The coal man.

• Author: Sullivan, Patty
• Position: Mike Blodgett coal business

Mike Blodgett drives the 10 hours from Wasilla to Healy and back every week, hopeful that one day his investment in coal will do more than smolder. Others share his hopes.

In a state spellbound by oil, small businessman Mike Blodgett is a big believer in coal. He has been delivering coal by the truckload to homes and businesses in the Matanuska Susitna Valley for seven years now, even though he lost most of his customers recently to oil's cousin, natural gas.

"I made a promise. There has been a lot of coal dealers that come and go. I said as long as I am alive, I'll deliver coal."

The resource certainly doesn't have as many fans as Alaska's beloved oil. In fact, its heyday seems buried with the Industrial Revolution.

In Alaska, a handful of mines closed down decades ago when Anchorage power plants switched to oil, and the railroad to diesel. Only one coal mine operates in Alaska, even though about three billion tons of measured reserves sweep from Cook Inlet to Sutton to the North Slope.

The problem with coal, says one expert, is that the stuff isn't worth much, and difficult to cart very far.

However, carting coal is exactly what Blodgett does.

A Long Haul

In the winter, when coal is in most demand, he sits before a coal-stoked stove, draws on his Carhartt coveralls and laces up his Arctic Sorels, triple-insulated boots, before he heads outside to plug in his trucks.

Blodgett doesn't go anywhere now without suiting up in warm gear after a delivery near Cantwell nearly killed him in 1994.

Temperatures dipped to 45 below, winds blew, and his trusty truck didn't even cough. He waited for a good Alaskan to offer a lift, but no one stopped.

Ironic headlines heckled at his survival instincts. "Coal man freezes to death with full load," he visualized. That's when he decided if the next driver didn't stop he would dump his load in the middle of the road and light it on fire.

The next driver, however, interfered with what could have been one heck of a campfire by offering him a ride. Blodgett was more concerned with the threat of wasted fuel than hypothermia.

A Firm Belief

Blodgett backs his coal belief with a lot of effort. Every week he drives the 450 miles for a load at Usibelli Coal Mine in Healy, the state's only operating coal mine.

Not surprisingly, he's the only one delivering to the Mat-Su area and Anchorage. He began with a little green pickup in 1992. For four years, all the coal that he moved, some 4,000 tons of it, he spooned with a...