Goose Stories ©2000 Timothy L. Smith
Logo of Kodiak Airways in the 1960s, from a billing envelope
"Goose Stories" (Kodiak Airways and the Grumman Goose)
(Now part of the "How to Get to Kodiak" Article Series)
Introduction:
A big part of the story of the islands in the 1950s and 1960s is the story of the emergence of regular bush pilot service. But such a truism does nothing to inform the reader of just how deeply the pilots and planes became part of the lives of the remote inhabitants of the Kodiak Island area. To this day, old timers refer to pilots by name, and affectionately tell stories of adventures in various planes, referring to them by their alphanumeric designations as if repeating the names of old friends. The dwindling number of pilots who still fly the islands and were part of that elite group who flew for Kodiak Airways, Harvey’s Flying Service or a handful of other outfits in the early days can hold forth for hours about close calls, survived crashes, the fate of every plane they ever flew, and the legacy of colleagues that have passed on.
In the summer of 1997 I was privileged to fly back to Larsen Bay, my first home, which I had not seen since the mid 1960s. I flew in a modern, high-capacity land-based airplane, which featured a small screen attached to the steering yoke: a hookup to the Global Positioning Satellite system. Every river, mountain and bay was displayed for the pilot, who flew over treacherous peaks and down twisting valleys in the clouds with complete confidence. "Flying by Nintendo," one old-timer called it. (What do you call a Kodiak Airways pilot in the clouds? Lost!) We landed on a modern gravel airstrip replete with windsock, directly behind the village. We were met by the local mail and freight agent driving a pickup, in a scene that could be repeated in village after village across the islands. As long as the airstrips at both ends of the journey were in the clear, the GPS could navigate through whatever soup was in-between. What a far cry such modern flying is from the early bush pilot era, which extended well into the late 1960s. By then I was a regular passenger on Kodiak Airways as a boarding student, climbing in and out of various amphibious and float planes at the seaplane terminal in the Kodiak Channel. A plane with wheels could be working anywhere; those old amphibians were pure Alaska.
All photos are from the Timothy L. Smith collection. This one is of me in 1996.
When Bob Hall was building up what was to become Kodiak Airways, I was just an infant, and mail still came to the remote villages on the Shuyak, a converted fishing boat which was often delayed for weeks by harsh winter weather. The advantage of a seaplane service to the villages was obvious, since they could land as soon as the clouds raised up a little and could slip in and out of a protected cove while ignoring the waves of the open ocean. A plane could be in and out between storms, while a boat would likely be delayed by impassable seas. By the time I was a high school kid commuting to Ouzinkie on weekends, Kodiak Airways had long been contracted to deliver the island mail. Thirty years later, the ancient Goose and its more delicately-styled smaller sibling, the Widgeon, had all but disappeared from Kodiak skies, supplanted by a mostly charmless collection of land planes originally built for stateside business commuters. This chapter contains the unabashedly affectionate recollection of a grown-up boy from the islands who has grown attached to a couple of mere pieces of equipment that helped to define his life for so long: the Grumman Widgeon and especially the Grumman Goose.
The Goose and Widgeon were developed for military use in the late 1930s and World War II as amphibious planes that could search for downed Navy fliers, supply remote island outposts, and tend to navigational equipment in nearly inaccessible bays and inlets, then return and land on anybody’s runway or landing strip. They served their purpose admirably, and in spite of being as heavy as a brick spittoon, were soon legendary for hardiness, dependability and versatility. In the postwar era a few were built exclusively for the civilian market, but when the projected boom in postwar aviation and especially seaplane business failed to materialize, the models were discontinued, and Grumman went on to become an aerospace giant. The Goose and Widgeon found regular use in the Caribbean and tourist places like California’s Catalina Island, but when pilots began acquiring them for use along the massive Alaskan coastline, legends were born. The planes are perfect for the Kodiak environment: tough, versatile and dependable, able to survive horrendous abuse and capable of being rebuilt even after being fairly squashed in some mishap. By the 1960s, mechanics regularly built their own replacement parts, forming an important if unheralded closet industry dedicated to keeping the grand old birds afloat and aloft. Grumman seaplanes and spare parts were scrounged from dozens of remote sites around the planet in the effort to keep the aging equipment working, a process that continues to this day. Organizations such as the Alaska Department of Fish and Game as well as a few local airlines and a dwindling cadre of well-heeled enthusiasts still work to keep the old birds flying. Bush pilots using decades-old skills still push the aging birds to uses that would crumple less worthy designs. Young children and their grandparents still awe at the spectacle of a Goose setting down in some quiet bay in a shower of spray.
