Jorgy The Life of Native Alaskan Bush Pilot and Airline Captain Holger "Jorgy" Jorgensen

"Jorgy" Jorgensen is a legendary Alaska Native bush pilot, but his life is much more than a great flying story. He was raised by his Inupiat Eskimo mother and his Norwegian gold-miner father in a tiny mining camp in interior Alaska. After his father's death during the Depression, when Jorgy was only seven, they lived a subsistence lifestyle: Jorgy worked in the gold mines, ran a trap line, and mushed dogs. He served in Muktuk Marston's Alaska Territorial Guard and was a sergeant by the age of 17. After Pearl Harbor, he became Sig Wien's fire potter and gas boy, and learned to fly. He operated a dragline in the summers, he was a boxing champion, and he desegregated Nome's movie theater. His flying career was equally varied: he flew all across Alaska, carrying passengers and cargo. He delivered scientific equipment and supplies to the T-3 ice island, fresh fish to and from King Salmon, moved reindeer from Hagemeister Island; he flew in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, the Far East, Canada. He flew from 1943 to 2001, logging more than 35,000 hours of flight time, with only one--minor--accident. Telling his extraordinary life story in spare, no-fuss fashion, this book allows a vivid glimpse into a tulmultuous and exciting period in aviation from the point of view of one of Alaska's early Native bush pilots.

Jean Lester, a painter and writer, brings her talent to bear for capturing the voices of her subjects in this book, vividly relaying Jorgy Jorgensen's wry and laconic tales of his life in the northern air. A dedicated believer in working with the past to bring it into the future, Lester has been praised for her unique oral history books about notable Alaskans, in which she presents their life stories, told in their own words.