
My friend John Hitz was twenty-eight when he died, nearly twenty years ago, in a snow machine accident. I don’t always tell people this when I show his picture because the part of his story I’m telling then is about flying out of Fairbanks up to Liberator Lake in a Cessna 206. I tell the part of his flying story that fits with the larger narrative of Alaska aviation I am sharing. I wrote a book, I put together a slide show, I talk to people about the “dangerous game of flying in Alaska”. I show this picture of my friend John and the 206 he flew one beautiful winter afternoon and every time I show it, I miss John all over again.
But I rarely tell anyone that.
John was working as a co-pilot for a company called Brooks Airfuel when the picture was taken. They flew fuel in DC3s, DC4s and a DC6 to villages across Alaska. The planes were new during World War II but durable fifty years later in a way that few other aircraft are; they still fly all over the world. John used to talk about the switches and levers in the cockpit, the complexity of operating the huge radial engines. The job was dirty and the hours were long and in the cold it could be miserable but John enjoyed flying for Brooks just like he enjoyed flying at the Company which is when we met.
The flight to Liberator Lake was about a mine operation in need of fuel. The lake was the landing strip and the DC4 weighed 40,000 pounds empty. John was sent out in the 206 to test the ice and make sure it was strong enough to handle the big plane. He told this story to us later always aware of the absurdity of the flight, the danger, and its immense appeal. “Of course the ice was strong enough!” he always said. “Of course!” And the weather was good and the plane flew well and sitting on the wing, gassing up to go home, someone took his picture. We found it later, packing up his apartment for his parents. We made a dozen copies, one for each of us, so we would never forget him.
As if any of us could.
John’s picture is at the end of my slide show, part of a group of pictures of friends on the job that I click through while reading from my book about why we all come north, why we ended up at the Company, why we stayed. I’m 43 now and when I tell these stories they are about who I was then, my distant wayward youth. But John is forever 28 and smiling back at me as only he could; as only he ever will.
Nine months before he died, John bought a brand new Nissan pickup, fire engine red; he called it Roy. When his parents came up from Nebraska to claim him, the truck posed a problem. Getting it out of Fairbanks in January was difficult and expensive. So in the days after we met in the worst possible circumstances, I bought John’s truck from his parents. Through nearly fifteen years of marriage, through four dogs, a son and now a book, John’s truck has been as constant as his photo. Last week my husband, who knew John before me and carries his own memories, told me it looks like the transmission might be shot*. This is long overdue; at twenty years old and with 130,000+ miles, John’s truck is long past this sort of expensive repair. The rear bumper was damaged years ago when I was in Florida and the bed is rusted through in areas where John loaded his snow machine on the day he bought it. The truck is no longer shiny and new, yet I can not imagine my life without it. It’s mine, but still it’s his and together it’s every moment we all had in Alaska.
John would have sold the truck long ago I’m sure, purchased something newer with room maybe for a family. He might even have lost the snapshot of Liberator Lake. Putting a small part of John’s story in my book and keeping his picture in my slide show are, I know, quiet little acts of futility. I can not bring back my friend. Let me write that again so I believe it – I can not bring him back. John Hitz is gone on the Mitchell Expressway in Fairbanks, in a snowstorm, in a collision with a truck and a driver who never saw him. He’s gone. I know this; he’s gone.
But, here I am, like always, writing about him again.
When I show this slide and tell the Liberator Lake story everyone laughs. It is, in many ways, the quintessential Alaska flying story. John thus continues to be part of the larger tale I’m telling, about pilots and planes and the myths that often keep both in the air in the face of a harsh aviation environment. I do not always tell an audience John is gone and so together we can believe that he is up there still, north of the Brooks Range, looking for ice thick enough to bear a heavy load. We all live happily ever after that way and most importantly, the legend of John Hitz continues. Maybe more than any other reason that is why I wrote my book – so all of them would live forever. Or maybe it’s just for a moment like this, where I have an excuse to talk about my friend John one more time.
If you knew him, you would write about him too.
*He was wrong! It wasn’t the transmission but the clutch that needed work. He did the whole thing in an afternoon and for less than $100. Roy lives!