Carl Dixon Carl Dixon Carl Dixon

Carl Dixon, a logger and equipment operator turned tour and shuttle service owner, died in Anchorage on Friday, June 17, following a brain aneurysm. He was 81. No services are planned.

Dixon moved to Haines in 1965 after working seasonally as a logger. He later worked for Operating Engineers Local 302 on Alaska construction projects, including the trans-Alaska Pipeline and Klondike Highway.

After retiring, he started Haines Shuttle and Tours with a bus and a van. “He met every ferry that came in, day or night, for years” and was one of the first local, independent tour bus drivers, said son Don Dixon.

During the filming of Disney’s movie “White Fang,” Dixon shuttled both people and canine stars to sets with his own husky Nipper riding shotgun in the front seat.

Dixon liked to hunt and fish and landed a halibut weighing over 300 pounds at Lutak Inlet. “He fought it for hours trying to get it to shore,” Don said. Photos of the fish are displayed in Dixon’s kitchen.

Carl Dixon was born Carl Donald Olson to Ruth Bell Lindstrom and logger Orrel Seymour Olson Sept. 21, 1934, in Oregon City, Ore. He later took his stepfather’s surname.

As a young man, Dixon lived in Estacada, Ore. He was big and muscular and quickly earned a reputation as a skilled woodsman and then some. “He had quite a history in Estacada. He was a pretty wild buck then, and he was a hell of a logger,” Don said. Dixon was married to the late Dorothy May.

Assembly member George Campbell worked for Dixon as a young man and recalled that he was sometimes hard-headed and certainly opinionated, “But he stuck by his opinions, which made him fit in real well with the old guard,” Campbell said. He praised Dixon’s “excellent” bulldozer skills. “He was the kind of guy that they’d send out right behind the surveyor and say, ‘Make the road,'” Campbell said.

Don Dixon said his father had a soft spot for people down on their luck and helped them without payback. “He was a heckuva cook and always had a meal for somebody at his place, and he’d take food to different people around town,” Don said.

Dixon was preceded in death by a daughter, DeAnn. In addition to son Don of Kettle Falls, Wash., Dixon leaves granddaughter Kasey of Eugene, Ore., and a friendly black cat in need of a home.

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