Looking for Alaska

by Peter Jenkins

  “Juge, we’re supposed to drive north about eight hundred and twenty-five miles from here to a bunch of mountains called the Brooks Range,” I answered.

  She’d driven a couple thousand miles before—she’d driven from Miramar Naval Base in southern California to Tennessee after visiting her brother Aaron. The females of the family did that trip, Rita, Brooke, Rebekah, and Julianne. But driving from California to Tennessee in the summer and driving from Seward to above the Arctic Circle on the last day of winter might be a bit different sort of road trip.

  The Weather Channel was on; as usual they showed nothing about Alaska. We had weather here that we considered just a “fun winter storm” that would have made headlines and specials on the Weather Channel, CNN, and all the networks for days if it were happening somewhere else. A few days ago the Weather Channel had one of their traveling reporters standing beside an interstate in the middle of a nor’easter that had fizzled and dropped only an inch and a half of snow.

  “Why the Brooks Range, Dad?” Julianne asked.

  “Oh, because it’s good”—I gave her the thumbs-up sign—“and because a man named Eric Jayne invited me, you, and your mother to visit them there.”

  Julianne and I had a little thing going because every time I asked her how school was or how her first attempt at skiing went, she would just say, “Good.” When I started teasing her about using the word good too much, she would just give me a thumbs-up sign.

  Her naturally calm disposition was piqued with curiosity. She was not a child to ask many questions, but today she was about to ask several.

  “Why would we want to go there? We’ve been studying Alaska in school—isn’t above the Arctic Circle some of the coldest places in Alaska?”

  Julianne loved the cold, she had another plan.

  “Yes, I think it is. Where they live is supposed to be beautiful. They live on a big lake that is frozen now. We’ll take a long snow-machine trip to get to their house. That’ll be fun!” I said, trying to sell her.

  “Do they have any daughters?” Julianne had made several good friends here in the neighborhood and at school, Leah, Danielle, Nicole, and others. Julianne has the gift of friendship.

  “They do have a daughter. I think she’s twelve, maybe thirteen. I haven’t met her, only one of their sons.”

  “Oh, where does she go to school?”

  “She is homeschooled.”

  Julianne knew about that, we’d homeschooled her for second grade.

  “How does she even get her schoolwork?” Julianne is a practical person, like Rita’s side of the family, who are Midwestern farmers.

  “In Alaska, if you live in the bush, they have teachers that teach you and send you your work in the mail, or the family comes to a town if they don’t get mail and picks it up.”

  “Daddy, what’s the bush?”

  “It’s places in Alaska where people live away from roads and towns or even villages. Some people in Alaska live off in the wilderness, just their family and that’s it. Some people even live alone.”

  “Why? That must be lonely.”

  “I guess that’s why we’re going to visit Eric—to find out what living in the bush is like.” I knew better than to try to close the deal then. I’d let her think about it, talk to her mother.

  “You know some of my friends at school are going to Hawaii for spring break. Can we?”

  I knew she had a plan. “Not this time, Juge. Maybe some other time. Okay?”

  Her mouth tightened; she was plotting her next move.

  Charter companies fill up jet after jet after jet full of Alaskans headed to Hawaii for their end-of-the-winter sun and sea break. The Islands are not far, just head south. The humpback whales that spend the summer near Seward winter around the Hawaiian Islands.

  “We’ve been studying the Native groups of Alaska. Do you know how to spell Inupiat?”

  “I-N-U-P-I-A-T.”

  “Is Eric an Inupiat Eskimo?”

  “No, they are white.”

  “How cold will it be there?”

  “I’m not sure, honey. It could be twenty to thirty below zero.”

  She set her jaw. Where had I seen that expression before?

  “Dad, you’d rather be in thirty below zero than Hawaii?”

  “Well, no. Well, someday we’ll go to Hawaii. But, all right, yes, this week I would rather be in twenty-five to thirty below zero,” I answered, pathetically.

