"It's tough to be a sourdough," mused Lisa Jodwalis who has lived in Alaska twenty-four years and is now working as a park ranger around the state.
Ms. Jodwalis listed a number of the criteria she thought were adequate indicators of one's sourdough status. Gold panning was on her list, as long as you owned your own pan and pick. So was dog mushing, as long as you didnŠt lease a team, which she felt was pseudo-Alaskan. Also significant, was at least one experience changing a tire at -40 F or colder, which links in with her 20 winter minimum.
When I asked her if one winter qualified you for anything, she smiled and shook her head, "Not here."
Also, at Alaska Public Lands, Linda Garrett claimed that you need to own a pair of rubber boots, a pair of Sorrels and definitely a pair of pre-1995 Bunny boots, which are a rare find nowadays. Sadly, I realized I owned none of the boots Garrett mentioned.
But according to Jodwalis, you need to have been in Alaska prior to the construction of the pipe-line to be in the running for sourdoughdom, so it really doesnŠt matter what boots I've stashed away for the summer.
Other qualifications mentioned by Jodwalis and Garrett included living in a dwelling without running water for five years or more, at least one encounter with a grizzly bear and a canoe trip down a stretch of the Yukon River.
Just outside of Alaska Public Lands, on the corner of Cushman and 3rd I caught up with Fred Sebold in search of reaching some consensus on the issue.
Sebold was busy cooking hot-dogs, but had plenty to say on the topic.
"Part of it is learning how cold it gets. It's a whole different type of cold that you don't find in too many other places," said Sebold.
Transplanted from Kemmerer, Wyoming, (home of the first J.C. Penny's), Sebold was also of the school that believes time in the Bush and familiarity with outhouses ultimately brings you closer to true Alaskana.
Hot on the trail for more information, I called the University of Fairbanks Museum in hopes of gathering a missing piece or two of the puzzle.
An amiable woman picked up the phone, but then decided it was not her area of expertise. I quickly calculated that she probably didn't own a pair of rubber boots.
I was referred to Amy Greiger, Manager of Visitor Services at UAF, who kindly gave me a few insights in the ambiguous title. Grabbing an Alaskan Almanac, she informed me that the word sourdough came to be applied to old-timers from Alaska and the Yukon.
"A sourdough is a someone who has oil-heat and a garage," joked Greiger, who knows folks who have decided that pursuit of sourdoughdom is not for them. After a few months or years without plumbing and electricity, these folks decide to pack it in and move back to civilization.
The bottom-line for Greiger is that there is currently no litmus test to be labeled an official sourdough, except perhaps receiving a Permanent Fund Dividend check.
Surely, I thought, a company like Sourdough Fuel would have clearer understand of the expression. After a few referrals, I talked with Tammy McMahan.
"You have to be here [Alaska] forever," said McMahan, a twenty-year-resident.
A break-through? I wanted to hear more about this new criteria. Did this entail being born and raised in the state? McMahan used the term sparingly and respectfully to refer to old-timers who made the state what it is today when there was little to nothing up here; like miners, business people and construction workers. Like sourdough pancakes, these folks just kept going and never spoiled, explained McMahan.
Some people I spoke to felt incapable of broaching the subject.
"Well...anyone who has lived in Fairbanks for less than two years isn't really in a position to comment," said Shannon Thomas who works as a computer instructor at the Carol Brice Center. As I complete my first year in Fairbanks, part of me agrees with Mr.Thomas. Having only lived in the Interior for ten months, I feel a little uncomfortable about commenting on the legacy of the sourdough.
I also turned to my co-workers to find any stones left unturned. Again, I got a variety of responses, but nothing concrete.
"Some people call me a sourdough, because I was born here"
"You know you are approaching sourdoughdom when you can eat things living in your beard the day after."
"Mosquitoes and bugs no longer bother sourdoughs because they have become immune to those critters."
Finally, I called Lena Sexton, who works with elderly folks through the Private Industry Council. I hoped she could salvage my mission.
"Sourdoughs are those people who toughed it out when things were tough. Like gold miners willing to stick it out and survive the long winters, like the kinds of people who walked from Valdez to Fairbanks before there were airplanes and railroads," said Sexton, a 47 year Alaskan resident.
I liked Sexton's description, because it gets something all of us share who live up in the North country year after year. At heart, the determination and resiliency of early settlers is still evident among the spirit of residents of the Interior today. Whether you are a mail carrier, a carpenter or a business person, there is a little sourdough in all Alaskans that keeps them going through the extremes; from the Summer Solstice into the heart of the winter.
©1997 Eion Bastable
return to featurespage.