North of Hope
Page 22
If the response to pain is beauty, beauty must win. I don’t think I could have articulated this back then. But I had needed to do something. I had needed to do something beautiful. In that beauty was hope. In that hope was healing. Even if it took a lifetime. To wait and watch is to witness. To witness is to see the sacred in the massacred.
I wish you could have been at the concert in February, Dad. We sang Mozart’s Requiem. I sang it for you.
I was there, Shannon. I always am.
The drone of the Cessna arrived a moment before the plane appeared, a tiny spot swelling imminently, crudely interrupting the rhythms of wilderness, the timelessness in which I sat suspended. Tundra air blew over the river and the wind felt to me like sadness. I had finished Dad and Kathy’s trip. This part of my journey had ended. I had done what needed to be done. I had put one foot in front of the other, dipped the oar back into the water. Grief would weave itself among the strands of love and life and hope, and I was starting to believe that what came of it all would still one day be beautiful.
Do not be afraid, says the angel. Don’t be afraid, said Sam Fathers. Looking out over the tundra, I was still scared. But I was no longer afraid.
Requiem aeternam. Grant them rest eternal. Perhaps it is not for the dead that we should pray; they rest eternally already. Perhaps it is our own poor souls that need these prayers.
Back in Seattle, just off the shore of Lake Washington, two eagles fly together, their flight twisting and turning, circling and coiling, ascending higher and higher, an exquisitely intimate and primal dance. One flies underneath the other, its back to the lake as they soar into the sky, higher and higher. Their talons clasp and they fall, hurtling toward earth, the flat plane of the lake, and then they break off, each pair of wings snatching the air, pulling their bodies back into the slipstream, and they fly out of sight.
EPILOGUE
It is the mountains again, always the mountains. The sky is blue, a blue that makes me imagine anything is possible, and it sets off the white-and-blue hanging glaciers of Mount Shuksan against dark greenschist rock. I stand next to Dad’s army friend George, waiting, laughing nervously, more nervous each minute. A few close friends are clustered around me, each in a knee-length, cranberry-colored silk dress of her own choosing, the warm sun drawing strong shadows under collarbones and cheeks. My dress is white, a simple lean design made of raw silk with a champagne-colored sash hanging to the ground in back below a row of tiny covered buttons.
The details are in place. I hadn’t worried too much about them, and things had arranged themselves in all the right ways. Two small bouquets of flowers have been placed on chairs in honor of Dad and Kathy, and a special note to them included in the bulletin. There is a picture of them at the lodge where we will hold the reception. We are standing in the perfect mountain meadow. There is a band that will play “Brown Eyed Girl.” I’d splurged on flowers. I wonder if I should be thinking more of them, but it is a momentary wonder. I am where I am supposed to be, waiting to walk to the person with whom I will spend the rest of my life, without whom I can’t imagine spending another day.
“It will just be a few minutes, I think,” someone tells me.
I know we have arrived on time and am not worried, but the delay seems to stretch like a lazy cat well after sunrise.
“What is it?” I ask.
“They’re just trying to get people seated,” a second person says. But the delay is longer than something like that would require.
“Seems like it’s taking a while,” I say to break the awkward pause, to calm my own nerves.
The two who’ve been talking glance at each other; something uneasy passes between them. Then there’s a pause.
“There’s a bear that’s come into the meadow,” someone says gently. “It’s not a problem. He’s just eating grass, but we’re trying to get him to move. He’s right in the path where you girls are about to walk.”
The sky flashes blue. The glacier winks. The spruce trees are suddenly the deepest green.
“A bear,” I say quietly. “With all those people in the meadow. Wow.”
I look at George, and we both smile small easy smiles. I think I see George’s eyes glistening. Of course there is a bear.
“It’s okay,” someone says, quickly. “We’re trying to get him to move along. He just doesn’t seem to be in a hurry.”
It is a half hour later when we finally walk down the hill toward the meadow, the girls in their silk dresses and the guys in tuxedos, and finally George holding his arm firmly under mine. I walk down the small hill, where there is no longer any evidence of bear, and toward the meadow, and up between the chairs, where I had thought I would feel self-conscious, but I look at my husband-to-be ahead of me, the man who will be the father of our children, of Dad and Kathy’s grandchildren. I see Peter’s smile and the tears in his eyes. And a world and a life that are deep and complex and full of wonder.
AFTERWORD
This story took place in 2006. In 2007, the Arctic lost more sea ice than ever in recorded history, and the trend continues.
The wild coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge remains threatened by development, despite its fragility and criticality as breeding grounds for large numbers of animals from air, land, and sea, ever-decreasing estimates of oil, and a deteriorating pipeline system putting at risk not only the transport of oil but national security. I traveled to the Arctic mourning a loss as open as this wilderness, my family crushed under the weight of a bear’s nature; this unforgiving landscape is as susceptible to human actions.
