Sea
Seward, Alaska | 2000
Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful.
Beauty is God’s handwriting.
—Charles Kingsley
I am at the end of the road in Seward, Alaska and out of money. I can only drive my ice cream truck about five miles more before it is out of even fumes. It is hard to worry about much. I am in the most beautiful place on the entire planet, nestled on the shores of Resurrection Bay, with massive mountains sliding into the glacial-blue water. The sky is vast and clear. Snowcapped mountains surround the sea. The setting sun casts an alpine glow on glaciers across the bay, painting them in orange.
The town itself is in the corner of the bay where historic Seward, established in 1904, showcases a long history of geology and mining. Hundreds of sea gulls circle around the sailboats and fishing vessels, exploring the sky realm uninhibited. A large whale welcomes me with its black-and-white fin splashing in the bay. Seward sits in a temperate rain forest, and vegetation abounds.
Mountains can make you feel either very lonely or very connected. Each range has a unique vibe to it. Here they are soft and welcoming, opening the heart of this ancient land to my foreign soul. Nature offers lessons for those who will listen. My ears experience a harmonic ecstasy with wave after wave breaking upon a rocky shoreline. Soft, mischievous winds toy with my hair, making me smile.
My soul can take a break from pushing along my path. This is it. I will stay here for the summer. I land a job at the Icicle Seafoods processing plant, starting out as a belly-slitter. Excited to have a job, I forget to consider what the job actually entails. The stench is overwhelming, and the wet work is tedious. I don’t know what to expect on the “slime line.” Perhaps my years of being a vegan have not prepared me for the harsh reality of Alaskan work. I walk away, after one day, with an eight-hour paycheck. I cash it and treat myself to a trip to the grocery store and gas station.
I continue my job search and discover a couple of kayak businesses in town that cater to local tourists. I stop in at one to find it staffed for the summer. They point me toward Alaska Kayak Company out on Lowell Point two miles south of Seward. Saving gas, I walk there to meet with an elderly gentleman named Jack.
“So, do you know how to kayak?” he asks.
“Sure! Yes, of course.”
“Where did you learn? Do you have much sea kayaking experience?”
“I grew up in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes. I lived on the water,” I say, not answering his question. I’ve never been sea kayaking before. I canoed all over Minnesota, though—how different can it be? “I need work. I’m a super hard worker and love being on the water … I’ll do chores around the office. Please, give me this dream job.”
“Let’s get after it then,” Jack says.
Puzzled, I follow him down to the beach.
“Let me see you suit up.”
My blank stare as he hands me a kayak squirt, paddle, and life jacket answers a thousand questions.
“Hop in,” he says. “I’ll push you off.”
Being on the water in this fast, slim sea kayak is exhilarating. We take off for a two-hour trip from the Lowell Point State Recreation Area to Tonsina Point. It must be obvious that I am not an expert kayak instructor. Jack gives me pointers on how to paddle. In my mind, the worst-case scenario is that I get a free kayak ride in Resurrection Bay—a win-win opportunity. It turns out that Jack has a soft spot for adventurers and gives me a job.
“I should let you know, while I am not homeless, I live in an ice cream short bus,” I say. “Do you have a place I can park it?”
Jack nods in understanding. “You can park it alongside the office. There’s a freezer in back, so help yourself to the food. Hope you like meat.”
After starving for the past couple of weeks, this is a major gift. Tears of gratitude fill my eyes. I open the freezer to find it filled with frozen game: moose, halibut, and salmon. My days as a vegan are over.
I run over and give Jack a bear hug. “Thank you so much. I won’t let you down.”
Life can’t get much better. I am on the water all day. The kayaking around Resurrection Bay features turquoise-blue waters, cracking glaciers, cliffs with nesting birds, puffins, bald eagles, leaping salmon, sea otters, harbor seals, killer whales—everything. I love taking tourists to isolated beaches and making a fire out of driftwood. Plus I get tips for doing what I love. Jack allows full access to the kayaks. At night, after everybody goes home for the day, I kayak around Resurrection Bay and explore in solitude.
Phosphorescence
Seward, Alaska | 2000
There’s a part of me, wild and free.
In my heart there’s a wild wolf howling
through the tall pine trees.
It’s a long cold trail that I’ve been on,
There just doesn’t seem to be an end to this
way I’ve been going.
—Hobo Jim, “Wild and Free”
I am twenty-two years old today.
To celebrate, Jack tells me, “Why don’t you take a kayak downtown. Young gal like yourself must enjoy a good time.”
“I’d love to, Jack, but we have an early group tomorrow. I don’t think I want to have a hangover on the choppy sea.”
“Ah, the good old days,” he says. “Don’t you worry about that. I have it all planned out. Another guide offered to grab the morning trip for you.”
I take him up on it, and as the sun sets, I push the single kayak into the still waters of the black ocean and paddle two miles to downtown Seward, where I pull the kayak high up on the shore, knowing the tide is coming up. I walk through downtown and let my ears follow the music. It is about ten at night and the action is just kicking in at the local joints. I look for a place that matches my dancing style. I wander into the Yukon Bar, which seems to be a popular place. I grumble about the five-dollar cover but hand it over.
