Lilly Williams Tucker (known as Lil to almost everyone who knows her) remembers the events of almost 60 years ago as if it were yesterday.

And though many people have vivid memories of their own from the past, they might not include a tale of bureaucratic snafus, transportation disasters, visits from fur trappers and Indians, boat trips up a glacial river and airplane flyovers that dropped supplies and made medical runs.

Tucker and her husband, Bob, were two of the first intrepid adventurers to travel the early AlCan Highway in 1945 and aim for a homestead in the wild Alaskan frontier.

She has recorded their experiences in a new book called, simply, “My Life in Alaska.” The 55-page volume, while slim, is as full of details as a history book, a compendium of early Alaska lore told with, however, the personality and lyricism of a bedtime story.

Tucker says she began writing her story in August, 2000, not thinking about publishing it. Then she was inspired to put her words into print by Cec Monson, a friend and fellow member of the Bayview Senior Center who writes a column for The Senior News.

“He got me going,” she said. “I thought, If he could write in the paper about the things he remembers, I could write about my trip up the AlCan Highway.”

She did, in fact, pen two columns for the newspaper, recounting the trip, but ending the story as the couple arrived in Fairbanks.

“Then everyone kept asking, ‘What happened next?'”

Lil Tucker’s book tells what’s next.

“We drove up the highway,” Tucker said. “That’s the beginning.”

Actually, the beginning was a bit earlier, when Bob Tucker received his retirement orders from the service and the Tuckers heard President Roosevelt announce in a radio chat that veterans would be allowed to go to Alaska and get 160 acres of land for free, provided they lived there for 10 years.

“Apparently, living in Alaska had been one of Bob’s lifetime ambitions,” Tucker writes. “I’m afraid I was a little skeptical, but having lived in 11 states in three years, one more move wouldn’t hurt me, even if it was over 4,000 miles from where I was born.”

Lil and Bob began planning what became their journey toward the north — one that was fraught with various “vast problems” and some lesser inconveniences.

Government officials had to be convinced of their sincerity; Bob got notice of a required physical exam; Lil contracted malaria.

But the Tuckers were undeterred.

They traded their 1941 Buick for a ’35 Reo truck and built a two-wheel trailer for it.

“That was our transportation to Alaska.”

Tucker recalls the “spectacular” foliage of the trees, the friendly people who, she suspected, “all thought we were a little crazy,” the stops in towns where a bath and a good night’s sleep were “a bit of heaven.”

“We were behind the mosquitos and ahead of the snow,” she writes.

The truck ran well — most of the time.

“”We were about 55 miles from Dawson Creek… Bob became suspicious of the sudden ease with which we were climbing hills without changing gears,” Tucker remembered. “To our dismay, we found that all that remained of our trailer was the chassis with one rubber boot.”

The travelers turned around, rescued the trailer and made repairs.

There were more minor troubles: flat tires, a broken trailer hitch, a new fan belt. And then, a ruined trailer wheel that required a complete truck makeover.

“When it was done, it looked like a boxcar, but is was still beautiful to us,”Tucker said.

The travelers arrived in Fairbanks Sept. 27, 1945, one month to the day after they left on Aug. 27.

From Fairbanks outward

The Tuckers had gotten to Alaska, but they were not satisfied yet.

While Lil and Bob both got jobs in Fairbanks, their thirst for independent adventure eluded them until they learned that the trading post of Tolovana and 31 acres of land were for sale. They reacted like future Whidbey Islanders.

“We did not want to live in city limits, so this sounded like a good idea,” Tucker writes in her book. “We bought a one-man town and doubled the population. Ha Ha!”

Tolovana was 200 miles from Fairbanks — by water — so the enterprising couple bought a boat. Bob began learning to maneuver the craft on the treacherous waters of the Tanana, described by Lil as “very cold and full of glacial silt.”

When they arrived safely at Tolovana, Lil writes, “I began to cry. When I saw the beautiful building that was to be our home, I was truly dumbfounded … Needless to say, I couldn’t afford to cry very long — there was so much to do.”

Those tasks occupied all the days of the Tuckers in Tolovana. Fur traders and Indians visited the store, and the couple “learned to sleep between the arrival and departures of boats.”

Money became tight, and the Tuckers relied on friends and relatives for loans. Mosquitoes are described as “hell on earth.”

But Lil and Bob made the acquaintance of pilots who used Tolovana as a landmark, and they relied on them for medicines and mail. In a visit to a hot springs they met prospectors, gold miners and trappers.

Bob would hunt for moose (unsuccessfully), and traders gave the Tuckers some caribou.

“Honestly, I was panic stricken,” Lil Tucker writes. “I certainly couldn’t hang it on a limb high enough that a bear couldn’t reach it.”

As usual, she improvised.

“A group of men (liquor dealers) landed and wanted to eat lunch. I knew most of them, having met them in Fairbanks. So I merely handed the closest one a knife. I was glad he knew enough to cut steaks for each of them.”

Lil baked pies from the cranberries, raspberries and blueberries that were prolific on the property. She became a postmaster, and “dog sat” for a trader. Bob built a fish wheel that had almost disastrous consequences.

And then, Bob cut his hand with a buzz saw. A pilot came to Tolovana and took him to the hospital. A little while afterward, Lil followed Bob to Fairbanks.

Leaving Alaska

Lil Tucker writes about her life in Fairbanks in a narrative of great details that covers their activities and accomplishments, which were many.

Bob was active in the American Legion and was named chairman of the Days of ’98 celebration in 1948, marking the 50th year since gold was discovered in Alaska. He brought movie stars and the national press to the event, which featured events such as a bathing beauty contest, a greased pig competition, pie eating, nail driving and a rolling pin throw (for women).

Bob also served as an officer in the Red Cross and the Jaycees, and he spearheaded a campaign to raise funds for a town ambulance. He himself traveled to the states to get it, serving also as a general good will ambassador.

Lil worked as a deputy U.S. Marshal and was involved in organizations ranging from the Alaska Crippled Children’s Association to the Legion Auxiliary.

The Tuckers sold Tolovana in 1948 and left Alaska in August, 1949, taking the Alaska Steamship from Seward to Seattle. On board they met Paul and Martha Raden of Whidbey Island.

They themselves came to Whidbey in 1960.

“How we got here is a book all by itself,” Tucker said. And she is beginning to write it now.