Alaska! Up North and to the Left

by Steven Swaks

Gladys and Lydia reached Mesabelle’s house. They walked around it and found a small steam house in the back. It was the typical brown log cabin like steam house with a gable roof. Smoke was already pouring out of a long metal chimney in the back room. Gladys approached the wooden door and knocked.

  “Come in!” A muffled feminine voice yelled. Gladys opened the door slowly, a middle aged woman was undressing in the center of a small six foot tall room with two benches pushed against log walls. She looked back, waved, and smiled.

  “I’m Denise! It’s so nice to meet you!”

  “I am Gladys, this is Lydia.” There was a short series of handshakes and Denise’s underwear came down.

  That’s it? Just like that? Lydia thought. She was a physician, she was used to nudity, but it was in a professional setting. She was the doctor, they were the patients, and above all, she stayed dressed. This was something else. The small talk between Denise and Gladys did not break the ice. She was the fish flapping outside the bowl, maybe she would manage to get back in if she tried hard enough. As the two ladies talked, Lydia stood there, awaiting… something. Gladys was already mostly undressed. She looked at Lydia who was still working on her sweater, and dropped what was left.

  The front door swung open. A young woman around twenty two, twenty five at most, entered the room with a large smile. “Hi!”

  “This is my daughter, Monica.” Denise heralded. The introductions flew across the room and the young lady caught up in the undressing ritual with impressive speed. Her clothes crash landed in a small pile in the corner of the room.

  Denise and Gladys opened a small door at the end of the room and released a large plume of steam. They waited a moment and walked in as they bent to adjust to a much lower ceiling.

  “Meet you inside!” Monica told Lydia joyfully as she passed by her and disappeared in the foggy steam room. Lydia finished the undressing chore, picked up her towel, opened the small door and entered the steam room. The three women were jabbering and occasionally laughing. She laid her folded towel on the wooden floor and took in the experience.

  “Yep, you got to watch for those BOBs!” Denise barked.

  “BOBs?” Lydia was confused. “What’s that?”

  “Boil On Butt! BOBs!” Gladys answered laughing.

  “I knew about the boils from sitting in the steam, but I did not know you called that BOB!”

  After moments of laughter and small talk, the room temperature continued rising and it became harder to breathe. “How hot does it get in here?” Lydia asked.

  “130, 140, maybe even 150°F sometimes,” Denise said. She picked up a ladle, dipped it in a bucket of water and poured it on hot stones. A large plume of steam arose and quickly spread across the tiny room. It became easier to breathe again. “You can go cool off in the entry way if you want.” Lydia nodded, walked out, Monica followed her. They both sat on the benches facing each other naked, but it was not awkward, it almost seemed natural.

  “How long are you going to stay in Pilot?” Monica asked.

  “Until the end of the week.”

  “My grandmother told me that you came to visit her this afternoon. She said you gave her more medications.” Lydia nodded. “It’s great you’re over here, it really helps.”

  “Thank you.” Lydia was touched. It was nothing much, a small acknowledgment, but it made a difference.

  “Let’s get back in!” Monica called, excited to return to the steam. Lydia walked back in.

  They stayed in the steam room a short while or an eternity. They had bathed with soap, shampoo, and rinsed with a small bucket of water they had brought in. Lydia walked out of the steam and ultimately Pilot Station cleansed of fear and prejudices. The steaming experience was a time stamp on her Alaskan odyssey. She had travelled to the depth of the Yupik culture and came back to Bethel a different person.

  Mekoryuk

  June

  As I mentioned earlier, I was the new guy, the one barely good enough to fly the leftovers, the unwanted flights, the not so exciting destinations boldly rejected by other pilots. I begged under the table and hoped to get some crumbs. Most of the time, I did not do much during the day, I waited and answered the phone to assist my dispatchers. As the afternoon drifted into the early evening, I was still fresh with plenty of flight time left for those late flights, the unwanted chore destined for me, the appointed volunteer.

