Navy Town was the location of many of my favorite memories of Cold Bay. It was where I saw a wolverine for the one and only time in my life. It was where Steve Bishop and I stayed overnight in a Quonset Hut that had partially fallen…only to find bear prints in the sand outside of the hut the next morning. It was where I feasted on a breakfast of Dolly Varden that I had caught in Russell Creek a few minutes before. In Navy Town, as mentioned elsewhere, I sat and watched thousands of geese on the water and in the air, while a wily red fox sat nearby watching me watching the geese. I spent hours looking through the abandoned buildings and getting especially excited to explore the hospital and to find the lab (I was a tech in a metallurgy lab before joining the AF). I imagined what it would have been like to serve there at Navy Town during the war. Who were these people? What was their service like? How did they feel about being there?
Here I was, a military history buff. I had just spent weekends the past two years traipsing up and down the State of Virginia scouring for Civil War sites. Now I was standing in a place where thousands of troops prepared for battle in World War Two! I could FEEL the anticipation of the flyers readying to take off and bomb the enemy that had invaded farther west in the Aleutians. How was I not to be thrilled at being there? I was, indeed!