The only problem with goats is that I can’t look at them, cook them, or eat them without remembering Sam. Though that may be a good thing. Sam Donajkowski was a friend of ours when we first came to Haines. About our age, he was young and active like we were. Sam worked for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game at Chilkat Lake. He ran marathons and he and Chip raced each other in the annual triathlon. Sam usually beat Chip. Sam married his sweetheart, Mary, one year in May, and died goat hunting the following September. He slipped and fell down a scree slope as he was retrieving the goat he had shot. It was a stormy day, and shortly after he fell, a mudslide buried his body.
Knowing what had happened to Sam was part of the reason I went mountain goat hunting for the first time. Chip was planning on going alone in a fast, hard one-day hunt up above Chilkoot Lake. He didn’t want to be held back by someone who wasn’t in good enough shape to climb a mountain and pack down a heavy load with him. Right after he explained all this to me, we both realized that I could do it. Chip said it would be fun to hunt together. And I agreed, because it would be safer if Chip had a partner.
I’ve also been worried that lately we’ve turned into Wilma and Fred Flintstone. Chip has become a hunter while I’ve been waiting in the kitchen for him to bring home supper. Even though I love cooking game, I’m not wild about this new pattern in our marriage. I’d never thought I’d become a stereotypical middle-aged homemaker while he was out in the woods all day with the boys. So I was thrilled when Chip asked me to hunt with him. I wasn’t as sure about the killing part. I have never seen anything die except a fish or a baby chick. I don’t know how to shoot a gun. This would be not just my first goat hunt. It would be my first hunt—ever. There is a running joke at our house that my chickens will die of old age and be buried in the backyard before I’ll ever chop off one of their lovely heads.
I’m pretty sure that Chip also wanted to show me something that he thought I should know about him, and about hunting—something big that neither he nor Christian was able to articulate.
We left at five-thirty the next clear morning. The navy blue sky was all stars. The night before, our neighbors Steve and Linnus had promised to check on the kids and stay with them in case we didn’t get back on time. I’d half-joked that Linnus shouldn’t call the Coast Guard until we’d been gone three days. A Coast Guard helicopter had tried to rescue Sam from the gully he had fallen in. It was raining hard on that late September day. Avalanches of mud had threatened to block the Haines Highway. The saturated hillside was too unstable for the mountain search-and-rescue crew to risk it on foot. While the helicopter hovered over Sam, the earth shrugged and he was covered by a ton of rocks and mud. His hunting partner told us later that he believed Sam was already dead by then, that the fall had killed him.
I made sure Chip and I packed overnight gear. If the weather turned, or we got into any kind of trouble, we would be able to camp on the mountain. We drank coffee and ate eggs and toast before loading up the truck and driving ten miles to the end of Lutak Road. As we stumbled through the dark, unfamiliar woods, I asked Chip how he knew where to go. “Easy,” he said. “Just keep heading up.” It wasn’t so easy. I tripped and fell through two big spruce trees that had blown down in last winter’s winds and hung there by my armpits, with my headlamp shining toward the sky and my pack hooked on a broken branch.
Half-stuck in the hole, I didn’t yell for help. I pulled myself out and caught up to Chip. I was determined to be a good partner. Two hours later we were above the tree line, creeping silently and paying close attention to everything we heard, saw, and smelled. We knew there were goats one slope over; Chip had seen them earlier in the week. But getting to them would be dangerous, and if we did shoot one near the cliffs, it might fall out of reach. I reminded Chip about Sam. He whispered that I was being too cautious, but we did climb a ridge in the other direction. It was about fifteen degrees colder on the mountain than it was down in the woods; also, when you hunt you don’t move quickly enough to get warm. Hunting is slow and thoughtful, with a lot of sitting very still. We stopped to put on warmer clothes and eat an energy bar. That’s when we saw the lone billy goat walking down a rocky trail toward us. He picked his way to within about four hundred yards before Chip left me to crawl around close enough to shoot him.
