Legendary Alaska adventurer Dick Griffith passed away Tuesday.
In his 98 years, Griffith trekked across more than 10,000 miles of wilderness in Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, Mexico and Asia. He often traveled alone on foot, by boat or both, pioneering the use of an inflatable boat small enough to carry on one's back, called a packraft.
Roman Dial, a legend of pack rafting and Alaska wilderness adventure in his own right, calls Griffith, the grandfather of modern Alaska adventure.
"I met Dick when I was in my 20s and he was in his 50s, and I wanted to be just like him," Dial said. "He kind of looked like Clint Eastwood in tennis shoes and a backpack, but by the time I was in my 50s and he was in his 80s, I realized that there was no way I was going to be like him. He was truly one of a kind, and he had a huge impact on my life and the path that I took."
Kaylene Johnson-Sullivan was a friend of Griffith's and wrote his biography, called "Canyons and Ice: The Wilderness Travels of Dick Griffith.
Johnson-Sullivan spoke to Alaska Public Media's Casey Grove about Griffith's life.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Casey Grove: So where did Dick Griffith grow up? How did his upbringing contribute to his adventurous nature, and how did he end up in Alaska?
Kaylene Johnson-Sullivan: Well, he grew up on a ranch in Wyoming. It was a hardscrabble life, and they were quite poor. It was during the (Great) Depression. He was born in 1927, and he, from a very young age, was hunting for meat for the family, because all the farm food went to town for cash, and so it was a hard life, and he was eager to be away from it.
And he decided, one day, that he was going to build a boat based on an article that he read in Life Magazine. He built that boat and headed down to the canyons in southwestern America and launched his boat. And his his dad, who was a rancher, couldn't figure out why he wouldn't ride a horse rather than then take a boat, but he was kind of done with horses for a while.
CG: Enough with horses.
KJS: Yeah, yeah. And he was in the canyons when he met his wife to be, Isabelle, and they fell in love and got married and did some adventuring of their own. They went down the Barrance del Cobre in Mexico. And so after they were married, they came to Alaska in 1954.
CG: And did he come up to Alaska for work? Is that why?
KJS: He started with the Alaska Railroad up here. He decided then to go back to school and become an engineer. And after that, he worked for the (Federal Aviation Administration) as an engineer for the rest of his career.
CG: I feel like other folks that I've read about that you could characterize as an adventurer, they're like stubborn, serious people sometimes. Was he like that?
KJS: Oh, I think that he was determined to do what he had set out to do. And he didn't always succeed, but he always went back to make it happen. But he also had a great sense of humor, and he loved giving people a hard time. And you knew that if he was giving you a hard time, then you know he liked you. So he was always a jokester too. He always had a very wry wit. Had a lot of funny things to say.
CG: Yeah, you mentioned he had a great sense of humor. And Roman Dial, who we heard from off the top there, has this great story about one of the Alaska Mountain Wilderness Classic (races), where Dick showed up with what we call a packraft now, and basically leapfrogged over these guys and said something like, "Old age and treachery will win every time," right?
KJS: Right, right. Exactly.
CG: Great quote. But I wanted to ask you, why does Roman call Dick "the grandfather of modern Alaska adventure?"
KJS: Well, Dick did things that no one had done before. Even the folks out in the villages would be amazed as he pulled into a tiny village, pulling a sled all by himself. He was one of the first people that did these solo trips, long trips, and he did most of them in the latter part of his life. He retired at 62 and set off to just go across the northern tier of Alaska and on into the Arctic of Canada, all the way across the continent, basically. And no one had ever done that. And he did that in segments. He also traversed the Brooks Range. And almost everything he did he did solo, because mostly, people couldn't keep up with him, you know? So he learned along the way, but he enjoyed his own company, and he went out there and just made a plan to do it, and he did it.
CG: What legacy do you think Dick Griffith leaves us?
KJS: I think Dick has left a legacy of amazing adventure, but also courage and integrity and humor, and that he met life's challenges just head on, and he lived life completely and fully all of his life. And I think, boy, we could all stand to do such a thing, you know, to be fully present and alive, right up until the end.