When he takes my ID and sees it is my birthday, the checker says, “Happy Birthday! Your drinks are on the house tonight!” In Alaska, women are few and far between, so we get treated accordingly. There is a saying about Alaska and its men: Where the odds are good, but the goods are odd. But I am not there to drink or look for men. I want to dance.
Dancing to good music brings a feeling of freedom. A man by the name of Hobo Jim is playing Alaskan music. His words generate pride in belonging in this great state, although my resident status is still pending. He plays songs about the Iditarod, living in wood cabins, being wild and free, the land of the midnight sun, the northern lights, and everything I am looking for in life. I stay all night. The “Iditarod Trail Song” appears to be a town favorite, and he plays it a handful of times.
The drunken crowd yells out in unison at every chorus, “I did, I did, I did the Iditarod Trail!”
I think to myself that one day I will sing this with conviction. My dream of being behind a team of dogs comes alive again. Thanks, Hobo Jim.
At one in the morning, I walk back to where I pulled up the kayak, and pause in wonder at the surrounding splendor. “Wild and free” is what I feel. I sit in the kayak, with the cold water of Resurrection Bay dripping onto my legs and push off the shore into glass-calm water. I take my time, wanting to linger in the solitude of the vast ocean water. I paddle through the thick liquid, reluctant to disturb the ocean’s slumber. Making my way deeper into the bay, I stop paddling to lie back and stare up at the bright, starry sky sparkling with life.
The paddle dips into the water, which comes alive with color. This neon–blue-green magic substance shimmers every time I touch it as if fireflies are swimming in the water. Perplexed, I look behind me and see the kayak is leaving a trail of blue light. What did I drink tonight? This bioluminescent plankton is cheering me on or warning me away. The stars reflect in the water and a meteor shower adds to the glory like a cymbal punctuating a symphony.
&nbs
p; A family of sea otters swims in front of the red kayak on their way to the shore. I watch them cross before daring to move again. My meditation stops when a larger-than-life whale rises in front of me and dives back into the water with a tail that flaps down into the water, splashing me with star-speckled water. The magic plankton soon scatters and the light dissipates, leaving me again in dark wonder.
It is my birthday, so I take all these experiences as a gift from the universe. I feel out of time and reality as I paddle back to my short bus of a home and sleep away my fairy-tale evening with visions of whales, dog teams, lead dogs, and 1,049 miles of the Iditarod Trail.
Part Two:
Rookie Mistakes
Iditarod, Mile 0
Anchorage, Alaska | 2014
Away up in Alaska
The state that stands alone
There’s a dog race run from Anchorage into Nome
And it’s a grueling race with a lightning pace
Where chilly winds do wail.
Beneath the northern lights, across snow and ice
It’s called the Iditarod Trail.
—Hobo Jim, “The Iditarod Trail Song”
The Iditarod began during the famed diphtheria-serum run of 1925 when Leonhard Seppala and other dog mushers carried medicine across Interior Alaska to Nome in western Alaska. To commemorate the serum run, they held the first official Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in 1973. Mushers traveled, and still travel, from checkpoint to checkpoint much as freight mushers did ninety years ago. Joe Redington Sr., the Father of the Iditarod, organized the first Iditarod. His vision was to preserve sled dog culture, Alaskan huskies, and the historic Iditarod Trail between Seward and Nome. Joe and countless others made this cause their life’s work. Out of respect, Joe’s name is still called out during the roll call of every Iditarod Trail Committee board meeting. The board president excuses Redington’s absence because “Joe is on the trail.”
The Iditarod covers the roughest, most beautiful terrain Alaska offers. The official race starts in Willow. Mushers head out to the Yentna Station Roadhouse, Skwentna and then up through Finger Lake, Rainy Pass, over the jagged Alaska Range and down the other side to the Kuskokwim River. It leads into the interior and on to the mighty Yukon River, a highway that leads teams west. The trail goes through frozen rivers, tundra, and forest.
The race route alternates every other year. On even-numbered years, the trail heads north through Cripple, Ruby, and Galena. On odd years, the trail heads south through Iditarod, Shageluk, and Anvik. Teams end up following the Bering Sea coast through Unalakleet, Shaktoolik, Koyuk, Elim, Golovin, White Mountain, until at last arriving under the Burled Arch of Nome.
According to Bruce Lee from the Iditarod Insider, “Team building, that’s what the Iditarod is all about.” The race is unique in that there are thousands of trail volunteers, fifty-five volunteer veterinarians, and fifteen veterinary technicians.
As I gear up to run my first Iditarod in 2014, I focus not on competing but on learning how to run a long-distance race. My dog team has a wide age range with varied experience. Four dogs are between six and nine years old: Summit, Rambo, Huffy, and Speckle. Seven other dogs from our kennel are between two and four years old: Ears, Neo, Joy, Ghoulie, Ringo, Blaze, and Spook. I keep fourteen dogs, rather than the allowed sixteen, considering the difficult trail conditions this year. The race officials predict a hard, icy, and fast trail. More dogs could be unmanageable for a rookie. Ears and Summit are my core lead dogs.
