Going Rogue: An American Life (6 page)

Ever since I can remember, Dad would take us up to Mount McKinley National Park, named after President William McKinley of Ohio.who had never traveled to our state. A vibrant sanctuary for most every big-game animal, woodland creature, and bird in Alaska, the park is also home ro the highest peak on the continent, Mount McKinley, or “Denali;’ rising 20,320 feet. Alaska is home to seventeen of the twenty highest peaks in North America, in addition to other wonders, like the ever-shifting.glaciers, one larger than state of Delaware, and dozens of active volcanoes.

At the national park, we’d dress in white sweatshirts and quietly, carefully, creep near herds of majestic dall sheep with their rhick curled horns. We weren’t to borher the sheep, just get close, be still … and enjoy. It was one way Dad taught us to appreciate the pristine beauty and wildlife in Alaska.

One year, while stalking sheep, I disappeared. I was only about eight years old, and for a couple of anxious hours of climbing hillsides and calling my name, no one could find me on the crags and snowpack. Finally, Dad found me-sound asleep in the sunshine on a rocky slope near a grazing herd. While watching the animals, I had simply dozed off, camouflaged in a as

white as the sheep were, so no one could spot me, even with binoculars. Dad said he played it cool while I was lost, but inside, he
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was pretty frantic. My main heartache was that I had taken a rare Hershey’s chocolate bar with me, planning ro graze on it while I sheep-gazed.

by the time Dad woke me, my coveted candy

had melted into an inedible mess.

Every spring, Dad would bring his sixth-grade class up to the park on the Alaska Railroad for a weeklong field trip ro experience what they’d srudied all year about animals, geography, geology, and the environment. I was happy ro tag along and appreciated that whar his students learned during the school year in Mr. Heath’s classroom was what I got to learn every day from Mr. Heath, my dad.

Dad would give us a quarter for being the first ro spot a moose or a bear on our hour-long drives into Anchorage. And you’d think we’d have tired of seeing yet another caribou or dall sheep along Alaska’s roadways. But then, as now, our wildlife inspired excitement, and even today we’ll still pull over ro look, and take a picture. My parents instilled in me that appreciation; we were not ro take for granted the wondet of God’s creation.

To this day, we still call each other even in the middle of the night ro reporr an awe-inspiring aurora borealis display. We never tire of the dazzling Norrhern Lights, shimmering like the hem of Heaven. So it’s not uncommon ro get a midnight call from’ friends or family: “Quick! Look out the window! They’re dancing!”

By the mid-1970s, Alaska’s economic advantages had begun capturing as much attention as its narural beauty. Construction of the eight-hundted-mile-long Trans-Alaska Pipeline was under way. High-paying pipeline jobs brought ‘thousands of new workers ro the state. It was a new gold rush that sent truckloads of cash into the state’s economy. Jobs Wete plentiful, and Dad had many oppottunities ro leave teaching and statt making real money on the oil pipeline, along with thousands of others who would capi
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talize on this huge piece of infrastructure. But he loved teaching and he loved his students, so he chose making a difference in kids’

lives oV,er making money,

The employment boom and energy production were the upside of development. The downside was the concurrent spike in social problems. Without the law enforcement resources to keep things in check, prostitution, gambling, and illegal drugs in the growing population, especially in pipeline towns like Fairbanks. The boom also stressed local infrasttucture, including schools and health care facilities. Meanwhile, some Alaska Native leaders knew they must aggressively protect the natural resources to which they were spiritually and physically connected. the young state’s founding fathers and mothers ensured that the state Constitution contained specific language guaranteeing equal rights and protections to all Alaskans, and empowered the First People’s participation in the state’s economic and political life.

One of those participants was Todd’s mom, Blanche Kallstrom, who was among those who helped work on the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The legislation would ultimately secure laod and money to establish Native corporations, and ensure their inclusion in future resource developments that came from their aboriginal lands.

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It was duting these early years that Mom became interested in an expanded faith. She sought further spiritual fulfillment in addition to the liturgical traditions of the Catholic Church. In Wasilla, she volunteered as a secretary at the Presbyterian church on weekends and traveled to northern Alaska Eskimo villages on mission trips.

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At about that time, het best friend, Mary Ellan Moe, a newly transplanted Texan, invited her to attend an evangelical church in Anchorage. There Mom found.a depth of spirituality she had been seeking, the filling of what the French writer Blaise Pascal called “the god-shaped vacuum” in every human heart. Back in Wasilla, the most “alive” congregation was our local Assembly of God, so my siblings and I attended Sunday School there and enjoyed attending the youth group with our friends. There weren’r many churches in our small town, and though my family would eventually worship at a nondenominational Bible church, a lot of kids joined the youth group because it did a great job with activities that were what people used to caii “good, clean fun.” One summer, I attended a youth Bible camp in Big Lake and understood for myself what Pascal was talking about. Looking around at the incredible creation that is Alaska-the majestic peaks and midnight sun, the wild waters and teeming wildlifeI could practically see and hear and feel God’s spirit reflected in everything in nature. I reasoned that if God knew what He was doing in this magnificent creation, how much more did He know about me? If He is powerful and wise enough to make all this and thought also to create a speck like me, there surely must be a plan, and He’d know more than I did about my future and my purpose.
I made the conscious decision that summer to put my life in my
Creator’s hands and trust Him as I sought my life’s path. My siblings and I were baptized together in Big Lake’s freezing, pristine waters by Pastor Paul Riley. I got into the habit of reading Scripture before I got out of bed every morning and making sure it was the last thing I did at night. Ever the pragmatist, I also tested God’s promises. For example, God says in Scripture, “‘Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,’ says the LORD Almighty, ‘and see if I will not thtow open the floodgates of Heaven and pour out

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so much blessing that you will not have toom enough fot it.”’ As a kid, to me that meant that if! earned five dollars, I put fifty cents in the offering plate. Later, Todd and I saw that there were many other ways to share our blessings with others, like buying a rank of gas for a bush pilot so he could fly supplies to a remote village. Not only was doing those things personally tewarding, but God continually ptoved His promises true, blessing our giving with giving of His own.

Dad wasn’t into organized religion so much, and he was usually busy Sunday mornings getting ready for our afternoon ski trips Ot hunts or hikes; he said it was in the great outdoors that he “did church.” But he did his fatherly duty, making us answet to him if we ended up skipping church for any reason. And Mom never let us get by with any weak excuses. Looking back, I’m grateful to them for “forcing me” to go. Withour that foundation of faith, we would never have been able to get thtough some of the tests and trials that have come our way.

One such test came when I was in elementary school. The telephone rang during dinner.’Dad left the table, picked up the beige wall phone in the living room, listened for a few minutes, and hung up. Then he turned away and stood stock-still, gazing silently out the big picture .window. Looking at him, I was pretty sure he’d just received some bad news.