by Amy Condra<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This article was originally published in the Juneau Empire<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n On those Juneau mornings when the snow falls with a denser-than-usual determination, slipping out of the seductive comfort of our sheets and stepping onto a cold floor, into a frosty day, can be a daunting proposition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Renee Hughes, the task is especially tough; while many of us dread the short walk from our house to the driveway, she gamely straps on her snowshoes, flicks on her headlamp and braves a 60-minute trek to reach her car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen I worked at Gastineau School, people would laugh when I would show up looking haggard,\u201d said Hughes, who works as a substitute teacher at several local schools. \u201cBut I\u2019d say, \u2018Do you realize that I just spent an hour snowshoeing through the woods, in the dark, so I can get to school?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hughes says that, luckily, some of the work she does for the school district she can do at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And when home is an apartment above the Last Chance Mining Museum, situated in the Last Chance Basin at the end of Basin Road, \u201cworking remotely\u201d doesn\u2019t just involve a flexible employment schedule; it often entails a geographic reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To reach downtown Juneau, Hughes and her husband, Port Engineer Gary Gillette, must hike down Basin Road and across the Basin Road Trestle Bridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But during winter storms, they are often snowed in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe have enough gear that we know how to get out,\u201d said Hughes. \u201cBut it can be hard!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And even when and if the road is clear this winter, Hughes still won\u2019t be able to drive directly into town: The Basin Road Trestle, which was built in 1936, is undergoing a rehabilitation that began in October and won\u2019t be finished until spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the meantime, no cars are allowed on the bridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey\u2019re totally rebuilding the trestle,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cWe\u2019ll be out of commission until May, so basically what we\u2019re going to do is to have a car on one side, and a car on the other. Gary brought in 12 cases of cat food, and a couple hundred pounds of dog food \u2014 we stocked up on everything to get wintered in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEverything else we need,\u201d she said, \u201cwe\u2019ll drag from one side to the other!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you realize that I just spent an hour snowshoeing through the woods, in the dark, so I can get to school?<\/p>Renee Hughes<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n This isn\u2019t the first time Hughes and Gillette have had to navigate a difficult journey home \u2014when she first moved out to the museum about 20 years ago, they had to cross Gold Creek by boat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAfter three years of record rain, it got to the point that Gold Creek did not go under the bridge anymore,\u201d she said. \u201cThere was a cable strung between the bridge and the nearest tree. There were two pulleys on each side, and you\u2019d get in and have to pull yourself across in a small boat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It could take up to half an hour, and several back-and-forth trips, to ferry groceries across the creek, Hughes said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After hauling laundry to town by boat and then by sled, she added, they finally bought a washer and dryer to use at their apartment. Of course the appliances also had to be towed by boat, which was no easy task, said Hughes: \u201cIt was a celebration when we got it up here!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hughes acknowledges that living in the basin presents unique challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere are not many people that would enjoy living the way we do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But then there are the days when the beauty of the basin blurs away its frustrations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe most wonderful, fabulous day I can remember was when (local historian and storyteller) Mark Whitman came up here, and was standing on the bridge playing his flute \u2014 he had no idea we were up there listening, in the world\u2019s greatest amphitheater!\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hughes and Gillette both work with the Gastineau Channel Historical Society, a nonprofit organization that operates the Last Chance Mining Museum. The museum itself is owned by the City and Borough of Juneau.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hughes is the society\u2019s volunteer director, while Gillette serves as its president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe museum is in an old historic building \u2014 the compressor building \u2014 that was part of the Alaska Juneau gold mine,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cIt still houses a lot of tools and equipment that were part of the AJ Mine, which was the largest gold mine in the world when it was in operation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe fact that we\u2019ve been able to take care of it, and open this to the public so people can appreciate it, is great,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Alaska Juneau, or AJ, hard rock gold mine operated in Juneau from 1912 until 1944. During that time it produced more than $80 million in gold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At its peak, in the late 1930s, more than 1,000 men worked at the mine on a three-shift, 363 days per year basis \u2014 the only holidays that earned employees a day off were Christmas and the Fourth of July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Juneau\u2019s City Assembly declared the Last Chance Basin a historic district in 1978, and the buildings of the Alaska Juneau Gold Mining Company\u2019s Jualpa Mine Camp are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Last Chance Mining Museum is the only historic mining building from Juneau\u2019s gold rush era that is officially open to the public, and Hughes says that it receives about 2,000 visitors every summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy primary visitors are locals with friends and family,\u201d said Hughes, \u201cbut we also get a lot of engineers \u2014 they\u2019re interested in the big stuff!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n One particularly large piece of equipment on display is the mine\u2019s old air compressor unit, an Ingersoll-Rand compressor that was the largest air compressor made at the time, Hughes said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it\u2019s the three dimensional glass map of the Deep North ore body that especially intrigues Hughes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe air compressor is big, but I like the fact that they were able to design this map on glass, showing the different levels,\u201d she said. \u201cI have a cabinet that has core samples \u2014 you can take each core and identify exactly where it is on the map.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n How long does Hughes, a New Orleans native, plan to live among these gold rush artifacts, in the restored ruins of a turn-of-the-century mining camp?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe keep talking about what we\u2019d like to do when we can\u2019t physically deal with getting up here anymore,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we haven\u2019t found another place we want to go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the meantime, Hughes says she loves that she can just go down the street and get smoked salmon and fresh halibut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd I love that fact that one afternoon I was talking to my father on the phone, and an avalanche started coming down Mount Juneau,\u201d she said. \u201cI yelled, \u2018Oh my God, can you hear it?\u2019 He was having a heart attack, asking me what I was doing sitting in front of an avalanche.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hughes explained it this way: \u2018Well, I\u2019m on this side, and it\u2019s on that side, and can you hear it? It\u2019s the coolest thing in the world!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How long does Hughes, a New Orleans native, plan to live among these gold rush artifacts, in the restored ruins of a turn-of-the-century mining camp? by Amy Condra This article was originally published in the Juneau Empire. On those Juneau mornings when the snow falls with a denser-than-usual determination, slipping out of the seductive comfort… Continue reading Commuting by snowshoe<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1274,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alaska","category-juneau","post_format-post-format-gallery","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amycondra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amycondra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amycondra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amycondra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amycondra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1273"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/amycondra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1277,"href":"https:\/\/amycondra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1273\/revisions\/1277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amycondra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amycondra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amycondra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amycondra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}