Hope the Town
In the 1970’s, Hope was a small town consisting of about 40 structures, with a small country store, a log “social hall”, another store selling gas and sundries, and a small one-room schoolhouse. A small number of permanent residences surrounded the main area of town which was at the mouth of the Resurrection Creek. A State campground area sat overlooking the Creek and town.
Hope sat opposite Anchorage on the Kenai Peninsula and required a visitor to travel 90 miles around Turnagain arm, up Turnagain Pass, and then down a 19-mile dirt road. The trip was scenic and always punctuated by some excitement, whether it was a moose siting, a pass closed due to avalanches, or a porcupine crawling under your car as you stopped to observe him. A side trip to Portage Glacier for some “Russian Tea” and a glacier viewing was always called for. (Today, a wonderful visitor/observation center replaces the old log lodge. Named after Senators Nick Begich and Hale Boggs, who were lost in a plane as they crossed the glacier, it is an impressive structure for tourism. But the glacier receded and is no longer viewable across the lake. After a massive search, the Senators were never found.)
Resurrection Creek had been a source of gold at the turn of the 20th Century, with several thousand hopeful miners congregating along the road into town and claiming rights to mine along the creek. While some miners were finding gold, when the Yukon became accessible, most moved north, leaving little more than a ghost town behind. In 1970 there were probably less than 50 year-round residents. Only later did it become developed enough to have a proper school. Today there are several people re-working the old mining tailings, and tourists and locals can pan for nuggets. I tried this once but never again. Hours bent over with hands in ice-cold water did not produce enough gold flakes to warrant the effort!
Hope was off the beaten track. It contained a few old turn of the 20th Century wood buildings and a collection of cabins in a Nationa Forest area maintained by the US Forest Service. This was a few miles outside of town near a small airstrip. The road that led to this cabin area went on for a mile to end at a spot further up Resurrection Creek where there was still an active mining operation as well as the trailhead for the popular Resurrection Trail System managed by the US Forest Service. Locals could visit the town store for a few incidentals and to schmooz with Coolidge Fuller and his wife, both living above and managing the store. They were a friendly older couple who subsisted on little, but made the town a friendly place for all visitors.
The few permanent residents occasionally interacted to try to bring tourists to the area to support hunting and recreational fishing. Pink salmon spawned in Resurrection Creek, and it was not unusual to find dozens of families lined up along the creek opposite the store, casting and catching salmon easily. The tide came in and out as a "bore" tide, one of the highest in the world.
The permanent residents often interacted with the “summer residents” who had cabins in the wilderness and in the Forest Service lots.
Hope sat opposite Anchorage on the Kenai Peninsula and required a visitor to travel 90 miles around Turnagain arm, up Turnagain Pass, and then down a 19-mile dirt road. The trip was scenic and always punctuated by some excitement, whether it was a moose siting, a pass closed due to avalanches, or a porcupine crawling under your car as you stopped to observe him. A side trip to Portage Glacier for some “Russian Tea” and a glacier viewing was always called for. (Today, a wonderful visitor/observation center replaces the old log lodge. Named after Senators Nick Begich and Hale Boggs, who were lost in a plane as they crossed the glacier, it is an impressive structure for tourism. But the glacier receded and is no longer viewable across the lake. After a massive search, the Senators were never found.)
Resurrection Creek had been a source of gold at the turn of the 20th Century, with several thousand hopeful miners congregating along the road into town and claiming rights to mine along the creek. While some miners were finding gold, when the Yukon became accessible, most moved north, leaving little more than a ghost town behind. In 1970 there were probably less than 50 year-round residents. Only later did it become developed enough to have a proper school. Today there are several people re-working the old mining tailings, and tourists and locals can pan for nuggets. I tried this once but never again. Hours bent over with hands in ice-cold water did not produce enough gold flakes to warrant the effort!
Hope was off the beaten track. It contained a few old turn of the 20th Century wood buildings and a collection of cabins in a Nationa Forest area maintained by the US Forest Service. This was a few miles outside of town near a small airstrip. The road that led to this cabin area went on for a mile to end at a spot further up Resurrection Creek where there was still an active mining operation as well as the trailhead for the popular Resurrection Trail System managed by the US Forest Service. Locals could visit the town store for a few incidentals and to schmooz with Coolidge Fuller and his wife, both living above and managing the store. They were a friendly older couple who subsisted on little, but made the town a friendly place for all visitors.
The few permanent residents occasionally interacted to try to bring tourists to the area to support hunting and recreational fishing. Pink salmon spawned in Resurrection Creek, and it was not unusual to find dozens of families lined up along the creek opposite the store, casting and catching salmon easily. The tide came in and out as a "bore" tide, one of the highest in the world.
The permanent residents often interacted with the “summer residents” who had cabins in the wilderness and in the Forest Service lots.