Speaker 1: From My Heart Media. This is Missing in Alaska, the
Speaker 1: story of two congressmen who vanished in nineteen seventy two
Speaker 1: and my quest to figure out what happened to them.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, John Wallzac. Welcome to our first bonus episode.
Speaker 1: As you can tell, I spent a ton of time
Speaker 1: on this project, and there are many things we just
Speaker 1: can't fit in the core show, but we want you
Speaker 1: to hear some of them to get a deeper sense
Speaker 1: of the story and the players involved. This episode begins
Speaker 1: with a phone call. Hello, Hey, I speak to Barbara,
Speaker 1: please speaking. That's Barbara Conti, who dated Don John's, the
Speaker 1: Missing Pilot in the early nineteen seventies. A few years ago,
Speaker 1: her son us heard about my research and emailed me.
Speaker 1: He told me that his mom had something fascinating an
Speaker 1: unpublished article written by Don John's called A Day on
Speaker 1: the North Slope. In it, Don details of plane crash
Speaker 1: he survived in Alaska in early nineteen seventy two and
Speaker 1: the brutal conditions he encountered as he trudged through the
Speaker 1: bush looking for help. When Don vanished. Barbara gave the
Speaker 1: article to her sister, who wanted to read it, but
Speaker 1: the stead guard is. My sister was murdered at the
Speaker 1: same time, and I don't remember the day. I was
Speaker 1: completely lost. You know. Her husband killed her. Then he
Speaker 1: committed suicide, and her poor kids were fifteen and sixteen.
Speaker 1: He had taken her down, put her in the trunk
Speaker 1: of her car, and when he got home from school,
Speaker 1: they still something dripping from the trunk. So they ran
Speaker 1: in and got to eat, and opening up, I saw
Speaker 1: their mother was there, head blown up. So they they
Speaker 1: are still traumatized by Barbara's sister was murdered on October,
Speaker 1: only one week after Dawn disappeared. After the murder, Barbara
Speaker 1: found this article A day on the North Slope, laying
Speaker 1: in her sister's den. Here it is voiced by Chandler Maze.
Speaker 1: To the southeast, Alaska's Brooks Range is silhouetted in pink
Speaker 1: Am February. I'm planning a three flight to Fairbanks in
Speaker 1: my for a load of supplies. I fly support for
Speaker 1: an oil exploration camp. The thermometer is negative fifty four
Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit pre flight the aircraft. It has been heated
Speaker 1: all night with a flameless cattle at a heater full
Speaker 1: oil drained sumps. Everything brittle and vulnerable to breakage. Be careful,
Speaker 1: ever so careful, I remind myself. Depressed starter a feeble
Speaker 1: click click from the starter, solenoid battery frozen. I try
Speaker 1: hand propping it. After yanking five minutes, I give that up. Finally,
Speaker 1: locate a hundred pound caterpillar battery and a pair of
Speaker 1: jumper cables. The engine starts. Disconnect the caterpillar battery. Let
Speaker 1: the aircraft idle five minutes while they return battery to caterpillar.
Speaker 1: Hurry back to the aircraft. Whack the skis to break
Speaker 1: them loose, mount the cockpit, forward on the throttle. Things
Speaker 1: don't sound all that healthy, What does it? Negative fifty
Speaker 1: four degrees fahrenheit. The aircraft rumbles down the side of
Speaker 1: the hill, airborne and climbing slowly. Cockpit fills with frost.
Speaker 1: Left wing Super Heavy had parked on a hill last night.
Speaker 1: As a result, fuel flowed to the downhill tank, just
Speaker 1: the happy bullshit of an arctic day. Ice crystals filled
Speaker 1: the cabin, wind shield frosted. I fly by instruments. In
Speaker 1: a couple of minutes, condensation from my breath diminishes with
Speaker 1: the warming by the cockpit heater. Soon I'll be up
Speaker 1: in an inversion layer and warm. Suddenly the propeller over speeds.
