An Island Between Two Shores

by Graham Wilson

  Liana remembered a neighbour of theirs in Dawson whom her father thought was very strange. This man lived in a small log home near the downtown. In his home he kept a wide variety of tropical plants. There were more plants than you could imagine, their drippy branches and leaves draping over everything, threatening to break out the windows to escape. The man had built an elaborate wood heating system whereby a wood furnace would heat water that would circulate throughout his home. He sent away for seeds and cuttings from all over the world. When they arrived he would carefully add compost to a clay pot of soil and try to create a home for the transplant. His prize was an orange tree from seeds from Florida. The strange thing was the way the plants grew despite the months of darkness. With effort, the man kept the house warm by feeding the furnace with cord upon cord of wood. Seemingly no amount of effort could replace the nourishing rays of sunlight, yet his plants seemed to do all right and some even thrived in these rarified conditions. He always remarked that the jungle floor is dark as well, and Liana wondered if that was true or not as she had never seen a jungle. Her father often said that the man should just move somewhere in the south where his life would be easier and better. “If you want tropical plants, move to the tropics,” he said with exasperation. Liana had never been inside the house but had glimpsed the veritable rainforest through the frosted windows. She craved life inside this warm, moist house overgrown with foliage and heating pipes.

  Autumn days are brief in the North. As the sun dropped behind the mountains, Liana braced herself for another night of cold and moonlight. The pitch black of a new moon was disorienting with its absoluteness. She had paddled many times with Henry under the full moon when they went moose hunting in the fall. They paddled in the dark to get to Henry’s favourite hunting swamp. Liana always liked paddling in the dark with Henry; they would talk softly and drink strong coffee before setting out. Those were very different nights from this, Liana thought.

  Liana pulled hard with each stroke to get to town as quickly as possible. She thought about eating but decided it was best to keep moving rather than stop to forage. She didn’t try to fish, even though she had a hook and line in her bag, and she didn’t go to shore to find any berries, rose hips, or roots. She had left her rifle at the bear den and seeing any wildlife wouldn’t help her now. Instead, she mustered her strength to rhythmically paddle as far as possible each hour. Liana wanted to leave the forest and the North and the pain. She waited patiently all night for the brightness of morning.

  Liana expertly used the J-stroke to keep the canoe tracking in a straight line. As she pulled the paddle toward herself she gave it a light flick to correct the canoe’s tendency to turn to the outside. She pulled in tight, powerful strokes and the hardwood paddle flexed expertly with each pass in the river. This slight flex absorbed much of the shock of the stroke, but Liana still felt exhausted. Imperceptibly, the low ridges next to the river were becoming more congested. At the same time the river was gaining speed. Liana was unaware of these subtle changes as she paddled deep in her grim thoughts. Gradually the dark was replaced by the pale of an overcast morning.

  As Liana paddled she sang “Au Clair de la Lune” in a breathless little voice. It was a song her mother had taught her. The words of the song were lost in the repetitions of her paddle strokes and the meaning of the words a stark reminder of everything she had lost. It comforted her to remember her parents and the three of them enjoying pain au chocolate and hot cocoa on the balcony of their Paris apartment.

  In the light of the moon, Pierrot, my friend

  Loan me your pen to write something down

  My candle’s dead, I’ve got no flame to light it

  Open your door, for the love of God!

  In the light of the moon, Pierrot replied

  I don’t have a pen, I’m in bed

  Go to the neighbor’s, I think she’s there

  Because someone just lit a match in the kitchen

  In the light of the moon, likable Harlequin

  Knocked on the brunette’s door, and she responded immediately

  Who’s knocking like that? And he replied

  Open your door, for the God of Love!

  In the light of the moon, you can barely see anything

  Someone looked for a pen, someone looked for a flame

  In all of that looking, I don’t know what was found

  But I do know that those two shut the door behind them.

