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Alaska's Skyboys: Cowboy Pilots and the Myth of the Last Frontier
This fascinating account of the development of aviation in Alaska examines the daring missions of pilots who initially opened up the territory for military positioning and later for trade and tourism.
Early Alaskan military and bush pilots navigated some of the highest and most rugged terrain on earth, taking off and landing on glaciers, mudflats, and active volcanoes. Although they were consistently portrayed by industry leaders and lawmakers alike as cowboys―and their planes compared to settlers' covered wagons―the reality was that aviation catapulted Alaska onto a modern, global stage; the federal government subsidized aviation's growth in the territory as part of the Cold War defense against the Soviet Union. Through personal stories, industry publications, and news accounts, historian Katherine Johnson Ringsmuth uncovers the ways that Alaska's aviation growth was downplayed in order to perpetuate the myth of the cowboy spirit and the desire to tame what many considered to be the last frontier.
Early Alaskan military and bush pilots navigated some of the highest and most rugged terrain on earth, taking off and landing on glaciers, mudflats, and active volcanoes. Although they were consistently portrayed by industry leaders and lawmakers alike as cowboys―and their planes compared to settlers' covered wagons―the reality was that aviation catapulted Alaska onto a modern, global stage; the federal government subsidized aviation's growth in the territory as part of the Cold War defense against the Soviet Union. Through personal stories, industry publications, and news accounts, historian Katherine Johnson Ringsmuth uncovers the ways that Alaska's aviation growth was downplayed in order to perpetuate the myth of the cowboy spirit and the desire to tame what many considered to be the last frontier.
310 pages, Paperback
First published September 16, 2015
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About the author
Katherine Johnson Ringsmuth
9 books1 followerKatherine Johnson Ringsmuth teaches history at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, and is owner of the public history consulting business Tundra Vision.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 25, 2025
A very good timeline of the Alaskan bush pilot.
February 1, 2016
Alaska’s Pioneer Pilots—Cowboys or Entrepreneurs?
For those of us not familiar with the history of Alaska’s early pilots Katherine Johnson Ringsmuth’s book is something of a revelation. We learn that our pioneer flyers basked in the glow of an image depicting them as cowboys of the sky—wild, untamed, living a lifestyle closer to Wild Bill’s Wild West Shows than hardscrabble itinerant bush pilots struggling to earn a living in an embryonic industry. She tells us that “Like the western cowboy, bush pilots became symbols of independence and freedom ...” Hoping to debunk the myth of Alaska’s skyboys as cowboy vagabonds roaming the unfettered skies of Alaska, Ringsmuth digs deep into what these men actually did and in the process paints an entirely different portrait of our original Alaskan troubadours.
Early on she identifies them as budding entrepreneurs. “No doubt early pilots were pioneers, but they were hardly independent ones. They relied entirely on mining companies and federal mail contracts for their survival.” Like any budding business person, securing a paycheck was a prime motivator, Ringsmuth notes. “It seemed that in those first years of flight in eastern Alaska, the legendary status of pilots was equaled only by their mounting debt.”
She begins to dispel these myths by introducing us to the men who soon attained legendary status. Ringsmuth highlights the exploits of Harold Gillam. He gained considerable fame for his breathtaking skill of flying through any weather. ‘“Oldtime pilots said that there were three kinds of Alaska weather,’ explained writer June Allen. ‘Clear and unlimited, called Pan Am weather, then ordinary weather, and lastly, there was ‘Gillam weather.”’ ‘“Gillam didn’t think he was taking chances when he flew through bad weather,’ explained Frank Barr, ‘he was simply trying to achieve perfection in flight.”’
He gained his reputation not because he was some daredevil freak seeking to extract thrills from the admiring throngs. He braved those weather-wrought challenges because he was either delivering the mail or supplies to the men working in the mining camps and if he didn’t make it to his destination he didn’t get paid. He was a working guy who happened to earn his living flying a plane and back in the 1920s and ‘30s; guys like him were a rare breed.
Another member of that elite club was Bob Reeve, a flyer who became famous for among other things, doing the dirty work. “Because work kept him up to his knees in a mired mess that smelled of rotting salmon and decaying seaweed, Reeve was known as a fairly filthy flier. While in the air, ‘Reeve had worked out a way that he could pee past the stick and out a hole in the floor,’ recalled one of his passengers years later. ‘The whole damn plane smelled of dried piss.”’
Reeve, an outspoken critic of the federal government, derided their efforts to regulate and bring order to the chaos of flying in those early days. To say it was a risky business seriously understates the case. “Even delivering the mail—aviation’s first practical benefit to the American people—gained a notorious reputation. Of the two hundred plus pilots hired by the federal government between 1918 and 1926, thirty-five died flying the mail. The nation’s aviators ominously referred to the service as a ‘suicide club.”’
