Our Alaska Adventures - Howard & Marge Marshall

Our Alaska adventures began in Hawaii, believe it or not! Our younger son, David, was stationed aboard the submarine USS Tunny (SSN-682) in Pearl Harbor when he met Shannon Snider at church. Shannon was from Ketchikan, Alaska, and had come to Hawaii to visit her cousin. David and Shannon were married in 1984. David served in the US Navy until he received his honorable discharge in 1993 and they moved to Ketchikan to live.

In 1992 they had been relocated from St. Joseph, Missouri to Charleston, South Carolina, and I traveled along with them to help entertain young Branin and Halee. I used vacation time from my job. In 1993 the Navy offered mid-level management personnel the opportunity to leave the service, and David accepted the offer. When they came through Kansas City, I took my annual vacation and accompanied them to Ketchikan. What a time the five of us had sailing into Alaska aboard the MV Malaspina ferry from Prince Rupert, Canada! After a week or so, I flew home to Kansas City.

In 1995, Howard took partial retirement and decided it was time for him to take a long vacation. So he flew to Ketchikan to visit the kids for about five weeks, and he caught the “Alaska fever.” I flew up for a couple of weeks, then we came home together. My reaction was that two weeks was not long enough to be there! And as soon as I got back to my job, I began planning to retire just as soon as I was eligible to take early retirement.

March 20, 1996 was my final day of employment. Howard took full retirement on May 1, 1996. Within about a month, we were in our well-packed car, headed for Alaska! We took the long way – to Albuquerque, New Mexico to visit Larry, Renee and Miranda; to San Diego, California to visit old friends (including a side trip to go to church in Tijuana); up the Coast Highway to Washington; through British Columbia to Prince Rupert; and finally aboard tne MV Taku ferry to Ketchikan. By then, David & Shannon had moved to Klawock on beautiful Prince of Wales Island, so we boarded the MV Aurora ferry and reached POW, as the local folks call the island (third largest in the US, after the Big Island of Hawaii and Kodiak Island, also in Alaska).

We had decided to stay a couple of months after making such a long journey and Howard said wistfully, “Maybe they’ll let me preach somewhere.” That definitely fit in the category called Famous Last Words!

We learned that the interim pastors at the church in Hydaburg wanted to take a vacation to Michigan before they went to their next assignment, so Howard volunteered to fill in until the new pastor came. It gave us a place to stay so David and family weren’t so crowded. While we were in Hydaburg we became friends with so many people that we were “hooked” on Alaska. We saw bald eagles, ravens, Sitka deer, salmon jumping upstream to spawn, beautiful scenery... nothing at all like Kansas!

We preparing to leave in October ‘96, the pastor of Prince of Peace Assembly in Klawock, Roy Smart, asked if we could come back to southeast Alaska in May 1997 to fill in while he and his family went on vacation. We said “Yes, if the Lord will supply the finances to do it.”

We returned to the "Lower 48" by ferrying to Ketchikan and Prince Rupert, then driving through British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan into North Dakota. The drive through Alberta from Jasper to Banff was spectacular and memorable.

God met our need, and we returned to POW. This time we drove from Kansas City to Seattle, then up through BC to Prince George and retraced our earlier trip to Pr. Rupert, Ketchikan and over to Klawock. We stayed in the parsonage and felt at home. When the Smart family got home, Dave & Pauline Johnson invited us to stay in their bed & breakfast apartment in Craig, and what a joy that was!

It was in 1997 that we visited an Alaskan "float house" near Naukati. You can read about it by clicking here.

We spent some more time in Hydaburg (the new pastor and family had left) and Howard admired a pickup truck – he’d been wanting one – and the owners made him such a deal that he called our banker in Kansas City and worked out the purchase. What do you do so far away from home and you now have two vehicles? You drive them both home. Simple, right? Not quite. The “salmon war” erupted – a controversy between Canadian fishing crews and US fishing crews. The Canadians blocked the ferry Taku into the port of Prince Rupert until agreements were made. This caused the Alaska Marine Highway System to stop using the port and sending all vessels to Bellingham, Washington. The result was that we had quite an ocean voyage in the MV Columbia, sleeping in a little stateroom the two nights. The trip went smoothly except when we crossed the Dixon Strait, the border between US and Canadian waters, where the Inside Passage is subject to the currents of the open ocean. Fortunately neither of us has a problem with seasickness.

We had CB units in both the car and the pickup and we made the trip to Albuquerque and on to Kansas City just fine. We sure were glad to see home again – we’d been gone for about five months. Howard said he was tired and ready to stay home for a year. I reminded him that he’d told the director of Alaska missions, Jim Schulz, that in 1998 we’d be available to go anywhere we were needed. “Oh, I did, didn’t I? Well, let’s get past Christmas and then we'll see about that.”

Early in January Howard sent Jim a letter, volunteering to help wherever we were needed. Jim responded with a quick e-mail, accepting the offer. He wanted us to go to Emmonak so we would be available to help him with Camp Agaiutim Nune (AN for short). Again Howard mentioned finances and Jim encouraged us to make the decision, knowing the Lord would once again meet our need – and God did! We spent an unforgettable five months in Emmonak. You can read about it on my West Alaska 1998 page.

