Sourdough Honeymoon
by Bobby Murray

Here I sit, it has been hours now at Anchorage International Airport, waiting for the security guards to decide if the lump of dough-like substance they found in my sweatshirt front pouch is:
a) Drugs
b) Plastic explosives, or
c) If they believed the story I have told them about my ball of honeymoon sourdough starter. How I acquired it and who gave it to me. And, the wildest part, that they would be responsable for killing a life form over 100 years old if they did not protect it and keep it warm.

How this came to be was I spent part of my honeymoon experiencing my new husband's beloved Alaska. To this day every time I "gift" someone with my special sourdough starter they have to listen to the adventure of it all. I was finally allowed through security when someone got the smart idea of smelling the ball; one whiff told her I was telling the truth.

As you visit Alaska for your first time, if you cannot find an Alaskan to give you a start from their crocks, then you can make your own while you are there. As you give your loved ones their own true Alaskan sourdough starter, made in Alaska, and they give to others, and the others gift others, you must make them all promise to guard and protect the source of this life and to share with others who are worthy. So having been given this, you too will be told the Adventure of the Sourdough Honeymoon.

I happened to marry an Alaskan prospector (among other things) so we of course elected to spend our honeymoon at our wilderness cabin, 150 air miles from Anchorage. It is accessible only by bush plane or a very long and hard horse trek. Our cabin is situated in the middle of 3000 acres and totally isolated from the outside world. No electricity, no phones, no Internet, no, no, no..just you, the bears, and various other critters.

One day while enjoying our cup of morning coffee on the porch, we heard a "Hello the cabin?" coming from an elderly travel-worn horseman riding up the trail leading a pack horse with a dutch oven as a top load.

Following Alaskan tradition we invited our surprise visitor to come have some coffee and pilot bread. By the time I had things ready, Barry (my husband) and Jake where talking old times. Barry had invited our guest to hold up and rest in our lower cabin next to the river and runway. Seems Jake had been riding in this Alaska Range area, searching for the big strike, for nearly 50 years.

I offered him the coffee and the flat large crackers (pilot bread) with an opened tin of preserves. He jumped up saying he had something to add to the feast. Back he came, after rummaging through his panniers, with, what I believe, was made in heaven, sourdough flapjacks with fresh wild blueberry jam leftover from his breakfast. I could not stop raving about these most delicious delicacies I had ever tasted in my life! I ask him if he could share his recipe with us. He said he would do better than that, he would give me some of his crockings.

What this meant I had no clue, so as I questioned him I found out that in the times of Alaska gold rush days, because of exposure to extreme conditions, prospectors had no or little foods as fresh eggs, yeast and milk. Their travels took them, for long periods of time, into isolation far from any civilization. Being survivors, of great invention, these prospectors learned to make, use, and transport yeast naturally. This is also how they got the name "Sourdoughs"

This naturally fermented yeast could be kept alive and transported by adding enough flour to make a ball of dough and then tucked deep into sacks of flour.

Jake told us many stories about how Sourdoughs, in extreme cold, would put the dough ball under their clothes, next to their skin, or tuck it into their bedroll with them at night, anything to keep it alive. Water, warmth and flour would start the growing process again when they got to the next "find". He said that sourdough starter was even used to tan animal hides.

Jake's starter was passed down to him from a fellow prospector whose ancestors had originally created it in those first months of the Alaskan gold rush of 1898.

We talked until the wee hours of the morning. (In Alaska the long summer days make it hard to sleep at normal hours anyway.) Finally Jake begged our pardon and headed down the trail to the lower cabin for a few winks of sleep.

We were to be picked up by our bush plane the next afternoon. We wanted to spend some more time with Jake and get some information about how we could keep in touch with him. So after nailing the bear shutters on the main cabin, and packing our bags down the hill to the runway—never make a bush pilot wait on you, for the flying weather may change—we visited the lower cabin to say out goodbyes. But, Jake and his horses had left as gently as they had come. To this day we have no idea where Jake is, or how he is doing, having no way to contact him. Our only hope of seeing this friend, to thank him again for his wondrous wedding present, is that one day while sitting on our porch taking in the undisrupted view, we will once again hear Jake call out, "Hello the cabin!"

Since that time I have become an avid evangelist of Alaskan sourdough and have exchanged starter additions with many famous historical Alaskan sourdough caretakers. The thrill of giving our crockings to people we meet and those we care about has brought more joy to us than we could ever express in words, here. So, we will do it Jake style by passing along recipes that can be printed, and passed around to your friends.