by Steven Swaks
“Cause I’m thinking about getting one,” Paul murmured. It had been more of a confession than anything else. I still did not really know what Theresa was in his life, but I surely knew she had a strong authority position, and I was confident she would not see his little project with a good eye.
The next three hours was a conglomerate of aviation talk and technical specifications, of life in the lower forty eight vs. Alaska, of Quinhagak, salmon fishing, and hunting caribou. By the time the attraction for the pillow became stronger than the laughter and shared experiences, the dreaded stay in the village was a distant memory, a useless illusion hidden behind the current reality.
I do not know which one came first, either the calling from my neglected bladder or the rumbling from Paul’s morning activities, either way, I had to face the dreaded honey bucket. I sat on the edge of the bed, and scanned around me, the house was still warm in this Alaskan morning. I pushed the light curtain and peeked out the window. I did not see anything, no street lights, no houses, no car head lights, not even a snow machine, nothing. I was staring at a black hole, the edge of infinity and emptiness, true darkness was upon me. I stood up and walked in the kitchen.
“Goot morning. How did you sleep? TV was not too loud?” Paul inquired.
“No, I didn’t hear anything. I slept pretty well, thanks.” I gave a concerned look at the bucket on the other side of the dining room.
“Go ahead,” Paul nodded at the bucket and walked into his doorless bedroom.
I stepped forward, crossed the dining room and reached the open closet. I looked back over my shoulder; Paul was busying himself in his quarters. I looked in the bucket and saw the past results of personal activities. The rest was history, I cleansed my hands with a hand sanitizer gel (complement of Lydia) and came back to the kitchen.
“Soooo, what happens to the content of the… the… the thing, over there?” My head jerked repetitively towards the bucket.
Paul smiled at my apparent embarrassment. “We dump it in the sewage lagoon.”
“Lagoon? That’s an interesting way to put it.” I smiled.
“Yeah, it’s more exotic,” Paul said laughing. “Want some coffee?”
“Yes, please.” Coffee sounded delicious on this unorthodox morning.
“As soon as the store boy comes, I’ll make you some.”
“Store boy? What do you mean?” I shrugged. Every new topic was a question mark, a new territory filled with discoveries.
“The grocery store has a teenage kid who comes every morning to deliver the drinking water.” Paul said with a disconcerting nonchalance. After all, didn’t everybody get their water delivered in the morning?
All of a sudden, it dawned on me that I had not even checked the weather in Bethel. I picked up my cell phone and feverishly dialed the ASOS* number. “Bethel airport automated observation, 17:14 Zulu, wind zero one zero at one three, visibility one zero, sky condition clear, temperature minus one five Celsius, dew point minus one eight Celsius, altimeter two niner seven six…” Visibility ten miles and clear skies, those words sounded like music.
Looking back, the experience was not nearly as dramatic as I was expecting, Paul was good company, and I was getting an insider look at a different lifestyle. A knock on the front door took me out of my deepening languor.
“Coming!” Paul wearily stood up and strode to the small hallway. He swung the front door open and revealed a tall, lanky late teen boy buried beneath a thick navy blue jacket. The kid was holding a white plastic bucket.
“There you go, Paul,” the teen said.
Paul exchanged some money, and took the bucket of water. “Thanks, see you tomorrow, Walter.”
The boy turned around and walked out.
“Goot, now we can make a cup of Joe.”
Paul walked in the dining room with the bucket. Curiously, I came closer and peeked inside. There was a plastic bag, almost like a white trash bag spilling out of the container. That was their water for the day, five miserable gallons for their water needs, that would be all. I used to take my water for granted; even in Bethel, I became more aware of a limited water supply with a large tank and weekly delivery, but this was a step beyond. I always knew that numerous Yupik villages did not have running water, but it was data, a label on a map. Now, I was facing reality, we were in the United States in the twenty first century, in a day and age of wireless everything, nanotechnology, and better awareness of Quantum physics. But in a forgotten corner of the country, far away from the spot lights, entire villages (not isolated cabins in the woods) lived without the bare minimum, lacking the essence of life: basic running water.
