Alaska “...Having the Best Time I Ever Had”

The Alaska Journals of Gy Sgt. Robert Rudolph (Bob) Huttle U.S.M.C.R©

As a boy, I was lucky enough to be introduced an elderly gentleman by the name of Robert R. (Bob) Huttle (Mr. Huttle to me). I remember Mr. Huttle as a man of many interesting stories, and experiences. Mr. Huttle was a good friend of my father, and for quite a number of years was sort of an informal member of our family, being in attendance for Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthdays, and any other family gatherings. His little home, along with its menagerie of exotic fowl in a little community called Annapolis, Washington was always a most fun place to visit. Throughout his life, Bob was an avid photographer with a genuine interest in people, who religiously recorded all that, was going on around him in his more than interesting life. The walls of his home were covered with pictures and memorabilia of that lifetime. There were times when Bob would take out his old picture albums and show my brother and me pictures of his times up in the State of Alaska. I always remember that these times seemed to be events he treasured, and each picture came with a story that would flow off his lips with obvious pleasure. After coming to America, serving in the U.S. Marine Corp., Bob spent 1933 - 1934 living his dream on the Alaskan Kenai Peninsula near what was then called Birchwood Creek (now Bear Creek) on Tustumena Lake, as a hunter and an amateur trapper (as he referred to himself). In January of 1937, Bob was hired as a patrolman with the Anchorage Police Department and 21 days later he had to give up his beat to come indoors as the Acting Police Chief, replacing the then seriously ill Chief of Police Ernie Amundsen.