by Eowyn Ivey
Thymallus signifier, Arctic Grayling Fish
Dear Walt,
I have just read in the Colonel’s journals about the baby he found under the tree. It’s incredible! What do you make of it? I’d be tempted to think he was just out of his mind with starvation, but the details are so specific.
The documents continue to strike close to home. I mean, the Trail River — that’s where my father and uncle used to go sheep hunting every fall. Now there’s a multi-million-dollar fishing lodge there that brings in clients from all around the world. I wish I knew exactly where that spruce tree was.
You’re right of course. The Colonel’s expedition was the beginning of a lot of changes for this area. At first a few miners did well with gold, but then in 1899, coal was found about 15 miles north of the famous Gertie Lode. Though it wasn’t as glamorous as gold, it was coal that brought the railroad, and by the early 1900s, Alpine had become a boom town — saloons, company buildings, hotels, supply stores. There were bunkhouses for the miners, a newspaper, theater, a tennis court and a dress shop. It’s hard to imagine it now. It’s pretty much all gone. Even the train tracks have been overgrown or fallen off into the river. We’ve managed to salvage a few of the original buildings and have them here on the museum property for visitors to walk through.
All of that came and went just in the relatively short time since your great-uncle traveled through here. In a century, really, it went from Native country to boom town to . . . well, whatever it is now.
It’s funny that you ask about the mining. For the past 50 years or so, it’s all been shut down. But last year an Australian company came in to scout the area. If they find what they’re looking for, they’re planning to reopen at least one of the mines. It’s a divisive issue here, even within families. My uncle runs the post office, and he believes it’s what Alpine needs — an influx of money, jobs, an opportunity for people here to earn an honest living. And then my cousin, his own daughter, is vehemently opposed to it. She’s a member of the tribal council, and she is also actively lobbying against reopening the mines. She say the environmental damage will be irreversible and that it would change the whole community. From there, everyone has picked their sides. Up and down the highway you can see spray-painted plywood signs. “Mining Built This Town.” “Protect Our Children — Keep Our Water Clean.” You get the idea.
Isaac and I keep our heads down. The librarian likes to jokes that she’s Switzerland, maintaining a neutral state. We’re with her. I have my own thoughts, but I can sympathize with both sides. All the vitriol makes me sad, though.
Thank you very much for the check you sent. It will actually do a lot to help. There’s still a part of me that feels like I should encourage you to give the journals and documents to a larger museum, but a greedy side of me doesn’t want to give them up. I am in the process of applying for a grant to see if we can get some more money to add to the pot — I’d love to be able to create an exhibit using the artifacts you have. In the meantime, I’m going to continue to transcribe the journals and scan the images. At the very least we can preserve them and make them available online to researchers or anyone else who might be interested.
And Walt, I’ve enjoyed your letters a great deal too.
With warm regards,
Josh
Lieut. Col. Allen Forrester
May 17, 1885
Our sleeping arrangements are comfortable enough but unlike anything I have experienced before. The dwellings are dug into the earth, their frames of spruce poles covered with bark. Where there are cracks, the Indians have used moss to keep out the cold.
We are given privileged sleeping quarters in the tyone’s larger, more sheltered home. The interior is sparse. There is a fire in the center, with a large hole in the roof directly above to allow sunlight in, smoke out. Along the inside of the walls are benches made of spruce poles lashed with rawhide. These are several feet wide, near to four feet high, on which are spread animal furs. We have been allotted space to sleep on top of them. Indian men, sometimes joined by their wives, sleep along the other walls. An astonishing number of women, children, & dogs then sleep beneath these benches, which are small shelters unto themselves with animal skins providing a curtain about them. Throughout the nights I wake to sounds beneath me — a dog growling in its sleep or a mother softly whispering to her child.
