Treehab

by Bob Smith

  “That’s our state motto,” Jonathan added.

  “It should be on our license plates,” Brad said.

  “So you’re telling me Alaska is our biggest state . . . and coffin.”

  Jonathan rolled his green eyes. “Every bird on this hike is going to chirp ‘Cheechako,’” he said.

  Once I committed to writing a novel about salmon fishing, I decided that I needed to spend more time in Alaska. My objective was to know the state like a resident, not a visitor. I didn’t have a plan other than to stay with Alaskans and do what they suggested, which included hiking with grizzlies in city parks bigger than the average Texas ranch. My qualms about writing a novel about Alaska were larger than Denali. Since Brad Williams was the inspiration for my novel, I decided to visit him in Anchorage.

  In Anchorage, I stayed at Brad’s two-bedroom condo with his new boyfriend, Jonathan Behaylo. Jonathan was twenty-two, sandy-haired, and handsome enough to deflate the egos of movie stars. His dazzling smile would be handy during a blackout for emergency illumination.

  We hiked the trails in the heavily forested park for two hours. I was continually on the lookout for bruins. Not out of fear, but to learn if I could meet a bear in the woods and still remain a fan of predators. We did witness a mom pushing a baby stroller up a bumpy dirt trail. The infant was crying and I interpreted his wailing as “What about the fucking bears?” I was more focused on the observation that the midnight sun gives an extra day of vacation all summer. Everyone in Anchorage seemed buzzed by solar power. It astonished me to see a guy in Delaney Park playing Frisbee catch with his dog at eleven thirty at night. After our bear-free jaunt, we had dinner at a restaurant, sitting outside to watch the midnight sunset. That night revealed to me why I love Alaska. Every summer day in Alaska is a hulking bodybuilder twice the size of normal days. I’ve always loved bodybuilders so of course it increased my passion for Alaska.

  Over dinner, Brad told me that the upcoming weekend we were going to drive down to his hometown of Homer. “My friend Jen has invited us to her family’s Fourth of July get-together on Yukon Island. Jen’s bisexual so we won’t be the only queers.” It sounded great since both Homer and Yukon Island would be new Alaska destinations for me.

  Homer is a four-hour drive from Anchorage. We left after Brad finished work at the Japanese consulate, hitting the road at 7 p.m. Just south of the city, we stopped at Potter Marsh. Boardwalks were built over the wetland, where we touristed and saw sandhill cranes and big salmon swimming up Rabbit Creek. Those two animals in Alaska are like rats and roaches in Manhattan; it’s almost impossible not to see them.

  After we left Potter Marsh, we drove in the land of midnight sunset. Looking at Alaska’s mountains, forests, rivers, and ocean makes Americans feel adventurous, but it’s a self-deluded ruse. You know bears, moose, and wolves live there, but you’re looking from the safety of a car. Unless you get out and hike in the wilderness, you have the pioneer spirit of a throw pillow.

  When we got to Homer, Brad pulled his pickup over in a sightseeing spot. I thought the view made the rest of Alaska look dowdy. Homer is on the north shore of Katchemak Bay. Across the water is a range of snow-covered peaks. A unique geographical feature of the town is the Homer Spit, a four and a half mile narrow peninsula that juts into the bay. The front yard of Homer’s five thousand residents is Kachemak Bay and the four-hundred-thousand-acre Kachemak Bay State Park, Alaska’s first state park.

  In Homer, I’ve discovered the view walks into your life. I once stayed with Brad in a tract neighborhood of ranch houses that was anything but suburban. One afternoon, we had to brake our car and wait for three sandhill cranes to cross the road. As we watched them daintily lifting their long legs to walk from lawn to lawn, I felt my life was no longer a home movie, but a National Geographic Special.

  For my first visit, Brad insisted we had to stop at the Salty Dawg. It’s a historic saloon on the Homer Spit that opened in 1957, built out of frontier buildings, including part of Brad’s grandfather’s fishing shack. The bar was packed. Travel Tip: have a beer there in the late afternoon. It’s the perfect reward after a day’s hiking. You’ll get to appreciate the dollar bills pinned to every wall surface. Even the graffiti-incised, lacquered wood tables struck me as beautiful, not defaced.