As 1999 came upon us (remember the Y2K questions?), Howard wanted to return to Emmonak to help with Camp AN again, but I planned to stay home in Kansas City because my knees were giving me problems and it was painful for me to climb stairs, so I knew I could no longer climb into little planes. We made the announcement in our newsletter, On the Road with the Marshalls, and when it reached the church in Klawock, Rob Steward e-mailed Howard and said the church could use him because the parsonage had burned; the pastor that followed Roy Smart had resigned in order to replace all their belongings, so an interim pastor was needed. Rob also asked Howard to consider offering his own resume to the search committee. The idea was quite a surprise, but we began thinking about it. The next day or so I was watching TV and saw a picture of the ocean and thought about how much I enjoyed being near it and seeing mountains too … and suddenly asked myself why on earth we were in Kansas, far away from both. It seemed the Lord whispered, “…well, there’s Klawock….” And I knew Howard should accept the offer. He felt the same way.

We decided that Howard would go on to Klawock to fill the pulpit temporarily. David & Shannon were now living in Washington, so we planned to drive the pickup to Seattle where he would catch a flight on Alaska Airlines and go on to Klawock; David would make a reservation for the truck and send it to Ketchikan aboard the ferry. Howard would meet the ship there. I’d visit the kids a few days, then fly back to Kansas City.

But as we drove into Wyoming in March 1999, a large mule deer made a left-turn onto the highway and we crashed into it. We weren’t hurt but the truck was damaged and had to be towed to a garage in Gillespie. I no longer make fun of duct tape, because the mechanic used it to hold the front of the vehicle together so we could make the 21-hour run to the Seattle-Tacoma ("Sea-Tac") airport in time for Howard to catch the plane! We had reason to thank God for protecting us during the accident. The sheriff’s deputy said that collisions like that usually result in serious injuries to the occupants. David found a repair shop for the truck and eventually sent it on to Ketchikan.

On April 26, 1999, Howard was elected to be the pastor of Prince of Peace Assembly of God in Klawock.

I joined him when the Stewards went on vacation and we stayed in their home while plans were made to build the new parsonage. After that we spent several months in the mobile home Jeff & Pam Fredericksen live in during the summer while they operate a fishing charter business.

We shipped our household goods to Prince of Wales Island by rail and barge, and stored it one of the rooms at the church – good thing Howard is a professional packer! We moved everything into the new parsonage on December 28, 1999, a year to the day after the former parsonage burned.

We took Charlie Sue, our border collie, to Alaska - she was fun and we still miss her. She especially loved the snow! When it came time for us to leave, she elected to stay and the Templin family adopted her. Speaking of weather, it was nice to be near the ocean there on the island, because the temperatures were moderate, although it rained a lot. Summers were cooler than those in Kansas, and the winters were warmer.

We had a great time living in Alaska and getting to know the people there on Prince of Wales Island. One of the big events for POW was the inauguration of the new inter-island ferry, the "Prince of Wales," which now provides daily service to the island, making it easier to travel over to Ketchikan. My travel was always by ferry, but a couple of times Howard traveled by float plane.

We flew on Alaska Airlines to Anchorage several times and once Fairbanks for meetings of the Alaska District Council of the Assemblies of God, so we have lots of friends. But we made it a point to come back to Kansas once a year to see our families so they wouldn't feel we had abandoned them!

Howard retired from Prince of Peace Assembly on April 30, 2004. We left southeast Alaska on Monday, May 4. Shannon and Halee came up from Texas to help us drive south, and they enjoyed visiting with all their family and friends in the Ketchikan and Klawock area.

Howard went back to Alaska during the summers of 2005 and 2007, but Marge didn't accompany him.

To see some updated links about Alaska, go to Our Alaska Connections.

Click here to read about the three Assemblies of God churches in the Yukon Delta area of West Alaska, Alakanuk, Emmonak, and Kotlik, where we were in 1998. Then check out our adventures on my West Alaska 1998 page.

The website of the Alaska District Council of the Assemblies of God https://www.akministrynetwork.org/To see photos from the 2000 Alaska District Council, click here.

There is a great need for pastoral couples in Alaska. If you are interested, please contact Supt Bill Welch at the Ministry Network ioffice in Anchorage. A good source of information can be found at Jim & Linda Schulz's website at www.JimSchulz.org. Our friends Terry & Danean Hull are newly-appointed missionaries with a unique approach for reaching isolated villages in the "bush" - see www.voicetothevillage.net.

Good quote - author not known:

Don't ask God to guide your footsteps if you aren't willing to move your feet.

Back to Alaska! Howard spent the summer of 2005 in the 49th state, doing volunteer work. Read about it at www.spaciousskies.me/howard/AlaskaComments.html. You'll also want to check out the Camp AN website at www.spaciousskies.me/CampAN/. His final trip to Alaska was in 2007... read about it at www.spaciousskies.me/howard/AlaskaComments2007.html

The address of Pastor Howard's "blog" is www.spaciousskies.me/howard/

Did you know that February 16 is Elizabeth Peratrovich Day each year? Probably not, because it's only a holiday in Alaska. Click here to read The Power of One Voice .

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