Often before we are allowed to retreat to our sleeping benches each night, however, the Indians gather in the hut to tell stories. Though we understand little, it is evident that the Indians know them well. As one tells a story, the others shout out comments, laugh, contradict. Children at times reenact the scenes, yet they are not allowed to interrupt or become too unruly. Myself, I am grateful for the children’s acting, for it allows me to generally follow along. There are battles & hunts, lessons taught. The characters are often both human & animal.
This night I followed enough to understand the first was about a mouse or similarly small creature that shares its food with a starving man. The other was a more gruesome tale from what I could tell, of a woman who betrays her husband by secretly taking a wild beast for a lover. When the husband discovers the treachery, he slays the lover, cooks him in a pot for supper, then sends his bones washing down the Wolverine River.
I wish now that Samuelson had come with us to the village. Communication is hampered. Before supper, the tyone & I tried again with hand gestures, drawing in the dirt, Tillman’s few words. In as many ways as I can invent, I ask him if he will guide us over the mountains. He does not seem to understand. He has his own questions, which I cannot grasp. We all are frustrated.
May 18
This afternoon I mend clothes & packs, ordered the men to do likewise. I have also obtained hides to sew Indian moccasins — our leather boots are beyond repair.
I ready us to leave within three days.
Once again I approached the tyone in hopes of communicating with him. We make no headway. It is possible he comprehends my request but is either unable or unwilling to aide us. When I point to the northern mountains, draw a map in the dirt, he studies me with much seriousness. He nods curtly, walks away. I would think him dimwitted if I did not observe him with his own people. He is confident in his dealings with them. Though he does little labor himself, it is evident that he runs all the affairs.
The village seems to be about something, as there is much activity throughout the day. Their tools are of the most basic — beat-copper blades, bone needles. Yet they are skilled in their work. The men gather spruce poles & willow saplings. The women scrape raw moose hides, stitch the large skins together, then soak them in the river.
We, on the other hand, are in danger of settling into doldrums. Pruitt remains mostly abed doing nothing. He insists he is too ill to travel, though I see nothing physically ailing him.
It aggravates me to no end how he fails to take celestial readings or work on refining his maps or repair his clothes. I have found it does no good to lose my temper with him, so I spent some time this morning trying to draw him out. I suspect his illness is partly in spirit.
Poetry did not prove a suitable topic, as he grieves the loss of his books. I mentioned the flora & fauna we have so far observed. My wife would be interested in the birds, I said. She spends every spare minute outdoors with her field glasses.
Pruitt showed some interest in the subject, said he watched a large, pale gray falcon in flight as we made our way up Trail River but was unable to identify it.
My wife is particularly enamored with the humming bird, I said. I went as far as to tell him how I had found her a humming bird nest during our courtship. A tiny thing, yet it won her heart.
— I doubt we will see any humming birds this far north, he said.
Tillman, on the other hand, is wholly content here. He even says he has become fond of their cooking.
— All that bloody meat, it makes a man feel alive!
He has taken up bow & arrow
with some of the younger Indians. They place wagers on who can shoot the farthest, with the most accuracy. We are unable to obtain a single bit of helpful information from the tyone, yet the lack of common language has not stopped Tillman from learning several gambling games from the Midnooskies, including one involving a handful of carved bones. I do not understand the game, nor do I care to.
When he does not fraternize with the Indians, Tillman totes the found infant swaddled in rabbit pelts. Tillman makes peculiar noises & expressions at it, seems to enjoy its company. He explains his ease with the child by saying he grew up the oldest of a dozen siblings.
When I informed him we must be on our way so as to reach the coast before winter, the sergeant shrugged it off, as if it made no difference when we return home.
— Why rush off, Colonel? Soon enough the boy will give us some direction. It’ll save us time in the long run.
That is what he calls the tyone — ‘boy.’ It is an underestimation. The tyone may be young, but he has more influence than Tillman gives credit.