Two views out a Goose window, Ouzinkie to Kodiak, summer of 1996
The sensations are permanently imprinted into my recollections and mix with the more personal ones as though to remove the memory of a Goose would be to erase my past. When my wife Debbie and I brought our children to Alaska for the first time in the summer of 1996, we were able to charter a Goose and land it in Anton Larsen Bay for the sake of the experience. The photos tell it all; my children sported ear-to-ear grins as we skimmed back into the air, and when we landed in Kodiak, both kids said essentially, "Daddy, buy me that!" These are kids that have been to Disneyland and Magic Mountain and every other wild and crazy civilized amusement, and yet were just as impressed as I was by the almost hypnotic power of a Goose ride. I was in a Goose for the first time in two decades, and I was gratified that my memory had not deceived me, for the old bird was still as compelling a piece of metal as was ever devised by intelligent life.
Kirstin Smith, the author’s daughter, in her first Goose ride, 1996
A Goose Ride
Traveling by Goose is no longer an everyday occurrence for most island passengers. The only way to recreate the ambiance of those adventurous days now is to let memory play tricks with you and create a hybrid experience based on scores of memorable journeys. Let’s take a trip to Ouzinkie in the pre-airstrip days. Let’s say it’s a Saturday morning in early December of 1969. In a land famous for spruce trees, Kodiak Airways’ little waiting room inexplicably boasts a silver aluminum Christmas tree, lighted by a spotlight with a rotating multicolored plastic lens. The tree dramatically changes from yellow to blue as I approach the counter. I march my bag up to the counter, where Archie Zehe, legendary dispatcher for Kodiak Airways, is talking by short-wave marine band radio to remote sites around the island in a near constant update of weather conditions. The information is what the pilots depend on to make it safely to their destinations. He calls Ouzinkie, a mere five-minute ride by air, yet often sporting its own conditions in the often-infuriating local tradition of unpredictable weather. There will be no problem today. Archie picks up the mike, presses the button, pauses briefly to let the circuitry respond and speaks clearly in a voice as recognizable to islanders as Walter Cronkhite’s is to Statesiders. "KWA26, 26 Ouzinkie, this is KXJ66 Kodiak Airways. How does it look this morning?" In Ouzinkie, the storekeeper’s voice almost instantly responds. Archie knows without any self-consciousness that every marine band radio around the islands is tuned now to 2450 kilocycles (nee hertz) and that nearly every coffee cup is paused midway to mouth as scores of cannery radio operators and would-be passengers are focused intently on his informal weather survey. The Ouzinkie storekeeper is prefacing his words during each transmission with an "Ahh" sound to let the transmitter catch up: "Ahh, Roger, KWA26 back to KXJ66. We got CAVU here this morning, Archie. Looks real good here. Got winds south-southeast no more than 10 knots." The CAVU or CVU refers to the best weather, Ceiling and Visibility Unlimited. The slight south-southeast breeze means that the Goose will most likely land in Ouzinkie from its most dramatic angle, over the church hill and through the boats moored in the bay. I realize this and hope I will get the copilot seat for a good view. More brief pleasantries are exchanged, and the storekeeper lists two Public Health Service workers who have been conducting a clinic for the return trip. Archie mentally notes that they’ll have to make a separate run to Port Lions on account of the PHS nurses’ freight. His radio conversation over, Archie looks up, addresses me by name and sends me and bag out to the waiting Goose, painted in cheery Kodiak Airways red and white.
