rhythm guitar, his wife was the pianist and someone played the lead cello! The only problem was that Don and I were pretty bad but the more stoned we got the better it sounded.
His Grand Dad was one of the original pioneers of Alaska and had established a gold mine in Livengood. Don’ s Dad, worked the mine for many years and regularly extracted gold from this strip mine. One year I was up at the mine when he harvested the gold at the end of the summer. This was really cool as they stripped back the carpet like layer on the sluice box where they dumped dirt and washed it down the sluice box all summer long. At the bottom of the carpet was mercury that bonded to the gold that went through the box. When Don’ s Dad stripped back the carpet there was about $ 50,000 worth of gold amalgamate that he extracted and he put it into a container. He then took the container and placed
Crystal and Tractor circa 1970, Photo by Barry Epstein
it and an antique. 38 revolver in its holsteron the front seat of his pickup truck and drove into Fairbanks to claim his money.
There were many buildings on the mine site including a main house and many small cabins where the miners lived. Don and I frequently traveled to Livengood and we usually had fun spending time with his lovely Mom and Dad. They were very special people to me as they were my surrogate family for several years. His Mom was so warm and friendly and she never judged me. She was an incredible cook and in addition to her many meals she would turn my hunting catch, usually of several freshly shot grouse, into a sumptuous meal for all at the camp. They had a sourdough culture that had been kept growing since the early 1900’ s and each morning this was used to make sourdough pancakes that were amazingly tasty. Livengood has a very dense grizzly and black bear population and there were so many frightening human encounter stories at the camp site over the years. After all, the smell of food from the cabins did attract bears to come nearby. Gladys Parker tells the story that when she was alone in the camp and she was in the main cabin one day when a bear had come up to the door and was attempting to get in. She climbed to the roof with her large caliber rifle( 30-06) and was forced to shoot the bear that had become a menace and clearly represented a safety issue. Many years later in Seattle, she told this story to my young sons and they thought she was absolutely the coolest Grandma ever.
So it was no wonder why each time that I went hunting for grouse in Livengood, my good friend Don, would always accompany me with his 30-06 rifle just in case we encountered one of the many bears in the area that may have been hunting us!
Nude, Livengood, Alaska circa 1972, Photo by Barry Epstein
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