A WALK TO REMEMBER

MAT-SU — Jim and Lin Turner spent most of their youth roaming the wooded area of Fishhook near Hatcher Pass, exploring the trails and wooded areas around their old homestead.

Jim Turner recalls the time his father sent the boys to plow a plot of land so they could plant a garden. They pulled rubber boots, an old, rusted-out shotgun and several other artifacts, out of the ground. They finally gave up on the plot because of all the debris they uncovered and settled on another plot.

The brothers recall stories told over the years of a trail to the gold mines and the outposts and cabins built as support to early miners. It wasn’t until they became adults that they realized the significance of the history that surrounds their family home. So last year they set out on a mission to see if they could find evidence of the old road or buildings.

“For my brother and I, it was like taking a legend we had always heard about and putting flesh to it,” Jim Turner said.

And find it they did.

The Turners led a group of people on a hike on Saturday to show off their find — a group they hope will help preserve a section of the Carle-Wagon Road in the Hatcher Pass Recreation Area. The approximately two-mile section of the old road the Turners found is believed to be the most preserved section of the trail not on privately owned land. The road section sits on Mat-Su Borough land between Edgerton-Parks Road and Hatcher Pass Road and is contained in the Hatcher Pass Management Plan.

Coleen Mielke said the Carle-Wagon Road was built by Jim Carle, superintendent of the Alaska Gold Mining Co., at a cost to Carle of $2,500. The road opened for travel in 1909, providing a more direct route to the east side of Hatcher Pass. In 1912, it was one of the first roads in the borough to be improved by the Alaska Road Commission and was the main artery of travel to the mines from Knik between 1917 and 1935. Later named Knik-Fishhook Road, it is known today as Wasilla-Fishhook Road, although the original trail turned west two miles south of the current Little Susitna Bridge crossing the river.

Walking the trail on a sunny spring day, one can clearly see the remains of the old road, and it’s easy to imagine wagons carrying treasure-seeking miners winding through the wilderness, rushing to be one of the first to the mining area to stake a claim. The roughly two-mile section of trail the group trekked Saturday is surprisingly undisturbed.

Although overgrown with vegetation and with several trees standing in the middle of the trail, the indents in the ground left by wagon wheels slowly traversing the land are unmistakable. Corduroy remnants are easily visible where the ground around them has eroded over the years.

The outline of a cabin that no longer stands can still be seen beneath the bending grass.

Close to where the old road intersects the paved Hatcher Pass Road lies what Lin Turner calls the “crown jewel” of the trail: the wagon drop.

A wagon drop is a system used by early-day pioneers to lower wagons down an incline. Usually set up on some type of pulley system, pioneers unhitched the horse team and lowered wagons down the steep slope in stages. The horse team was walked down a trail that paralleled the wagon drop. The large, flat, open area at the bottom of the incline was used to re-hitch the team to the wagon.

Dowl Engineering recently released a draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the proposed Hatcher Pass Recreational Area Access, Trails and Transit Facilities, which is in its 45-day review and comment period and ends July 30.

The engineering firm acknowledges discovering a portion of the Carle Wagon Road during a cultural and historic resource survey conducted in 2008 and 2009 in its draft. According to the EIS, the “survey of the vicinity where the route was expected to have crossed the proposed access road did not result in location of corduroy fabric, or obvious cut or filled road sections.”

A complete copy of the draft EIS can be found by going to our website, frontiersman.com, and clicking on the “Hatcher Pass Draft EIS” link found under the “Community Links” section of the home page. The reference to the Carle Wagon Road can be found on page 86 of the draft.

Although the Turners don’t believe the current plans for the Hatcher Pass Recreational Area will affect the trail, they would like to see it designated a National Historic Trail to ensure its preservation for future generations.

“When you’re young,” Jim Turner said, “you just don’t have the same appreciation for history as you do when you’re older.”