As the first one there, I happily clamber up the narrow aisle of recently reupholstered brown and ochre seats, step over the aluminum housing for the landing gear with its little "double-check" window and slide into the dark brown leather copilot seat. Any idiot knows to leave the controls alone, so I content myself with strapping in. Everything loaded, the pilot slides into his seat after unceremoniously slamming shut the sometimes-temperamental two-piece outer door. He is dressed as might be expected: olive-colored flight jacket, Air Force sunglasses, and (only because of the December weather) a cream-colored muffler. He knows his role in local lore, but any swagger and sneer is only in my imagination, for he greets me warmly and goes about his preflight check with appropriate dedication. He knows the drill; I know the drill. We start out without any of the usual airline speeches, as is the universal custom. On the other hand, if he told me to go stand on my head in the tail cargo area I’d do it in a heartbeat; even more than aboard a ship, his word is law and our lives are in his hands.
Various switches are switched and buttons are depressed and the starters are engaged. The big radial engines whine, cough and sputter to life, and the brakes and landing gear groan in protest as the seaplane is turned and forced down the beach into the water. Once safely away from the ramp, the pilot busies himself with making sure the wheels are up. This model has a little crank to guarantee the ancient motor got the job done. It is one of the most dangerous parts of the flight. As a true amphibian, landing a Goose on a runway wheels-up is a very "iffy" proposition, but landing a Goose on water with wheels down will flip the plane and probably cost some lives. Such was the case with the famous pink and purple "Easter Egg" Widgeon (the first Kodiak Airways plane I remember), which flipped on landing in the very channel we are entering.
A Kodiak Airways Goose takes off in Kodiak Channel, summer of 1957
Satisfied that the landing gear is where it belongs, the pilot turns the Goose down the channel, pulls the yoke into his chest, gives it a half-turn, and holding it against him with one forearm, he reaches overhead to ram the twin throttles full forward. The roar of the radial engines is loud inside the cabin and near deafening outside, echoing off Pillar Mountain and Near Island as though a dozen Gooses are taking off. The thrust slams me back into the seat, and at first I feel as though the ocean is going to win, for the old bird seems to be standing on its tail, glued to the sea. Spray kicked up by the propellers is swirling everywhere in the mighty contest between propellers and water. This effect is temporary, for soon the seaplane is speeding faster than any speedboat and skimming the waves as smoothly as a hockey puck glides on ice. Abruptly the Goose leaps into the air, trailing a long stream of water from its bulbous underbelly. In one poetic moment of sheer power, a boat has magically converted to an airplane.
The plane pitches and yaws a bit as the pilot adjusts the trim and cuts back on the throttles. It may be only a ten-knot wind in Ouzinkie, but as we pass over the Loran station on Spruce Cape, the Goose finds a couple of drafts which give momentary roller coaster effects. The old plane seems to enjoy the little challenge, and roars defiantly toward its destination. I busy myself with trying to identify the boat traffic below, and look over the pilot’s arms at the morning sun glinting off the snowy Three Sisters Mountains. Even though I am a local boy and supposedly used to such daily displays of beauty, I am completely transfixed. The pilot sees my satisfied expression. "Nice day!" the pilot states, matter-of-factly. He knows and I know that on days like this he has the finest job in the world.
In a few short minutes the plane reaches the far end of Spruce Island. He circles the town’s western fringe, swinging wide over Sourdough’s Flats and Otherside Beach before lining himself up behind the school for his descent over the Church hill. He made a careful note of the boats anchored in the bay as he made the first turn, so he won’t be facing any surprises as he lands. He cuts power a little and drops some flaps, and the plane abruptly sinks like a stone, feeling as though it will pancake into the swamp below. He guns it and levels off; a Goose with no power is basically a big rock. We do not actually descend over the Church hill; we find an imaginary tube between the clump of tall spruce trees beside the store warehouse and the trees that frame the Russian Orthodox Church to the east. At one point in our short descent we are almost eye level with the church and are below the tops of the trees by the store. We seem to have no more than fifty feet vertically between the red bottom of the Goose and Mike Chernikoff’s little yellow boathouse that juts out into the bay. To people on the trail below, the big engines have slowed to a percussive rattle, and the big plane passes close overhead with an awe-inspiring whoosh. It is yet another visitation by their giant red-bellied angel, greeted with anticipation and affection.