My sleep over had come to a sweet end. In this cold January morning, my mandatory coffee ritual had a different taste. Norton was a job, a way to progress in the aviation world; it was a stepping stone, not more. I was in Alaska because I loved the state, but I was in Bethel because the flying opportunity arose. The Yupiks? They had come with the package, or so I thought. They had been numbers on a passenger manifest or ground crew loading my planes. Some of them became appreciated friends. I knew we were from different cultural backgrounds but I never took the time to really understand them. One night at the village did not turn me into an Eskimo, but it helped to open the door. The next step for a deeper understanding of the Yupik culture was lurking around the woods, hunting its next meal.
Wolf Hunt
January
I had never been a great hunter. I had never been a hunter at all actually. My wildest version of hunting included a decent camera and the hope of getting a good shot. I left the hunting for more skilled sportsmen and I was content to beg for a moose or caribou steak. I was in between, in the gray zone half way down the scale far away from the vegetarian but not yet with my knife between my teeth ready to carve a freshly killed moose. The extent of my carnivore habits stopped in front of the pan with a slice of caribou for a weekend breakfast. I just did not care about the hunt and execution steps from the live animal to my frying pan.
However, when Henry, a good friend of mine and ex-coworker from my flight school era, proposed me to go wolf hunting with him, I could only put my PETA friendly feelings away and accept. We were not talking about a deer, a frail caribou, or even a massive moose, we were talking about a WOLF. They all came back like a violent surge of legends. The names echoed in a reverberating gong; the Beast of Gévaudan haunting the 18th Century French country side and credited with well over a hundred human deaths with most of the bodies partially devoured, and today’s Bray Road Beast, the enigmatic wolf like creatures roaming the back roads of Wisconsin. The legends met the reality of the animal, it was out there, and I was on my way to meet it.
Henry did not see that far, from his native perspective, the wolf was only a nuisance only good to be hunted for its skin. Tomorrow, the hunting spree would begin. We did not plan on wandering the mountains and hope to be lucky and find a wolf, it would be more of a surveillance work checking dozens of snares and jaw traps scattered over a wide area, with the hope of finding a trapped wolf. I really did not know how I felt about it. I was curious about the experience to come, but I also had a deep respect for the animal and I would not have minded if we did not find anything. Either way, tomorrow would tell.
Looking back, I should have stayed in bed, the warm sheets begged me to stay in the comfortable cocoon. A few feet away, the large bedroom bay window offered a unique view of the outside world. I peeked out perplexed. I saw empty streets of a frozen neighborhood, thick layer of frost covering cars, telephone cables sagging under the weight of the ice, frozen bushes, trees, and the utter silence filling the streets. Once in a while, a dog team barked in unison and the roar of a distant snow machine broke the morning peace. I did not necessarily like what I saw. It seems it had been a recurrent theme, so many times, I had gotten out of bed and cursed looking outside. Often, it was because I had to fly out there, the fog and ice were waiting for me, just on the other side of window. This morning was different; I
did not care about the potential fog or low clouds, I was more concerned about the polar temperatures. I could have dealt with a beautiful blue sky and the hypothetic warmth from an all too distant sun, but this morning was the raw kingdom of frost and ice. Nothing moved, Bethel looked like a deserted city after a nuclear winter. There were no children running, no cars passing by, only a desolate intersection in a small middle class neighborhood. Further away, the rest of the town showed the same emptiness, there was nothing, not a sound, just this frozen Sunday morning.
I bundled up the best I could for the day to come. I had layers upon layers of arctic clothing, starting with long johns, jeans (I know this might not have been the most appropriate), overall ski pants, thick sweater, a legitimate arctic jacket with hood and fur lining around it, bullet proof arctic gloves, and an extra hood. I wore my faithful bunny boots, the popular pair of oversized white plastic boots with a coating of fur inside, itself insulated by an extra layer of soft plastic. The boots were big, funny looking, but incredibly warm and comfortable.
