Published on November 19th, 2009

Living on the Sound and making the most of it

By JAY KELLEY

Jon Rush defined the Alaskan spirit during the 25 years that Alaska was his home. Artist, musician, builder, inventor, fisherman, sailor and loyal friend, he had only two quirks that I knew of: He absolutely refused to use or look at any computer ... ever, and when he played pool it was always with only one hand. He won most of the time against good shooters who used both hands.

Jon was the sixth of 10 artistic and musically inclined children, all raised on a 160-acre farm near Little Falls, Minn. He worked long, hard hours during his early life, but also hunted, fished, trapped and explored the hills. Jon's father was a full-time farmer and a master carpenter. From his father, Jon learned patience, steadfast perseverance, a deep creative urge and a lifelong love of nature and the great outdoors.

When he was 17, Jon left Minnesota to join the Army and after his discharge, stayed abroad for more than a decade. By the time he left the Army he had become an accomplished guitarist/singer and spent several years traveling throughout Europe playing and singing. He lived for two years in the Bavarian Alpine town of Berchtesgaden, which was the vacation headquarters for Hitler and high-ranking German officials during World War II. Jon also lived for a year in Tyrol, Austria, and then settled down for several years in the gypsy fishing section of Torremolinos, Spain. There with a partner, Jack, he ran a small night club called Duffy's.

In 1969 Jon and Jack both got the urge to return to America. He and Jack landed in Jack's home state, California, where they spent the winter doing roofing jobs. They were soon bitten by the "go-north" bug. They packed their bags and from Los Angeles, hitchhiked to Anchorage. Amazingly, they made the whole trip with only one ride. Jon spent that first summer in Anchorage, and then moved north to play music at the Board of Trade Saloon in Nome during the winter of '69 and '70. In the spring of '70, he settled in Cordova, where he met Suzy Gill, the love of his life.

In 1972, after years of professional music and more adventures than most people have in a lifetime, Jon Rush and Suzy Gill decided to find a peaceful spot in Prince William Sound where they could build a house in serene surroundings, away from town life. Not only was Jon a gifted artist and a talented musician/singer, but also a skilled carpenter/builder/inventor and could rebuild anything mechanical. He built a four-story beach-front house in Ellamar, the remote Prince William Sound site of an early 1900s-era copper mine. Operations ceased when the maze-like tunnels of the mine were accidently flooded with sea water in 1917.

Jon built their home, Windsinger Haven, around an old school bus hauled from Cordova to Ellamar on the deck of a small power scow, the Arcturus, the four-story house was constructed entirely from recycled materials. Jon spent months dismantling pieces of the collapsing Ellamar pier. He pulled nails day after day, week after week for hours on end. He sawed off and floated pilings from the pier to the building site.

The foundation of Windsinger Haven was constructed from 70 of those pilings. He dug them in by hand with crowbar, pick and shovel. He reclaimed hundreds of weathered planks from the pier and from another collapsing structure in Ellamar known to the locals as "the whore house." He transformed a rusted steel tank left over from the old mining operation into an exquisite and efficient hot water heater/wood-burning stove.

Windsinger Haven had ample living space as well as a bell tower and a third-story art studio. Designed to look like a turn-of-the-century building, it was a work of art in itself. He provided running hot and cold water with a pipe to the house from a creek several hundred feet upslope. He plumbed coils into the wood-burning stove for hot water. The outhouse was ornate and unique with complete privacy, but purposely with only a lower-half door. It had a great view of the Sound and Bligh Island.

Jon built a smoke house for making cold-smoked sockeye salmon strips. He netted his winter supply of subsistence sockeye each season in Long Bay behind Glacier Island.

For years Jon had wanted to become a serious artist. In 1975 with total focus and no formal training, he learned silversmithing. With that same enthusiasm and intensity of purpose, he taught himself scrimshaw, watercolor painting, pen and ink drawing, and ivory carving.

Jon had amazing powers of visualization and would spend weeks, sometimes months, mentally developing every detail of a complex art or construction project, until it was complete in his mind's eye. Then he would create it. With single-minded perseverance he pursued his new skills. In 1978 he stopped playing music professionally to pursue his artwork full time.

Jon Rush was still playing music in The Club Bar, a Cordova establishment, when we first met in the summer of 1977. He sang as a one-man band accompanied by his guitar and a harmonica strapped around his neck. A tambourine, cymbals and a bass drum all with foot pedals stood on the floor in front of him. With a singing voice similar to Johnny Cash, he sang from his repertoire of more than 1,200 songs. Many of them were his own compositions. His eclectic range of music was enjoyed by everyone who was fortunate enough to hear him.

