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Sally McMahan Pollen |
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| was born with a taste for flying, consistent with the rest of the Alaska McMahans. She successfully completed FAA ground school, had dual instruction in a Cessna 152, but then bought a hot air balloon. Hot Air and Associates Ballooning operated in Palmer in the early '90s. | |
| Sally's Grandmother Maude kept journals in long-hand for many, many years. Maude's son, Cleo, photographed everyday life for decades with his Argus C-3 camera. Now, Cleo's daughter, Sally, continues the desire to document family history. With this book, she has joined two media, word and image, to beautifully recapture "Bush" Alaska. | |
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Sally lives in Palmer, Alaska, serving Pollen's Bed and Breakfast guests throughout the summers. |
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| Excerpts from the book: |
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"Bird nests and skunk dens were two things from my childhood which probably had the greatest influence on what I turned out to be. Bird nests, because one in particular ended up changing the direction of my life, skunk dens woke up my love for trapping." (Cleo is pictured on the far right.) |
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...He sought adventure. He followed faint tracks beginning on the dusty roads and wheat fields of Kansas in the early 1900s. Those tracks led north north-west and once he was on the trail they never let him down.....
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Gakona, a sparsely populated dot on the map at the junction of the Richardson Highway and the Tok Cut-off was where Cleo and Daphne first settled. With their home being the airplane hanger, the only place for the new J-3 Cub was right outside the front door.
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"While I was building that log cabin at Meiers, a bear suprised the heck out of me. The cabin was up except for the roof, the windows and the doors. This one day I took time off to go down and get a drink of water at the creek, which was about 150 feet away. As I bent down drinking and resting there was this awful noise in the brush. It sounded like a bulldozer coming and I just instinctively knew to run or climb a tree.. I ran. After jumping inside the opening for a window in the cabin and climbing onto the roof log I looked down. Below me was a mad grizzly bear standing up on his hind legs growling and snapping off little trees."
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Operating McMahan's Flying Service established Cleo B. MaMahan as the big-game guide for which he became so well known. Hunters and fisherman came year after year. Non-resident and international hunters came for trophy antlers and horns and polar bear skins. |
