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Judy Ferguson's first book, Parallel Destinies sells for $19.95 and can be purchased through Judy Ferguson at 907-895-4101 or outpost@wildak.net.  It is also for sale at Diehls', Granite View, Kelly's Country Inn, Tanana Trading Post and other stores.  It can be purchased on-line from Outdoors Alaska.

Interested in fishing while you are in Alaska?  Take a look at the selection of fishing books on our partner site OutdoorsDirectory.com  Click on the image for more information.

'Old acquaintances' bring the spice to life'

Story By JUDY FERGUSON 

Lea Shulz, a true Alaska gypsy

DELTA--Just before we flew Outside for a family trip last October, Tom Dowling and I talked while he sat on his beloved Harley Davidson in front of Jim Dorff's mechanic shop. He told me how much better he was feeling after a serious illness, and how he expected to win the battle. While we were in Pennsylvania, I heard Tom had unexpectedly died. When we returned home, I learned Lea Shulz, another old friend, had also suddenly passed away.

During the Christmas season, I watched Jimmy Stewart's old movie "It's A Wonderful Life." In this story, Stewart's character, George Bailey, had the opportunity to see how grim his town would have been had he never been born. In fact, he had blessed the lives of many, and they, in turn, gave back to him and they sang at the film's end, "Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? Should old acquaintance be forgot in days of auld lang syne?"

I met Lea only days after I moved to Delta in 1968. She had black hair and lively brown eyes. She was close to my mother's age, but, unlike my mother, she was an Alaskan "gypsy." She and her two children, Dan and Megan, were living in a Quonset hut on the Richardson Highway, next to the old post office in Big Delta. In the dead of winter, a big outing for me and Reb was to walk two and a half miles in the ice fog, and have coffee with Lea.

Some teasingly called her "Calamity Jane," but to me she was a rare friend who offered warm companionship and stories.

She drew a buffalo permit in the lottery in the early '60s. Old-timer John Shulz had told her to shoot the biggest bull she could. So she did. No big deal. It didn't matter that she had a broken leg mending in a cast. She somehow crawled to within 100 feet of a massive bull. She dropped it with her old 30-30. Her son, Dan, said the animal was so big that it broke the axle of "Chuck" Boyd's 1948 Chevy truck right in half. "The meat was so tough they had to gnaw even the burger," Dan said.

Raised in an urban home, Lea loved Alaska's outdoor life and the freedom it gave her to be what she wanted, to be herself. She could be seen driving one of her "Hercs," a no-automatic-anything truck into Delta. Dan patched together her '57 Chevy pickup with everything from fenders to transmissions until it was what she wanted, as strong as "Hercules." She and her son ran their dog team across Shaw Creek Flats to her trapping cabins, "Spruce Tree" and "Double Cabin."

Lea required only the simple basics of life, wearing Army field pants and mukluks. She kept her fingers busy with crocheting, gardening or typing the original Alaskan Trappers' Association's newsletter. She worked to organize her independent trapper friends, and pushed for registered traplines within the state.

She advertised the association in magazines, through which Larry Dorshorst, then of Wisconsin, first made contact with her, and with Alaska. He wrote her inquiring about trapping in Delta. She wrote back to him, "Welcome!! Another dead trapper...!" She didn't want "cheechakos" to come north blindly, so she calculated, "weed 'em out early!" Over the years, Lea "adopted" Larry and he became like another son to her. She adopted more than Larry. For years, out of a fixed income, Lea donated to orphans' and handicapped veterans' groups.

Tom Dowling was cut out of the same kind, yet independent, Alaska fabric. He was born in 1945, but unexpectedly died Oct. 3, five days after Lea's passing. Certainly no one expected to lose Tom either.

I first met Tom in 1970. He had a twinkle in his eye and was always looking for a way to razz someone. He thought critically and loved freedom.

Recently when I stepped into the home of Tom's widow, Mary Leith-Dowling, my eyes riveted on a painting of a Bush airplane flying among the Chugach peaks. The plane soared capably through the Alaska solitude and I thought of Tom as I gazed at the Bush plane, doing what he had done, connecting the villages by flying the vast distances between them, proficiently and alone. He knew Alaska in a way I will never know it, from the bird's eye view.

For years he flew an Otter out of Bethel and, later, a DC-3 out of the Caribbean. Tom was a Certified Flight Instructor, but when this chapter of his life was accomplished, he moved on. For 14 years, he was Delta's rural postman, always delivering the mail on time, despite the obstacles.

Tom could also look at a vehicle no one else wanted, and see something worth having. He could take an old motorcycle apart, down to the last bolt and nut, rebuild it, and paint it until it had a new life. Mary told me he picked up hitchhikers routinely, frequently bringing them home for a meal and lodging. As the grandson of an Alaska pioneer, he believed that, given the right circumstances, anyone could do well.

In the '60's, Lea wrote a regular column in one of Delta's early newspapers, enlivening it with her Bush stories. Tom sparked conversation as he delivered mail from Tok to Delta, again connecting people. There was always an extra chair at both of their tables and the coffee pot was always on.

Tom and Lea appreciated the freedom Alaska gave them to be the individuals they were. Every day pioneers are slipping away, and with them, goes a way of life. Should old acquaintance be forgot in days of "auld lang syne?" 

Judy Ferguson is a free-lance writer living in Delta. 

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