  The ridges and snow-covered mountains formed a jagged boundary to the pale, cloudless sky. The looming forest bordering the river was covered in a dusting of snow. The water level of the river was low, and snow-covered gravel bars and beaches appeared around each bend. The leafless willow trees strained under the weight of the snow. The sun no longer gave much warmth and Liana pulled her collar up farther to protect her cheeks from the crisp, dry air. The fragile autumn landscape had lost most of its energy and everything seemed to slow. Alone and full of grief, Liana couldn’t leave fast enough.

  Liana continued to paddle, unaware that the river was changing. A low bank next to the right hand shore gradually became a ten-foot cliff. Spring floods and seasons of ice had polished its pink face smooth. The shift was too faint for Liana to notice, especially as she punctuated her rhythmic paddling with nearly obsessive recitations of “Au Clair de la Lune.” Inattentiveness can exact a bitter price.

  About half a mile farther downstream, a low bank on the left side of the river also rose into a low pink overhang. This change was imperceptible and gradual; Liana paid it no notice. However, the river—and Liana—were now trapped between these two rocky crags. These small cliffs would have continued as far as Liana could see if she had been paying attention. The river coursed through the canyon for several violent miles. There was no escape.

  Liana paddled downstream unaware of her fate. The river gradually quickened with the occasional small crashing wave. The rocky cliff’s fractured face slowly gained height until it towered twenty-five feet above the river. It was at this point that it dawned on Liana that she might be in a new kind of trap. Liana snapped out of her dreamy recollections and felt the gravity of her plight.

  Shaking herself, she studied the cliffs on either side of her and accepted that she was likely walled in. Her heart raced as she searched for a spot to land the canoe, but the river did not give any respite and coursed without bend as it approached a high, black bluff. The imposing monolith towered high above the river. She then remembered that Henry had once spoken of a fearsome canyon he called “The Fox” because “it sneaks up on you.” But that was all she could remember. Liana frantically tried to recollect what else Henry had said as she searched for a break in the canyon walls.

  The river took a dogleg and went abruptly left. As the water piled onto the right bank, a maelstrom of waves and foam threatened. Frantically Liana sought an eddy to land the canoe but there wasn’t any respite in the sheer walls and menacing rapids. Instinctively, she moved off the seat of the canoe and splayed her knees apart on the hull to better balance her weight. She continued to paddle quickly as she searched the riverbanks for a landing to escape the turbulence a half-mile away. She pointed the canoe to the left shore. In short, deliberate strokes she worked the canoe toward the cliff face. When she was about ten feet from the wall, she scoured hopelessly for any break in the constancy of the canyon. Its walls towered high above the river and the water churned between the cliffs was cast in a menacing shadow. Liana looked downstream and could smell the freshness of the rapids. She gritted her teeth in dismay.

  As Liana neared the black cliff, the deep hush of the rapids filled her. A grey groan that would be a roar sounded farther downstream. The sound of the rapids had been muffled behind the cliffs until she reached this point. In horror she heard the unmistakable call of churning waters. In the distance she could see the telltale spit of a hole. She knew that holes could be treacherous. The water drops over a ledge and travels deep along the bottom of the river only to surface and go
back upstream toward the ledge and then folds in on itself. Liana knew a hole could recirculate her in its froth and there wouldn’t be an escape. The farther the canoe bobbed into the canyon, the louder the rapids became. Still, the river itself was eerily placid as it approached the exploding rapids. Liana could see that the calm would break in the next half mile, when the river entered its first big bend since the monolith. She knew it was going to explode with ferocity and her mind raced with panic.

  In desperation she once again headed for shore. She aimed the bow of the canoe toward the left-hand bend since she knew that currents always flow more slowly on the inside of a corner. Liana turned the canoe broadside to the current and started to pull herself to shore using short, quick strokes. But the canyon walls continued without a break and there was no escape. Liana had unwittingly committed herself to challenging the sly “Fox.” Liana pulled her hat snuggly over her ears, buttoned her heavy woolen jacket, and said a soft prayer. “Hail Mary, full of grace…”

  Standing waves began to appear randomly on both sides of the river. The canyon walls felt even more imposing. At first Liana could see the large, glassy faces of the waves from a distance and could maneuver to avoid them. But as she paddled farther into the canyon, powerful eddies and waves were more frequent and less avoidable.