  On this late Saturday afternoon, I could not help but glance at the clock. The day was winding down and it was time to think about wrapping it up. Of course I loved to fly, but it had been a long week and I wanted to spend some time with my beloved wife. Besides, Monday would soon be there with an entire new collection of trips to be flown.

  “Tununak, NEXT!” Jeb barked standing next to me. After a few weeks with Norton, his squeamish voice was already starting to drill a slow but deep hole in my nerves. Why couldn’t he just express himself normally? I could already see the pilot-to-dispatcher talk profiling in the horizon to ease the communication. I was confident a little work on our relationship would go a long way, after all, Jeb had been a dispatcher for four or five months and he had plenty to learn, just like I did. “You have to go to Tununak, drop off the mail, then fly to Mekoryuk to pick up two passengers for Bethel. The Skyvan is going to meet you down there and pick up 2000 pounds of gear,” Jeb added.

  “How’s the weather?” I asked him.

  “It’s beautiful!” Jeb said laughing.

  Beautiful? I had heard that one before; I called the local station and checked the forecast. Toksook Bay, the nearest weather station from Tununak, was indeed showing clear skies, good visibility and light wind. However, Mekoryuk was dreadful. The visibility was an anemic 3 miles and the village was crawling under light rain showers and a marginal ceiling. At 2 miles visibility, our minimum legal, and a cruise speed of 125 knots, the 207 travelled more than a mile in thirty seconds, which meant that I could only see less than a minute ahead of me. With a conventional U-turn taking about a minute, I would have no leeway, and no real time to ignore an obstacle.

  The flight to Tununak was not an issue, and I expected it to be a gentle ride to Nelson Island. The second leg to Mekoryuk, the only village on Nunivak Island, was the trouble maker. If Nelson Island was a wannabe, a mere name robbed out of a technicality, Nunivak Island was the real thing, eighteen miles off shore on the Bering Sea. Eighteen miles, the distance echoed like a scream in a dark cave, eighteen miles of Bering Sea and torment… eighteen miles of single engine flying over lonely and gray waters.

  The FAA had a word to say about such a crossing, I was to be able to remain within gliding distance to the shore line. To put a number on the regulation, I would have to be able to maintain an 8500 foot cruising altitude at the furthest point from the shore. I had a wide open blue sky on the coast, but Mekoryuk was causing troubles and I had no idea what was in between.

  For the first time in my short commercial career, I was facing the most difficult aeronautical question. Should I go? As a flight instructor, it was easy. I peeked outside, glanced back inside at my coffee and if I did not like what I saw, or if I did not like what the weather briefer or the computer told me, I just pulled the plug and did some ground school with my troops in the safety of the classroom. This time, I was a Commercial Pilot with paying passengers counting on me to pick them up. A cancelation would have to be greatly justified and the big boss in Anchorage would not have liked it if I turned away from a flight because I did not exactly know how the weather was.

  It was easy to fly a plane, really. Most of the student pilots solo a single engine trainer in twenty or so hours. Even during the events of September 11, the hijackers managed to fly airliners to their destination with only minimal training and without exposure to jets prior to that fateful day. Knowing what to do with the plane and following the proper procedures was an entire new set of issues. Often pilots put themselves in precarious situations because they neglected the flight preparation or because they went beyond their capabil
ities or the plane’s. The go-no-go decision was sometimes one of those difficult decisions pilots had to make. We were dealt a set of cards and we tried to do our best with it. During the flight, we kept reevaluating the information we had in hand and adjusted as needed, but we had to be able to draw the line somewhere. The regulations often come with numbers to back us up and ease the decision making process. Thou shall not fly with less than a 500 foot ceiling and 2 miles visibility and thou shall stay within gliding distance from the shore line.

  The flight was technically legal, my departure and destination showed numbers within the criteria, but I did not know if I would be able to maintain the required altitude to Nunivak Island. Beyond the shy legality hid the unavoidable truth, the crossing over the sea was questionable. I had no idea what the flight over the channel would look like. Alone in dispatch, I could not get any feedback from other busy pilots. Jeb was useless, he was the little devil on my shoulder screaming at the top of his lungs that I could go. As a dispatcher, his legal involvement was nonexistent, his only goal was to get rid of this flight and make money for Norton Aviation, and the long term consequences of a potential accident were well out of his consideration.