Speaker 1: The g D non congealing cooler has frozen and thereby
Speaker 1: prevented oil from coursing through the engine's enters, a condition
Speaker 1: I've experienced many times. Mother throttle back to permit the
Speaker 1: oil cooler to warm up, slow the air speed in
Speaker 1: order to keep prop within sight of the red line,
Speaker 1: remedies that have worked in the past. I could do
Speaker 1: a doctorate on non congealing oil coolers that congeal. However,
Speaker 1: airmen are vein buggers ad forever occupied with digging up excuses. Basically,
Speaker 1: I fucked up by letting the engine idle too long.
Speaker 1: Oil under too little pressure got mushy, clogged the oil
Speaker 1: cooler and its supply lines. In short order, oil remaining
Speaker 1: in the engine core overheated and thinned to the viscosity
Speaker 1: of water. In turn, the propeller governor, which boosts normal
Speaker 1: oil pressure, couldn't make two with water like oil, so
Speaker 1: it copped out on its job. Yes, the prop oversped
Speaker 1: because an arctic wise pilot screwed up. Should have put
Speaker 1: more masking tape over the cooler glance at the oil
Speaker 1: temperature j C far above the red line means engine
Speaker 1: oil is red hot. A furtive look at the oil
Speaker 1: pressure gage zero. The engine's butters and begins to knock.
Speaker 1: What does an old pro do when he encounters a
Speaker 1: tight situation? Ship his pants pray? Tell what else? Unfortunately
Speaker 1: it's a diversion, all too quickly completed. If impending catastrophe
Speaker 1: is kept too long in a Vivians, one is better
Speaker 1: off with another diversion. I am already flying low and slow,
Speaker 1: too little of everything for a turn back towards camp.
Speaker 1: Ahead into the left, I see the enactivic river. In
Speaker 1: the real world it would be called a frozen creek.
Speaker 1: I make the mile or so to the river. Went boom,
Speaker 1: the engine blows blow, it does fire and smoke up
Speaker 1: through the oil filter access door, oil spreading out the
Speaker 1: front errand takes now what best shot? Already fired as
Speaker 1: it is, it will take a week of warm wind
Speaker 1: to dry the seats. I point the nose down and
Speaker 1: look ahead for a landing place. Thank god, this horizon
Speaker 1: skis A moment later, goddamn river bed is all rocks
Speaker 1: and ice ridges. A bum day to die happy fiasco.
Speaker 1: D J. There is no question about landing. It is
Speaker 1: reduced to a simple puzzle. Will I walk away with
Speaker 1: my one as intact? Two airplanes bladdered? I slow airspeed more,
Speaker 1: but you won't fly. The combined result of no power
Speaker 1: and a hefty load of ice brought in yesterday from
Speaker 1: port barrow jerk on first notch of flaps, almost immediately,
Speaker 1: I'm forced to grab another notch over one embankment across
Speaker 1: the serpentine leg of the frozen river, flashing perpendicular in
Speaker 1: front of me, Now very low and aiming to center
Speaker 1: punch the three ft high embankment and the river's far side.
Speaker 1: Third and last notch of flaps up like a balloon
Speaker 1: on a false gust, A short stretch of rocks, strown gravel,
Speaker 1: bar thud, hit, bounce, sliding, fuel off, switch off stop.
Speaker 1: I can hear the snap, crackle and pop of a
Speaker 1: well done engine, Smoke gushing into the cockpit. One good sign.
Speaker 1: The fire blew itself out. I fumble with the seatbelt,
Speaker 1: opened the door, jump out, balls, gotta be bum karma.
Speaker 1: Plane undamaged, except lept Ski has a grapefruit size hole
Speaker 1: gouged in it. The tire above the hole is punctured.
Speaker 1: I reach in the air intake to touch the engine.
Speaker 1: My hand drags out a jagged chunk of metal about
Speaker 1: the size of campbell soup can. It is part of
Speaker 1: the crank case. What do you think you are? A
Speaker 1: d J A junk collector, and put it back it is.
Speaker 1: I'm at a latitude sire north or thereabouts, maybe seven
Speaker 1: eight miles from a tiny camp in which there are
Speaker 1: four other men, who, by the way, pay this birdman
Speaker 1: to be their lifeline. I'm sixty miles or so north
Speaker 1: of a small Eskimo settlements, or more to the other
Speaker 1: nearest white man. It is more than fifty degrees below,
Speaker 1: So stay and pray to the east, burn the aircraft,
Speaker 1: or walk out on with blue insulated survival suits actually
Speaker 1: an adopted snowmobiles cover all. Tighten the laces on my
Speaker 1: muckluck's pull on a face mask, march man A thought.
