Fannie Quigley

I have finally finished my long awaited biography of Alaskan wilderness woman Fannie Quigley,  pioneer icon for Denali National Park..  Over the twenty years I have been working on this project  “Searching for Fannie Quigley”   became a quest that absorbed much of my time, and ultimately shaped my life and my career. It will be published in 2007 by Swallow Press, Ohio University.

Mine is the first attempt  at a book length biography of this intrepid pioneer mining woman.  When I began my quest, in 1986, the Park Service still maintained that Denali was a wildlife park, not a cultural site, and left the interpretation to the concessionaires. Thankfully, the Park Service has now embraced the cultural heritage, and those who get to Kantishna, at the end of the ninety mile long park road, can visit the newly restored small house where Fannie died in 1944. 

The  newly opened Visitors Center at the Park features an exhibit about Joe and Fannie Quigley, and includes my poem, “Fannie Quigley’s Blueberry Pie” which I wrote many years ago, in an effort to catalog just how difficult a basic task could be in Fannie’s wilderness home.

  Jane's poem is

   featured in the

   exhibit in the new

   Denali Park

   visitors center

        Fannie Quigley's Blueberry Pie

First, in early August pick five gallons of blueberries as they ripen on the hillside in back of your mining claim.

Before the creeks run dry in the summer, pan some gold out of your claim.

Then, in early fall, shoot a good fat bear. Skin the bear, and butcher it. Haul it, one quarter at a time, in your backpack, to your cabin.

When the first snows come to the hills, hitch up the dogs and mush fifteen miles down the valley for firewood.

Haul 10 or fifteen cords to keep the woodstove going in the cabin for the winter.

Using a large iron kettle, and the wood you've hauled, render the bear fat into lard.

Hitch up the dogs again, and mush 125 miles to Nenana.

Trade some of your gold dust for 100 pounds of flour and 50 pounds of sugar.

Load it on your sled and mush home.

Be sure to avoid the overflow on the Toklat River so the flour doesn't get wet.

Use the bear fat lard and the flour to bake a dozen flakey pie crusts in the oven of your wood cookstove. Keep the stove stoked with good dry wood to maintain a high temperature.

Mix the blueberries with some sugar, and add enough flour to bind up the juices. Put the filling into the crusts and bake. Don't let the fire in the stove get too hot, or the pies will burn.

Cool the pies, then store them frozen in the permafrost mining tunnel behind the cabin.

When company comes, go out and get a pie out of the tunnel. It will taste as good as fresh and astonish your guests.