  She saw the first hole shortly after she rounded the corner almost directly underneath the canyon wall. It was about twenty feet wide and it seemed a third of the river sank abruptly into it. Liana furiously paddled to miss its exploding mass, and as she passed this danger she gaped into its deep, surging white maw from about fifteen feet away. The hole was about six feet deep with a long glissade dropping into its trough of ferocious turbulence. Liana knew that a hole like this would finish her off in an instant. It was a horrible sight and Liana feared other watery graves lurking ahead.

  The occasional wave at the entrance to the canyon was now replaced by long sets of wave trains. Wave behind wave behind wave came with dizzying, unavoidable regularity. She paddled hard but tried to slow her progress and prevent swamping the canoe by paddling backwards. At the apex of each wave, Liana looked downstream to consider which waves she could avoid and which waves were unavoidable. She desperately scanned the horizon to view any breaks in the canyon wall. There were none. She dropped low into another wave and another and another. The canoe dipped into each trough and slowly climbed the crest, only to drop into another waiting trough on the other side.

  The canyon walls towered above her with dizzying steepness. The top of the canyon was lined with a dense wall of forest. The river ricocheted from wall to wall against an unbroken veil of vertical rock. Liana no longer searched for an escape and instead resigned herself to her uncertain fate. Ahead were unknown miles of explosive rapids.

  After several S-bends, Liana was breathing hard and growing insurmountably weary. Her chest throbbed wildly and her ears rang from the monotonous groan of the rapids. Terror filled her as she charged, uncontrolled, through the din. The canoe bobbed in the rapids like an eggshell. With each wave, the hull swallowed more and more water and was beginning to labor under the extra weight. Water sloshed around Liana’s soaked feet and calves and exaggerated the turbulence of the river by pitching and rolling in the waves.

  Liana’s attention was suddenly rapt by what appeared to be a piece of wood painted red high up on the cliff face. It was almost fifty feet higher than the river, embedded in a line that indicated an old flood during which the river had run that high.

  She pounded another breaking wave and slid down its backside. She refocused her attention on the river and with each stroke came closer to surviving the canyon. The waves cresting into steep, haystack-sized white shapes. It was a jumble of waves building and crashing flat in a disorganized mess of foam.

  Liana paddled in desperation in quick stabs and braces. She knew that flipping a canoe in this canyon meant almost certain death. If she didn’t drown outright, she would freeze in minutes. She dug her paddle into the river and did her best to keep the canoe pointing downstream. When the waves were really big, she slowed the canoe to limit the amount of water that splashed over the gunwales, but every seep of water saw her chances of survival dwindle. “When will the canyon end?” she pleaded to the waves. The roar of the rapids filled her heart, while her leaden arms frantically flailed her paddle through the turbulence.

  After many bends and countless chaotic waves Liana saw what appeared to be the end of the canyon. The right canyon wall ended as abruptly as it had begun, the shear face dropping to the river and allowing the forest to creep to the river’s edge. Liana’s heart opened; she had made it; she had survived the canyon. She felt joyous as she crashed and bobbed in the last of the rapids. All she needed to do was survive the next quarter-mile of river and she would be free. Liana crested wave after wave with a refreshed sense of optimism.

  On the last bend she noticed that the soft moan of the river had changed. Liana heard a roar louder than anything she had experienced so far, but she couldn’t see where it came from until she peered downstream from the crest of a large, rolling wave. To her horror, an enormous hole lay directly ahead. Most of the river spilled into it and she was headed straight for its maw. Liana changed the direction of the canoe, pointing it to the right-hand shore. As she did this, she climbed a long, smooth wave. When she reached its apex, the canoe stalled for an instant and the shuddering craft unintentionally turned broadside on the crest. Liana tried to correct this mistake with a powerful stroke, but it was too late. Liana and the canoe slid down the wave’s backside into a dark standing wave with a huge white crest. Liana dropped her paddle and gripped the canoe’s gunwales in desperation. The wave spilled its enormity into the canoe and in an instant the craft was swamped with icy water.