The killing nature comes from instinct. Human threat is born of premeditation. There was no way to stop the deaths of my dad and Kathy. There is a way to prevent the destruction of the Arctic. While climate change continues to loom as the Arctic’s biggest threat, the immediate threat of widespread development presses further. Developers claim they need only two thousand acres to develop the Arctic Coastal Plain; they do not explain that those two thousand acres will pepper the plains like a checkerboard, requiring roads and helipads and other destructive infrastructure on tundra perfectly suited for the cruelty of an Arctic winter, and utterly unable to withstand human development.
We are an oil-based society, but there is important work being done to reduce our dependence through conservation and alternative energy sources, and this is where our resources and attention should be given. The Alaska Wilderness League is doing important environmental protection work for our northernmost public lands in Alaska’s Arctic. The bipartisan Rocky Mountain Institute is doing important work to develop alternative energy and conservation-based solutions for our country. Conservation is our way out. Conservation is the only responsible path, for the sake of the environment, our national security, our way of life, and creation itself.
Five percent of author revenue from North of Hope will go to support the work of the Alaska Wilderness League.
NOTES
1. Daniel Merkur, Powers Which We Do Not Know (Moscow, Ida.: Univ. of Idaho Press, 1991).
2. Ibid.
3. J. Gelineau, SJ, “Music and Singing in the Liturgy,” in The Study of Liturgy, ed. Cheslyn Jones, Geoffrey Wainwright, Edward Yarnold, SJ, and Paul Bradshaw (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1992), 498.
4. Brian Payton, The Shadow of the Bear (New York: Bloomsbury, 2006).
5. Paul Shepard, The Sacred Paw (New York: Penguin, 1985).
6. Doug Peacock and Andrea Peacock, The Essential Grizzly (Guilford, Conn.: Lyons, 2006), 44, 46.
7. Peter Kivy, The Fine Art of Repetition: Essays in the Philosophy of Music (New York: Press Syndicate of the Univ. of Cambridge, 1993), 26.
8. Ibid., 27.
9. Gerald G. May, The Wisdom of Wilderness: Experiencing the Healing Power of Nature (New York: HarperCollins, 2006), 30–34.
10. John Haines, The Stars, the Snow, the Fire (Minneapolis: Graywolf, 2000), 52.
11. Mary Oliver, “Bear,” Why I Wake Early (Boston: Beacon, 2004), 41.
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12. Beryl Markham, West with the Night (New York: North Point, 1942), 62–63.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is impossible to acknowledge the many people who have offered ideas and guidance over the many years it has taken to create North of Hope. I am overwhelmed by how generous so many were with their time and consideration in response to my frequent inquiries and requests for assistance on this long and uncertain journey.
Thank you to those willing to read the manuscript along the way: Emily Russin, Nan Mooney, and Sarah Delaney were readers of early sections, and Kyra Freestar edited an early version of the manuscript. Hugo House instructors Peter Mountford and Waverly Fitzgerald gave encouragement and excellent feedback on portions of the manuscript and proposal. Seattle Pro Musica director Karen P. Thomas lent me resources to research Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor. Katey Schulz, Andy Schlickman, and Marcia Somers read later versions and helped me focus and hone my themes. A very special thanks to Hannah Moderow, who gave much time and substantial energy to look over the manuscript before I submitted it to make sure it was ready to fly.
Thank you to the excellent staff of the Anchorage Museum for research assistance; to the staff of the Elmer E. Rasmuson library at the University of Alaska Fairbanks for referrals to experts and research sources; to the staff at the Z. J. Loussac Library; and to the North Slope Borough Search and Rescue Division. Many thanks to Robert Thompson, resident and Arctic guide in Kaktovik, Alaska, for looking over a part of the manuscript for correctness; to Jim and Carol of Arctic Treks for their consultation on place name origins and geology; to Karen Jettmar of Equinox Expeditions for her review and consultation on several parts of the manuscript; and to Dr. Wesley Wallace from the University of Alaska Fairbanks Department of Geology and Geophysics for his expertise on the geology of the Romanzof Mountains and Arctic riparian ecosystems.
The Gwich’in Social and Cultural Institute provided invaluable assistance in research and the opportunity to talk to their elders. Thank you especially to Hannah Alexie and Catherine Mitchell.
I am indebted to my teachers and classmates in Seattle Pacific University’s Master of Fine Arts program who have been fellow travelers and guides on this writing journey, and to my agent, David Jacobsen, who helped find a home for this manuscript.
I owe an eternal debt of gratitude to the vision of Carolyn Fonseca McCready and to the candid and careful attention of my editors, Dave Lambert and Brian Phipps, and to the rest of the team at Zondervan for their shepherding of this book to its final state.
