:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/adn/UH4OWB5C6FEHTJPL76ZJHQY3KI.jpg "Alaska history Q&A: Suicide Peaks, pipeline movies and a low-tide-only ballpark in Ketchikan")
A part of a unbroken weekly sequence on native historical past by native historian David Reamer. Have a query about Anchorage historical past or an concept for a future article? Go to the shape on the backside of this story.
Each week readers submit questions, and I attempt to reply them as finest I can. These are a few of the most fascinating submissions.
How did “Suicide Peaks” get their identify? Have been these two mountains someway related to suicide? Did they’ve earlier names?
The U.S. Geological Survey claims “Suicide Peak(s)” was a neighborhood identify first documented in 1951 and with an in any other case unknown origin. If the identify derived from precise suicides, that data is probably going misplaced to historical past.
Per the authoritative textual content on Dena’ina placenames, “Shem Pete’s Alaska,” “Ulchena Tich’qiluct” is “probably Suicide Peak.” That’s, by the point surviving elders had been interviewed for the guide, they knew there had been a mountain named “Ulchena Tich’qiluct” however had been not sure which mountain particularly. “Ulchena Tich’qiluct” interprets to “The place we killed Alutiiq Folks,” a Dena’ina versus Alutiiq battle website.
The identify maybe derives from the snowboarding and climbing slang, of “suicide runs” and “suicide climbs.” Suicide Six in Vermont, established in 1934, is likely one of the earliest ski resorts in the US. In response to legend, a ski teacher stated, “it might be suicide to ski straight down” the hill generally known as Hill No. 6.
[The ominous true stories behind Alaska’s bloody and brutal place names]
Did the development of the Alaska Pipeline encourage any motion pictures?
Two debatably main motion pictures of the Nineteen Seventies tried to capitalize on the general public curiosity within the pipeline. I’ve beforehand written in regards to the 1976 film “Pipe Desires,” singer Gladys Knight’s failed try to transition into movie. Briefly, Knight performs a spouse who chases her estranged husband north to Alaska, the place he discovered work on the pipeline. They reconcile and have intercourse in a pipeline part stacked beside a street earlier than leaving Alaska. Murky lighting, an inconsistent plot, amateurish appearing and detrimental critiques doomed the challenge, which rapidly vanished from theaters.
The opposite pipeline film is the 1977 journey movie “Joyride.” It starred Anne Lockhart, Desi Arnaz Jr., Robert Carradine and a pre-stardom Melanie Griffith, maybe every then extra well-known for his or her family members than for their very own work. Lockhart, who later starred within the unique “Battlestar Galactica,” is the daughter of two-time Emmy winter June Lockhart. Arnaz Jr is the son of “I Love Lucy” stars Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Carradine is the brother of “Kung Fu” actor David Carradine. And Griffith is the daughter of mannequin and actress Tippi Hedren.
In as a lot as there may be one, the plot aimlessly accompanies the younger leads as they abandon California for the possibility to make their fortunes in Alaska. What follows are a number of itinerant jobs, robberies, a kidnapping, a automotive chase, and killing a bear for meals, an inconsequential sequence of occasions that ends with an escape into Canada and the possibility to do all of it once more sometime. There’s additionally a literal pissing contest.
In one of many few critiques, Richard Dobbins of the Pasadena Star Information stated the movie “comprises simply sufficient automotive motion to compose an appetizing trailer and simply sufficient gratuitous nudity to get an ‘R’ ranking. However the bulk of the movie … is at first reasonably affecting, however in the end downright pointless.” For the courageous sufficient, “Joyride” is on the market via Amazon Prime.
“Pipe Desires” was not less than filmed in Alaska, primarily at Valdez with excursions to Anchorage and a pipeline building camp north of Fairbanks. When the film locations the characters in a Valdez dive bar, they’re truly in a Valdez dive bar. None of “Joyride” was filmed in Alaska. A lot of the capturing occurred outdoors Seattle, in Roslyn and Granite Falls. As an alternative of the actual pipeline, they used photographs of water pipes sitting by a street. One of many producers stated, “Within the fog final week, it was excellent.” Cheap folks may disagree on that time. Exteriors for the Nineteen Nineties tv present “Northern Publicity” — set within the fictional city of Cicely, Alaska — had been additionally shot in Roslyn.
The Alaska Pipeline additionally performed a job in a number of tv exhibits, most notably with “Good Instances.” Within the third season opener from 1975, “A Actual Cool Job,” the daddy, performed by John Amos, is obtainable a $500 (about $2,600 in 2022) every week job in Alaska engaged on the pipeline. The situation is performed for laughs, and the daddy reluctantly turns down the job since he doesn’t need to spend a yr away from his household.
