KTUU.com | Alaska's news and information source | Hickel still dreaming up big ideas at 90

Hickel still dreaming up big ideas at 90

by Rhonda McBride
Tuesday, August 18, 2009

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Former Gov. Walter Hickel received well wishes from the president of Iceland, other heads of state and scientists around the world Tuesday on the occasion of his 90th birthday.

Hickel has come a long way from his boyhood on a Kansas farm during the dustbowl days and overcoming illiteracy.

"Sister Flavia and Sister Seraphine both saw it," Hickel recalled. "And so they read to me an hour a day for about four years. And it was out of the Old Testament. They'd read a few pages every day and that was my education."

Hickel eventually learned to read, graduated from high school, became a Golden Gloves boxing champion and shipped off to Alaska.

"I know people who come up here with a thousand bucks and they're scared to death -- ‘Oh God!'" he said. "I didn't have any money, but I wasn't afraid. And that's an attitude. I'm just telling you the reality of me."

One of Hickel's attitudes is, "Ideas are much more powerful than money."

"The biggest accomplishment is taking ideas I have and proving they're right," he said.

One idea that turned out to be right was building the Hotel Captain Cook after the 1964 earthquake had turned Downtown Anchorage to rubble.

"I announced right after that," Hickel said. "I never even had a plan. I'm gonna build the Captain Cook Hotel. I had no money, four lots here and I built the son of a bitch. It makes me $10 million a year.

"Ideas are more powerful than money."

Among other powerful ideas that Hickel fought for include statehood. Later, he led the charge to drill for oil in Prudhoe Bay. His motto "drill or I will" didn't win friends in the oil industry.

"I'd like to see Alaska educate its people that it really owns this thing, and not someone else," he said. "It doesn't belong to any company. Do you realize that Alaska is owned in common? But nobody can buy it.

"I've seen it at the highest level. I'm one of the few guys in the world that sat in that cabinet and had to listen to that. They believe they own it."

That cabinet was Richard Nixon's. Two years into his first term as governor he was drafted to serve as Interior secretary -- until Nixon fired him when he protested the Vietnam War.

Hickel doesn't point to anything tangible when asked what he considers his greatest accomplishment.

"(I) stayed free," he said. "You have to stay free to do what I'm doing ... How do you stay free? Tell the truth and be honest with it. And be damned sure to yourself and be fair to yourself."

Hickel married Ermalee Strutz in 1945 after his first wife, Janice, died two years earlier. She raised a son from the first marriage and five more.

"Love is real," he said. "So many people think love is a phony."

Hickel has a simple answer for a 90th birthday wish: "Ninety-one," he said.

"You can't wish for 10 more. You wish for the next one."

Life's not quite the wild ride it once was, though he remains a fighter at heart. If you'd like to wish the governor happy birthday or share your memories, his family created a Web site: 90YearsofVision.com

Hickel is still politically active -- he wants more global environmental awareness, like more attention to the resources that the world holds in common, such as air and water.

And of course there's his dream for a pipeline to Valdez to ship liquefied natural gas. He still believes that's the best option for Alaska.

Contact Rhonda McBride at rmcbride@ktuu.com