Walter chopping down “as large a log as I could handle” to build his cabin. In all, he cut 47 spruce trees for his 13-foot by 17-foot home.
Alaska wilderness and the craft of self-sustainability that propelled Walter’s wanderings. He warned his wife early on that if he ever awoke at night and heard the cry of a wolf, he’d have to head north to Alaska. In 1975 he heard that wolf and ventured deep into the Alaska backcountry to build the cabin depicted in a painting that hung in his living room above his mantle, next to the charred remains of his helicopter. With only his determination and a single-engine Cessna 175 Skylark full of supplies, he landed along the Post River that summer, cutting his first log on July 4. For a year, Walter lived in those mountains and off the land with only his bare hands, an axe, meat grinder, and sense of love for the Kuskokwim range and its river valleys. He encountered grizzlies, made hats of beaver pelts, befriended squirrels, and fostered a relationship with the Alaska terrain that sustained him more than any other place in the world. He constantly sought uncharted territory, sometimes creating detailed maps of his discoveries, many of which he found while exploring in his handcrafted helicopter. His most satisfying journeys were visits to old mining sites near Petersville, where rotted cabins stood between the Kahiltna and Tokositna glaciers. Being a gold prospector, Walter knew that when he found a cabin standing still in time, sometimes with dinner still on the table, that its inhabitants heard tell of a gold strike and fled in search of good fortune. But Walter would always be drawn back to his cabin, regardless of the treasures he found elsewhere.
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Today, the cabin still stands in a secluded spot in the Kuskokwim Mountains, 80-air miles from the nearest town—Medfra—with a rusty Coleman lantern hanging where Walter left it 20-some years ago. Its current owners, the Murray family—a family of adventurers regarded as the original Pacific Crest Trail journeyers—purchased the land in the 1980s, but promised Walter that the cabin would always be his. As adventurers, they admired Walter’s grit and passion for the wilderness. In the summer of 2014, Walter decided to return to his cabin once more; he was 89 years old, living in Texas, and in frail health. Days before he left, he wrote, “I want to relive those exciting times one more time. I know it will be different today, but I must live it again, before I die.” He hired a bush pilot and made the 3,000-mile trip back to his Alaska home. When he returned, he recounted a story that gave him great joy. He wrote:
I talked to a man working at the local airport. When I told him we were flying to Rainy Pass country he said, “That’s near the Post River where a man from Texas built a cabin and lived for a year while making a movie!” “Really?” I asked. “Yeah, everybody called him ‘that Alaskan from Texas,’ and he stayed
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there all through the winter. Everybody knows about him.” I was enjoying this, so I carried on asking the man if he ever met this man he spoke of. “No, that was far before my time,” he said. Almost satisfied I asked, “Well, would you like to meet him?” “Yeah, but that was about 50 years ago, so I guess he is gone by now.” Finally satisfied, I stuck out my hand as a gesture to shake his. Puzzled he said, “Who are you?” “I am ‘that Alaskan from Texas’ you spoke of, and I am going back to check on my cabin.” The last time I saw Walter was on March 1, 2015. He died the next day. Somehow I knew that was the last time I would see him. I think he knew too. Looking at me with his signature blue eyes, he hugged me goodbye, while those dusty flannels and puffy vests from adventures long gone hung behind me in his closet. Walter was ready to return to his nomad spirit—to the Post River and the Kuskokwim Mountains—to his last true frontier. Ashley M. Halligan is a freelance journalist/ copywriter who focuses on travel and human stories. Her work has been featured in outlets like Backpacker Magazine and Reuters.