The Bright Lights Book Project: Enjoying (Train) Ride
Contributed by Alys Culhane
Passing books on to children from the saddle bags of my packhorse during the Alaska State Fair parade was the beginning of the 2024 Alaska State Fair festivities. Beforehand, I wrote “The End” on the white splotch on my pack mare Hrimfara’s butt. I later realized that I should have written, “The Beginning,” because this was the onset of the fair.
When the subject of the Alaska State Fair previously materialized, I rolled my eyes because I equated it with crowds, noise, traffic congestion, and overconsumption of food and beverages. And this year, again, there were crowds, noise, traffic congestion, overconsumption of food and beverages.
This year I realized that you need to pay attention when attending the Alaska State Fair and seek out that which is truly special. I became aware of this as Pete (husband) and I, on a daily basis, stocked 10 repurposed Bright Lights Book Project newspaper boxes with books and filled Alaska State Fair recycling carts with recyclables.
The center area, where the fair trails converge was where I came to the above realization. There, at the center was a train, one that complemented the fair theme, “Enjoy the ride.” I was so taken by this display that I talked with Alaska State Fair Head Gardener Becky Myrold about its creation. She said that the “enjoy the ride” theme, and the ASF administrators’ wish, that the actual train come to the fair, provided her with the impetus to create a plant-based display, one that, said Becky, “was like the Rose Bowl Parade.”
Becky drew the design, then it went to the shop where it was turned into something “much, much larger than I ever dreamed of.” She added that the guys made the train frame of sheet metal and built themselves a real train.
Becky’s mind went into overdrive as she first envisioned, then began creating, the Whistle Stop passenger list, which when complete consisted of Kirk the Moose, Lewis the Walrus, Sadie Puffin, Polly Porcupine, Martin Musk Ox. Cindy Lou, the Fox, ran alongside. Agnes Owl, The Engineer, took care of the details of driving a train. And the conductor was Riley Coyote, who just wanted everyone to have a howling good time.
To say that creating the Whistle Stop train and crew was a challenge is an understatement. For example, Becky had to figure out how she’d keep her display watered. The plants were in a six-inch wide trough, so they had limited access to water. The inside of the train would be too heavy if it was all soil. So, she devised long tubes with holes in them that she placed at strategic locations so that the water would get to the bottom rows of plants.
Becky further noted that the shop workers put the pipes in but did not put bottoms on the pipes, so when she poured water in, instead of the pipe filling with water then slowing percolating out to the plants, the water gushed out the bottom, thereby wiping out the bottom row of plants and potentially causing all the soil to flow out the bottom. The gardening crew took moss mixed with soil and crammed it down the pipes to hold some of the water in.
The travails that centered around bringing Kirk the Moose to life, and as well keeping him alive, were equally as challenging as figuring out how to keep the plants watered. Becky revealed that she was new to using seeds, cones etc. on frames and therefore struggled to find the right kind of glue. Kirk’s fur was made of spruce cones, gathered by Becky on winter walks. Her gardening crew “painstakingly” hot glued them on, one by one, but this was not the answer.
Becky watered all the animals when they were housed in the greenhouse construction area in part because she wanted to make sure that any disaster that might happen, would happen before the animals were on display. Alas, when she watered Kirk, cones fell off here and there.
The Sunday before opening week, Becky went to Spenard Builder’s Supply and bought construction gorilla glue and applied it to the top of Kirk's head – “just a few spots to see if it would hold.” She discovered that gorilla glue comes in expanding formulas. Kirk's face was a boiling mass of yellow bubbling gorilla glue. She tried scraping and removing the glue, and both ruined her clothes and glued her hands together. Becky recalled, “Here I was, by myself, one day before the train and animals were scheduled to go out on the grounds, and I had just destroyed Kirk.”
What was meant to be a quick half-hour visit to check on things became a 6-hour ordeal. Becky pulled Kirk's face off, and one of his hooves as the glue had dripped down onto and destroyed the coffee beans. She said, “One by one, I took another glue, one I had purchased from Amazon, and carefully glued new spruce cones on Kirk's face.” Luckily, she had gathered MANY! “Yup, his hoof, carefully, one-by-one I replaced every coffee bean my crew had carefully put in place.”
Hours later, Kirk had a new face and hoof, which she sprayed repeatedly with Varathane. She didn’t have enough time to test the new glue.
It held. Becky said she walked by that train every day with fear in her heart that one rainy morning, she’d find Kirk's face lying on the tracks. She paused before adding, “I probably would have removed him and put little Cindy Lou Fox in the window.”
In the end, the Whistlestop passengers and train crew were on hand to greet ASF goers. This included those like me, who in seeing Becky’s creation, found special meaning in the theme, “enjoy the ride.”