I sat perfectly still, using a rock to prop up my binoculars. The billy goat looked at me and I looked at him. He was white and fluffy, with a funny long face and black button eyes. The fur on his legs looked like pantaloons. In such a rugged place, this fancy fellow looked as odd as I would have right then in a wedding dress. I liked him. I could have saved his life by waving my arms. I could have whistled and spooked him without Chip ever knowing what had happened. I could have, but I didn’t. Instead, I sat perfectly still, holding my breath, as the billy goat kept walking.
When the shot finally cracked across the cliff, it didn’t startle me. I knew it was coming. What I was completely unprepared for was the violent death. The goat stumbled from the impact of the bullet, slumped, and started to fall on his knees, then leapt forward right off his perch, bouncing off the rocks three times before slamming dead onto a ledge, blood staining his white outfit. I looked away and exhaled. Chip was running toward the goat, calling for me to get the packs. It looked close, but with one pack on my back and another in my hands, it took a while to get there. I chose to go through a cluster of small trees rather than across the loose scree. My legs were shaking. The trees were dwarfed by wind and altitude, and their roots were wrapped around big boulders. I kept falling down between them. I was having a hard time with the unfamiliar terrain, both outside and in. Chip had killed a goat, and it was horrible. Yet I was proud of him. I had wanted him to get the goat, and he had. A branch whacked me in the chest, knocking the wind out of me, and I cursed and sat down, trying not to cry. This was not any fun at all. It had been a huge mistake. I wanted to go home.
Then I heard Chip calling my name and I yelled back; we did that for a few minutes until he found me in the bushes. He helped me up, took his pack, and asked why I’d chosen the hardest route. I mumbled something about being a little distracted. He was so happy, he didn’t notice my distress. I didn’t tell him. He wanted to know if I’d seen him shoot the goat; he said he couldn’t believe that the goat hadn’t seen him and had kept walking in his direction; he said it was big, maybe even trophy size. Then he said something I’d heard Don say before, about how the fun part was over once the animal was down: “Now is when the work begins.”
When we reached the goat, it was on an ice-covered ledge about a foot wide above an old avalanche chute. We needed to move it, or we could slip and fall trying to cut it up. Chip grabbed the back legs and pulled, but the goat was too heavy. I pulled, too, and between us we dragged it to firmer ground. I watched as Chip cut the hide off. It peeled away smooth and dry, like a paper label off a jar. Without the fur covering, goat legs look almost human, with their muscled thighs and calves. Chip said I didn’t have to help him if I was uncomfortable. I walked a few yards away and sat down and thought about it while taking in the view only angels and mountain goats usually get to see. I owed it to Chip to finish what we’d started. I thought, I am just as much of a hunter now as if I’d pulled that trigger myself, and this is what hunters do.
Chip looked relieved as he handed me rubber gloves to pull on over my wool ones, and a sharp knife. We dragged a hindquarter farther away from the icy ledge to a safer place. Slicing steaming meat off bones is hard on body and soul. But not as difficult as I thought it would be. I dug around in the warm muscle tissue until I could find a bone, then gripped it with one hand and cut the flesh off it with the other.
At first I tried not to get blood on my good hiking clothes, but the steep slope and the slick meat made that impossible. I slipped as I carried a hunk of shoulder roast to the game bag and ended up clutching it tightly against my chest to keep us both from falling. It sounds corny, but just as I had an obligation to help Chip, I also felt th
at I owed it to the billy goat’s soul not to drop that meat. I held on as if my life depended on it. Chip and I worked for three hours in near silence, filling muslin game bags with the meat and then dropping them in our plastic bag—lined backpacks. After Chip helped me shoulder mine and I steadied his pack so he could lift it, I wondered if we’d make it down the mountain before nightfall. It was difficult balancing the load on the steep, trailless terrain. Between us, we had about 130 pounds of meat. The hide was in a duffel bag with a rope tied to it that we tossed down ahead of us or dragged behind.
My thighs twitched from the strain and the fear of falling. I could see now how easily Sam had slipped to his death. Sometimes I refused to look down, especially when we traversed a gully, holding on to the alder branches and rappelling like rock climbers with our backs to the inlet below. The last hour through the forest at the bottom was the longest, with the worry of darkness and my knees aching from going downhill so long with such a heavy load. I watched Chip sway a bit in front of me and heard him curse as he slipped, climbing over a log.
