Be Grateful
Photo by Nancy Lethcoe
By Nelson Betancourt
Fifty years ago. Summer 1972. Prince William Sound. Sailing on a sailboat with Jim, Nancy and Athena Lethcoe for two and half months; and meeting George Flemming.
How did I get here? I was just a juvenile delinquent arrested for drugs who ended up doing six months at the McLaughlin Youth Center (MYC) in Anchorage in 1970. I could have been out after a couple of months had I listened to my probation officer who recommended that I act contrite and tell the judge I would never do drugs again, and I would be let go. But, no. I was either too naïve or too honest to lie to Judge Butcher and admitted--not in defiance, but knowing in my heart--that I would use drugs again.
While at MYC, I read “Paradise Lost” by John Milton and “Ulysses” by James Joyce, probably not the kind of reading material you would find a druggie reading in such circumstances. One of the counselors, however, picked up on my love of reading, and suggested that perhaps I could get a job through a government agency doing something with my interest in books and literature.
As good fortune would have it, I was able to get a job through the Youth Corps program doing library research for the literature and philosophy professors at the Alaska Methodist University. Dr. Jim Lethcoe taught Comparative Literature, and Dr. Richard Gay taught Philosophy and Religion. Since I had become a “trustee” at MYC, I was allowed to hold a job outside the Center but had to return at the end of my workday to be locked up in my cell for the night. Most of my research ended up being done for Jim. One semester he had me do research on French and American poets for a class on comparative studies in poetry. This is where I learned to love the French poetry of Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine and Apollinaire and the poetry of Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, e.e. cummings, and Robinson Jeffers.
We sailed all over Prince William Sound (PWS) for two and a half months, after Jim and Nancy had finished their teaching semesters in Anchorage.
Another semester, he had me do research on literature of the sea, for a class that ended by taking his students to live together in a Forest Service cabin in the woods and conducting the last week of class writing their final papers on such books as “Moby Dick,” “Heart of Darkness,” and “The Old Man and the Sea”; learning how to sail a boat; and sailing around the coast of Prince William Sound (PWS).
In time, Jim discovered that I had a very troubled and dysfunctional relationship with my father, which in part led to my loneliness, inferiority complex and desolation. Shortly before being released from MYC, Jim and his wife, Dr. Nancy Lethcoe (professor of Buddhism and Eastern Religions), invited me to live with them, along with their daughter Athena, and their dog, Kenai in their A-frame cabin in Girdwood. Jim understood that my returning to live with my father would eventually lead to more trouble.
We sailed all over Prince William Sound (PWS) for two and a half months, after Jim and Nancy had finished their teaching semesters in Anchorage. It’s during the summer of 1972 that Jim and Nancy began intentionally exploring and recording the places to anchor, fish and camp in the PWS wilderness. Their research over the years culminated in several books about PWS, including the quintessential guides to the waters of PWS, “Cruising Guide to Prince William Sound,” “A History of Prince William Sound Alaska,” and others. In an interview Jim did with The Orlando Sentinel at the time of the Valdez oil spill (March 1989) he said: “…we’d see seals, sea lions, otters, three or four species of whales, lots of birds…” and from the classic “Cruising Guide to Prince William Sound”: “There is food everywhere: pink salmon, clams, mussels, rockfish, flounder, Dungeness and tanner crabs. You can fish from the shore with a line, or you can bring your own collapsible crab pot.” Among the truly rich areas of PWS was Jackpot Bay, a place crowned with 10 spawning streams, with schools of fish running so thick, that when they hugged the hull of the sailboat, you felt like they could raise the boat off the water with their huge numbers and motion.
Marla Atkins was the kind of woman who could hold her liquor with the best of them, act like a proper lady, and at the same time, regale a tableful of men with bawdy stories and Alaska lore.
Although it rained constantly that first month out, the following months were the most glorious and majestic days among the spectacular mountains and shimmering glaciers—the plenitude of marine flora and wildlife surrounding us everywhere in full blossom and grace.
This is how I recall that summer in Prince William Sound in 1972.
But Jim and Nancy had to return to Anchorage to continue with their teaching commitments and new academic opportunities.