May 19
The Midnooskies held some sort of celebration last night. After noon, the entire village of more than 30 gathered near the tyone’s hut. They lit a large fire, boiled pot after pot of moose, tebay, rabbit. The tyone’s women brought out birch baskets full of different foods — dried berries, tubers, last year’s dried fish. It was well after 8 o’clock before everything was prepared. Pruitt would not move from his bed, but Tillman & I sat with the others just as several young men began to sing. They had no drums or other musical instruments, but kept time with the rhythm of the words. Their voices rose & fell in a hypnotizing way.
This near to summer, the sun no longer sets, though it dipped behind the mountains to leave behind a cool, bluish light in the valley. The cooking done, the Indians heaped more wood upon the fire until the flames climbed into the pale night sky.
Next a group of men formed a circle near the fire. They were the most extravagantly dressed of any of the Midnooskies we had so far encountered, adorned with copper jewelry, furs of lynx, marten. One had a particularly large copper nose piercing & ornate necklace of dentalium shells. The tallest, most dignified of the group wore a black wolf hide.
Their steps began slowly, a kind of bowing & stomping to the ground, but soon their pace was feverish. The firelight cast a glow on their faces. They sang with low shouts & a rousing cadence, until against my will my own heartbeat quickened. More Indians joined until the scene was so violent & heated, I believe it would cause some white women to faint.
Tillman was stirred to his feet, made as if to join in. I pulled him back. — It’s not our place.
— Looks like good fun to me, he said. — We are outsiders. We can’t understand what all this means. I advised him to just sit & watch.
As the night neared the closest it would to darkness, sometime after midnight, the Indians piled more wood into the flames. The women had now gathered in a circle around the men. Their dancing was more contained, the steps smaller, but equally impassioned. Tillman tried to take the hand of one of the young women, danced one of his jigs in front of her, but she quickly pulled away.
At last I implored Tillman to follow me back to the hut. He cannot be trusted to stay out of trouble’s way.
May 20
I did not expect to find anyone by the creek this morning. I walked only to stretch my legs. When I came through the bushes, the servant woman who cares for Pruitt was crouched beside the creek. She gathered water with bags made of animal gut. I must have frightened her for she looked up at me with wide black eyes, then hissed at me.
I maintained my composure. I offered to carry the water. She did not respond. I squatted near her, reached into the creek where she held a bag in the flow of the stream. In evident fear, she withdrew her hand. There, on the inside of her wrist, a patch of gray, downy feathers grew along her pale skin.
It is time for us to leave this place.
It seems we are more captives than guests. An hour ago I left camp to climb the nearby mountainside. My hope was that I would be able to see down into the Wolverine valley, perhaps determine the location of the trapper & his companions. Without Samuelson’s translation skills, our stay here becomes useless.
Part way into the climb, I was overtaken by two Midnooskies, I believe the same two who found us on the other tributary of the Trail River. I attempted to explain to them that I was merely hoping for a better view. They made it clear that I was to return to camp with them.
I had my carbine, but thought better than to resist them. For now it seems we must wait this out.
45°F, exposed bulb
40°F, wet bulb
Barometer: 28.80
Dew point: 32
Relative humidity: 60
Cold, strong wind.
Have you ever seen the nest of a humming bird? She would march to Kingdom Come in search of one, the Colonel says. He is bemused & clumsy in his affection. He cannot comprehend how she should find so much in that small hold. He is neither blessed nor cursed with a poet’s heart.
He does not see. In the palm of the hand, such a nest might become Mr. Blake’s wildflower. Infinity, all of Eternity, collapsed like damp foetal feathers inside a thimble egg.
Auguries. Heaven. Or Hell. Joy. Or Woe. Victory. Birth. Death. Defeat. All told in a raven’s cry, a vulture’s flight. Can I recall those signs of Innocence? The babe that weeps. A skylark wounded in the wing. All Heaven in a rage . . . the lines escape me.
And what of you, Mrs. Forrester — what do you seek in the break of the shell, the weave of the twigs? Whose future do you divine?