During his years in Cordova and Ellamar, Jon produced thousands of jewelry and art pieces. He worked with many precious materials, including gold, silver, ivory, turquoise, wood, and sometimes with bear or lynx claws. He created ivory scrimshawed necklaces and pendants with silver or gold mountings, watercolor paintings, a series of exquisite mastodon-ivory cribbage boards, little carved ivory gnome-like mountain men and highly detailed pen and ink drawings. Like his scrimshaw creations, his pen and ink drawings were created by using tiny dots to create accurate likenesses of famous and not-so-famous Alaskans, American Indian chiefs and mythical gnomes, sirens, elves, fairies and sea creatures.

Soon after they moved to Ellamar in 1979, Jon bought a 32-foot, 1930s-vintage wooden double-ender boat. He named it "Windsinger." He crafted a figurehead and sails, built a mast, cabin and bunks, installed rigging and made many structural repairs. A friend gave him an old rebuilt diesel engine. He removed the beyond-repair engine that came with the boat and installed the rebuilt. It started on the first try. The auto pilot he designed and built for the boat worked off the magnetic compass with sprockets and bicycle chain linkages. It was concise, elegant and functioned perfectly to control the helm and maintain the selected heading.

During the first three years of my 11 years in Cordova, I often flew the Sound mail run for Chitina Air Service during the winter months. Each week on that route, I stopped at the nearby village of Tatitlek with mail, supplies and groceries for the villagers and for Jon and Suzy. I would buzz Jon and Suzy's place before landing at Tatitlek. When he heard the plane, Jon would always motor over from Ellamar in his skiff to pick up his delivery. I spent the spring and summer months flying a Piper Super Cub on floats, spotting fish for commercial fishermen. I stayed many nights with Jon and Suzy at their home in Ellamar.

There was no way to communicate with Ellamar by phone or radio, so I would just show up unannounced. For his pilot friends, Jon had anchored a floating buoy in the middle of their small bay. I would buzz the bell tower in the Cub, land and tie up to the buoy. Jon would row out in his skiff to get me. He always greeted me with a big smile, and a "Hey, good to see you, brother." I often brought a few items of fresh produce or occasionally fresh razor clams, even toilet paper or other items not easily obtained in Ellamar. Suzy, who was (and probably still is) a phenomenal chef, would cook up a meal on the wood stove. If you have never eaten her chile rellenos or her pickled salmon, you missed a gourmet delight. We'd sit around after supper talking, sometimes playing music, and then hit the sack early. We'd be up before dawn, ready for a cup of coffee, some smoked salmon and a slice or two of Suzy's homemade bread, then at first light, Jon would row me out to the plane, hand me a small sack of "chewing material" (hard-smoked sockeye strips) and I would fly away.

In 1992, about two and a half years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Jon and Suzy sold Windsinger Haven due to Jon's increasing aggravation from passing oil tankers. A few health problems also played a part in the decision to sell their Ellamar property. They moved to Las Vegas. Jon was not happy in Vegas. He missed the freedom, the wilderness and the creative subsistence lifestyle that Alaska provided. In 2004 they moved to picturesque Bisbee, Ariz., which had evolved from its early 1900s origins as a copper mining town to its present-day status as an artist's haven and a genuinely friendly atmosphere.

In 1976 while they were still living in Cordova, they began their winter travels to Mexico. Jon built a beach-front home in Playa Novillero, a small west coast Mexican village. They spent several sunny winters there away from the snow and storms of Prince William Sound. The Mexico home was also a work of art with tile mosaics in strategic places inside and out. In 2005 they decided to retire permanently to their home in Mexico. Jon left Bisbee for Mexico in 2005, a few months ahead of Suzy. He spent weeks repairing their Mexico beach house, which had been badly vandalized. Jon's eyesight had deteriorated due to glaucoma and a botched surgical procedure. By 2004, he was legally blind. Somehow, that didn't bother him and though unable to see much at all, he restored the mosaics and other damaged features of their Mexico house. When Suzy arrived in October 2005, everything was ship-shape. In spite of his failed eyesight, he had completed an ivory, ebony, rosewood and metal, 6-inch replica, of his boat, the Windsinger. He did this mostly by feel.

In November 2005, five weeks after Suzy's arrival at their home in Mexico, Jon died unexpectedly from congestive heart failure. They had been together for 35 years. Jon woke up on the morning of Nov. 19, 2005, barely able to breathe. Suzy, with a neighbor's help, bundled Jon into their van and drove him 20 kilometers to the nearest hospital. It was closed. They drove another 20 kilometers to the nearest doctor, but by the time they arrived, Jon was dead. Now in her 60s, Suzy lives alone with her cat in Bisbee. She is happy, has wonderful caring neighbors, but misses Jon. She had a difficult couple of years after his death.

Jon loved Prince William Sound and wrote several songs about it. In his songs, he refers to the Sound as "The Lady." Jon lived the Alaska spirit ... independent, creative and hardworking. He was a dear friend. I miss him too.

Jay Kelley can be reached at jkel@flyalaska.com, or by phone at 808-961-6851

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