Is the pioneer spirit dead? Perhaps the spirit hasn’t died because many humans still seek to climb the highest mountain or explore beneath the surface of the ocean, but technology has made it much simpler to be a “pioneer” today than it was fifty or even twenty years ago. Satellite telephones and messaging devices allow communication from every corner of the globe, and countless gadgets for climbers, hikers, and divers provide safety and comfort for their users. Earlier adventurers did not have these luxuries. This story is about two pioneers I admire: My husband’s parents, Park and Pat Munsey. Park died in 1983, but Pat is still alive and well, and I love listening to her stories about their early days in Uyak Bay on Kodiak Island, Alaska, at the remote home where I now live.
Pat Atkins migrated to Anchorage from her native West Virginia following her graduation from nursing school. She intended to return home after a short visit with her sister and brother-in-law, but she fell in love with Alaska and took a job at the Palmer hospital. From the time he was a young boy, Park dreamed of moving to Alaska, and he began his journey north the day he graduated from high school in Laconia, New Hampshire in 1948. After a stint in the army, Park took a job on the Eklutna Lake hydropower project north of Anchorage. He was injured during a cave-in while digging a tunnel and transported to the Palmer hospital, where Pat nursed him back to health.
The Munseys married in 1953 and moved to Kodiak. Pat found employment as a nurse, and Park took a variety of jobs, including work as a packer and guide for Hal Waugh, the first master guide in the state of Alaska. Park and Pat established Munsey’s Bear Camp in 1956, and in 1958, they bought Bill Poland’s hunting camp in Amook Pass in Uyak Bay.
By 1958, the Munseys had four children. Toni was four; Patti, three; Mike, one; and Jeri was only a few months old. Pat had never seen the Amook Pass camp, but she climbed into an airplane with her husband and four children and their most valuable possessions. Forty minutes later, when the plane touched down on Uyak Bay, the tide was too high to pull up to the beach near the camp, so the pilot unloaded the gear and his passengers on the other side of a rocky bluff in a small cove. Daylight began to fade as Pat and Park held Toni’s and Patti’s hands and carried the two younger children up a steep hill. It was nearly dusk when Pat caught a glimpse of her new home from the top of the hill. She says her first thought was, “What have I done?” In true pioneer fashion, though, she shook off her doubts and worked alongside Park to turn the three-room cabin with no insulation, no electricity, and no running water, into a comfortable home.
The Munseys communicated with the outside world via a sideband radio, and they received mail, supplies, and groceries once a month by boat. Since airplanes were expensive to charter, and the family had little money, they rarely flew to the town of Kodiak to shop. Pat homeschooled the kids, and the family grew to six children, including two boys and four girls. Pat and Park expected the kids to help as they built their humble home into a lodge.
In the late fifties, Park became a pilot and bought a floatplane. In the 1960s, he started Amook Airways, a small air-charter service, and Pat worked as his dispatcher. Their home in Amook Pass was their base of operations. Park not only flew his hunting clients, but he also flew for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and delivered mail and supplies around the island. Over the years, he owned an Aeronca Champ, a Tri-Pacer, a Cessna 180, a Cessna 185, a Twin Seabee, and a Grumman Widgeon.
Park bought the Tri-Pacer in 1961, and the following winter, he, Pat, and the children flew in it from Kodiak to New Hampshire to visit relatives. In preparation for the long flight, Pat earned her pilot’s license, so she could help with the flying. When the Munseys reached New Hampshire, they presented the governor of New Hampshire with a gift from Bill Egan, the governor of Alaska.
Flying a floatplane around Kodiak Island with its extreme topography and treacherous weather is never easy. Park had plenty of adventures, but the incident foremost in Pat’s memory was a harrowing day when the crankshaft broke on Park’s Cessna 185, and he was forced to land on Olga Bay in heavy seas. The hard impact of the landing caused the floats to rupture, and as the floats filled with water, the plane flipped upside down. Park quickly climbed from the plane onto the floats. He knew he was too far from shore to swim, and he saw no sign of other airplanes or boats in the area.
When Park didn’t return home and didn’t call on the radio, Pat contacted the Coast Guard, reported him overdue, and braced herself for the worst. She knew the dangers of flying around Kodiak, and she and Park had lost several friends in aviation accidents.
As the waves lapped over the pontoons, the floats slowly filled with water, and by the time the Coast Guard arrived, they found Park straddling the sinking floats, writing a last letter to his wife and children.
The lodge Park and Pat started, Munsey’s Bear Camp, is still in business and is one of the longest-operating lodges in the state of Alaska. My husband, Mike, the Munseys’ oldest son, and I now own Munsey’s Bear Camp. I realize every day how lucky I am to call this beautiful bay my home, and I often think about my in-laws’ first trek over that hill. I thank Park for following his dreams to Amook Pass, but more importantly, I thank Pat. Many women would have bolted, but as Pat stood on a hilltop 61 years ago and looked down at the shack destined to become her new home, she didn’t turn and run, but instead, she stayed to work with her husband to carve out a living and raise their family in the wilderness. Park and Pat Munsey define true pioneers.