Kodiak Airways Goose N69263 taxis up to the beach at Ouzinkie, Alaska, November, 1967
From my vantage-point in the cockpit, I feel the engines idle, and the momentary pause as the Goose struggles to remain airborne on its own lift and momentum. Just kidding with us, the Goose resigns itself to its fate and settles down politely on the bay, again taking on the persona of a speedboat for a few seconds before the ocean wins and the plane settles off the step. Arriving at this angle means that the pilot will have to taxi for some distance to reach the broad, sandy beach behind us. If he goes too slowly to be up on the step, he will release such a wake that he is sure to disturb some of the boats in the bay. We slow down long enough to turn toward the beach, and then he guns it as though taking off again, a disconcerting feeling for the passengers since the broad side of the church hill is dead ahead. With just enough taxi room to spare, my pilot idles the plane again, and it settles like a heavy seiner into the water. As soon as we have slowed, he begins the process of dropping the landing gear, winching it into locked position with his hand crank. With a bump we hit the sand below, and the pilot guns it for all it’s worth; the Grumman Goose is a most inefficient dune buggy and must be maneuvered and steered only by the sheer force of its massive radial engines. With its tail now facing the shoreline, the pilot cuts the power and the engines sputter to a stop. Even before the props have stopped turning, villagers have crowded around the plane. As the rear door opens from the inside, the pilot is greeted by first name, as warmly as Lindbergh ever was. My arrival is noted, and within minutes the entire village will know that I’m home and who got a shipment of what. My bag is unceremoniously dumped in my arms, and the pilot states the obvious about seeing me on the return trip. I head up the trail toward home. I am almost to the front door when the roar of his engines echoes from the foothills of Mount Herman and off the mountains across the channel on the Kodiak side, before gradually fading out of earshot. It will be a few minutes before I catch my breath and feel acclimated to solid ground again.
A Goose preparing to unload below the Church hill, Ouzinkie, 1966
Since I am only on a short weekend visit, I start worrying about the return trip by Sunday afternoon when clouds, light snow and a light breeze indicate that the weather is changing. Dad taps the barometer and listens to the weather report on an Anchorage station: "Shumagin Islands to the Barren Islands including Shelikoff Straight: North to Northwest winds 20 to 25 knots becoming light and variable winds by morning. Snow showers and temperatures in the mid to upper 20s." Dad shakes his head and tells me to plan to stay another day. Monday morning dawns gray with low clouds and snow flurries. I can’t see Cat Island from the dining room window. Nice weather if it were already Christmas I suppose, but unflyable. I am "socked in". I resign myself to enjoy the extra day, and hope the school understands on Tuesday.
As often happens around Kodiak, Tuesday morning dawns with no memory whatsoever of the previous bad weather. Another nearly cloudless, bright and cold winter morning. Archie’s voice on the marine band informs us that our flight will be arriving in Ouzinkie first, then deliver passengers and mail in Port Lions and Port Bailey. I might get to class by third period. When the plane taxis up on the beach, I note with some irritation that the copilot seat is already taken. I slouch into one of the seven other seats behind the cockpit bulkhead. Suddenly, the pilot turns around and in a somewhat strained voice begins rattling off official-sounding information about seat belts, smoking materials, flotation devices, exits and remaining seated. I pipe up with an amused, "Who do you think you are, Western Airlines?"