Speaker 1: Many years have I spent flying the Arctic. Unfortunately, I've
Speaker 1: been a walking only twice, but both times in these
Speaker 1: blue cover alls. The first time after a double engine
Speaker 1: failure in the sky van a hundred fifty miles south
Speaker 1: of here in October, nearly lost a frost bitten foot
Speaker 1: to a surgeon's blade. Baby, better change your lifestyle. Maybe
Speaker 1: it is the blue cover alls. I decided to trash them.
Speaker 1: If I get out trudging north down the Enactivic River,
Speaker 1: I break through a lightly bridged crevice and stick my
Speaker 1: right muck cluck into the slowly flowing black water beneath
Speaker 1: screw You will take my stroll on the bank ahead
Speaker 1: and on the right side of the river. About five
Speaker 1: miles is I'm certain Rooftop Ridge not much of a mountain,
Speaker 1: maybe feet, But in this flat, frightening, forlorn, fricking frozen desert,
Speaker 1: it passes. I know our camp is opposite Rooftop Ridge,
Speaker 1: on the west side of the Inactivic River, just a
Speaker 1: hair from the river. Muck luck before muck luck before
Speaker 1: muck luck. Christ, what a bummer. In any event, it
Speaker 1: could be worse, Yeah, asshole, it could be a lot better,
Speaker 1: Like you could have been at twelve thou feet over
Speaker 1: the Brooks Range cockpit, all cozy and a hundred miles
Speaker 1: closer to town by now, not to mention four thousand
Speaker 1: dollars less worse off. How would a stoic's philosophy of
Speaker 1: never look back fit out here? Personally, I'll hang onto
Speaker 1: my regrets. At nine, the distinctive sound of our nod
Speaker 1: Well snow tractor fractures the Arctic morning. At first, the
Speaker 1: sound appears from the west. There was a west wind
Speaker 1: of three to four knots. I removed my face mask
Speaker 1: to uncover my ears. Now the sound seems from the north.
Speaker 1: As suddenly as it started, the sound of the reving
Speaker 1: engine stops. I strained my ears, but all I can
Speaker 1: hear off on the river three quarters of a mile
Speaker 1: to my right is the bank pop crack of river ice.
Speaker 1: I recognize this as the sound of overflow, the Arctic
Speaker 1: phenomena whereby a river freezes to the bottom of the
Speaker 1: river bed in some constricted spot, causing a reservoir of
Speaker 1: deep water to swell upstream. When the pressure gets strong enough,
Speaker 1: it splinters four to six feet of surface ice, flooding
Speaker 1: it with gushing water from beneath. Sometimes the new water
Speaker 1: is three ft thick. The new surface water itself quickly freezes,
Speaker 1: but while doing so it makes a lot of ice fog.
Speaker 1: It is exceedingly dangerous to attempt a landing or try
Speaker 1: to walk on overflow. Overflow conditions happen most readily when
Speaker 1: temperatures take a sudden dive or when cold persists. This morning,
Speaker 1: the river begins to fog due to open water flooding
Speaker 1: the surface. Sure as hell isn't getting any warmer. I
Speaker 1: decided to continue north parallel to the river, about a
Speaker 1: half mile from the river bank. Thank the Virgin for
Speaker 1: abundant warm clothes this time. Following my nineteen seventy crash,
Speaker 1: I damn near died of cold and exhaustion. For leg gear,
Speaker 1: I am wearing long John's under a pair of brown
Speaker 1: checkered street trousers. Over it all my blue insulated snowmobile
Speaker 1: cover rawls. For the torso. I wear a head turtleneck undershirt.