  Rita arched her eyebrows and looked up from the salmon and pasta dish she was creating. Rita knew all too well Julianne’s easygoing ability to lay the foundation for an argument.

  “Dad…” There was a confident, even slightly condescending ring to the way Julianne said it. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No, we should experience the bush. I’m pretty sure it will be good.”

  “Pretty sure, Dad?”

  “Yes, Julianne, pretty sure. This Eric seems like a nice man. Your dad never really knows what will happen when he goes to the places he goes to. So we’ll all find out together.”

  I remember thinking, “Send this kid to law school.” It was like being led into a trap on the stand by Perry Mason.

  It wasn’t just Julianne who wondered about our destination. Friends, longtime Alaskans, all had their doubts, and almost all of them made comments to me. Keep in mind that Alaskans don’t use words like severe or dangerous often.

  • “You’re going to the Brooks Range. Coldfoot. Beyond Coldfoot. I’ve never even been to Coldfoot. With Rita and Julianne! How well do you know these people? Be sure to let someone know when you’re leaving the road and when you’re coming back. If we don’t hear, we’ll call out the state troopers.”

  • “Do you know that’s above the Arctic Circle?!”

  • “From Fairbanks, you’ll have to travel the Haul Road. Do you have any idea that in the winter the Haul Road has a few huge trucks, carrying equipment back and forth to Prudhoe Bay, and to the pipeline? Do they even allow private cars on that in the winter? The Haul Road is gravel, and rough, rough. Those trucks can throw up all kinds of rocks, smash your windshield. Don’t get in anyone’s way down one of those long hills. It is a rare thing not to have your windshield broken going up the Haul Road.”

  • “There is next to nothing once you leave Wasilla, which is not far north of Anchorage, all the way to Fairbanks. That stretch [it would be three-hundred-plus miles to Fairbanks] will seem like the drive through Seattle compared to the Haul Road. Be sure to carry all kinds of below-zero-rated sleeping bags, at least one for each, food, water, clothes—always, always have your gas tank full. If you can, carry extra gas in plastic containers strapped to the top of your car.”

  For the most part, real Alaskans, who have lived here and not been broken by its extremes, are not excitable. Alaska is a place where you need to keep your wits about you. Many things can happen to challenge your existence. So I was a bit surprised, and eventually my surprise grew to concern, as more people told me to be careful and attentive going above the Arctic Circle in winter. In Alaska, there are many different climates. You can go over two thousand miles in some directions and still be in the state. The almost nine hundred miles we’d be traveling would take us into a different world of cold and isolation. It could be as cold as anyplace on earth and as isolated as anyplace in the world. Heat and extraordinary isolation seemed to me to be survivable. And, I told myself, if there was abundant freshwater and food to harvest, being stranded or lost somewhere could almost be enjoyable. But, the thought of being lost or stuck or held prisoner in total isolation and outrageous cold, where everything’s either frozen, hibernating, or on the verge of starving, was for me one of the most awful scenarios I had ever entertained.

  One afternoon before we left, I was down at AVTEC, the local technical school, on the stair-stepper. Next to me was a student, a Yupik Eskimo from outside Bethel. We got to talking while we sweated off some winter hibernation fat. I told him where we were going, that I was taking my wife a
nd daughter. He seemed to pick up his speed.

  “You ever been in a really, really cold place?” he asked after what seemed like a long silence.

  “Not really.” I slowed down; sweat was dripping down my face and head. Another Eskimo guy who was shooting pool had put on a hypnotic techno-dance CD. Why did this young guy seem concerned?

  “You must not let yourself, your center self”—he rubbed on his heart and chest—“get cold.”

  The young Eskimo got off the stair-stepper and came and stood next to me. He did not look at me when he said, “You stay on the road, whatever you do.”

  He walked away and shot three games of pool; he slaughtered his friend, almost running the table each time. This young, helpful Yupik was an exacting shot.

  I stayed on the stair-stepper at least a half hour longer than usual, sweating, worrying, trying to wall out rambling thoughts of being lost in below-zero weather without communication devices, defensive weapons, or any real experience with the life-robbing cold.

