Guest Author - Kimi Ross

Sisters: Coming of Age & Living Dangerously in the Wild Copper River Valley.
Kenmore, WA: Epicenter Press. 2004. 189 pp.

Aileen Gallaher was a fairly typical young woman when she met Slim Williams. She had no particular leanings toward a wilderness life or towards adventure, and yet when Slim invited her to return to Alaska with him, it was an idea that took hold of her. So in 1926, the twenty-one year old left the “humdrum, day-to-day monotony of [her] existence,” in Fresno, California for the wilderness of the Copper River Valley. For the next six years she shared Slim’s life as a trapper living off the land.

During the first few months of her life with Slim, an experienced gold-rush era woodsman twice her age, she had a lot to learn – how to keep a wood stove going, how to cook on it, how to drive a dog team, how to shoot a rifle. But she embraced all this learning with enthusiasm and “gradually learned how to live in the wilderness. It was a happy, carefree life.”

After a year, Aileen’s youngest sister Samme joined them for a short time. Samme brought a much needed sense of chatter and excitement to the couple, both of whom tended toward silence. Samme narrates adventure after adventure, from dinner at the Copper Center roadhouse to building a cabin to hunting caribou. Her vivid descriptions of the scenery and activities provide a valuable glimpse into life in this part of Alaska during Territorial days.

Sadly, Slim and Aileen eventually parted ways. Aileen returned to California, and Slim went on to become a big proponent of a highway to Alaska, performing grandiose antics such as driving a dog team from Alaska to the Lower 48. These schemes and dreams were discussed by Slim and Aileen together, in the cold dark days of winter spent in the cabin on the Copper River.

This book is an enjoyable read. It is a fascinating first-person account of life in the Copper River Valley at a time when the old way of doing things was still dominant and people lived off of the land. The stories of the rigors of wilderness living – which these two city girls adapted to remarkably well – highlight the ruggedness of the country: long, cold hikes to get to remote trapping cabins, raising an orphaned wolf pup, hunting caribou, building log cabins with nothing more than an ax and saw, close calls on river ice, travel by dog team. And yet despite the dangers and hardships, it is a story told with humor, love and great affection for the land and its people. This book will give you a glimpse not only of life in the Copper River Valley in the 1920’s and 1930’s, but a look at the way it shaped the hearts and minds of two California girls.