Shining Bright

Women in the Land of the Midnight Sun

By Hal Smith

In Talkeetna, Alaska, “summit” is a verb, village life recalls the 1990s TV series Northern Exposure, and climbers prep for base camp on the flanks of Denali— at 7,000 feet. My second trip to Alaska started here, and while I wouldn’t be climbing any mountains, I would soon overcome unexpected obstacles on an entirely different level.

While milling around the Talkeetna Air Taxi hangar awaiting my flight, I noticed a woman in her 30s organizing wrenches in a huge, top-of-the-line tool chest. This was Danial Doty, a camera-shy woman with grimy nails and a bandanna protecting her dark brown locks. Danial, the company’s chief aircraft mechanic and an ace bush pilot in her own right, had flown from Colorado to Alaska nine years prior, taking everything she could stuff into her plane. “I had no plan other than to live in Alaska, working on planes and flying them,” she told me.

Despite my admiration for Danial’s single-minded focus, I slipped to the edge of my comfort zone when I realized that this woman’s handiwork with a couple of wrenches would control my fate aboard a seven-seat bush plane at 10,000 feet. About to fly a loop around Denali’s 20,300-foot peak, I thought: Women don‘t fix airplanes. Do they?

They certainly do. The flight went off without a hitch. However, a sudden updraft tossed the plane like a ping-pong ball, rearranging my thinking yet again. If I were to be wary of anything, it should be the unpredictable turbulence in these mountains—not the estrogen level of a highly skilled mechanic.

My stereotype-bending encounter with Danial Doty provoked the first of my many double takes about women’s roles in the Land of the Midnight Sun. In the days following that flight, I thought about how Alaska shapes women like Danial—and how women like her shape Alaska.

What draws hundreds of extraordinary females to Alaska every year? “It’s so much easier here to make yourself the kind of person you want to be,” says Sherry Simpson, a native Alaskan and writer for Alaska magazine. “Women in particular can ditch expectations about how they’re supposed to dress, what type of work they’re supposed to do, and what kind of fun they’re allowed to have.”

Sherry lists a handful of friends as examples of stereotype-bashing women in Alaska: One has a graduate degree in public administration and spends fall weekends hunting big game; another works for a local school district and as a river guide in her spare time. She also mentions a 2008 congressional candidate, a published poet, and an actress who drove trucks during the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.

It was the rush to build this 800-mile pipeline in the 1970s, in fact, that helped rewrite the rules for working women in Alaska. The project employed more than 21,600 workers at its peak and did for Alaskan women what World War II did for women of the Lower 48: It gave them jobs that ordinarily would have gone to men. Even so, both of these turning points of progress had more to do with supply and demand than shifts in men’s thinking.

But there’s an important difference between the two movements: While Rosie the Riveter got canned when the boys came home from war, women in Alaska still work in the North Slope oil fields and continue to challenge gender stereotypes—big time.

Supply and demand is still at work. “We [women of Alaska] are sometimes afforded more opportunities simply because we have a smaller and more isolated population than most states,” Shelley Theno, a University of Alaska professor, wrote in a 2004 study of the state’s women.

Those of us from “Outside” (how Alaskans refer to the rest of the world) generally have a shallow grasp on just how vast the Last Frontier really is. Alaska is 2.5 times the size of Texas, and laying a picture of the state over a map of the Lower 48 gives an even better idea of its size: The Aleutian Islands stretch into California; Alaska’s long southeast tail tickles Florida; and Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost city in the United States, sits squarely atop North Dakota. What’s more, roughly half of Alaska’s 700,000 people live in Anchorage; Puerto Rico has more miles of public road; and much of the state, including the capital, is only accessible by plane or boat. Alaska has just over one person per square mile, compared to the national average of nearly 80 people per square mile.

“I had no plan other than to live in Alaska; work on planes and fly them.”- Danial Doty, Talkeetna, Alaska

Because of Alaska’s enormity, simply showing up counts for something. This holds especially true in small towns, where capable, resourceful women get noticed—women like 52-year-old Thea Thomas and 31-year-old Beth Poole, who both live in Cordova on Prince William Sound. Thea and Beth have different stories, but both are representative of the women you find in small-town Alaska.

As a teenager growing up in Portland, Oregon, Thea dreamed of going to Alaska, where the northern wilds represented adventure and opportunity. While in grad school, she started working in Alaskan fish canneries during the summers to learn the ropes. After two years, she decided to start her own business. With personal savings, family help, and a bank loan, Thea bought a $60,000 commercial-fishing permit packaged with a $25,000 32-foot diesel bow-picker. This was a major investment, but more than 20 years later, she still makes a decent living netting king, sockeye, and coho salmon from May to September, rain or shine. Like other captains, she works alone and sometimes lives in her small boat cabin for weeks at a time.

Thea’s seasonal livelihood lets her head south in the winters to her Baja California trailer or visit family in Oregon—a situation that’s typical for many Alaskan women. “Every season I’m excited by the energy of the returning salmon,” she says. “Harvest time brings people back, too, and Cordova is alive with a sense of purpose.”

Beth arrived in Alaska in a different manner. “I can’t tell you how many people have the same story as I do,” she says. Beth grew up in New England, majored in English literature, lived in Boston, and lost her first job about seven years ago, which finally allowed her the time to visit a friend in Alaska. “By the end of the first week, I decided to wrap things up at home and move here,” she says matter-of-factly. “It’s captivating, but you get sucked in. It was as much a surprise to me as to my parents.”

