Cajun Angels on the Alcan

            In our more than ten years of living in Alaska, we drove the celebrated Alcan highway numerous times. Our first adventure was in the first year of our marriage in the spring of nineteen-eighty. At that time far less of the Alcan was paved than in later years. After driving the highway several more times in the years that followed, we found out that it was a much more pleasant experience traveling the unpaved portions of the road than the paved. The paved sections were susceptible to pot holes that you had to watch for and maneuver around like land mines.  We eventually decided we also liked to drive it in the fall when the roads were frozen but before the deep snow would fall. This also allowed us to avoid the intense dust stirred up in summer travel.

            One particular year we made the trek south from our home in Palmer Alaska to visit family in San Diego. We were planning on spending the Thanksgiving holiday with them so we began our trip in mid-November.  As expected, the roads were frozen and icy, causing us to proceed at a slow but steady pace.  It was very cold.  Stopping for gas in Wildhorse Yukon Territory, I stepped out of our Bronco to forty below weather, and that was not counting windchill.   We eventually stopped in Watson Lake Yukon Terrotory to stay in a motel for the night.

            The next morning, I went out to warm up the Bronco for that day’s drive. All of us who lived in the far north had electric engine heaters installed so they could be plugged in overnight to keep the motor from freezing. After unplugging the engine heater cord that morning, I jumped into the cab with what proved to be too much enthusiasm. I landed on a driver’s seat that was frozen as hard as a rock.  Even the cushioned seat was not impervious to the Yukon cold.  I began my drive that day with a very sore backside.

            The Alcan takes a definite turn to the south when leaving Watson Lake.  Although the cold persisted, at least turning south gave us a hope of warmer weather to come. As we continued towards Fort Nelson and then Fort St. John,  the road still continued to included long stretches of wilderness with no roadside amenities or gas stations.  We would learn this trip that even when maps showed a town or city, there was no guarantee of a gas station. Those were the days before celll phones when we navigated by actual maps.

         It was our second day out of Watson Lake and we were trying to make it to Prince George in British Columbia.   The marked spot on the map we had depended upon to provide us with a full tank of gas proved to be only an abandoned building. With no other option, we continued south hoping to find gas somewhere.  We all but coasted into Prince George that evening on fumes. 

         The next day we left Prince George, which was a decent sized city, again depending upon the towns marked on our map for gas. The cold weather and icy conditions seemed to negatively affect our gas economy, emptying our tank faster than usual.  Still, we noted several towns on the map where we should be able to fill up our tank.  The drive was beautiful along what is called the Frazier River Valley.  After several long days of travel, we had delayed our departure that morning from Prince George to give the kids a chance to play at an indoor McDonalds.  It was almost lunch time by the time we continued south.

     The afternoon had grown late before we began to be again concerned with our gas situation.  Every town the map had indicated proved to be either just a wide spot in the road or the gas stations were closed.  The Frazier River area was beautiful, but seemed even more isolated at times than the northern part of the Alcan in Yukon Territory.  We could see that there was a town only a few miles ahead, one that looked a bit bigger according to how its name was written on the map.  We began to relax believing we would find both gas and a place to stay for the night.

            It was along one of those beautiful but isolated stretches, before we made it to the little town we were planning on, that the Bronce began to sputter.  We were soon coasting to a place along the side of the road on this remote stretch of highway. We were out of gas!

Concerned with both the cold and the isolation of where we were, Betsy and I bowed our heads in prayer.  We asked the Lord for deliverance from our situation, and the wisdom to know what to do.  It looked like from the map that the town we had hoped would have a gas station was still only three or four miles ahead. I decided I would have to leave Betsy and the kids and walk or hitchhike to the town for gas. No traffic had passed us for hours.  Therefore, after bundling them up and making sure Betsy knew where my loaded rifle was, I set out walking.

      As I walked down the road in search of a gas station, I was continually looking backward towards our Bronce to assure myself that Betsy and the kids were ok.  It was on one of these turns to look back that I noticed a truck approaching from the north. It pulled to a stopped just past our Bronco. Immediately I began to run back to Betsy and the kids.  As I ran, I saw two men climb out of what appeared to be an oversized flatbed truck. Both men were likewise “oversized”, appearing to be close to seven feet tall. They each got out of their respective sides of the truck, talking loudly and gesturing excitedly to each other. 

In the several minutes it took me to jog back to the Bronco, one of the men had taken a gas can from the back of their truck and walked around to a large exterior gas tank on the side of the truck. From there, he seemed to be opening a spout to fill up the gas can! They had not spoken to Betsy or I; they just appeared to know that we needed gas. When I came alongside their truck, both looked at me with smiling faces and offered friendly greetings. That is they did so in-between their ongoing and animated conversation. The next thing I realized was that they both had pronounced Cajun accents, talking and laughing as if what they were doing was natural and normal. No explanations or clarifications, they just kept talking animatedly while they filled the gas can.

When the gas can was apparently filled, they continued their animated conversation while they walked back to our Bronco where one of the men poured the gas into our tank. I looked in at Betsy and she returned my gaze with similar bewilderment.  He emptied what looked like a five-gallon gas can into our Bronco. I was preparing to offer them money for the gas when the man with the gas can nonchalantly waved we off and returned to place his now empty can in a box on the flatbed.  Both men, still talking and gesturing, walked back to the doors of their truck.  As the man on the driver’s side stepped up on the running board to enter his truck, he turned back to me with a knowing smile and simply said in his pronounced Cajun accent “God bless you brother”, and they were off.

The statement of “God bless your brother” was a familiar one. In a previous testimony about crossing the Mojave Desert of Southern California, I share the story of a hitchhiker I picked up who after riding with me for several hours said those same words to me before disappearing into the California desert.  I knew that day on the Alcan that again, this time with Betsy and the kids present, I had experienced what scripture describes as a visitation of angels.  This time however, instead of the heat of the Mojave Desert, it was in the remote cold of British Columbia that the Lord had once again sent His angels to watch over my family and I.  The Lord has taught us many times in this life to “not think it strange that you entertain angels”. Even seven-foot angels that sound like Cajun southerners.