In the summer of 1906, a young woman came
home to Minnesota. Like so many others at the turn of the century,
she had gone north in search of a better future. 
But the hardships of frontier life had sickened and very nearly
killed her. She was a long time recovering from typhoid fever in a
hospital in Juneau Alaska and then convalescing in Oregon.
Tens of thousands of people passed through Alaska in those days. All but a very few were driven out by the difficulty of life there. But Frieda Louise Gaerisch would be different. Drs. Sloane and Best had saved a "... very pale little form that lay...burning up with fever...{and whose} thread of life must surely snap..." They had also inspired her to a life in frontier nursing. By 1909 she would be back.
At the same time in the valley of the Toklat, to the north of Mt. McKinley, two men were forging a bond that would last for twenty years and see the founding of what is now Denali National Park. Harry Karstens and Charles Sheldon were, in those days, planning a game preserve; a kind of reservoir where animals would be safe to breed and replenish the surrounding hunting grounds. That preserve would need a warden, a job for which Harry Karstens was ideally suited. He was a thoroughly competent outdoorsman who enjoyed his solitude and travel in the most difficult of circumstances. These skills would even take him to the summit of Mt. McKinley in 1913.
But by 1917, when their preserve was created by Act of Congress, it was included within the new Mt. McKinley National Park. Although wildlife preservation would still be important, extremely limited funding would mean that the single man who would be hired must also be the Superintendent of a National Park, which would be dedicated to access and enjoyment by the masses.
Left to his own devices, Harry Karstens might never have pursued the activities that would broaden his management skills to the point where he would still be the best man for the job. It is fortunate, then, that starting in 1910 he began to spend more time in Fairbanks doing things that might be more impressive to a young nurse he had met.
Louise had come back to Alaska in the summer of 1909.
This
time, travel had been much easier. To get into the interior, she
had only to take a steamship to Skagway,
cross the mountains on the White Pass and
Yukon Railway to Whitehorse and then downstream to American
territory. A steamboat along the Yukon
and up the Tanana completed the trip right
into Fairbanks.
It was never difficult to find work as a nurse in a frontier town and Louise was employed at both St. Josephs and St. Mathews Hospitals over the years. Her travels had also made her aware of what Harry's plans for the future might entail. In 1908 Louise had visited Yellowstone and seen the still pioneering nature of early conservation efforts there.
Harry's activities now turned more to land development, investments, and an auto stage line along the new Richardson Highway to Valdez. After the 1913 climb of Mt. McKinley, when Harry's co-leader status and vital role as climbing leader was being subtly underplayed by the writings of his partner, Hudson Stuck, it was Louise that forced him to stand up for himself. She was molding a more socially and politically adept version of that raw sourdough.
They married in 1914 and moved into a nice little house in Fairbanks. Louise continued her nursing, even volunteering to replace a nurse sent overseas from the new railroad hospital in Nenana. She would occasionally accompany Harry into the bush, but much preferred a semblance of civilization. Her son Eugene was born at the Nenana hospital in 1917.
It was a family decision to take the job of Superintendent of the new National Park. Louise understood there would be nothing there and even less when railroad construction ended. Harry even had to build that first cabin by himself, with the family living in a wall tent nearby until it was finished in early 1922.
But Louise was in her late 30's; a mature, competent professional
just where she wanted to be. It was an often lonely existence, but a
job that mattered, and her support at the base camp allowed Harry the
flexibility to move about that enormous park.
In 1928 they left the Park Service and returned to Fairbanks. Harry
had been offered the post of assistant superintendent at Yellowstone to
continue a career, but by now the politics of the job had exhausted
both of them. She saw her son through high school, college, and off to
war while her husband built a series of rental properties to support
them in their old age.
In
the late 40's and early 50's they spent
winters outside, visiting wherever Lt. Col. Eugene Karstens and his
family were stationed. Louise managed the block of rentals for many
years, creating a healthy nest egg.
After Harry passed away in 1955, Louise sold out and moved to Seattle Washington where she lived for many years in the Savoy Hotel. She was present on the Toklat River when a plaque for Harry was added to one already mounted on the rock face near the bridge honoring Charles Sheldon.
After a number of years living with Eugene's family in Virginia, she made a final journey to the pioneer home in Fairbanks.