I stepped outside, the cold jumped on my face like an angry dwarf with a thousand knives. I turned around and read the thermometer, 15 below. Even the mercury was trying to escape the frozen tube and shrank back into its reservoir. I did not want to back out. I could not back out. I looked at the snow covering the driveway. I could not even leave for my Sunday excursion without clearing the drifts and the little mounds of snow left by the city plow. I picked up my snow shovel and plowed away. There had been a time when I liked to watch the snow fall, I had enjoyed the beauty and romance of the crystals drifting down quietly from the heavens. That was a long time ago. That was before I had to clean the white mess day after day, before I had to break my back shoveling while watching the snow falling sideways. Now, when the white junk falls, I shake my head, frown, maybe even curse a few times, and prepare to plow the driveway… again.
Henry was waiting for me in front of his house. I parked the truck and left the semi-warm cabin. A couple of decades as a National Guard had kept him in decent shape and only a few white hairs highlighted his pre-retiree status. I had always had a deep respect for him, his military background had brought a great sense of balance to his character. He had the Yupik peacefulness mixed with a certain city like assertiveness.
A young man was in front of Henry’s wooden house hunched over one of two snow machines, adding oil, or so it looked like from my atrophied mechanical expertise.
“Hey Steven! Ready for this?” Henry could not wait to go. His large smile would have failed any attempt to hide his excitement.
“Sure, how’re you doing?” I replied unconvinced.
“Good, good, this is my son, Franklin. He’s coming along.” Henry nodded down at Franklin now kneeling on the ground and visibly having a hard time with the snow machine’s engine. Franklin vaguely waved without looking back. His wide shoulders exacerbated by a large black coat called for an immediate respect and a reasonable safety distance.
After a few minutes, Franklin stood up, turned around and looked at me, “you’re gonna ride with my dad.”
“Ok,” I answered. That was it, Franklin stayed a few feet away from the black snow machine like a body guard in front of a priceless possession.
Henry started his snow-go to warm it up and walked inside the house. The popping engine sounded like a loud chain saw at idle ready for the action. I could not help but stare at the ride with mixed feelings. For the next few hours, I would be trailing on its back, there would be no laying back, no heater, and no break from the merciless winter.
The first hour, piggy backing on the rear seat was bearable, I did not know if it was the adrenaline and the excitement of being there, but the cold was barely noticeable. I mostly hid behind Henry, my head peeking out once in a while, well-protected by a helmet and a facemask.
We followed the ice road to Kwethluk and headed off the beaten paths towards the mountains. The mountains might have been an overstatement; it was hardly a few bluffs and barely reached the vicinity of Three Step Mountain, the first big hill before the Kilbuck Range, another few hour ride away well beyond our intended trip. One day, somebody without an imagination did not bother and decided to label the hill the way it looked, three large steps leading to a 900 foot cliff. I had never seen it from the ground; so far, my perspective had been from the air, up and away from this new earthly perspective.
Ground travel was not so bad, the cold was manageable, but the ride was -miserable was not the appropriate description-plain painful and butt numbing would better characterize the experience like an ongoing ride on a wild horse during a Texas cowboy show with an arctic twist. The local kids watched and sucked on their ice cream while mom and dad wondered how big of a fool I was to volunteer for the experience. The real source of my misery, the trail by itself, had been forged by generations of trappers through the frozen tundra, sloughs, and occasional meadows. It dipped and curved, rose and became a mini launching ramp for the snow machines. It twisted and tilted us like old rags in a Brooklyn Laundromat drier. Once in a while, a short spruce tree marked the beginning of thicker woods towards taller mountains. They were the first one of an ever growing kind, the scouts stomped by the rigor of the arctic. The rest of their kind stayed tall and majestic in the interior, away from the delta and its marshy grounds.