And while folks like Reeve may have felt the government’s hand was too heavy there was no denying the industry desperately needed formal regulations and procedures to protect pilots and the flying public. It was no surprise then that the federal government ushered in the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) which began the process of establishing safety standards. It also heralded in an era where economic stability became an objective, grappling with and curbing the prior cut-throat practices of Alaska’s aviation industry. One of the upshots of these new regulations (beyond the obvious positive ones) was a further re-definition of Alaska’s flyboys. If nothing else, the reality of the marketplace caused a shift in the paradigm. No longer were these pilots out there on their own; their behavior was now subject to rules and laws.
Concluding, she borrows an argument from Stephen Haycox, history professor emeritus at UAA, who believes that ‘“The skyboy narrative feeds an Alaska vision of Manifest Destiny which ‘causes us to forget the uncertainty, tentativeness, and confusion which surrounded the birth of aviation in Alaska.’”
Regardless, cowboy flyboys or creative entrepreneurs, these men left an enduring legacy in their wake, bravely serving Alaska’s citizens and new businesses. No one will argue that.
Originally published in Anchorage Press on January 28, 2016
For those of us not familiar with the history of Alaska’s early pilots Katherine Johnson Ringsmuth’s book is something of a revelation. We learn that our pioneer flyers basked in the glow of an image depicting them as cowboys of the sky—wild, untamed, living a lifestyle closer to Wild Bill’s Wild West Shows than hardscrabble itinerant bush pilots struggling to earn a living in an embryonic industry. She tells us that “Like the western cowboy, bush pilots became symbols of independence and freedom ...” Hoping to debunk the myth of Alaska’s skyboys as cowboy vagabonds roaming the unfettered skies of Alaska, Ringsmuth digs deep into what these men actually did and in the process paints an entirely different portrait of our original Alaskan troubadours.
Early on she identifies them as budding entrepreneurs. “No doubt early pilots were pioneers, but they were hardly independent ones. They relied entirely on mining companies and federal mail contracts for their survival.” Like any budding business person, securing a paycheck was a prime motivator, Ringsmuth notes. “It seemed that in those first years of flight in eastern Alaska, the legendary status of pilots was equaled only by their mounting debt.”
She begins to dispel these myths by introducing us to the men who soon attained legendary status. Ringsmuth highlights the exploits of Harold Gillam. He gained considerable fame for his breathtaking skill of flying through any weather. ‘“Oldtime pilots said that there were three kinds of Alaska weather,’ explained writer June Allen. ‘Clear and unlimited, called Pan Am weather, then ordinary weather, and lastly, there was ‘Gillam weather.”’ ‘“Gillam didn’t think he was taking chances when he flew through bad weather,’ explained Frank Barr, ‘he was simply trying to achieve perfection in flight.”’
He gained his reputation not because he was some daredevil freak seeking to extract thrills from the admiring throngs. He braved those weather-wrought challenges because he was either delivering the mail or supplies to the men working in the mining camps and if he didn’t make it to his destination he didn’t get paid. He was a working guy who happened to earn his living flying a plane and back in the 1920s and ‘30s; guys like him were a rare breed.
Another member of that elite club was Bob Reeve, a flyer who became famous for among other things, doing the dirty work. “Because work kept him up to his knees in a mired mess that smelled of rotting salmon and decaying seaweed, Reeve was known as a fairly filthy flier. While in the air, ‘Reeve had worked out a way that he could pee past the stick and out a hole in the floor,’ recalled one of his passengers years later. ‘The whole damn plane smelled of dried piss.”’
Reeve, an outspoken critic of the federal government, derided their efforts to regulate and bring order to the chaos of flying in those early days. To say it was a risky business seriously understates the case. “Even delivering the mail—aviation’s first practical benefit to the American people—gained a notorious reputation. Of the two hundred plus pilots hired by the federal government between 1918 and 1926, thirty-five died flying the mail. The nation’s aviators ominously referred to the service as a ‘suicide club.”’
And while folks like Reeve may have felt the government’s hand was too heavy there was no denying the industry desperately needed formal regulations and procedures to protect pilots and the flying public. It was no surprise then that the federal government ushered in the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) which began the process of establishing safety standards. It also heralded in an era where economic stability became an objective, grappling with and curbing the prior cut-throat practices of Alaska’s aviation industry. One of the upshots of these new regulations (beyond the obvious positive ones) was a further re-definition of Alaska’s flyboys. If nothing else, the reality of the marketplace caused a shift in the paradigm. No longer were these pilots out there on their own; their behavior was now subject to rules and laws.
Concluding, she borrows an argument from Stephen Haycox, history professor emeritus at UAA, who believes that ‘“The skyboy narrative feeds an Alaska vision of Manifest Destiny which ‘causes us to forget the uncertainty, tentativeness, and confusion which surrounded the birth of aviation in Alaska.’”
Regardless, cowboy flyboys or creative entrepreneurs, these men left an enduring legacy in their wake, bravely serving Alaska’s citizens and new businesses. No one will argue that.
Originally published in Anchorage Press on January 28, 2016
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews