Alaska’s April Fools’ prank: Recalling the fake eruption of Sitka volcano
The Museum of Hoaxes based in San Diego rates it third best hoax ever
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - The day was April 1, 1974, in Sitka, Alaska, when Porky Bickar woke up and informed his wife Patty that today was the day he’d been waiting for.
“That morning dawned, and he got up and said, ‘Patty, I’m going to do it,’ and my mom said, ‘Okay Porky, just don’t make an ass of yourself. That was her comment,” Porky’s daughter, Chris Bickar said. “Whenever he took off to do something it was just — Porky, don’t make an ass of yourself.”
Porky and several of his friends in Sitka, known as the “dirty dozen,” had planned a prank for April Fools’ Day that would make it seem as though the nearby Mt. Edgecumbe — which was considered a dormant volcano at the time — was erupting.
The plan had been in the works for three years, but every time April Fools’ Day rolled around, the weather wouldn’t cooperate, according to Hal Spackman, director of the Sitka Historical Society.
On the morning of the prank, the skies were clear enough to take a helicopter to the site which was loaded with old tires that Porky and pilot Earl Walker managed to get on board.
“They rigged up two manila rope swings, about 150 feet long that would hold about 50 car tires,” Spackman said. “Then, he gathered up a batch of oily rags, a gallon of Sterno, a lot of diesel oil, and a dozen smoke bombs, nobody even knows where he got the smoke bombs. So, they loaded those up, and they headed off to Mt Edgeucmbe.”
According to Spackman, Walker dropped off Porky while he went back for another load of tires. Porky arranged the tires in a circle around the volcano’s rim, then stomped out “April Fool” in 50-foot letters in the snow, which he then painted black with spray paint. The men lit the tires on fire and took off, leaving a black, inky plume of smoke rising from the volcano behind them.
Spackman said Porky had remembered to alert authorities beforehand about the prank, but not all of them.
“He remembered to tell the FAA, and he told the Sitka police, but somehow he forgot to tell the Coast Guard,” Spackman said.
The Coast Guard sent a helicopter to check out the black smoke and the pilot saw the burning tires as well as the message stamped in snow and realized it was a prank. Porky never got in any trouble and Spackman said once the panic passed, people in Sitka were okay too.
“I guess after the initial moments of fear, because Mt. Edgecumbe had erupted in the past. It was 4000 years ago, but whenever you see a volcano on fire that makes you a little bit edgy. I think once people settled down, they thought it was pretty funny.”
Porky’s daughter Chris said her father was a funny man, and everyone loved him for it.
“There wasn’t a day went by that he didn’t make people crack up laughing over one thing or another,” she said, adding that the volcano prank was his crowning glory that he was proud of.
The prank was reported in newspapers across the country and even mentioned on the Paul Harvey radio show, and later rated by the Museum of Hoaxes as one of the best.
Porky died in 2003, but Chris said he loved to be remembered on this day, and she’s pleased that people still do.
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