The Wrangell Kid: A TRUE STORY of Alaskan Winter Survival (1979)

Описание: A tribute to Michael McCann (currently guiding in the Yukon).
Narrated by Cherilyn Monroe, aka Bannock Queen Wrangell Mountains.
Read in the spirit of Alaskan poet Robert Service, that captures the harsh beauty, the high stakes, and the deep resilience required to survive in that beautiful, unforgiving land.

The Ballad of the Wrangell Kid

It was just another Alaskan night
At Chillkoot Charlie's bar,
Where Gary Sloan played harmonica
Like some wild northern star.

The door burst open with the snow,
And in walked something rare—
A man in buckskins, white Stetson hat,
With waist-long golden hair.

He looked like something from a dream,
The Wrangell Kid they said,
Looking for a lady brave enough
To share his winter bed.

He came around and asked me straight,
No beer or shot in hand,
"Will you come with me to the mountains
And winter in that land?"

I was nineteen, I knew nothing,
But something in me knew—
I said yes without a hesitation,
And I'm glad I saw it through.

We caught Lynn Ellis out of Glennallen,
His plane packed to the brim—
Horse grain for seven Canadians,
And grub boxes filled to the rim.

He flew us to the Tana-Chitina,
Where Frank Peace's cabin stood,
Built in 1908, sod-roofed and low,
Ten by thirteen feet of good.

Six inches down into the frozen ground,
That cabin held the cold,
A fifteen-gallon barrel stove inside
Worth more than mountain gold.

The Kid brought Brad, his tall friend,
Six-foot-two and keen,
But on the second horse delivery
We caught him in between.

The drama passed, the tall man left,
He knew the winter's cost—
When there's one moose between three souls,
One mouth is one too lost.

The Kid walked out behind the cabin,
Raised his rifle true,
And dropped a moose right where it stood—
That moose would see us through.

We hung it up and quartered it,
Our lifeline through the snow,
The Wrangell Mountains tested us,
But we weren't meant to go.

The rule was simple, iron-clad:
When sun came up, out the door.
When sun went down, back inside—
That was the winter's law.

I bucked the wood from dawn to dusk,
Three months of frozen days,
While the Kid ran his traplines through
The mountain's frozen maze.

By candlelight we'd read at night,
The Frontiersman in hand,
And study geological surveys
Of that wild and frozen land.

He called me once, with knowing eyes,
A title earned and true:
"The Bannock Queen of the Wrangell Mountains"—
And the name forever grew.

One evening by the candlelight
He spread a survey map,
And pointed to some beaver ponds
Five frozen miles out back.

I packed the bannock, he packed fish,
We set out through the snow,
Breaking trail through twists and turns
Where only trappers go.

We made our camp before we reached,
Slept sound beneath the stars,
But morning brought a terror worse
Than grizzly teeth or scars.

The snow was melting all around,
Fifteen feet of pack turned soft,
Each step we sank, each breath a fight,
Our snowshoes barely aloft.

My rawhide lashing snapped in two
Halfway back to home,
I walked toes-up on my right foot
Through miles of melting loam.

But we made it back, we always did,
The cabin waiting there—
The Wrangell Mountains test you hard,
And we survived the scare.

One cold day we heard the sound
Of dogs across the snow,
We ran the mile down to the river
To see the team below.

Kelly and Bonny, husband and wife,
Crossed the wide Chitina ice,
Their dog team barking, coming close—
First humans, oh how nice!

In that river valley, silent cold,
You could hear them from miles away,
The first voices besides our own
In months of frozen days.

Kelly smiled and shook his head,
"Lynn flew you kids out here,
A couple grub boxes, said you wouldn't last—
We came to see, my dear."

But there was moose spag on the stove,
And wood stacked to the gills,
And seven horse bells ringing soft
Across the Wrangell hills.

"Lynn said you wouldn't make it,"
Kelly laughed and shook my hand,
But the Bannock Queen and the Wrangell Kid
Had conquered that frozen land.

By March the Kid was ready,
The winter taking toll,
I would have stayed forever
If not for spring bear patrol.

We cleared the ice from the airstrip,
But Lynn came circling down,
He looked and shook his head and said,
"That strip won't hold the ground."

He landed on the river instead,
Three inches of water below,
We grabbed the first things we could reach
And loaded up to go.

The Wrangell Mountains disappeared
Below Lynn Ellis's wing,
The winter we survived together
A song we'd always sing.

Mike, you asked me on your show
To share our winter's tale,
But I had no microphone back then
To let the memories sail.

So here it is, the story whole,
In Robert Service verse—
The podcast we never made,
For better or for worse.

The Wrangell Kid and the Bannock Queen,
Frank Peace's cabin cold,
A winter that we barely made
And a friendship made of gold.

— For Michael McCann, the Wrangell Kid, 1942-2023
From the Bannock Queen of the Wrangell Mountains
Written in memory of the winter of 1979