Franklin was leading the way. Long after my buttocks became as numb as a butcher’s cutting board, Franklin slowed down and turned right towards a patch of short trees and thick bushes. He stopped, looked at Henry, nodded, and walked to the edge of a small frozen pond surrounded by dense woods. With his large black jacket, black helmet, and black pants, Franklin looked like a gangster ready to attack a jewelry store. Henry parked his snow-go beside him, and I stepped out happy to regain feeling in my lower extremities. So there it was; my first snare dangling from a low branch. The trap was nothing more than a metal wire loop with a spring mechanism to catch the wolf as it went through. Henry hid his snares on a known pathway like a cop hid behind a bridge on a L.A. freeway. The wolf was a creature of habit, often using the same path on known routes, from the den to the hunting grounds, from its boundless freedom to the life taking snare.
The morning continued on the same note, hopping from snare to snare, finding nothing but untouched traps or snares that had been set off without catching their prey. The wolf was smart, anything out of the ordinary was to be avoided. Henry and Franklin camouflaged each snare with patience and dedication in this game of patience. Once in a while, the wolf tempted us, its numerous tracks showed us it was there, lurking, hiding, maybe even observing us, but so far, the beast was winning.
Noon came, the cold had been easier to handle than expected. I was not shivering; it was a deeper cold than that. It was a cold to the core. I felt cool, as if my body temperature may have lost a couple of degrees. I was probably getting used to it, but I did not care, it was time to eat! This next stop was not about checking the xth snare, this stop was about lunch and ingesting some well-deserved and needed calories. We parked on a narrow path lost in the middle of thick woods. The noise of the snow machine’s engines died down. We entered a world of silence, hardly disturbed by a few words and crackling snow under our footsteps.
Franklin took out a thermos with warm soup and looked at me (a warm soup in 15 below! What a delightful idea!), “want some?”
“Nah, thanks, I brought my own stuff.” I was proud; I could pull my own weight. I did not need his offering.
I opened my back pack and dug through it. I could not wait to eat. I was starving. Funny thing, the cold had hardened the back pack, but at this point it did not matter, I just wanted to eat. Food, I only needed food, now. I found my grocery store plastic bag and opened it with difficulty. I was wearing my thick arctic gloves and any movement was laborious, not only because my gloves were cumbersome, but also because my hands were numbed by the cold. I could have removed my gloves, it would have been so easy, but it would have made matters much worse, the cold would
have dug through my fingers robbing sensation and strength. With more time at hand, the cold would have sucked the life out of my digits until they turned into useless and blackened inches of rotting flesh.
I picked up the first sandwich, nothing fancy, two slices of bread, butter, and turkey meat. I pealed the aluminum foil and attacked the defenseless meal. The first bite was crunchy and cold. Crunchy? Why? I bit again for the same startling result. I took the food away from my mouth for a closer look. The bread was partly frozen. Another forced bite. The ice crystals crumbled under my jaw. I reluctantly ate one sandwich, just to ingest some calories, that’s all I could handle.
“How’re your hands?” Henry asked.
“Good, little cold, but I’m fine. Thanks,” I answered.
Henry looked at me closer, peering at my face like a scientist looking at a new specimen. “Steven, your temple is white.”
That was nice, but it did not really matter… or did it? I was cooling down and my stomach was begging for something warm. “It’s white?”
“You’re getting a frost bite.” Henry pointed at his right temple. “You need to rub it gently,” Henry said with a slow clockwise motion of his right index and middle fingers bound together. I raised my arm and touched what I thought was my temporal area. I could only feel a hard and numb mass. This was the beauty of frost bite; they did not hurt because the flesh was frozen along with the nerves, but the synapses could not do their job either and could not warn me of what was going on: I was turning into a giant Popsicle.
So I did what I was told and massaged my frost bite. It took a few minutes but the mass subsided and the blood flow came back.
“Want to warm up your hands?” Franklin asked.
“Sure.” I was wondering what kind of trick he would come up with, but I trusted him.
“Put your hands by the exhaust,” he indicated the snow machine. That was not a bad idea. Henry cranked the engine, I kneeled by the exhaust and stuck my hands right next to it. O divinity! It felt soooooo good! Life was coming back! I was healing. I would stay there, they could carry on and check their traps, I would be waiting for them, right there with my exhaust pipe. Even the fumes and the loud and endless pop pop pop pop of the engine did not bother me.