And most of all I thank my husband, Peter, for his love and support to pursue my passion, and God, without whose grace none of this would have been possible.
About the Author
Shannon Huffman Polson lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest. Her writing has appeared in a number of literary magazines and periodicals, as well as two anthologies. Polson graduated with a BA in English Literature from Duke University, an MBA from the Tuck School at Dartmouth, and an MFA from Seattle Pacific University. She served eight years as an attack helicopter pilot in the army and worked five years in corporate marketing and management roles before turning to writing full time. Polson serves on the board of the Alaska Wilderness League and sings with the critically acclaimed Seattle Pro Musica. She has looked for adventure and challenge anywhere she can find it, scuba diving, sky diving, and climbing around the world, including ascents of Denali and Kilimanjaro, and completing two Ironman triathlons. She and her family enjoy backpacking, any kind of skiing, paddling, and spending as much time outdoors as they can in the western states and Alaska. In September 2009, Polson was awarded the Trailblazer Woman of Valor award from Washington State Senator Maria Cantwell.
Polson can be found at www.aborderlife.com.
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Praise
Shannon Huffman Polson has written a soulful and brave book about death, life, and the complexities surrounding both. There is nothing sentimental in these pages. North of Hope shows us how personal loss and loss of our planet come from the same place: Love. This is a testament to deep change, human and wild.
—Terry Tempest Williams
author, When Women Were Birds
Daring, perceptive, and eloquent—Polson’s writing is clear and forceful. Like all true pilgrimages, this one is challenging, and well worth taking.
—Scott Russell Sanders
author, Earth Works and A Conservationist Manifesto
Polson’s extraordinary journey draws you into the depths of anguish and brings you back out realizing that while not all things fractured can be healed, the soul will gravitate toward beauty, art, and meaning if guided in the right direction.
—Alison Levine
mountaineer, polar explorer, and team captain of the first American Women’s Everest Expedition
North of Hope is an enthralling story of loss, courage, and redemption told by a gifted, original, and brave new voice, Shannon Huffman Polson.
—Robert Clark
award-winning author of ten books, including Dark Water: Flood and Redemption in the City of Masterpieces and Mr. White’s Confession
As Shannon Polson poignantly recounts the loss of family members to a grizzly attack in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, framing her memoir around her own trek into the wilderness where they perished, she comes to believe that there is grace and wonder in the most unlikely places, that the landscape’s wildness can teach you about letting go of control, and that Easter doesn’t arrive until you’ve experienced Good Friday. Anyone who has endured the grief of losing someone or something they loved will identify with the advice Polson was given: “When tragedy comes into your life, the most beautiful thing you can do is keep moving forward.”
—Cindy Crosby
former National Park Ranger and author of By Willoway Brook: Exploring the Landscape of Prayer
(www.cindycrosby.com)
Shannon Polson brilliantly tells the story of venturing into the Alaskan wilderness to find the place where her parents were killed. Interwoven with that journey is the story of how she auditioned for and sang the Mozart Requiem. Only music could provide solace for her strange, almost unimaginable loss. This is no ordinary memoir. To read it is to be changed.
—Jeanne Walker
author, New Tracks, Night Falling
Shannon Huffman Polson has written a book about loss that is both unique to her personal experience and universal to the human experience. She writes with clarity, honesty, and poise. The end of her story has the surreal feel of fiction—a moment so unbelievable and fitting that it must have happened. Readers will find themselves caught up in that poetic end, and in the breadth of story that comes before it.
—Andrea Palpant Dilley
author, Faith and Other Flat Tires:
Searching for God on the Rough Road of Doubt
North of Hope, Shannon Polson’s gripping account of the shattering, traumatic loss of her father, is a must read. In the end, Shannon is faced with a choice—does she choose the beauty and majesty of life or succumb to the pain and trauma of the loss of her beloved father? It is only after her father’s death that she truly listens to, and embraces, his message—to believe in her own strength and to live a life of meaning and purpose. Shannon’s book is a gift to everyone who reads this powerful, inspiring story.
—Janet Hanson
CEO and founder, 85 Broads
North of Hope is a remarkable story about the power of the wilderness both to harm and to heal, and to provide strength and sustenance to the human spirit, no matter what the challenges.
—Nicholas O’Connell
author, The Storms of Denali;
instructor, www.thewritersworkshop.net
ZONDERVAN
North of Hope
Copyright © 2013 by Shannon Huffman Polson
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EPub Edition © FEBRUARY 2013 ISBN: 978-0-310-32825-4
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Published in association with David Jacobsen of Rivendell Literary (www.rivendellliterary.com).
The names and identifying characteristics of some people in this narrative have been changed.