When we reached the truck, we were both punchy. We had been gone ten and a half hours. We lay down on the tailgate to make it easier to slide out of our packs. Chip reached for my hand and held it. Chip’s hunt was successful, and I had helped make it so.
Later, when I called my father and told him about our hunt he said, “What did that goat ever do to you?”
Barry Lopez explains this conundrum best in Arctic Dreams when he struggles to reconcile his feelings after witnessing the “blood,” “horror,” and “darkness” of a walrus hunt with his Alaskan Native friends. “There are simply no answers,” Lopez wrote, “to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.”
We killed the goat, and we will eat it gratefully. Any hunter will tell you it’s better to take responsibility for your own food than to leave that task to others. The hamburger you buy in the grocery store, he’ll remind you, was killed by someone; you just don’t know who, where, or how. That meat loaf was once part of a tail-swishing sloe-eyed steer. Hunters will tell you all this over a big family dinner the same way pastors will tell newlyweds, in front of all their friends and relatives, to be “fruitful and multiply.” The truth is, Chip hunts because he likes it. Being with him right after I’d seen him kill something felt a lot like the morning after a wild night of lovemaking, when it’s hard to believe that the Chip and Heather having breakfast with the kids and going over the spelling-test words one more time with J.J. are the same people who romped under, and sometimes on top of, the covers the night before.
AS WE WERE about to head home from our hunt, one of the residents of the small settlement at the head of Lutak Inlet stopped his pickup truck to talk with us. Frank had given Chip permission to cut through his property and was curious to see how the day had gone. I listened as Chip told our hunting story, never describing the actual death. The killing part was reduced to “While Heather waited I crawled around and got a good shot.” Chip doesn’t talk about the naked part of our marriage, and when I do, he blushes. Maybe it’s the same thing. Frank is a hunter, too, so he could see it all in his mind’s eye. Maybe the reason he was looking at me differently was because he knew that now I could see those images, too.
I watched Chip show Frank the pictures I had taken on the digital camera of him and the dead goat. Then Chip looked down and smiled, and I remembered the picture I’d taken of Christian and Don after that first deer hunt. My husband and son are so much alike. They have the same quiet ways, the same smile, and the same pink flush on their cheeks, although right then Chip’s was buried in grime. Talking to Frank, he was trying not to smile.
He was trying hard to act as though all of this was no big deal.
DULY NOTED
Haines tours were among those most highly recommended by passengers aboard Princess and Norwegian cruise lines in recent surveys. The Chilkat Guides, Chilkoot Charters, and Alaska Ice Field expeditions were commended by Princess for their excellent customer service. Norwegian Cruise Line listed twenty-five Southeast tours on their most recommended list. Seven were from Haines: Sockeye Cycle, Chilkat Guides, Haines-Skagway Water Taxi, Alaska Nature Tours, and Alaska Icefield Adventures. Lenise Henderson of Chilkat Classic Cars said her company has made the grade with Alaska Airlines customers as well. She’s been so full lately she’s had to hire extra drivers for her fleet of old cars. “In one day,” Lenise said, “I had a group who said they couldn’t live in Haines for forty-eight minutes or they’d go nuts and another car where everyone wanted to know how to buy land here. Go figure.”
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Before he was an artist and shopkeeper, before he served as Haines borough mayor, Fred Shields was an afternoon radio host on KHNS. Last week Fred met one of his hero’s wives, Mrs. Carl Perkins, wife of the late rockabilly star. Valda Perkins and Carl’s cousin visited Fred and Madeleine Shield’s Fort Seward art shop. Fred played some of the country legend’s music on the stereo, and Valda autographed the shop wall. Madeleine said the Perkinses “were really fun.”
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Kathy Franks was the top winner in the Chilkat Valley Preschool’s getaway raffle. Kathy won her choice of $1,000 cash or a travel package including two round-trip tickets to Seattle plus three nights of hotel accommodations, car rental, and $200. Nelle Greene won airfare for two to Juneau, and Jill Closter took third prize, two tickets on the water taxi to Skagway and back.
