The Call of the Mild

Twenty-one years ago, Torry Martin was a cabin host at a remote spot in Bear Valley. A semi-successful actor, writer and comedian to that point, Martin ventured up north to try to find more purpose in life.

It was in that cabin just south of Anchorage, and under the tutelage of a church in Eagle River that led Martin to finding God, which not only turned around his life, but helped make him a star in the world of Christian entertainment.

“That’s where I started my relationship with God, when I came to Alaska,” Martin said last week in an interview in Anchorage. “I came in as being raised in the church trying to prove the Bible said I could do whatever I wanted.”

Indeed, Martin had been no stranger to Christianity to that point. Prior to coming to the cabin, he’d been awarded the grand prize for acting and writing at the Gospel Music Association.

“There was a church in Eagle River that convinced me the Bible is real. I don’t know how you could live in Alaska and not be convinced God is real. It’s the most beautiful place,” Martin said. “I just decided I wanted to use my talents for God, my means in a way I think would be pleasing to him.”

In recent years, Martin’s career has taken off with writing and acting credits in films Christian and mainstream alike. He credits his successes with the months he spent in Alaska, and documented some of his zanier and more life-affirming moments in the book, ‘Of Moose and Men: Lost and Found in Alaska’, co-authored by Doug Peterson.

It hit bookstores in 2016, and already his publisher decided to send him back up to Alaska to revisit those experiences for a sequel, Martin has preliminarily titled, ‘The Call of the Mild’.

Last week, he was back in Anchorage, finding time for an interview at the New Sagaya Market downtown before heading out to see his old pastor Jack Aiken from Kings Way Church in Eagle River.

“I’m revisiting everything, where everything started and coming back to the cabin in Alaska to get back to who I really am,” Martin said. “Out in the industry, it kind of drains you and you need to recharge.”

Intentionally writing a sequel is quite different than revisiting one’s adventures, but Martin is hopeful that he’s got his thesis framed.

“t’s about, if you have a passion in life and sometimes you don’t pursue it… it’s about pursuing it anyway, and these are humorous stories about what happens when you do it,” Martin said. “I see myself changing a lot since I left Alaska. I liked myself a lot better in Alaska. It’s simple, pure. I love Alaska because people are, for the most part, who they say they are. There’s no need to impress; either you’re going to help me survive the winter or you’re not.”

Contrary to most conversion stories, Martin’s doesn’t feature one Road to Damascus moment, and it’s a distinction he hopes to drive home in his films, the latest of which, ‘Heaven Bound’, in which he writes and stars, is about a retired missionary doctor who saved plenty of lives in the mission field, but never a soul. So when he catches a handful of thieves breaking into his house, he’s hell-bent on getting at least one conversion.

“For me, it’s a series of minor adjustments,” Martin said. “I hate Christian movies where in the midst of one conversation someone is saved. I don’t believe it. For me, it’s a series of minor adjustments and watching Christians live it out.”

For Martin, that Christian ‘living it out’ was his friend Rob, also existing as a cabin host with the parks department.

“He would take his Bible down the trail, when no one was looking and reading it. I’d tell him, ‘you know you don’t get points for that,’” Martin said. “I’d see him praying on his own when no one was watching him, and I thought either there’s something to this, or he’s just whack-a-doo.”

Being a cabin host meant rotating between unoccupied cabins and Torry and Rob eventually found themselves out in Eklutna. Martin had tried to attend a larger church in Anchorage but didn’t have the best experience.

“I was wearing one of my seven pairs of Carhartt’s and I got ushered up to the balcony by a seater. I thought, ‘why is everyone else on the main floor and I’m in the balcony?’” Martin recalled. “One person next to me had a sleeve of tattoos, another had a piercing on her cheek, and I thought, ‘why am I up here with all the weirdos?’ Then I realized I was one of the weirdos and they had us up here so the TV cameras wouldn’t pick us up.”

Martin said he reached for the comment card in the pew and went to write ‘judgmental’, as a criticism of the church’s seating plan, but the ink ran out before he could get past judge. Fortunately for Martin, ‘Judge Mental’ became a popular character of his on Christian television, who focused intently on the trivial and picayune parts of church life.

“We got to Eklutna and I said to Rob, I gotta find a church,” Martin said. “We asked a ranger and he wasn’t a Christian, but he pointed and said, there’s a big, red one right there. It said ‘Kings Way’ and I said, ‘OK’.”

It was a Wednesday night and it was there Martin met his spiritual mentor.

“Rob and I were working the cabins; we weren’t wealthy people so there was no reason for the pastor to reach out to me,” Martin said. “Pastor Aiken came down and introduced himself and we just started talking. We were dressed like camp hosts, but he didn’t care what we looked like; he just loved us. The other church, I couldn’t get near the pastor.”

It was at the Kings Way church that Martin was introduced to the writings of nationally known Baptist author Kay Arthur, who wound up writing the preface to ‘Of Moose and Men’.

“I became so enamored of Kay Arthur and her teaching that I never dreamed that one day I’d meet her in her house and she’d be making me chicken dinner,” Martin said. “She pitched her publisher the idea for my book, without telling me. This was the woman who helped me to grow.”

Nowadays Martin teaches classes on writing and breaking into the music and film industries. He takes that connection with Pastor Aiken with him into every new connection he makes.

“If you Google ‘Torry Martin Networking’ you’ll see I tithe the first 10 minutes of each day to promote anybody but myself,” Martin said. “I meet so many people who are brilliant, but probably aren’t the type of people most people would want to talk to. I don’t look for shiny people; I look for people like me, leaning against the wall with a story to tell… A lot of people invested in my life (in Alaska). I want to do the same thing, so I’m giving back.”