Freeze-Frame: It's Gonna Be A Long Winter...

by Jamie Smith

"Jorgy" Jorgensen is a legendary Alaska Native bush pilot, but his life is much more than a great flying story. He was raised by his Inupiat Eskimo mother and his Norwegian gold-miner father in a tiny mining camp in interior Alaska. After his father's death during the Depression, when Jorgy was only seven, they lived a subsistence lifestyle: Jorgy worked in the gold mines, ran a trap line, and mushed dogs. He served in Muktuk Marston's Alaska Territorial Guard and was a sergeant by the age of 17. After Pearl Harbor, he became Sig Wien's fire potter and gas boy, and learned to fly. He operated a dragline in the summers, he was a boxing champion, and he desegregated Nome's movie theater. His flying career was equally varied: he flew all across Alaska, carrying passengers and cargo. He delivered scientific equipment and supplies to the T-3 ice island, fresh fish to and from King Salmon, moved reindeer from Hagemeister Island; he flew in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, the Far East, Canada. He flew from 1943 to 2001, logging more than 35,000 hours of flight time, with only one--minor--accident. Telling his extraordinary life story in spare, no-fuss fashion, this book allows a vivid glimpse into a tulmultuous and exciting period in aviation from the point of view of one of Alaska's early Native bush pilots.

128 pages, Paperback

Published April 22, 2008