  The three of us camped for the night in the living room of a straight couple, friends of Brad’s. The next morning we left early to meet Jen Bersch. At a neighbor’s house, looking like lawn ornaments, were a cow moose and her calf munching bushes. “This is my first moose sighting,” I said.

  “Was popping your moose cherry enjoyable?” asked Jonathan.

  “Yes,” I said, thrilled to see the meese. (My friend John Bateman suggested this should be the plural for moose. I agree.)

  “It’s almost impossible not to see a moose in Homer,” said Brad. “They pop up all over town.”

  “Each time you spot one,” I said, “you reassess your prejudice that all vegetarians are scrawny.”

  We drove out on the spit to Homer’s harbor, where Jen and her boat were waiting. The boat looked like a recreational tugboat. She’s a lovely blonde who owns a beauty salon in Anchorage. She was also the mother of two young kids. Jen said, “Since Bob’s the visitor, he has to wear a life jacket.”

  “Drowning is the best souvenir you could bring from Alaska,” I said. “Your family and friends will never forget it.”

  Seeing her standing alongside handsome Brad and Jonathan, I was starting to think a tour guide should point out that Alaska’s gay and lesbian scenery was worth the trip.

  “Bob’s a bird nerd so if a puffin or eagle flies by, he’ll want to stop and stare,” said Brad.

  Jen looked at me with my binoculars hanging around my neck. “I know how to please a bird nerd,” she said.

  She expertly guided our boat toward Yukon Island with a detour to see an island called Sixty-Foot Rock. It gave me my first view of tufted puffins, and then Jen drolly said, “We locals call this Bird Shit Rock.” There was a click inside me and I knew Jen and I would become friends. She visited me when I lived in Los Angeles, and I’ve seen her every time I’ve visited Anchorage.

  Yukon Island is the largest island in Kachemak Bay and as we approached it, the mile-wide retreat seemed to be a gigantic new species of green-and-brown whale coming up for a breath. As we pulled up to the island’s beach, I saw a small, red-painted, metal-roofed house in front of a huge, beautiful, unpainted board house with lots of windows. Towering Sitka spruce trees stood behind the big house. “Let’s go see my mom,” said Jen as we unloaded our tents and sleeping bags from the boat. We climbed stairs and dropped our camping supplies at the red house, which was Jen’s. Then we climbed more stairs overgrown with bushes blocking the sunlight. The stairs ended at a porch, where we glanced at a magnificent view that beckoned me to sit there for the rest of my life.

  I remembered as we stood in the sunny living room that when I had mentioned our visit to Vic Carlson, the retired judge who was an old friend of Brad’s and a new great friend of mine, he told me he knew Jen’s mom, Gretchen Abbot Bersch. Once again he told me that visiting Yukon Island was an adventure most Alaskans would never experience.

  Vic advised me to get to know Gretchen, a professor of education at the University of Alaska, a woman who could grade a term paper and gut a fish. He also mentioned that Yukon Island was a famous archaeological site, a designated National Historic Landmark.

  Of course, Vic had a copy of Frederica de Laguna’s rare book, The Archaeology of Cook Inlet, Alaska. De Laguna was one of the first woman anthropologists and led an important dig on Yukon Island. Her book had dozens of photographs of early Eskimo/Kachemak Bay cultural artifacts found on the island such as scrapers and net stones. Net stones have a distinctive pie-slice notch and you can see how the groove was used to secure the stones to fishing nets.

  One of de Laguna’s finds is a national treasure and not just to archaeologists. It’s a prehistoric work of art. She found a
large teardrop-shaped ceremonial stone lamp with a man rising out of the open basin where the oil was stored. That’s the only decoration on the lamp. He has arms, but his face is a portrait with such a vulnerable expression that you feel like you’ve been introduced. Other lamps have been found and they have animals like seals rising from their basins. The lamp oil evoked the ocean and the simple complexity of their design proves that creating beauty has always been a desire as strong as having an orgasm.

  I was determined to get to know Gretchen and find a net stone. As soon we entered the sunny living room, Jen shouted, “Mom, the gays are here!” She came out from the kitchen. Gretchen has an old-growth forest of gray hair, wears eyeglasses, and possesses the ability to make everyone feel welcome and essential. She uses the island to teach adult education classes. She greeted us like a loving mom with big hugs and also like a wise teacher with curious questions. Gretchen had met Brad, but Jonathan and I were meeting her for the first time. I blurted out that I was a stand-up comic writing a novel about Alaska. I had doubts but tried to sound upbeat by covering up my uncertainty with a smile. It’s a deceit that should be called a smi-lie.