  I did not know what to think. Should I go? Is this legal? What if I said no? Would I get fired? Would I turn into a Randolph and lose my shot at the Skyvan? I was green and felt ill equipped to face the decision. Aviation was a very insidious lady, she did not come with black and white answers. Rather, she entered the room with a pretty smile; she rolled her shoulders and looked away in apparent shyness. Do not misinterpret me, she could be beautiful and sweet, if properly approached. She could also prove to be lethal. She could be like those paintings from the eighteenth century, the face of a young lady courted by a noble, but instead of a pretty physique, she was only wearing a mask, hiding the face of STDs and death.

  I was trying to measure the pros and cons of the flight, making a deal with myself, well, you know, if the weather deteriorates, I can still come back… Any more experienced pilots, which at that time represented about 98% of the local Commercial Pilot population, would have shaken me, maybe even slapped me a few times, and would have told me to wake up while screaming at Jeb that I should never even remotely consider going, especially with my level of inexperience, but I was utterly alone and nobody came to rescue my illfated thought process. Following commercial needs, I went on my way to do my job.

  The first leg was beautiful as advertised. I flew over the tundra, counted a few hundred lakes, skimmed the Nelson Island hills and prepared to land in Tununak. The little village was different from the others. It was a small fishing harbor on the shore of the Bering Sea just at the end of the short valley coming from Toksook Bay only a few miles away. The village was surrounded by low mountains and rolling hills bouncing between a few other villages like Nightmute or the sinking and soon to be relocated Newtok. To the South, there was nothing more, only a few hills and cliffs diving into the grayness of the water, last ramparts before the vastness of the Bering Sea. Once in a while, just like any other village on Nelson Island, a lucky spotter saw a herd of muskoxen roaming on nearby hills; I had yet to find one of the large furry mammals.

  I landed on the narrow gravel strip a short walk away from Tununak. I had flown there before, numerous times, but the tumultuous Bering Sea at the edge of the runway and the village was a powerful sight I could not grow tired of. I could feel the power of the elements, the rolling waves crashing on the cliffs, the dark water whirling and swirling, the weather always nearby lurking and meandering. It was a passive strength, a debilitating force to respect and work with throughout the day.

  I met the agent and dropped off my freight; without much communication, he picked up his boxes and crates of loose mail before leaving me. I looked towards the sea and could not even see Mekoryuk hidden behind a tall cliff. I could only see the darkened clouds and the emptiness of the water. I sat back in the plane and prepared for the unknown, it might have sounded cliché and overstated for a vain attempt to dramatize the situation, but it was true. I had never been there before and the weather was only one more question mark on the dreaded crossing. I double checked my routing on the chart and punched the destination into the GPS. I looked once again for the shortest distance over the sea, eighteen miles was the best number I found. Eighteen miles. The term echoed with questions and doubts, hypersensitivity and alertness.

  Numerous times, I had flown single engine planes over water, each anodyne sound came as a striking thunder. There was the doubt that something could be wrong. The water was below, moving and rolling, dancing and waiting to swallow its next victim. The crab fishermen knew it, the Coast Guards knew it, and we, the pilots, definitely knew it. Each new accident was a grim reminder of our frail condition, one more name on the list. Even the entertainment industry came by to turn the Bering Sea into a gigantic stage, launching fishing boats into a grotesque competition where the losers could indeed perish, but Joe sat on his couch, amused and unaware of the reality, it was only a show after all.

  I left the safety of land and saw the cliffs from the coast drop below the plane. The water followed. My only job was to focus on my navigation and avoid turning those eighteen miles into anything longer. I was flying straight towards Nunivak’s coast line, staring at the mileage count down on the GPS. Each tenth going by was a step closer to land. I was like a swimmer rushing towards a safety buoy after a shipwreck.