  * * *

  Two weeks later, we left. We would meet Eric and some of his family in Fairbanks and follow them to Coldfoot. Then we’d take snow machines more than sixty miles to their place, down something Eric called the winter trail. First we drove from Seward to Anchorage. There was no way we would have stayed on the road without four-wheel drive. I’d bought our used Explorer from Hertz in Anchorage. If we’d only been in Alaska in the summer, almost any funky vehicle would have done, as long as it was big enough to protect us if we ran into a moose. Tragically just a few miles out of Seward, a long-married couple in a compact car had hit a moose and the woman had been killed. Driving in winter in Alaska required a better vehicle. I would not risk the life of anyone in my family any more than we were just by being here. Several times on our way to Anchorage, the car went into a slide, and twice we would have spun out and worse if the on-demand four-wheel drive had not locked on when the back tires began spinning and sliding out of control. Some longtime Alaskan drivers passed me going at least seventy-five. These maniacs seem to know how to keep it on the road. The definition of road in the winter we were having this year is, you don’t see any pavement; the driving surface is ice and snow with some occasional salt.

  In at least six places in the mountains along the road from Seward to Anchorage, the destructive evidence of this winter’s avalanches was sobering. Whole slashes of mountainside and valley were cleared and flattened by the snow’s sliding destructiveness. Trees up to a foot and a half thick had been uprooted and snapped off in milliseconds. The snow had been cleared to the road’s edge, though guardrails that had been crumpled or twisted had not yet been replaced.

  A deserted car lay stripped of its tires, its windows broken, on the side of the road before we got to Turnagain Arm. Back in the summer, a local Anchorage lawyer had driven somewhere out here, mysteriously became disoriented, and gotten lost in the woods. Her family had come looking for her from Alabama. Most people thought she was dead, but eventually some gold miners found her naked, cold, and hungry under a blue tarp, which she’d gotten from one of their mine sites.

  Another wild-child Alaskan driver sped by us at seventy-five. How did they keep it under control at that speed, even with studded tires? We passed a coyote eating something dead and frozen on the lake on our right. Three moose lay still in the willows on our left. The moose came down low into these valleys to eat the bark off the willows.

  “Are we there yet?” Julianne asked.

  “No, we’ve got a long trip ahead of us, honey, then we’ll spend the night in Fairbanks. In the morning we’ll meet the people we’ll be staying with and follow them almost four hundred more miles. You’ll get to meet their daughter.”

  “Okay, Dad.”

  Like her mother, Julianne had brought her JanSport backpack full of things: CDs, Game Boy, snacks. The child is prepared.

  “Dad, do you want to listen to Britney Spears or Macy Gray?”

  “How about Macy Gray.”

  “Okay, Dad.” She put it on and started playing Donkey Kong.

  YOU ARE NOT GUARANTEED

  Lately I had been enjoying the sound of the roaring Turnagain Arm winds searching their way up and over the surrounding mountains. Past Girdwood, silver-gray clouds were lying straight above the lined-up mountains. The mountains looked like wolves’ teeth. The sun, red and bright orange, was like a spotlight shooting straight across the earth as it appeared for another day. It lit the underneath of the gray clouds a softer, pastel red and orange but blasted bright light on the mountainsides. I had to pull over and marvel, something we often did here in Alaska.

  We slushed our way through Anchorage, Eagle River, and Wasilla. Between Willow and Trapper Creek, Julianne had fallen asleep and Rita was reading a book written by an Alaskan wilderness B&B owner/chef. The land was flattening out and becoming darkly wooded. Several moose appeared at the edge of the road like giant shadow spirits. How could something as big as they are be hard to see?

  “Dad, I’m thirsty,” came a sleepy whisper.