What’s the backstory on that home at Ninth Avenue and E Road, on a diagonal from the prepare engine on the Park Strip?
The commonest kind of historical past query despatched to me is a few type of “what’s that constructing’s story?” On this case, the questioner was asking about 503 W. Ninth Ave., a former residence at present utilized by the well-regarded staff of Fringe Hair Design. Per the municipality’s information, it was in-built 1950. For many of that decade, the house was shared by schoolteachers and generally known as the Inexperienced Home for self-explanatory causes.
Because it was in a lot of the nation on the time, the native expectation was for academics to be single. A 1945 Anchorage Public Faculties trainer contract said, “The College Board reserves the proper to cancel this contract if the trainer enters the matrimonial state previous to, or throughout the college yr.” The one-bathroom residence sometimes housed 4 single ladies, typically imports from the Decrease 48 who spent a yr or two in Alaska, married, and moved elsewhere. Per a 1958 Anchorage Day by day Instances story, a lady who had spent 4 years there was thought of a veteran by her friends, a veritable old-timer.
In 1960, the house was bought and have become a business property. Through the years, it housed an acupuncturist, accounting agency, journey company and a number of other magnificence salons, together with Chateau de Marie, which supplied mysterious “Romanian magnificence therapies.”
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Should you may journey again in time, the place or when in Alaska historical past would you go?
This query was one of many extra out of the odd inquiries I’ve obtained. There are numerous moments or locations in Alaska historical past that I want I may go to if solely to reply the query of what actually occurred at the moment. Lots of these moments and locations are mundane and obscure. For instance, how unhealthy did the Monkey Wharf, an Anchorage bar with a tank of reside monkeys, scent? Or what was procuring like in Fifties Anchorage?
That stated, Ketchikan’s first baseball park is the place in Alaska historical past that I most want I may see in particular person. Attributable to a scarcity of open, flat land, the sector was located within the tidal flats close to the mouth of Ketchikan Creek. That meant it was solely out there twice a day at low tide. At excessive tide, residence plate might be lined by greater than 10 toes of water. A sawmill bordered one facet, and the outfield prolonged into the waterway.
The setting required some uncommon floor guidelines. Earlier than every sport, gamers needed to clear the sector of particles, the odd department or gasping fish. Outfielders had been anticipated to wade after balls hit into the water. If the ball carried too far for that, it was a house run. Balls hit into the sawmill space had been doubles until they landed on the kiln, which meant a house run. If a visiting staff was late arriving, the sport needed to be postponed. There was no pitch clock, in fact, however the tide meant that there have been arduous limits on sport lengths.
This subject was some of the distinctive ballparks in American historical past, if not essentially the most distinctive. Baseball video games have been performed in all kinds of makeshift settings, even in different tideflats. Within the earliest years of Anchorage, video games had been generally staged on the flats under Potter Marsh. However that was a short lived subject. There have been no everlasting constructions, just like the grandstand in-built Ketchikan in 1909.
There are a number of surviving photos and accounts of the Ketchikan ballpark, which was in use from 1903 to 1920. But, there are nonetheless questions that would solely be answered by being on the scene. How did the ball play on that floor? What was it like working the bases or fielding? Did the sector favor offense or protection?
• • •
Key sources:
Allen, June. “100 Years of Baseball in Ketchikan!” Sit Information, April 26, 2003,
Cox, Rose. “Alumni Recall Inexperienced Home of Fifties.” Anchorage Day by day Information, June 16, 2002, B-6.
Dehlin, Mary Ann. “4 Ladies Lead Hectic Life in ‘Inexperienced Home’; They Observe Weekly Work Plan Left by Alumnae.” Anchorage Day by day Instances, November 13, 1958, 9.
Dobbins, Richard. “‘Joyride’ Pointless, However Stars Present Expertise.” [Pasadena] Star Information, July 6, 1977.
Kari, James, James A. Fall, and Shem Pete. Shem Pete’s Alaska: The Territory of the Higher Cook dinner Inlet Dena’ina, Revised 2nd ed. Fairbanks: College of Alaska Press, 2016.
Morrill, Greg. “How Suicide Six Earned That Identify.” Stowe Reporter, January 7, 2016.
“Pipeline Film Made Exterior.” Fairbanks Day by day Information-Miner, November 19, 1976, 1.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/adn/SCURZEYVBRHPXLFDSUAX3RULQ4.JPG "In Alaska, air travel is a fact of life. But what happens when someone dies on a plane?")
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