Our Volunteers
Volunteer Bios:
(click on any photo for larger image)
It is only because of the efforts of Dave Thompson who donated the use of his cribbing and Mike Hopper who hauled all of this cribbing to and from the site, that this phase of the project was possible!!!! We cannot acknowledge or thank them enough. It is often the “behind the scenes” folks that make things work! We also realize, “we are only as good as our team.”
1. Sandy Jamieson is well known throughout Alaska as an artist. He also has extensive experience in log construction and historical preservation. Two of the larger log restoration projects in which he played a major role are the St. James Mission Church in Tanana, and Rika’s Roadhouse in Delta. He has also designed and constructed many large carved signs for schools and businesses in the Fairbanks area. His personal ties to the Black Rapids area go back as far as 1962 when he first began hiking and hunting in the surrounding mountains. Since then, in addition to walking or skiing up almost every drainage on both sides of the Delta River, he has been involved in the construction of many cabins in the area, and consumed many servings of pie and coffee over the counter of “Bert and Mary’s”.
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Sandy Jamieson log work | Sandy Jamieson axe work on logs | Sandy, Richard Musick, Tom Sorensen – sorting logs
2. Mike Musick has over 40 years of experience in building and construction in Alaska and is a licensed general contractor (“Ester Construction“).
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Mike Musick, Tom Paragi | Mike Musick | The builders, Sandy Jamieson and Mike Musick
3. Philip Marshall is a retired schoolteacher with an avid interest in Alaskan history. A 20 –year resident, he wrote, “Alaska Exploration Map Series” in 1987. He has hiked and mountain-climbed throughout the area in all seasons, including the second ascent of Mt. Hajdukovich. (This pioneer undoubtedly stopped at the Black Rapids Roadhouse on his many hunting trips and passages up from the Paxson Roadhouse). Marshall’s excursions extend south to the Copper River Basin where he has assisted in WAMCATS Trail restoration above Ernestine to Kimball Pass. Privileged to have spent time in this beautiful, ghost-filled alpine area, he hopes to save this relic, perhaps by helping with his woodcarving that he has been dabbling in for the past 11 years. Phil worked tirelessly over many weekends of restoration efforts and his enthusiasm for this project and the surrounding country is contagious.
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Phil Marshall returns to help
4. The excavation work is being done by Mark Nielsen, has over 16 years of experience as a heavy equipment operator. Mark has lived in Alaska all of his life and recently retired as a juvenile probation officer.
5. Tom Paragi is a wildlife biologist and pilot from Fairbanks who enjoys woodworking with hand tools. His father is a carpenter in New York State, and his grandfather was a carpenter and wheelwright in Hungary. Tom learned from his father how to safely use the broadaxe so that he can help with restoration of historic log buildings, which he has done at Black Rapids Roadhouse and a cabin in eastern Oregon. Tom has made a few pairs of snowshoes from birch and moose rawhide and aspires to someday make a spruce and canvas canoe with a crooked knife.
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Tom P. and log work
6. Annette Freiburger has spent her whole life (except three college years) in Fairbanks, though she loves to spend time in the Rocky Mountains. Her parents are Andrew (deceased) and Effie Kokrine (deceased); both were well-known dog mushers in the Interior. They moved to Fairbanks in 1947 from the Tanana area. She met her husband, Vince, on the pipeline in 1976 at Atigun Camp, in the Brooks Range (the Shangri-la of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline). They have two sons, Brent (18) and Michael (16). Annette moved to the University of Alaska in 2004 to work as the Coordinator of the Interior Aleutians, Nenana Campus after working as the Executive Director of Fairbanks Native Association for over three years. She is working intently on recreating the history of her family and telling the story about her mother, Effie Kokrine.
7. Janet Matheson, AIA, is a Fairbanks architect with a longtime interest in preserving Alaska’s heritage. Besides doing historic resource surveys in Seattle, Fairbanks, Ketchikan, Juneau & Haines, each resulting in a book, she has designed projects across Alaska since the 1970s, working in frame, log, concrete & steel. With a talented team of local Fairbanksans, she produced the 1979 “Fairbanks Historic Building Survey”, republished in 1985 along with a “preservation handbook” for local officials. Her later historic preservation projects have included: consulting on the SS Nenana and Harding Car restorations; design of the Wickersham House addition at Fairbanks’ Pioneer Park; design of an addition to the Egan House on Cowles Street; assistance to the Golden North Rebekahs Lodge in restoring their landmark building on 1st Avenue; and currently, consulting on repairs to the Old George T. Thomas Library and Mary Lee Davis House, also on Cowles Street in Fairbanks. She has also done a HABS survey of the Rose Building, formerly next to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, and worked on a condition & use survey of the Masonic Temple on 1st Avenue. Why is she interested in the Black Rapids Roadhouse? “Every time I drove by it, going to Anchorage ‘the long way’, it looked like it needed restoration. I surveyed most of the old roadhouses along the Richardson Highway in the 1970s, that were still within our Borough, and almost all are gone. Thank God Annie & Michael are finally doing it!” she says.
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