Speaker 1: My head makes luxurious skis. Remember Austrian ski sweater down
Speaker 1: vest and my new orange down ski PARKA. Damn it, dude,
Speaker 1: ever consider becoming a ski bum and really saying screw
Speaker 1: airplanes forever. On my feet, I'm wearing Canadian Army Arctic
Speaker 1: muck Luck's with natural rubber souls with canvas uppers, no
Speaker 1: cold fracturing, quote rubber eyes plastics. Like last time. The
Speaker 1: whole works is called footpacks the best going. My feet
Speaker 1: are loose and warm, but they will still freeze if
Speaker 1: I sywash for the night. What a funny word. It
Speaker 1: means going native in the open, a poor man's bivouac,
Speaker 1: kick a trench in the crust, and try to keep breathing.
Speaker 1: The idea causes a sharp pain in the ass on
Speaker 1: my head. I'm wearing my customized stocking cap slash face mask,
Speaker 1: purchased and hacked up only day before yesterday in Fairbanks.
Speaker 1: What a blast that was. I looked all over town
Speaker 1: for a lightweight, long stocking cap with mouth and eye holes.
Speaker 1: No luck. Finally I purchased a stock model, grabbed a
Speaker 1: pair of scissors, sniffed holes in the correct locations, and
Speaker 1: watch my brainchild unravel in my hands. In desperation, I
Speaker 1: fetched a needle and thread and spent half an hour
Speaker 1: making stop stitches. I am glad such a fine job
Speaker 1: had been done. D J. Maybe you would make someone
Speaker 1: a good wife. Go slow, better extract your ass from
Speaker 1: this predicament before considering marriage. Speaking of ass, I forthright
Speaker 1: reached two conclusions. One, my sexuality had been dealt a
Speaker 1: stunning blow when I shipped my trousers two hours ago.
Speaker 1: To my ass and chin are the only parts of me,
Speaker 1: that are cold, outrageous coincidence on my hands. I have
Speaker 1: jumbo leather mittens with woolen liners ten a m. Where
Speaker 1: in the hell am I? In answer? The enactivic river
Speaker 1: looses a volley of snaps like a popcorn machine. Two
Speaker 1: hours you've been walking, that is eight to ten miles.
Speaker 1: I stopped to listen again. Where did the nod Well
Speaker 1: tractor sound go? Just like these dudes to shut the
Speaker 1: engine off? No consideration for pilots. Ahead on the right
Speaker 1: river bank about three miles is rooftop ridge. I think
Speaker 1: if it was five miles away before, and you've just
Speaker 1: walked eight miles and it is still three miles away,
Speaker 1: you're arithmetic bears watching with the mere utterance of bear
Speaker 1: comes to reality. There was a goddamn grizzly ahead into
Speaker 1: the right j C. This is all I need. A
Speaker 1: feeble minded bear that doesn't have sense enough to hibernate.
Speaker 1: He should run from me and I from him. But
Speaker 1: I'm ass whole deep in snow and can't run, and
Speaker 1: he is obviously a muck if he's out here in midwinter.
Speaker 1: To be on the safe side, to take a y
Speaker 1: detour when about two hundred yards on his down wind side,
Speaker 1: an old hunting trick. I see that he is a
Speaker 1: large wind exposed rock. Nonetheless, I'm fresh out of faith
Speaker 1: number one. I'm gravely concerned over the remains of a
Speaker 1: four thousand dollar engine now worth about a hundred dollars
Speaker 1: Arctic depreciation, just to rattle my cage. I am lost,
Speaker 1: or nearly so frightened on the ViRGE of panic. Like
Speaker 1: it will be dark again in five hours. Then what
Speaker 1: behind me? I can see my lonely trail at meander
Speaker 1: south from where I stand strong with little zigs and zags,
Speaker 1: where I've walked with head down. It disappears over the horizon.
Speaker 1: The breeze is stiffening, ice fog obscures more of the river.
