Alaska Bush Pilot Doctor

In 1955, fresh out of Kansas Medical School, he drove up the Alcan Highway to the Alaska Native Services Hospital in Anchorage. He left behind tractors in wheat fields and learned to fly a J-3 on Lake Hood then he volunteered for mercy flights into remote villages.

Moose, grizzly bear, and polar bear hunting came next, along with bush flying house calls and forced landings in blizzards along the arctic coast.

Later, he homesteaded on the Kenai Peninsula, cleared a half-mile airstrip, crashed his Cessna 180 into the Gaede-Eighty chicken house, took on a monkey for a patient, and flew patients to the Seward Hospital in treacherous conditions.