A Relic of the Pipeline Era

18 February 2012
10:15 AM

Sunrise at	8:40 AM	in direction	116°	East-southeast
Sunset at	5:31 PM	in direction	244°	West-southwest

Duration of day: 8 hours, 50 minutes (6 minutes, 49 seconds longer than yesterday)

Mile 1 McGrath Road

I haven't read the zoning ordinances for North Star Borough, but I know what is not included .. neighborhood zoning by category and prohibitions to trash accumulation.  And, I actually don't know if there is any burg or city in the country that would condemn housing or buildings that are unsafe or deteriorating, so the City of Fairbanks and Fairbanks North Star Borough may be no different in that regard.  Yet, there is a distinct difference in what people who live here consider acceptable housing for themselves and others.

One such example is the Wildwood Mobile Home Court.  I live directly across from it.  The fact that my modest, but newer home is on the north side of the street, while trailers brought in during the pipeline era are on the south side is not an unusual circumstance for the Interior.  Nearly everyone who lives in what the rest of the country would consider decent housing lives in close proximity to mixed structures in terms of age, aesthetic appeal, and safety.  Since there are no ordinances about what people may keep on their lots, there are also what I would call "eye sores" scattered through out the borough.

Abandoned, deteriorating mobile home in Wildwood Mobile Home Court

What is one person's garbage is another's treasure.  I will write more about those types of treasures later, but today, I am showing my neighborhood; I can not enter or leave my lot without viewing mobile homes from another era.  They will not transport newer models of mobile homes here - so a person wanting this type of housing must retrofit or make do with what is here.

Across from our lot.

The mobile home above had residents up until recently.  Actually, there were several residents who came and went at all hours of the night and day.  Different cars would be there for two or three days in rotation and then a different car would take up residence. Many objects littered the driveway and at one point, several gathered to take a car apart there.  The owner of Wildwood finally required the tenants to move their treasures from along the road.  The windows are stuffed with foam insulation.  The truck in front has never been moved, has a window out on the driver's side, and the front seat is filled with cardboard boxes.

Across from our driveway

Gary and I laugh about the arrival of this mobile home. Two lots directly across from our driveway had been open when we moved in.  One day we saw what was the rattiest possible mobile home in place across our driveway.  We surmised, given its condition, it was moving out of the park.  Not quite.  A woman from Delta moved her kids in and began covering the outside with siding and building a roof so it wouldn't leak.  People lived in it until two years ago and then one day everyone moved out leaving all their trash and an old RV behind.  The owner of the park finally hauled all of the trash away and moved the RV.  But there it sits.  Quite possibly not livable, but not removed either.

A view of our house from the street

On one side of the street, aging mobile homes and on the other well-maintained houses typify the paradox of life in North Star Borough.  The next three photos show two of our neighbors on the house side of the street and two more of our neighbors living in mobile homes.  The side view of the mobile homes reveal the tattered age of these homes.

Some of the residents have attempted to improve upon their homes.  The two below are especially noticeable with decent siding and new windows through out.  All of the homes should probably be retrofitted so they can last another 50 years.  If they don't last they probably won't be removed, but simply left to decay (at least the interior of the structure).  I am not sure how they should tackle the issue of retrofitting roofs though.  In the top photo below, it appears to me that the original roof remained despite major improvements to the rest of the structure.

New insulation, siding, and windows will make this home comfortable.

New Windows, a new door, and vinyl siding will extend the life of this home.

All of the original mobile homes from the pipeline era are single wide.  Many of the residents live on lots close to their neighbors and only large enough to hold their home with limited yard space.  Some have rented two lots and extended their original single-wide mobile home with add on structures.   The quality of the add-ons vary.

Considering that university students typically live in dry cabins with small square footage and can pay up to $800/month for that privilege, these homes represent ownership for people, electricity, and running water.  I don't know what the owner of the mobile home court charges for space rent.  I probably don't want to know; it could be more than what I feel is fair given the condition of the homes, but there it is.

We can see the mobile home across from our driveway clearly in winter, but since no one lives there, it has become background to my eyes.  We barely see the others through our trees.  In summer, we don't really see any of them at all.  Today was lovely at bright at midday and I couldn't resist yet another photo of light streaming through the trees to create light patterns on the snow with the blue sky above.