  Engulfed in clouds and darkness, Nunivak Island looked like a dark sorcerer’s castle in a fairy tale picture completed with a few vultures flying by, and I was the goofy prince on his way to save the needy princess. The weather was not a laughing matter; it was not part of the relaxing joke and snatched me back from my cutesy metaphor. The blue sky was rapidly fading away; I was holding on to my 8500 foot targeted altitude, but who knew how long it would last?

  Nine miles to the coast, the halfway point. I was only four minutes to Nunivak Island and the safety of its coast. Four minutes, it was a world away. I could glide if anything happened, but the what-ifs were many. What if the wind was stronger than expected? What if I barely reached the coast only to find unsuitable landing sites and beds of rocks?

  The ceiling was dropping and creeping down upon me. I initiated a slow descent and stayed away from the looming clouds. A dot on the windshield; another one, another one, dozens, hundreds. A continuous rain started to fall. The water beneath me was alive, hundreds of white caps like small claws lurching out of the grayness pleading for an offering. Five miles to the coast. The island was enveloped in a ghostly mist. I kept glancing at the sea below me, unable to ignore the sight, the massive gray mass moving like a disturbed giant rumbling during his sleep.

  My altitude was decreasing as I hugged the required gliding distance with a passionate embrace. I was approaching the coast. In my loneliness, a Piper Navajo also flying to Mekoryuk appeared on my GPS moving map. The plane, a twin engine, was a reassuring presence on my screen, I was not alone out there.

  Out of the mist, the coast finally revealed itself out in undefined lines. My first sighting of Mekoryuk was a patchwork of grays, hundreds of shadows united in the same harmony. I was an intruder, a conqueror willing to destroy the unison. The once blurry sketch became a clear painting with a rocky shore and nearby hills. The sight of the land rolling under my wheels was incredible, the innocent joy of earth’s solid ground. The island was giving itself away. The mystery behind the name morphed into gentle hills and tundra, narrow streams and short bushes. The world above crumbled around me. The misery of an Alaskan summer, the light rain, lowering ceilings and patchy fog were all united to send Scotland to shame. Would I be able to safely take my passengers out of there? We would not leave for another forty five minutes, an eternity in Alaskan weather forecasting.

  I turned slightly to the right and followed the coast to Mekoryuk. I checked the weather one more time, noted the winds, visibility, barometric pressure, and prepared for landing. What seemed to be an endless
flight since I had departed from Tununak was less than half an hour. The routine took over in a reassuring mechanism; prelanding check list, cowl flaps closed, fuel selector on the fullest tank, mixture rich, propeller RPM checked, first notch of flap, seat belt fastened.

  I was focused on my approach, but as I flew by, I glanced at the village going by. Just over two hundred souls lived there around a small fishing harbor. The little town was wedged between the coast line on the north of the island and the gravel runway. I was wondering what kind of isolation those people must be experiencing. Toad was born and raised there and the remoteness topic had come up in one of our numerous discussions. Aside from some sporadic moments, it did not seem to bother him; it was a different way of living. If our modern society focused on advanced entertainment with themed restaurants or theaters, the Yupik Eskimos often enjoyed fishing and hunting, spending time with acquaintances and relatives, simply enjoying each other’s company. What a concept long forgotten.

  I landed and taxied to the apron. My two passengers, both of them technicians, were already waiting for me along with their 2000 pounds of freight, suitcases, bundles of electrical wiring and other piping equipment. Unlike Platinum Airport, Mekoryuk’s ramp was vast without a cute little store either. The Navajo I had seen on my GPS screen was parked, its pilot loading travelers bound to Bethel. I stopped by my passengers, shut down the engine, and greeted them. I had flown with Clayton, the older of the two, before. Clay was in his mid-fifties, and the second passenger, Samuel, was younger, Caucasian, perhaps in his forties. I had never met him, but he appeared to be happy to see me, or probably the symbolism hidden behind my plane and his chance to fly back home. The little 207 was often the ticket for greater comfort, it meant the end of a trip far from home and a shelter on a damp and windy ramp. I was the nonstop ticket to Alaska Airlines and to the welcoming flight attendant, the pretzels, the drink, and Anchorage, which at this point seemed like a world away.