beaches not really any sand beaches there. The majority of the coastline was what is referred to as “mudflats”, the results of glacier action and volcanic ash that forms a thick grey mud.

Now I have to warn you this is not like any mud you’ve ever run into. This is the kind of mud that will suck your boot right off your foot. If you move quickly enough or weigh less than 100 pounds you can skim over the top of it but you cannot slow down and smell the roses, there aren’t any plants at all, it is just a figure of speech. Anyway, if you dally your feet may start to go into the mud and you’ll be stuck or lose a boot. This can be a terrible inconvenience but the worst that can happen is you might die!

About 20-25 years ago I was traveling south down the Seward highway from Anchorage going to Girdwood to meet a friend. On the way down I noticed a jeep out on the mudflats. It had big fat tires and seemed to be able to handle the mud, I just thought that that was the last place I’d go driving. I continued my drive to Girdwood, a huge ski resort called Alyeska was there also and a lot of good restaurants. Being summer the sun was up till midnight and on our way back to Anchorage I noticed that that jeep was still out there on the mud, only now there were other emergency vehicles on the side of the flats near the road and there were firemen and police there to. I quickly turned and parked up on the highway and ran to see if I could be of any assistance. This is what I found out when I got to the police. The two folks driving the jeep were a newlywed couple down in Girdwood on their honeymoon and decide that they would rent one of the mud buggies and explore the flats. They both had their rubber boots and were warned not to walk on the mud. They were from Seattle and never been to Alaska before.

They thought for some reason that the mud was stable enough to walk on and tried it. They were alright for a while and then the young women got stuck. Instead of just taking her foot out of the boot and getting back in the jeep she decided to try and get the boot out with her foot in it. This was not possible. As they both struggled to get her loose she sank deeper and deeper all the way to her hip. Then the husband finally decided to get help. Now what was not taken into account was that in the area of the Turnagain Arm part of the Cook Inlet the tides can rise and fall 30 feet in 12 hours. The tide was now coming in at a very fast pace. When I got there the tide was within ten feet of the woman and would soon completely engulf her. The firemen and the police didn’t know what to do they called for the steam point trucks that have long narrow pipes that could break the suction with steam forced through them, they are used to thaw frozen pipes but they were stored until winter. They tried everything. They even built a makeshift dam around her made of plywood to keep the 35 degree water from her. While this was happening the thought to amputate her leg was thrown out because the doctor said it would kill her since she was already in shock. Her husband was with her all the time and could do nothing except hold her and try to comfort her as the cold arctic waters started to pour over her and she lapsed into unconsciousness. With tears in their eyes and the sobs of her new husband they all had to get to stable ground or drown like she did. I was there, it was tragic, we all cried and waited till the tide went back out after six hours. They then could recover her body. This all happened within sight of the highway and hundreds of people, the police and fire department.

The power of mother nature in Alaska is awesome and deceiving. You can be fooled by the beauty and grandeur of the place. But you must always be careful and respect her power.

(From that point on there is always a steam point truck ready in Girdwood to save someone.)