A Goose just starting to take off from Ouzinkie, summer of 1974 We take off, deliver the mail and add a few passengers in Port Lions, and head towards Port Bailey cannery. The inexplicable airline-style spiel about remaining seated, etc. is repeated, this time to a near chorus of amusement from the passengers. I notice that the mysterious man has not disembarked; he must be a Kadiak Fisheries official headed for the cannery. We strain up the steep and narrow wooden plane ramp at Port Bailey, built at a steep angle made worse by the natural incline of the Goose’s landing gear. The sides are so close that I can’t see the planks from the plane’s window, and the angle is so acute that the Goose seems to be trying to roll straight up. We reach the top with determination and turn around on the postage stamp-sized platform, made all the more treacherous by the freezing weather. Although I’ve been to Port Bailey by plane many times, the experience of a Goose actually turning around on that tiny little platform again amazes me. Still the unknown man does not get out of the cockpit. Since no new passengers are joining us, the pilot is blissfully silent as we coast swiftly back down the narrow ramp and slap the water. The pilot opts to return to Kodiak via the Spruce Cape route rather than the more dramatic cut through the passes behind the Navy Base, since there is a stubborn case of low fog in the pass over Buskin between Pyramid and Barometer mountains. As we descend into the Kodiak channel, I look up at the high school on the hill and note ruefully that I’ve missed most of third period. (Seaplanes never land this way in Kodiak now. They would risk tangling themselves in the Near Island Bridge. When I first walked across it in 1996 and looked down at the houses and canneries, I was inexplicably disoriented, until I remembered that the last time I had seen the town from that angle it was from the window of a Goose in flight.) Our plane coasts off the step in the channel and wallows briefly until our own surf catches up with us and pushes us forward. In the process, a wave higher than the bottom of the leaky cabin windows spills most of us with a lap full of water. Kodiak Airways’ motto is, "A shower of spray and we’re away." I decide I’d better write them a new one about landing. We roar out of the channel and up the ramp at the Kodiak Airways terminal, and I hang around a little just to see who was the mysterious figure "along for the ride" in the copilot’s seat. A Dick Tracy look-alike gets out and goes in to talk to Archie. I mention my curiosity to the pilot, and he pulls me aside. "Why did you say all that big-time stuff?" I begin. "That was an FAA official," he reveals, with a bemused look on his face. He pauses for a moment to let the meaning sink in. Remembering my rude comments about Western Airlines, I am profuse in my apologies, but he shakes his head. "Don’t worry about it," he states with a laugh. "Everybody up and down the island said the same things!" As I carried my bag up toward the school I chuckled a little at that story, and yet a little nagging thought kept intruding. Times were changing, and I didn’t much like it. Within a few years, Kodiak Airways became Kodiak Western Alaska Airlines (it had merged with an airline with Bristol Bay and Dutch Harbor routes) and sported a brand-new helicopter flown by a Vietnam Vet in addition to the amphibians and float planes. My brother Kelly landed his first airline job at Kodiak Western, while I left town for college. My schoolmate Robert (Robbie) Hall, Jr. died in a Goose crash and Rock James wrecked a Widgeon at the Base. A few years later, Kodiak Western folded, and the advent of landing strips up and down the islands changed flying forever. Yet there are still many areas around Kodiak Island that need the versatile freight-hauling, go-anywhere capabilities of the venerable Grummans. Longtime pilots such as Fred Ball and Steve Harvey kept a small fleet of three Gooses and a Widgeon flying, under the banner of PenAir, through the 1990s. Of course, this meant that my children got to experience one of the authentic joys of living in Kodiak when we took our Goose ride in the summer of 1996. But the Grumman amphibians represent an era of Kodiak history that is gone forever, and in some inexpressible way, is sorely missed. N87U unloading at Ouzinkie, 1969, and in a display at the Smithsonian, Washington, D. C., 1998 Written by Timothy Smith, web author. See the About Me page for more information. Always feel free to send me comments, suggestions or corrected information about this article or any of the articles on this site. (Write to: Tanignak@aol.com) Written by Timothy Smith, web author. See the About Me page for more information. Always feel free to send me comments, suggestions or corrected information about this article or any of the articles on this site. (Write to: Tanignak@aol.com) This article and website is © 2005 Timothy L. Smith, Tanignak Productions, 14282 Tuolumne Court, Fontana, California, 92336 (909) 428 3472. Images unless otherwise listed are from the collection of Rev. Norman L. Smith or the Timothy L. Smith collection. This material may be used for non-commercial purposes, with attribution. Please email me with any specific requests. You are welcome to link to this site. Link to How to Get to Kodiak Index Page Link to Evangel Index Page Link to Online Articles Page Back to tanignak.com Home Ouzinkie Articles Index Page