Nell Salzman moved to Talkeetna to work as an intern at KTNA for the summer. She wrote this short piece reflecting on her experience.
As I sat in the park listening to folk music on my first Friday in Talkeetna, a woman came over and told me she was selling moose turds for charity.
“$5 each for a ticket and a moose turd, 4 for $20, 10 for $50,” she said.
(The moose turds are covered in colorful metallic paint, to be more palatable for local buyers. I chose green.) She explained that it works like a raffle, and that they drop moose turds onto targets in a parking lot. They used to drop them out of a helicopter, but it didn’t work very well logistically.
“We just put them in a big bag, and we hoist them over the parking lot and drop them. Swing them and drop them. Pretty cool. Fourth of July at 2 o’clock.”
I came to Talkeetna in a moment of panic, after my post-grad plans fell through at the last minute. For my entire first week, I couldn’t sleep because of the mosquitoes buzzing in my ears and light streaming through the windows.
To make some extra tip money on top of my KTNA internship, I took a part-time job at Mountain High Pizza, where a woman with strawberry blonde dreadlocks taught me how to sling beer at the outdoor bar and charm the bearded men that always stared for a little too long. She ran the place like a machine, showing me how to multi-task, pop open beer kegs, stock coolers, and smile in just the right way to bring in a few extra one dollar bills.
When people came up to me and asked what was good on tap, I had no idea what to say.
So I spent my down moments (of which there were few) filling up a plastic cup with different types of draft beer.
I would say things like: “The Alaskan Amber is an all-time favorite, but I personally think the King St. Lagger has more body to it.” Or “Try the Puffin Pale Ale! It’s smooth and bread-like.”
One evening, as I tilted a plastic cup sideways and struggled to sling a beer with no foam, a guy at the bar looked at me and smiled with sympathy.
“When I was your age and came back from college, I poured my milk sideways like that. And my dad just looked at me and said, ‘Son, I know what you’ve been up to the past few months.’”
Because one extra job wasn’t enough, I also found part-time work as a ramp dog at Talkeetna Air Taxi. I wore a neon vest, washed planes, took out the trash, cleaned up tourist vomit, and drove an ATV for the first time.
My coworkers were all men. They told me about their hunting expeditions and their various near misses on snow machines. I asked them about what it was like to grow up in Alaska and what their dream car would be.
“Any Camaro I’d rock,” said one.
“A 69 Chevelle,” said the other.
“Damn, yeah that would be my pavement princess.”
My coworkers at the airport became my closest friends. The pilots were all fascinating and inspiring to me, and I liked to ask them for advice and reading recommendations. They’d flown all over the world for various jobs, met hundreds of people, tried every food.
I asked my favorite pilot—a sweet man with a southern drawl—how he started flying airplanes. He gestured to right above his waist and said, “Ever since I was this tall and could spot them in the sky I knew I wanted to be up inside them.”
I started looking at airplanes in the sky differently. I learned to tell the difference between a Caravan and an Otter.
As the planes landed, I would grab window cleaner and micro-fiber towels and climb up the side, yelling, “I got Papa Romeo!”
I’ve learned a lot during my time here. I’ve learned the aviation alphabet, how to set a fishing net on the Susitna, how to start a wood-burning stove to heat a dry cabin, how to change the oil in my car, and how to fuel up an airplane.
But the biggest thing I’ve learned in Talkeetna is how much I don’t know. Working for KTNA, I’ve been lucky enough to get a window into the lives of so many—the Roadhouse owner who wakes up at 4 am to roll the dough for her famous raspberry cinnamon rolls, the manager of the arts hangar, a world-famous mountaineer, and a retired middle school teacher who built himself a boat to sail from Washington to Alaska.
I’m grateful for what my conversations with them taught me about doing things in life that are meaningful, and not settling for what doesn’t feel so.
Thanks KTNA, and Talkeetna, for all that you’ve taught me. I can’t wait to come back.