Speaker 1: The whole scene looks like a science fiction nightmare. I
Speaker 1: make up my mind to walk another hour in the
Speaker 1: northerly direction that will put me three hours back to
Speaker 1: the aircraft. Of a storm comes up. If a really
Speaker 1: big blow starts, I've got big problems. There is not
Speaker 1: a tree, bush or stump within a hundred miles. The
Speaker 1: only chance would be to make a hasty retreat toward
Speaker 1: the aircraft and hope to make it even if I
Speaker 1: got back to the aircraft, it would be a gruesome
Speaker 1: ordeal to survive. I've seen storms last a week with
Speaker 1: winds over fifty knots and fifty below. Bullshit. When will
Speaker 1: they start looking for me? I imagine in two to
Speaker 1: three days. There isn't that many in our breed that
Speaker 1: will venture a search on the north slope. Maybe a
Speaker 1: few of the old pros from the interior airways, like
Speaker 1: Bob Jacobs, or a couple of the fellows hired by
Speaker 1: the oil companies like Jack Spurgeon of Aalieska pipeline who
Speaker 1: found me last time. Definitely not C A P or
Speaker 1: f A A. Last time I crashed, I damn near
Speaker 1: died before anybody considered looking. All around me are teeny
Speaker 1: rolling hills tops shrouded in fog. The effect is to
Speaker 1: make pip squeak mounds appear as mountains. Of course, there
Speaker 1: are no mountains on the north slope, all of which
Speaker 1: makes me less and less sure of where I am.
Speaker 1: It isn't the first time I thought I was in Siberia.
Speaker 1: I can still see rooftop ridge, but in the bleak
Speaker 1: Arctic morning, it looks fuzzy too far away Where are
Speaker 1: all the good donarracts this morning. Douniacs are old Eskimo spirits.
Speaker 1: They may be good donats or bad don acts. Doniracts
Speaker 1: may dwell in specific large mountains, rivers, trees, et cetera.
Speaker 1: I hastened my march only to work up a sweat
Speaker 1: across my shoulders in the back of my neck. I
Speaker 1: opened the front of my parka and coveralls. The faster
Speaker 1: pack still makes me sweat. Sweat is a goddamn no
Speaker 1: no in the Arctic. It leads to deep chills and
Speaker 1: freeze dried corpses. If consistent, it would make a good
Speaker 1: walking Instead, I fall through the crust and scrape my
Speaker 1: shins once in about every twenty yards. The anticipation of
Speaker 1: falling through is innervating. Reminds me of waiting for a
Speaker 1: jack in the box. My muck lucks make a crisp
Speaker 1: thump creek sounds like walking on a wrinkled drum. The
Speaker 1: wind bites my eyes, they water, the water freezes into
Speaker 1: instant icicles. Every five minutes, I take a glove off
Speaker 1: and flick the accumulated ice from my eyelashes. Otherwise, all
Speaker 1: the mirages are blurry. Who needs blurry mirages. At a
Speaker 1: time like this, if I look down my nose inside
Speaker 1: the face mask, I can see icicles hanging a half
Speaker 1: inch from my nostrils. Great day for a hike. From
Speaker 1: time to time, my chin freezes. I dig in a
Speaker 1: pocket and come up with a knitted earbands, more romantically,
Speaker 1: a Norwegian jockstrap. This goes around my lower face. That
Speaker 1: cures the chin problem. I am afraid, not soon enough.
Speaker 1: My chin is numb and feels brittle. My windward ear,
Speaker 1: the left prick is near frostbite. Fifteen years ago, both
Speaker 1: ears were severely frost bitten. They have always been more
Speaker 1: vulnerable to freezing. Since is it only negative degrees fahrenheit?
Speaker 1: The only sign of life is an occasional limbing trail.
Speaker 1: Imagine those little mothers out here and a fox track.
Speaker 1: All tracks are blown in which means a week or
Speaker 1: so old. Not a bird, not another living thing save
Speaker 1: one lonesome aviator flapping his wings in a vacuum, an endless,
Speaker 1: worthless pearl. This the fat cat conservationists of California want
Speaker 1: to save any ecological accident, even oil spill, would be
Speaker 1: a step forward, no doubt about it. I'm lost visibility
Speaker 1: is getting hazier. My ass is in a sling. If
Speaker 1: I don't find camp. In fact, if I don't get
Speaker 1: back to camp, some prick somewhere will notify the f
Speaker 1: a A. Tis little better than not being found at all.
