Nome, Alaska – perched on the southern Seward Peninsula coast on Norton Sound, with its population of about 3,700 residents – has a colorful history, embellished by characters galore.
Many a resident and travelers as well have been known to exclaim that “there’s no place like Nome for the holidays,” and indeed there’s no place like Nome any day of the year.
As a newcomer to Alaska several decades ago I couldn’t wait to drive there, only to discover there are no roads to Nome. Options for reaching Nome are by air, sea, a really long hike, a bicycle, or snowmobile – all of which some people have done.
Author Michael Engelhard, originally from Munich, Germany, has been a Fairbanks resident since 1989. He worked for years as an Arctic wilderness guide, and spent three years living in Nome and researching the history of the Bering Strait region to capture in this book the history and many colorful characters who have contributed to this city of legends, dating back to gold rush days and before. Along with his own extensive research into the area, he includes in the back of the book five pages of suggested additional readings.
His book is called “No Place Like Nome: The Bering Strait Seen Through Its Most Storied City.”
As late as the 1970s, anyone needing to hail a cab to get from one part of Nome to another needed to know the name of the owner of the business or residence because street signs and house numbers were few and far between, if at all. The cab drivers fortunately knew just where everyone lived, unless they had recently moved.
Locals knew and visitors were warned to wear waterproof foot gear in the bars, which outnumbered the churches, so as not to ruin good mukluks or other non-waterproof shoes. And the town had a plethora of residents like Albro Gregory, editor of the Nome Nugget, a former United Press International journalist, who came to Alaska on a short vacation and never left.
Chapters of the 303-page book by Engelhard, who studied anthropology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, are short volumes on their own, in a somewhat meandering stream of thought of Engelhard’s observations, research and memories of the region, portrayed in films like “North to Alaska” starring John Wayne – films that in reality were very much fiction.
Engelhard introduces a number of well-known characters, from lawman Wyatt Earp to Muktuk Marston, who organized and led the Native Alaskans to guard the northwest coastline of Alaska from enemies during World War II. He also introduces famed photographer Edward S. Curtis, gold miner turned author Rex Beach, Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen, naturalist Sally Carrighar, and Father Bernard Rosecrans Hubbard, a Jesuit priest and geologist who led 32 expeditions to Alaska between 1927 and 1958.
The area gold fields yielded millions of dollars for lucky miners and the likes of folks like future Hollywood actress Marjorie Rammbeau. Dressed like a boy, “she sold donuts and busked with a banjo and swept Front Street dancehall floors, reputedly earning up to $75 a day from gold dust that drizzled from pokes when tipsy miners paid for refills, Engelhard noted.
Cultural and artistic contributions of the Native Alaskans who occupied the region for thousands of years before non-Natives arrived in the region stand out for their detail and colorful descriptions. For example, Engelhard notes, the U.S. Army’s need for skin clothing suitable for the Arctic, which predated World War I, gave rise to a Native women’s cooperative during World War II. The Nome Skin Sewers fulfilled orders for 26,000 pairs of mukluks and thousands of reindeer parkas and sleeping bags, as well as sealskin trousers and fur socks. In 1944, they sold $200,000 worth of goods to members of the military.”
His poignant descriptions of people and events notwithstanding, the book is sometimes marred by the inclusion of names of important historic figures with no information about them, including a reference to Father Hubbard as “a Thor Heyerdahl of the Bering Strait.” Heyerdahl, notable for his 1948 book “Kon-Tiki,” about his travels across the Pacific Ocean on a balsa tree raft, led that expedition in 1947 to prove that ancient Peruvians could have colonized Polynesia.
Engelhard, who has traveled extensively in Alaska’s rural regions, notes that Nome is one of the most storied places he has ever had the pleasure of calling “home,” and his book captures a colorful description of the region.