During an internship for a community nonprofit in Cordova, Beth wrote a successful grant proposal that helped to establish a marketing association for the town’s fishing industry. Not surprisingly, she soon settled in as the association’s first executive director, and a flexible schedule and short walk to work gave her little reason to leave. Like many of Alaska’s small-town fishermen and locals, Beth spent several winters as a “young snowbird,” surfing and vacationing in Hawaii and Costa Rica with her husband. Now they have two children, so their getaways are determined by the school calendar.

Although Thea and Beth have established niches in their community, opportunities can be limited in small towns. “Alaska’s economy is narrowly focused—it’s heavily dependent on resource extraction,” says Alaska-born Deirdre Helfferich, a part-time science editor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “Fisheries and tourism are the next two biggest industries,” she says. “Pretty much everything else in our economy stems from that.”

The jobs here aren’t all glamorous, but they’ve been available: Until 2009, employment rates in Alaska had been steady for 21 consecutive years. Unemployment has since risen but still remains lower than in the Lower 48, thanks to the oil industry and heavy federal spending. Alaska has been spared the full impact of the 2008–2009 economic meltdown that stunned the rest of the country. Tourism stalled in 2009 but is expected to begin recovering this year.

In addition to the healthy job market, other financial benefits draw women to Alaska. The state has no income tax, and anyone with a pulse, including infants, collects an annual dividend from the state’s oil-wealth trust fund. The payoff has dropped sharply—to $1,300 per head last year—but it still adds up to a nice bonus for couples and families.

“When it’s December or January in Alaska’s interior, you start asking yourself why you live here, but in spring you wonder if you could ever live anyplace else.”- Lynne Snifka, Fairbanks, Alaska

“It’s easier to start your own business here, too,” adds Deirdre, who also publishes a regional monthly newsletter, the Ester Republic, in her small community near Fairbanks. She attributes the state’s laissez-faire regulatory attitude to its short history and to the “fierce libertarian bent to Alaskan politics.” Alaska also has a lot of women business owners, she adds. According to University of Alaska researchers, women in Alaska enjoy one of the country’s highest employment rates in management and professional fields and their median earnings also rank among the highest in the United States.

Alaska may have a libertarian streak, but it still has its share of bureaucracy. “The state, feds, and universities are among the biggest employers in the state,” Deirdre says. But government jobs also have strong equal-rights and equal-pay regulations, which help level the playing field for female professionals. “In terms of normal day-to-day life, the jobs and job ceilings are definitely more open [than in other parts of the country],” she says.

Alaska is also bountiful for women who like working outdoors and are resourceful enough to keep busy during the long winters and off-season. “Offhand I can think of many women I’ve known who’ve worked for river-rafting outfits, kayak companies, or horse-trekking outfits in the backcountry,” says Sherry, the writer, who’s also penned two books about life in the 50th state. She rattles off the other outdoor-industry jobs her acquaintances have held, including wildlife biologist and guides in every imaginable backcountry activity—and then there’s the writer/long-distance rower/world-renowned avalanche expert.

“The ecotourism industry in particular hires a lot of young women during the summers,” says Sherry. “If you have outdoor skills, [being a woman] can be a plus, because it helps female clients feel more comfortable.” Female guides sometimes have the opposite effect on male clients, however, but Sherry’s personal experience shows that most men get over their reservations and walk away impressed by their female leads’ capabilities.

Although the state’s huge backcountry lures wilderness- and adventure-loving women, being comfortable around wildlife is a prerequisite for all women in Alaska, even those who live in the city. Anchorage abuts the Chugach National Forest (larger geographically than New Hampshire), and hundreds of bears—including about 50 grizzlies—live within the sprawling city limits. “Five minutes from our townhouse, we’re hiking in bear country, spying on beavers, or watching otters play in a creek,” Sherry says. And 1,000 moose share the glacial bowl in which the city is built.

Despite occasional close calls with wildlife, outdoor recreation is a huge draw for potential transplants to the Great White North. “I can put on skis outside my door and ski for 25 miles without crossing a road,” says Jane Angvik, a community-planning consultant in Anchorage. In fact, the city offers 100 miles of groomed ski trails, along with hiking, biking, and even salmon fishing in Ship Creek.

Perhaps the biggest challenge for women in the Last Frontier is facing winter. Survival lessons include knowing when it’s too cold to ski (20 degrees below zero) and how to handle seasonal affective disorder (sunny getaways, full-spectrum lamps, and antidepressant drugs can help). “I have a love-hate relationship with Alaska,” says Lynne Snifka, a journalism professor in Fairbanks, where the winter solstice hits hard with only four hours of daylight. Even though the Wisconsin native is no stranger to the depravations of winter, “when it’s December or January in Alaska’s interior, you start asking yourself why you live here,” she says. “But in spring you wonder if you could ever live anyplace else.”

Talking with these women has enriched my understanding of why such strong, capable females call the state home. Like their moose-gutting former governor, the Alaskan-born women I’ve met are strong and self-confident, but the transplants from Outside seem more thoughtful, open-minded, and inclined to participate in their adopted communities. And I’d wager that a large proportion of women, both past and present, relate to Lynne’s love-hate relationship with Alaska’s wilderness, its rugged interior, its lonely winters, and the opportunity it affords them to pursue their dreams without gender baggage.

Women here are trailblazers. They are Iditarod winners and bush pilots opening up the backcountry. Women are breaking down race and gender barriers in the government and private sectors, founding newspapers, opening libraries, and leading environmental groups that protect the state’s true treasures. These pioneers would probably agree with Danial Doty, the Talkeetna aircraft mechanic, who sparked my entire fascination. “Strength comes from within,” Danial says. “And if you love what you do, to hell with the rest.”

Shine on, Alaska.