Bring Me Wild Roses: An Alaskan Odyssey

With the opening of the Alaska Highway to civilian traffic in 1947, Clermont, a WWII veteran pilot, and his sweetheart, Gwynne, came to homestead in the magnificent Copper River Basin, a vast wilderness in Alaska’s Interior where only a small community of individuals lived. They depended on each other, and freely shared scarce resources and hard-won knowledge. This is the true story of a time and place that are nearly forgotten, and some of the real characters who made things happen in post-World War II Alaska. There were the old timers, like the trapper, Ben Pinks, who did everything in his power to keep the fiercely independent Chechakos, Cler and Gwynne, from starving or freezing to death the first winter; Ma Barnes, who owned the Road House at Copper Center and took the family and others in after a dangerous mid-winter flood; and the Ahtna native family of “Mama George,” who were like angels to Cler and Gwynne and their small children during those first critical years. Bear encounters were so common that every family needed a good dog and a powerful gun. Cler and Gwynne had no dog, and could only afford a .22 rifle, which would kill a rabbit or a duck for food, but merely antagonize a bear. Ben Pinks loaned Cler a 3006, and gave him Buddy, “the best darn bear dog in the Interior." Besides protecting the family by sounding an alarm, Buddy could skillfully divert a charging bear’s attention, allowing a man to reload his gun. With Cler’s remarkable ingenuity, Gwynne’s unfaltering faith in Cler, and their great love for each other, they met the challenges of isolation, incredible cold, limited resources, lack of medical access, and other stresses that took a toll on the physical and mental health of these early Alaskans. Despite the odds against them, Cler and Gwynne “proved up” on the first homestead at Kenny Lake, and helped others as they had been helped, as they established a family and a community in the wilderness.