  With a gasp at its coldness, Liana felt the water flood to her waist and then the canoe sank a few feet into the current. Unable to help herself, Liana washed out of the canoe and it slowly turned on its side. The arctic river stole Liana’s breath and she struggled for air. She watched her canvas duffel pack float away and disappear. As Liana gasped and spluttered for breath, she bobbed helplessly over the waves. Suddenly, the gunwale of the canoe rose near her right hand. She grabbed it and tried to climb on top of the overturned hull, but the canoe sank beneath her and Liana let go.

  Liana knew her chances of surviving the rapid were practically nil. She cursed having failed so close to the end of the ordeal. The cold was already sinking into her core and she could feel her last reserves of energy fading. In a few moments she would be in the hole. Strangely, she felt at peace with her situation.

  About thirty feet upstream of the hole Liana crested a large wave and could see the enormity of it for the first time. The hole surged almost mechanically and Liana took one last gasp as she dropped over the lip and slid into the exploding maw. She closed her eyes as she plunged weightlessly into the void and was swallowed by its icy turbulence. Liana tumbled violently in the foam below the surface of the river. The frothing face of the collapsing wave forced her to spin wildly several times. At first the water was white and turbulent and then everything became dark and still. The sound of the rapids finally quieted, and she was washed to the surface of the river. Amazed by her luck and that she was still alive, Liana gasped for breath as her face broke the calm surface of the river. Liana had been spit out of the hole and into its wash. She could see daylight and hear the rapids fade slowly into the distance.

  Liana looked upstream and could see the canoe was still in the hole. It spun helplessly end over end. Then the canoe stood almost straight up in the air momentarily before it broke into two pieces with a sudden thrust.

  She gasped for air and kicked her feet. The cold water made all her motions feel exaggerated and pointless. She was being pushed downstream while watching the carnage in the canyon when her feet hit something. It was a rock. At the same time, her knee painfully glanced another rock. She turned her head and saw that she had washed onto a small island. She s
truggled onto her knees and slowly crawled up the snow-covered gravel. She lay on her side, heaving water and convulsing.

  Liana shivered uncontrollably, her lips blue, and slowly stood to face the river. Trying to gather her wits, she staggered away from the bank to an enormous log and collapsed beside it. She sat still for several minutes in disbelief.

  Liana reached for the knife she wore on her waist. With relief she felt the familiar rosewood handle of her father’s blade; it gave her a sense of security. She took it from its sheath and held it in the sunlight. It was old but she kept it razor sharp and lightly coated in oil so that there wasn’t even a fleck of rust on its blade.

  Her upper body was protected by one thin woolen undershirt, one woolen buttoned shirt, and a heavy mackinaw jacket. Her lower body was encased in wool long johns, and her head was warmed by a slouch hat. Her outer trousers were wool, secured with a thin, brown leather belt. There were good wool socks under her knee-high leather boots.

  The sun shone brightly and eventually she stood and took off her soaking jacket and then her pants. Her skin was white and pale and covered in goose bumps, and she gnashed her teeth in convulsive shivers. She leaned forward and wretched water and bile until her chest ached. Her head spun and she gasped for air as she shivered and wept. She wobbled to her feet and started wringing her shirt in her numb hands.

  “I could be gone in a day,” she thought in a moment of fierce clarity. The wind gusted across her chest and she thought she felt colder than she ever could have imagined. Sharp crystals of snow stung her bare skin and her ears rung. Above her, thin grey clouds were stacked like cordwood but the sky was bright and hopeful.

  Liana draped the wet shirt over her shoulders and slid her arms into soaked sleeves. Her shivering fingers were barely able to do up the buttons. With the same determination, she wrung out her jacket and slid on her pants and socks. When she was done she burst into tears. Her staccato sobs and gasps were swallowed by the lonely forest. She stepped backwards and leaned against the log, exhausted and frozen.