  We passed a road with about twenty-five mailboxes at the end of it all nailed to one horizontal board, and then we came to a Tesoro gas station in Sunshine, Alaska. Talkeetna was not far to the east. This station and restaurant next to it seemed to be Sunshine, Alaska. Public showers were available here for locals with no running water: local homesteaders, old hippies, young hippies, and the self-sufficient with no electricity or no well. Around here in the woods is a large group “living on the land.” At least four customers inside needed showers; two had on frayed flannel shirts with holes in the elbows and no coat. All had matted hair and smelled like wood smoke. It was a warm four below. An old, yellowed stuffed polar bear was by the entrance to the bathrooms, along with lights that were too bright. Racks of Chee•tos, Doritos, and sodas lined the walls.

  I grabbed a couple Power Aids and a water for Rita and went to pay. On the counter was a jar of red licorice, some lighters, Duracell batteries, some Altoids, and a pile of fliers, two or three sheets each, stapled together. I picked one up thinking it might be some local petition for people who wanted no limit on the number of sled dogs in their yard, or no limit on the speed they could travel on their snow machines, or no limit on what they could grow in their greenhouse. I’ve learned much about America by reading what’s tacked up on bulletin boards inside neighborhood stores or printed on petitions and pass-outs for everyone on the counter.

  It turns out the three stapled sheets of paper dealt with how to get free food, an odd offering in a quick stop where food is at its most expensive. At the top of the paper was the line “Instructions for Road-Killed Moose Application.”

  It was from the Alaska Department of Public Safety, Division of Fish and Wildlife Protection, Big Lake, Alaska. Underlined, in capital letters and in bold type, the next thing it said was ONLY ONE APPLICATION PER HOUSEHOLD PER YEAR MAY BE SUBMITTED. Does this mean each household that applies can only get one road-killed moose per year? When the caller from Fish and Wildlife Protection calls, you better be ready to go, get, and butcher on the spot whatever moose, or part of the moose that is there, no matter where it is.

  The application sheet spelled out in typical in-your-face Alaskan style the following: “You are not guaranteed to receive a full-grown, adult moose with only minor injuries. You may be called to pick up a small calf moose, or perhaps only half of a train-killed moose.”

  When a train hits a moose, it doesn’t slice it precisely in half, like a meat saw does a beef carcass; it does severe and crushing damage. When the snow is deep, as it can be along the Alaska Railroad main line between Fairbanks and Anchorage, the moose will gather in or near the tracks for relief. Wolves have a big advantage over the moose when the snow is deep, especially if there is a crust on top that will support the wolves’ weight. Sometimes so many moose are on the tracks the railroad sends a special advance car in front of the train to drive the moose off. Sometimes the moose don’t move or, if they do, they get right back
on the tracks.

  The instructions continued, “What you receive is the ‘luck of the draw,’ so salvage what you can. Do not call and ask to be placed back on the list because you don’t feel that you received enough meat—many people receive nothing.” A full-grown, healthy moose in its prime can yield the lucky roadkill harvester four hundred to five hundred pounds of excellent, healthy, low-fat meat packed with protein, minerals, and vitamins. When cut off the bone, some meat would be ground up into “mooseburger,” with some for stew meat, steaks, roasts, and more. Comparing it to the price of beef, averaging $4 a pound, that’s $1,600 to $2,000 worth of meat. Naturally, that’s why everyone wants the full-grown, just barely road-killed moose. Some locals joke the train-killed ones are just tenderized.

  If someone signs up for roadkill in Alaska, he better live up to his end of the deal. “Note: If you agree to respond to a roadkill after being called, then FAIL to respond, you will be permanently removed from the roadkill list.”

  What if a fourteen-hundred-pound moose is hit and dies in your front yard, in the parking lot of your restaurant? Whoever’s next on the list must adhere to the following rules: “You must remove the hide, head, legs, and meat from the kill site. The gut pile is to be moved well off the roadway and, if possible, out of sight. [The gut pile is one of the brown bear’s favorite snacks.] It may not be left on private property. Failure to comply could result in a citation being issued and your name will be removed from future roadkill lists.” Can you imagine little Timothy sharing with his fifth-grade class that his family was removed from the roadkill list because they failed to move every bit of the gut pile from the parking lot of that gas station?