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Just Say “Unknown”
WE SPENT THE better part of a year building our house. Like most homes here, it has a colored steel roof (green) to shed the snow and rain. The weathered shingles help make it look like an East Coast house. Since we’re from there, it makes us feel good. In fact, the house looks a lot like the house I grew up in, with porches and gables and even blue walls in the living room, but light blue, not navy.
There’s a chimney for the woodstove and window boxes on the south side full of nasturtiums and geraniums. We built it with three carpenters from the Covenant Life Center, a Christian community twenty-six miles out the Haines Highway. The 150 or so members took over an old homestead, so they, and we, usually just refer to their place as “the Farm.” The ladies all wear skirts, sensible shoes, and makeup. The Farm men are all clean-shaven; they’re not allowed to grow beards. They are nice people who work hard and, besides being builders, own the bakery. When the Farm carpenters drop a hammer, they say, “Shoot” or “Gosh darn.”
I worked with the carpenters on our house every day, hauling material, staining exterior trim, and sanding and finishing all the interior woodwork. Chip bought whole units of one-by-four-inch Douglas fir that I belt-sanded and coated with a water-based polyurethane. I used red paint on the front door. After I’d done the last cleaning up in my dirty coveralls and the table saw was carried off the porch and packed in the carpenters’ truck, it was time to say goodbye. I teased the Farm men that I would have to hire a Farm woman to answer the door wearing a dress, the house looked so good.
The house I spent most of my childhood in had an acre of manicured lawn and garden surrounded by high, trimmed hedges and big old rhododendrons and azaleas. My yard now is mostly a tangle of long beach grass, fireweed, wild roses, spruce trees, and gravel paths. There’s a fenced garden with three big strawberry beds, peas, lettuce, onions, carrots, zucchini, and some sorry-looking beets. There’s a smokehouse for smoking fish that looks like an outhouse and smells like alder wood and salmon, and in the greenhouse behind it there are tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs, and hot peppers. In the chicken coop are seven laying hens and a rooster.
Living in this house has made me think hard about the bonds we have with our first homes, and what I want my children to remember from theirs. When Eliza and Sarah were babies, I didn’t really think about what it meant to raise them far from their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. It hit me about five years later, when my sis
ter Kathleen was visiting from New York with my nephews. All six of our kids (Stoli wasn’t here yet) were running up the Rutzebeck road in front of us, and Kathleen looked at them, all tumbling together, so much alike, and said she was sorry we didn’t live closer. I was, too. We had come to Alaska on our honeymoon—and ended up staying. We hadn’t planned it, but that’s what had happened. Chip and I make sure our children stay close to their East Coast relatives with regular visits. Their grandparents all come every summer, and they take turns visiting with aunts and uncles on their own or with us. Often, one or two head back with one set of grandparents and return with another. It’s not perfect, but there is a family chemistry that gels whenever we’re together.
Friends also become like relatives, and on holidays, our house is as full or fuller than mine was growing up. Chip and I both make the connection with objects from our past, too, and like to live surrounded by old things that wouldn’t pass as antiques and aren’t valuable to anyone except us. Recently, both my family and Chip’s sold the homes in New York and Massachusetts that we grew up in. Last summer a huge container arrived here full of everything no one wanted back East. Aside from a few broken lamps, all of it is now in our new home.
I scrubbed the iron bed that came from my grandmother’s house with a wire brush and gave it three coats of creamy oil paint. I’d slept in this bed the night my grandfather died, back when I was a teenager. We had arrived at my grandparents’ home in Pennsylvania a few days earlier, when my grandfather was put in the hospital. He fell into a coma, and we waited. The phone rang in the middle of the night, during the kind of thunderstorm they only have in the Allegheny Mountains. My aunt ran to my grandmother and led her in the Lord’s Prayer. They shouted the words above the rain and thunder. It’s funny, but I have no recollection of the funeral. None. I do know that my grandfather was prepared for death. Before he got sick, he cleaned the garage, attic, and basement. He gave away or sold his hunting and fishing gear. By the time he was in the hospital, only one suit hung in his closet, along with a clean shirt, underwear, and the socks and shoes he wanted to be buried in. His household records were all in order, his bills all paid.
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