Walking Writer Takes Stock of Alaska

As a science writer at the Geophysical Institute, my favorite part of the job is meeting men and women who explain their passion for science to me. This week, I got a chance to interview a man who has had a profound influence on my life.

Peter Jenkins, in Fairbanks as part of the university's "Writers-in-Residence" program, wrote the book A Walk across America in 1979. He and his dog, Cooper, walked from upstate New York to New Orleans in the early 1970s, staying for months in small towns with people he'd met and discovering America along the way.

I read his book in my early 20s. Especially appealing was his ability to relate to people, from the poor family he lived with in Murphy, North Carolina, to Governor George Wallace of Alabama. The images of his hike stayed with me for more than 15 years, until I got a chance to do my own walk. In 1997, I walked the length of the trans-Alaska pipeline with my dog, Jane. Like Jenkins, I wrote a book about my trip (shameless plug: published by Duquesne University Press and available in January, 2000). When he came to the University of Alaska Fairbanks recently, I made an appointment to interview him.

To keep things in a science context (I've stretched a bit, forgive me), I asked Jenkins about human nature, a subject he's qualified to talk about after making a career of dropping in on strangers and writing about their lives. How, for example, do you earn someone's trust after showing up at their front door?

"I think everybody wants to be appreciated and understood for who they are," he said. "If somebody sees that you're not judgmental, they'll talk to you."

He gave the example of the Parker brothers, two men he profiled in his book Along the Edge of America, in which he toured the Gulf of Mexico in a boat. The brothers were fishermen who picked fights at Hell's Angels bars after battling the weather in the Gulf for weeks. Jenkins wrote about the brothers: "Red is the brother who is quick to boil. Billy, you better hope he never boils." They had no use for Jenkins, a "soft-handed wimp" hanging around their docking area writing stories.

Jenkins knew the brothers had an interesting story because of an intuitive feeling he described as akin to what a person feels when he or she sees someone attractive from across a room. Compelled to meet the brothers, he interviewed other fishermen around the pier for days until word got around that he was a fair fellow. In time, the Parker brothers, prefacing with a few cuss words, asked him when he was going to talk to them.

Now working on a book about Alaska, Jenkins is living in Seward after spending some time in Southeast. He plans to be here two more years, gathering stories and experiences. Rather than walking, he's driving, boating and flying to discover more about that unique species known as Alaskans.