7. Juneau Voices: Peter Metcalfe & Gary Rosenberger
Peter and Gary are two invincible teenagers, part of downtown’s fabled Basin Road Gang. One day, their afternoon jaunt into an abandoned mine tunnel goes terribly, terrifyingly wrong.
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More about this story
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Juneau Voices #7 is located at Marine Way and Seward Street.
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The Alaska Juneau (AJ) Mine included 93 miles of tunnels. It produced over $80,000,000 in gold, and it was the world’s largest low-grade gold mine of its time. The AJ Mine shut down in 1944.
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The Perseverance Mine included 26 miles of tunnels. It shut down in 1922, after running out of profitable ore.
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To spend more time with this story and with Peter Metcalfe, please visit: https://www.aanyatxu.org/peter-metcalfe
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The narrators for Juneau Voices are David Katzeek, Kingeisti, an Eagle, and Erin Tripp, Xáalnook, a Raven.
PETER METCALFE & GARY ROSENBERGER
NARRATOR 1:
This is Juneau Voices #7. Marine Way and Seward Street.
SOUND: Raven calls.
NARRATOR 2:
There goes Raven. Yéil. Look! Flying up over town, toward the mountains, into that valley. That’s where the Silverbow Mine is, where gold was first mined by white prospectors.
NARRATOR 1:
Keep an eye on those rocky cliff faces. That’s the area where this story takes place.
NARRATOR 2:
The way you get to the Silverbow Mine is by walking up to Basin Road.
PETER:
And Basin Road is exactly where I’m from.
NARRATOR 1:
This is Peter Metcalfe.
SOUND: Raven’s call and a musical phrase send us back in time.
PETER:
It’s the 1950s.
NARRATOR 2:
The 1950s.
PETER:
I’m a boy growing up on Basin Road. I have 8 sisters and brothers. Like a lot of families in this neighborhood, my dad’s a World War II veteran, and we’re Catholic.
NARRATOR 1:
6 kids in that house.
NARRATOR 2:
7 in that one.
PETER:
In that house over there is my friend—
GARY:
Gary Rosenberger. That’s me.
PETER:
Together with all the other kids, we are:
PETER & GARY:
The Basin Road Gang!
GARY:
One of our favorite things is to explore the abandoned tunnels of all these mines.
NARRATOR 1:
1967.
NARRATOR 2:
PETER:
I’m 15 years old. Gary bursts through our front door.
GARY:
Hey Peter! Jim found a new way into the mine! Wanna go explore?
PETER:
My mom says:
NARRATOR 2 (as Peter’s mother):
Peter, Where are you going?
PETER:
We’re gonna explore the mines again!
NARRATOR 2 (as Peter’s mother):
Well be safe!!
PETER:
This is just a short evening adventure, with our friend Jim.
NARRATOR 1 (as Jim):
Hi Gary. Hi Peter.
PETER & GARY:
Hi Jim!
NARRATOR 1 (as Jim):
Let’s go!
PETER:
Down into the earth.
GARY:
Water spraying out of cracks.
PETER:
Deep vertical tunnels. …I see a flashlight in the distance!
GARY:
It’s not a flashlight. It’s a hole in the side of the tunnel!
PETER:
That light is the SUN!
SOUND: The boys grunt as they push rocks out of the way.
PETER:
Now we’re outside! We’re on the face of a steep cliff.
GARY:
Maybe it’s better to climb back up from here. The top of the cliff is only 20 feet above us!
PETER:
But when you’re on a vertical cliff face, the top is always 20 feet above you.
PETER:
We keep climbing up. Rocks and boulders come loose. We can’t see up— but we can see down. All the way down.
GARY:
We stop trying to climb, and we just wait. Stuck on an outcropping.
PETER:
Night falls.
GARY:
No food, no sleep.
ALL:
All night long.
NARRATOR 1 (as Jim):
…You guys? I’m scared.
GARY:
This could be the end.
PETER:
This could be the end.
SOUND: A helicopter.
PETER:
A tiny search helicopter comes and drops rescue climbers on the cliff above us.
GARY:
But they can’t make it down to us. All they do is knock loose a bunch of rocks, falling like machine gun fire.
PETER:
We spend another night trapped on the cliff.
GARY:
We loop our belts together so we can catch each other if someone accidentally falls asleep.
PETER:
…And I see the most spectacular display of northern lights, dancing in the sky. But I’ll never know if they’re real, or just a hallucination.
SOUND: Another helicopter.
GARY:
The next morning:
PETER:
A helicopter!
PETER:
The helicopter lowers a big wire basket, hanging from a cable. A man in the helicopter holds up 1 finger. We grab the basket—
GARY:
And Jim is the first one in.
PETER:
We watch Jim fly across the ravine.
GARY:
The chopper comes back. The rescuer holds up two fingers. We grab the basket–
PETER:
–and I climb in.
GARY:
But when I try to follow, the basket slips off the ledge.
PETER:
It hits a rock on the cliff wall—
GARY:
And it flips upside down.
PETER:
Gary is hanging by his hands above the void! All our families and friends are watching from across the ravine.
GARY:
The basket flips again— I throw my leg up–
PETER:
And I grab him and pull him right in.
GARY:
We’re saved!
ALL:
We’re saved!
NARRATOR 2:
A few hours later…
NARRATOR 1:
A few hours later…
PETER:
A few hours later, I’m wolfing down food at my family’s kitchen table.
NARRATOR 2 (as Peter’s mother):
Peter. I was thinking about punishing you for this. But if you haven’t learned your lesson now, well then I think you never will.
PETER:
I don’t think I ever did.
GARY:
Hey Peter! Want to go check out another new mining tunnel?
PETER:
Yeah!
SOUND: Raven’s call and a musical phrase bring us back to the present.
NARRATOR 1:
Here goes Yéil. On the move again. Have you ever seen a Raven hop like this?
NARRATOR 2:
Looks like Yéil is telling us to walk toward Main Street–the big intersection with the traffic light. Our next sign is there. Sign Number 8. We’ll meet you there.