Speaker 1: Not that they would come looking, No, they would get
Speaker 1: lost and blame the airplane manufacturer. But they would lounge
Speaker 1: around and wait for someone to find me, then slap
Speaker 1: a big violation against me. For assuredly, as Allah did
Speaker 1: his own thing, I've violated some law. The f a
Speaker 1: A operates under the philosophy that the only legal airplane
Speaker 1: is a parked airplane. So when accidents do happen, never
Speaker 1: mind the missing wing or faulty engineering, there is a
Speaker 1: violated rule. Thus the f a A motto, if the
Speaker 1: pilot hadn't taken off, the accident wouldn't have happened. Listen,
Speaker 1: all I hear is the incessant bang from the distant
Speaker 1: river ice. My right foot is beginning to blister. Good
Speaker 1: time to pee. Pause for a philosophy break. Granted, passing
Speaker 1: water is not one of life's biggia's until you've taken
Speaker 1: a frightened frozen tool, apply attention to it, and attempt
Speaker 1: to coax it over three inches of clothing. Follow me through,
Speaker 1: remove clubs on jam frozen park a zipper, unsnapped down vests,
Speaker 1: unzip frozen cover rolls, and pull up sweater. From here
Speaker 1: it is by brail unzipped trousers with right hand, fish
Speaker 1: for the little gym, pry open long john fly and
Speaker 1: underwear pouch Eureka with horse and hand. I began uncoiling
Speaker 1: quicker than you can blink an eye. I had the
Speaker 1: entire two inches pulled taut over the edge. I can
Speaker 1: just discern his frosted label made in Japan. Anyway, great
Speaker 1: white pilot tankled. I resolved to hike to the nearest knoll,
Speaker 1: maybe a mile west of the river. From that vantage
Speaker 1: point I may see better referencing rooftop ridge with a
Speaker 1: primitive fix on the sun. I turned ninety degrees left
Speaker 1: from my otherwise straight north running footprints, and begin to
Speaker 1: walk west. It takes balls to change course in life.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it is the only way it is. I am frightened,
Speaker 1: perhaps from the forced landing. More I think from the
Speaker 1: familiarity with the unrelenting Arctic. Less than a year ago,
Speaker 1: a scant forty miles from where I stand, I collected
Speaker 1: the frozen body of my good friend George Curtis. George
Speaker 1: and I had known each other for to five years.
Speaker 1: He was the Arctic's most experienced geophysical supervisor. The night
Speaker 1: before he was killed, George and I raft about the
Speaker 1: Arctic and its catastrophic assault on things living. The conversation
Speaker 1: ended with George, what the hell are you still doing here?
Speaker 1: Don't you know life goes on outside while you freeze?
Speaker 1: George reminded me, and you you made it big ones.
Speaker 1: We fell asleep inside by side bunks. The next morning,
Speaker 1: I bade George so long and jumped into my plane.
Speaker 1: Later that day, the helicopter in which he was writing
Speaker 1: augured into Mother Earth in a white out. The following day,
Speaker 1: I circled the wreck while another chopper landed and confirmed
Speaker 1: the worst. The day after, I took George Curtis on
Speaker 1: his last airplane ride. Such as the Arctic so goddamn beautiful.
Speaker 1: It hurts sometimes so brutal, with such finality. At others
Speaker 1: I used to love it. To be one of its
Speaker 1: unique experts was a pride I couldn't verbilize. Ecstasy comes
Speaker 1: less frequently these days, but when it does I think
Speaker 1: it worth the weight? I am very near or my
Speaker 1: friend and Jules Thibodeaux, the most illustrious pilot of the
Speaker 1: North bit the dust of Kayak Mountain Christmas sixty or
Speaker 1: sixty eight. My mind rebels. To get my head straight,
Speaker 1: I start reviewing great books of courage I've read. Foremost
Speaker 1: is The Long Walk, where the mind of man overcame
Speaker 1: unbelievable hardship in Siberia. Next, I remember Papillon and his
Speaker 1: years of travail and utter isolation. If I should be
Speaker 1: totally lost out here, I resolved to use these examples
Speaker 1: for inspiration. It is now eleven o'clock. Is the whole
Speaker 1: world flat white? Or do they still make trees and grass?
Speaker 1: When I get to the top of the knoll, I'll
Speaker 1: sit and rest half an hour and listen carefully for
Speaker 1: any sounds that might come drifting out of white space.
Speaker 1: At the end of half an hour, I'll retrace my
Speaker 1: steps to the aircraft. All reasoning points to the probability
Speaker 1: that I've walked past the camp and am too far north.