  “You’re writing a novel about Alaska?” said Gretchen. “Sounds like it will have more volumes than Harry Potter.”

  “It’s going to be about salmon fishing at Coffee Point,” I said.

  “That would require a twenty-six-volume set of encyclopedias,” said Brad.

  “I’m just writing the B for Brad volume,” I said.

  “The Brad story has twenty-six volumes,” said Jonathan.

  “I don’t want my novel to sound like a tourist visited Alaska,” I said. “I’m trying to know Alaska. I realize how ambitious that sounds. But trying to write a good novel is even more ambitious.”

  Gretchen said, “Writing a novel about salmon fishing sounds like salmon fishing. You don’t know what you’re going to catch.”

  “That’s exactly how I feel,” I said. “I’m hoping hanging with Alaskans makes me catch Alaska.”

  I had never written a novel and thought the only way I could accomplish it was to have more ideas in my head than in my book. Gretchen excused herself, explaining that a flood of relatives had arrived and she was cooking for them.

  Jen offered to give us a tour of the island. There is a trail in the woods wide enough for a four-wheeler and we set out for it. As we walked among the spruces, I said to Jen, “The first lesson I learned from your mom is that I didn’t want her to think I was an idiot.”

  “When you think about it,” Jen said, “that’s what every teacher should strive to instill in her pupils.”

  Most of the island, like Gretchen’s hair, was impenetrable old-growth forest, but as we walked the trail, I spotted berries growing in the woods. They were a gorgeous golden yellow blushed with sockeye red.

  “What are these berries?” I asked.

  “Salmonberries,” said Jen.

  “Are they edible?” I said while stopping at a salmonberry bush.

  “Edible, yes,” said Brad. “Palatable, no.”

  “Try one,” suggested Jonathan.

  “Here’s a ripe one,” said Jen as she picked and handed me an entirely red berry.

  I popped it in my mouth, chewed the fruit, and was introduced to tough northern berries that seemed to say sweetness won’t let you survive in Alaska.

  “That’s sour,” I said. “If a lemon took a bite of a salmonberry, it would wince.”

  Our first stop was a tiny shack that would be the perfect writer’s hut. It had a view of the water and was secluded but close enough to Gretchen’s house for an easy stroll in search of lunch. Our second stop was a modern tree house built and designed by the architect Abbott brother. It was held up by four pine trees and we climbed an aluminum ladder to reach its porch. The tree house was all windows and unpainted wood and would also be the ideal writer’s roost. Then we visited two of Jen’s aunts’ houses. One is set high on a bluff above the shore; the other was down on the beach. They were both roughly constructed cabins but splendid summer getaways with views of Elephant Rock.

  It’s a mastodon-sized and shaped rock with grass growing on its back. Normally it’s surrounded by water, but I once visited during the lowest tide of the summer and walked out to it. The low tide exposed starfish of every size and color. Alaska and the Aleutian Islands have more species of starfish than any other place on earth. Walking the exposed beach we saw many different species, but the most impressive were the plate-sized, thirteen-legged, pink morning sun star and the striped sun star, a small, ten-legged, neon-orange sensation. Its vibrant tropical colors are more suited for a coral reef, not the chilly waters of Alaska. We also saw several Christmas anemones. They were about a foot long, green-and-red gross gelatinous blobs that would make scary holiday decorations for Halloween.

  The beach closest to Elephant Rock is one of the sites of de Laguna’s dig in the early 1930s. Walking the shore, I found several scrapers and net stones and was thrilled. The most amazing and beautiful of my finds were rock spalls. There were dozens on the beach. They were a perfect circle of stone with sharp cutting edges lopped off from a boulder. I wondered about the inventor of these spalls. He was clearly a genius. The skill required to make these tools was the equivalent of diamond cutting.

  Later that day, I returned by myself and found a hand axe, clearly man made, carved from a translucent green quartz-like stone that has to be among the most beautiful tools ever created. The experience made me think of Thoreau’s friend Ellery Channing, who wrote that Henry was hiking with a pal who commented, “I do not see where you find your Indian arrowheads.” (This is a verbatim quote, but I don’t believe anyone hiking has ever chatted that pompously.) Thoreau bent over and picked up an arrowhead and gave it to his friend. I experienced the same awe and excitement at quickly discovering evidence of a lost world.