In our journey through PWS, the Lethcoes had come across Thumb Cove on the southern end of Knight Island. We had anchored there for several days and got to know the property caretaker/watchman George Flemming and the owner of the old abandoned herring saltry/cannery—Marla Atkins, who had renamed the property The Prince William Sound Inn—a rustic hunting and fishing lodge with a small restaurant, and a handful of rooms to accommodate overnight guests, as needed. I stayed behind at the PWS Inn after Jim, Nancy and Athena returned to Anchorage.
Marla Atkins was the kind of woman who could hold her liquor with the best of them, act like a proper lady, and at the same time, regale a tableful of men with bawdy stories and Alaska lore. Apparently, she had bought the property for a song from the original owners. They did not want the property to be owned by someone who would turn it into a fancy lodge resort. And so, Marla bought it and turned it into an oasis of warmth, laughter, friendship and home-made cuisine for boaters, sailors, fishermen, hunters and anyone who showed up at the inn.
One day, we sailed from Thumb Cove (Knight Island) across the Knight Island Passage to Sawmill Bay on Evans Island to visit a lady friend of George’s in Chenega Village. George followed us in his 18-foot open skiff boat. She lived by herself at the time and I thought, “Another Alaskan woman like Marla Atkins— strong, brave, resilient, friendly and self-reliant.”
We were confronted with the specter of 20-foot waves, crisscrossing currents of Knight Island Passage moving from an open sea—rising, rolling and quickly falling into the next trough—over and over again.
Although Jim, Nancy and Athena had returned to Thumb Cove later that same day, George and I stayed overnight as guests at his friend’s house. We departed the following day from Sawmill Bay heading to Knight Island via Latouche Passage. As we began our trip back, the waters were calm and rolling gently until suddenly the wind began to pick up and the waters of Latouche Passage began to churn, turning choppy with lashing water now coming over the gunwales and the skiff beginning to take on more and more water.
I took a pail and frantically began to collect the water and toss it overboard, trying to keep the water from flooding the boat. This went on until we came to the crossing of Latouche Passage and Knight Island Passage where the waters had taken a more dire and menacing dimension. We were confronted with the specter of 20-foot waves, crisscrossing currents of Knight Island Passage moving from an open sea—rising, rolling and quickly falling into the next trough—over and over again.
It was at that moment, upon facing the seriousness of the situation, that I perceived George’s immediate stillness and focus, and a silent calm pervading what was going on. I had never experienced anything like that before and rather than drowning in despair, I think it was feeling George’s serenity that compelled me to say to myself, “God, if I am going to die today, at least, I am going to enjoy the ride.”
With the immensity of the waves before us and realizing we would have to navigate our way back to Knight Island on an 18-foot skiff against them, I could only trust that George would do his best and leave the rest to God. And with that stillness and resolve, we entered Knight Island Passage, and rather than George pointing the boat towards the waves—as it surely would have cracked it in pieces— George moved the skiff sideways against the waves, “hugging” the curl of the wave on its side, going up with the wave to the crest, and then letting the wave plunge the boat down unto the trough at the bottom of the next wave. This maneuver went on for several hours.
Two things unnerved me as we worked our way through the rising and rolling waves. One was the whirring sound of the outboard motor as it came sheer off the water and fluttered for a few seconds on the crest of the wave. During those moments, it felt more like we were flying than sailing. The other frightening image was seeing a seining boat in the distance bob up like a cork in the water and then not seeing it again for a while thinking it had sunk!
Throughout this ordeal, never once did we exchange a word. We were both focused on the moment and it seemed the longer we were in it, the more still we became.
Eventually, the Knight Island Passage began to calm and the waves around Knight Island subsided enabling us to return safely and full of joy back home. It was then that George said the only thing he ever said during the entire trip: “I thought there for a while we weren’t going to make it.”
Jim and Nancy Lethcoe, and George Flemming, in their own ways, and in their own times, saved my life. I am grateful.
As time passes, I love them more.
In Memory: Athena Lethcoe-Harman (41) 1962-2004 Jim Lethcoe (70) 1937-2007 George Flemming (80) 1903-1983 Nancy Lethcoe (81) 1940-2022 Marla Atkins (deceased before year 2000/dates unknown)