Or, is it possible, that your wonder is truly pure, without expectation or pride? Do you, Mrs. Forrester, still believe? Do you bask in the golden light I once imagined I felt upon the crown of my head? Not simply the light of God, Love, Science, even Truth or Art, but that rarified light of Promise. Thy Kingdom Come.
It is no wonder the Colonel fell in love with you.
Wolf Tracks Near Trail River
Sophie Forrester
Vancouver Barracks
May 17, 1885
The dark room is nearly ready, yet I can do no real work until I have a camera, dry plates, and chemicals.
Since I was a young girl and first caught sight of a mourning warbler and knew it for what it was, or first heard the song of a wood thrush in the forest just as rain clouds lifted, I have sought some form to express myself. Yet I have shown no aptitude or lasting interest in any of them — not watercolor nor pencil, not dissection nor taxidermy.
It occurs to me now, however, that I might work with light itself. It has always captivated me, the way it shifts and alters all that it touches, significant both in presence and in absence.
I am desperate to begin. I have become too mindful of suffering and darkness; they attend to me even when I bid them not to, like scavenger birds perched and waiting for the calf to die. And when I seek a finer grace in the day, some essence of love and life, the light fades beneath my eyes.
I will not abandon the quest before it has truly begun, however. I will let this grief sharpen my gaze, polish and shape it until it becomes a magnifying lens through which I might yet see.
May 18
Evelyn was thrilled when I asked her to accompany me to Portland on Thursday, for hadn’t she always wanted to take me shopping in the city, and hadn’t she always wanted to get me into something besides my plain dresses? Her eagerness waned when I informed her that we would shop for photography supplies rather than dresses and shoes, and I am sure she would have abandoned me all together except that I allowed for a quick stop at Mendelson’s. (They are expecting their summer shipment, Evelyn informed me. “Fabric comes in choices beyond gray and brown, you are aware of that, aren’t you?”) I would go without Evelyn except that I need her assistance in navigating the streets and finding the various shops.
I have my list, but only the vaguest notion of where I will
find everything. I can be certain of this — it will cost me dearly. As I counted my savings this morning and prepared myself for the knowledge that I might spend it all in one fell swoop, I could not help but hear Mother’s voice of reproval: a woman should never depend on marriage alone to keep her safe, as any number of tragedies could befall her, and we must always be prepared for the worst. Hers is the voice of experience, I know all too well, but I will not heed it.
I refuse to assume a long, dreary life. I would prefer to spend every last penny, if need be, and visit every druggist from here to San Francisco; I would place all my faith in something mysterious and joyful and surprising, even if it fails me in the end. And well it might. I have sense enough to know that I might delude myself, that in all likelihood this lies beyond my ability and artistry, perhaps even beyond my faith, but then I think of Allen and know precisely what he would say — nothing is impossible. Take one step, and then another, and see where the path leads. Don’t think of the obstacles, only the way around them.
Thursday, then, it is Portland. And tomorrow, I will look for birds.
May 19
It is most difficult for me to express the joy, the complete relief, to at last return to the forest and find that I have the strength and resolve to walk up the hills and down through the trees, to breathe in fresh air and act upon my own will! After these months of opium tinctures and bed rest and worry and that terrible, ultimate grief, it is as if some precious element of my being has been restored.
I left alone just before noon, and for a time I followed the wagon road behind the officers’ homes, but when I heard the laughter and conversation of an approaching walking party, I ventured off the trail. Stepping into that shaded, somber hush is much like entering a cathedral, the fir trees serving as grand pillars, their green limbs arching overhead. Occasionally there came the songs of chickadees, the chattering of dark-eyed juncos, the sweet call of a song sparrow or, far off, the dull thud of a woodpecker. For one thrilling second I thought I would encounter some wilder beast — there was a ruckus through the dried grass and sticks, but it was only a little field mouse or mole, and that, too, made me joyful.