  I had collected rocks and fossils as a kid, but finding prehistoric Native American stone tools on a beach was first contact with a world that I had only read about. Alaska had become even more alluring. Our forty-ninth state not only had mountains that made me wide-eyed, but it was taking my breath away with the stones beneath my feet. It made tangible a civilization that had to make tools, clothing, and houses in order to eat. The idea of calling their civilization “primitive” became more insulting given the vast majority of “modern” people would starve in that situation. Imagine having to make bone fishhooks and notching net stones, instead of shopping for dinner. I would die of hunger. We bought tents and sleeping bags, whereas the original settlers of Yukon Island would have sewn their own tents and bedding.

  We went back and set up two tents in a field below Gretchen’s house. I’ve always loved camping: I used to do it every summer in my backyard. It was an astounding place to put up our tents. The shore was steps away. An isolated group of pine trees became our pissing grove. Gretchen’s house protectively loomed over us.

  That night on Yukon Island, after a grilled burger dinner, we had beers on the beach, staring at a nearby island that had several narrow waterfalls cascading down its green hillsides. I looked down at my feet and found a quarter-sized net stone with its distinctive notch. I put it in the pocket of my jacket, wanting to show it to Brad and Jonathan, who were walking the beach. Wearing a jacket in July is a smart move in Alaska. The nights are cool, but it also makes it harder for the mosquitoes to siphon you. Of course, I forgot about my pocketed net stone until I returned home to Los Angeles. Stealing artifacts is what assholes do, but I haven’t returned my net stone because seeing it sitting on a shelf makes me happy. This is my coming out in print as an asshole.

  Jen was fishing from shore. She didn’t catch anything, but it didn’t matter since it was ten o’clock at night and we were savoring the long Alaskan gloaming that makes you regard the sun as a lover lingering in your bed.

  We hit our sleeping bags early after our long day. The next day was the Fourth of July. It was sunny and, for Alaska, warm. We hit seventy degr
ees. I woke up at six and wanted coffee. I climbed out of my tent and headed to Gretchen’s. The island was quiet except for a whistling, tweeting bird cry. A call I’d never heard before. It was coming from the beach and I crept down to the shore, trying not to scare off the bird. A bald eagle was perched on a tree branch. I had no idea that the symbol of our country had such a sweet voice. It’s unmistakably distinctive and I’ve recognized the call in other parts of Alaska. It was a treat to have a bald eagle on the Fourth of July demonstrate that it’s not entirely predator and has a tender side. It was like having an ice cream with Uncle Sam.

  I didn’t see anyone in Gretchen’s house. Opening the door, I tried to be quieter than that trilling bald eagle. When I stepped inside, Gretchen popped out of the kitchen. “You’re up early.” She added, “Coffee’s brewing.”

  “Every town in Alaska has a great coffee place,” I said.

  “Alaskans understand if you need to flee from a grizzly,” she said, “you should be tanked up with top-notch caffeine.”

  “I’m trying to learn all I can about Alaska,” I said.

  “If you’re going to write a novel about Alaska, you have to learn that our biggest state is about small beautiful moments.”

  “I’m starting to understand that,” I said, thinking of the eagle and my first moose sighting. “Can I do anything to help you?”

  “We have to set up for breakfast,” Gretchen said. “If you would, organize the silverware, plates, and cups.”

  I followed her into the kitchen after she poured me a cup of coffee and showed me where to set up the start of the buffet line. For a half hour, I worked while chugging my coffee. When I finished setting out the breakfast buffet, we were joined by Gretchen’s younger sister, Melissa. “You want more coffee?” Gretchen asked. I did. “And have a piece of banana bread,” Melissa said.

  I went out on the porch and sat down on a bench. I was drinking coffee, but it felt like I was guzzling champagne. Two Steller’s jays had landed near me. One was on a picnic table and the other was on the porch railing. They’re one of North America’s most beautiful birds with black crested heads and cobalt blue bodies. They were wilderness birds begging like house sparrows. To my left was Hesketh Island, where narrow waterfalls plummeted down green-and-gray mountain slopes. On my right were the snow-covered peaks of Kachemak Bay State Park. The calm ocean also enjoyed the views.