Speaker 1: I have walked over fifteen miles before being forced down.
Speaker 1: But reasonable certainties are not enough on which to bet
Speaker 1: your life and getting lost is an absolutely certain route
Speaker 1: to disaster in the Arctic. I am plotting due west
Speaker 1: according to the sun, which is a whole ten degrees
Speaker 1: above the southern horizon. My zombie like shadow is at zenith.
Speaker 1: The Arctic day is half gone. Civilized parts of the
Speaker 1: world are contemplating spring. We're just emerging from deep winter.
Speaker 1: Not long ago, an acquaintance asked me to teach him
Speaker 1: to fly on the north slope. Teach luck, Show a
Speaker 1: man how to do the common sense number, Demonstrate a
Speaker 1: will to survive, Drill him on how to fly lot
Speaker 1: with confidence. Instruct him on how to fly by the
Speaker 1: seat of his pants on instruments. Tell him about darwin
Speaker 1: Survival of the Fittest the blind. Teach the blind. He
Speaker 1: must have been shooting me. I glanced to the south
Speaker 1: j C smoke. I start walking. Before walking five minutes,
Speaker 1: I suddenly catch sight of the camp, not at the smoke,
Speaker 1: but off to the west. Is ecstatic the correct word?
Speaker 1: As it turned out, the smoke isn't smoke, but sunlight
Speaker 1: making a mirage on the ridge. Remind you of the
Speaker 1: bear that wasn't. Had it not been for the mirage,
Speaker 1: I would not have found the camp. Whatever the camp
Speaker 1: isn't an illusion. It is only about two miles away.
Speaker 1: As suspected, I had walked past the camp on the try,
Speaker 1: more or less by accident, I've stumbled back to it.
Speaker 1: The final two miles is at a bouncy clip. It
Speaker 1: is new. I've walked eighteen to twenty miles. As I'm
Speaker 1: marching the camp, Don Callahan, the party chief, exclaims, what
Speaker 1: the hell, don't give me any bullshit. Just take a picture.
Speaker 1: Before I pulled his face mask off. Part of my
Speaker 1: chin comes off with a mask. I am a believer
Speaker 1: mirages are good. Don acts. Okay, so this article obviously
Speaker 1: shows a few things. First, Don had a sarcastic, sometimes
Speaker 1: profane sense of humor. Second, even though I've harped on
Speaker 1: his seventeen thousand hours of flight time and extensive experience
Speaker 1: piloting planes and interior Alaska, he sometimes made mistakes. This
Speaker 1: was one, as he himself admitted. Another occurred six years prior,
Speaker 1: in October nineteen sixty six, when he embarked on a NonStop,
Speaker 1: fifty hour record breaking flight from Miami to Fairbanks and
Speaker 1: a small plane, a Piper Cherokee. He didn't get far
Speaker 1: Shortly after takeoff, he was forced to crash land on
Speaker 1: a four lane highway right outside Miami. The f a
Speaker 1: A quickly discovered that he had overloaded the plane by
Speaker 1: seven hundred pounds and temporarily revoked his license. If he
Speaker 1: had made it, his ex wife Willie told me he
Speaker 1: would be the hero. Because he didn't make it, he
Speaker 1: was the villain. You can reach us by phone at
Speaker 1: one eight three three m I A tips that's one
Speaker 1: eight three three six four two eight four seven seven
Speaker 1: again one eight three three six four two eight four
Speaker 1: seven seven, or you can reach us via email at
Speaker 1: tips at i heeart media dot com. That's tips, T
Speaker 1: I P s at i heeart Media dot com. Ben
Speaker 1: Bowen is our executive producer. Paul Deckan is our supervising producer,
Speaker 1: Chris Brown is our assistant producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson is
Speaker 1: our producer. Sam T. Garden is our research assistant. And
Speaker 1: I'm your host and executive producer, John Wallzac. You can
Speaker 1: find me on Twitter at at John Wallzac j O
Speaker 1: n W A L c z A K special thanks
Speaker 1: to Chris and Barbara County, and thank you to Chandler
Speaker 1: Mays who voiced Don John's Missing in Alaska is a
Speaker 1: co production of I Heart Media and Greenfork Media.