Peter Metcalfe
The ”Basin Road Gang,” clockwise from top left: Michael Fleischhauer, Peter Metcalfe, Gary Rosenberger, Merrill Sanford, and Mac Metcalfe, Northern Light United Church, September 2019.
My grandmother was born in Tacoma and, at age six, moved with her family to Skagway in 1900. She married a Canadian and they moved to Juneau in 1924, and bought a house at the top of Gold Street a few years later. My mother was born in Juneau, and was raised in that house with her three sisters. My father came to Juneau from Wenatchee right after he graduated high school in 1941. He enlisted in the military and served in WWII. After he returned to Juneau, he met my mother, Patricia McAlister, and they had nine children, all of whom were raised in the Gold Street house. We went to St. Ann’s Parochial School three blocks down the hill. We all survive our parents. Seven of us live in Alaska; two live in the Lower 48.
“We were raised in a way that made us pretty resilient. We were free-range kids.”
From mine shaft to helicopter: we got out with our lives
basin road gang
“It was an example for me in my life that I could survive really difficult circumstances if I just didn’t lose my head.”
not the end
After the rescue, photographed at the North Douglas heliport in the bay of the Coast Guard helicopter. Left to right: Gary Rosenberger, Peter Metcalfe, and Jim Rosenberger. 1967.