The Iditarod auctions off the main seat in each mushers’ sled during the ceremonial start in Anchorage, which goes twelve miles on city trails to the Campbell Creek Science Center. The Iditarod calls these auction winners “Idita-riders.” A dog handler rides the second sled for safety in case a musher falls off the main sled during the downtown portion of the event and creates a risk for both the dogs and the Idita-rider. We don’t want to give anyone too interesting of an experience.
“Are you ready?” I holler to the handler, hoping to hide my nervousness as I look down the starting chute on Fourth Avenue at one of my life’s dreams. I do my best to keep calm and on top of things.
“Holy Shit!” I say under my breath so no one around me hears. I raise my head to look up at the Iditarod start banner and hear hundreds of dogs barking around me in eager anticipation of the run ahead.
“And here we have Katherine Keith from Kotzebue, Alaska,” the announcers call out. Our team moves forward to line up at the starting chute.
“We made it!” I call out to anyone who will hear, not shy about embarrassing myself. At least my exclamation missed the TV cameras surrounding us while the announcers read the short bio of our team.
“Katherine is an iron woman. She and her dogs train year-round above the Arctic Circle with John Baker to have the best kennel in the world!”
I grimace, wondering why I don’t pay better attention to what cheesy stuff I write in the bio.
The restart begins in Willow the following day at two o’clock. This is a far more serious event because it is the last opportunity to pack critical gear and get everything right, but I am fortunate to have a great crew of family and friends to get me to the start line.
“Three, two, one, go!” the announcer shouts.
Volunteers release my sled to enable the dogs to sprint northwest to Nome. The first fifty miles of the race is a total celebration. Every half mile has a new bonfire with people who cheer us on and somehow call out our names. Fans hand out cans of beer, Rockstar drinks, hot dogs, and cookies (see fig. 13).
The first few checkpoints are full of teams, but there are still a surprising number of teams camped outside the checkpoints. My strategy for the first few days of the race is to keep the dogs on an even run-rest schedule. This means I run the dogs five hours then rest for five hours. If the run goes long, the rest needs to increase by same amount. The trail to Finger Lake is flat and smooth, at which point the trail climbs up into the Alaska Range to the Rainy Pass checkpoint.
My naïvety leaves me ignorant of what makes up a good trail. I accept each successive mile with nonjudgmental openness. I enjoy almost every mile of trail and every checkpoint. I cherish this awe-inspiring adventure of crossing Alaska with only myself, a sled, and the finest of dogs.
Glacier
Seward, Alaska | 2000
Keep close to Nature’s heart…and break clear away,
once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week
in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.
—John Muir
The summer tourist season dies down in Seward, and I need to find additional work. Not long after listening to Hobo Jim, I come across another dream job at Godwin Glacier Dog Sled Tours, which gives sled rides on top of a nearby glacier. As part of the job interview, I take a helicopter ride up to the glacier with some tourists. The pilot has a horrible sense of entertaining himself at the expense of the stomachs of his passengers. At least he provides information about the glacier and the wildlife inhabiting it. We land on a surreal moonlike setting, and a tour guide provides guests with information about dogs and dogsledding in Alaska and prepares them all for rides. This tour guide, Dario Daniels, has finished the Iditarod and is raising money to do so again this year. The tourists and I receive a thirty-minute dogsled ride across the gorgeous glacier. It comes at the steep price of $500 per adult, but it is clear from the guests, with smiling faces full of exhilaration, that they feel this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Another win-win situation for me whether or not I get the job.
I meet the crew and get a tour of the facilities. I stay up on the glacier all day, going down with the last tour. By the end of the week, I receive notification that I am hired. I give Jack my notice and my heartfelt thanks. He has another guide who can pick up any remaining tours.
I learn how to feed the dogs and harness them and figure out their names. As any dog handler knows, the quickest wa
y to learn is just by doing. I get thrown into the mix with directions to just keep busy. Days later, I am on the runners learning the commands for making a dog team move forward (up up), turn right (gee), turn left (haw), and to stop (whoa). I am like a little kid at Christmas because, once again, I land a job I can’t believe I get paid to do. I love this crazy state.
The glacier-mushing job is soon ending, and I need work for the winter. The most practical place for this is Anchorage, where there are many job opportunities and places to park my ice cream bus. But being stuck in the city isn’t the right choice for me. I came up north to find the real Alaska. Time for the Brooks Range and bush Alaska.
One of my favorite places for refreshments in Seward is the iconic Resurrect Art Coffee House. I stop in when I’m off the glacier for a good cup of coffee and culture. They have job postings and notifications of interesting things going on around town. The old church architecture combined with local artwork makes a stunning backdrop for the mix of Alaskans and tourists who find their way here. I order my trademark “homeless iced latte” and browse the ads as I wait for my coffee. I look up and notice one with potential:
help wanted in kotzebue, alaska
Learn about running dogs above the Arctic Circle in rural Alaska. We provide room and board. Contact Ruth Iten for information.
That is all the information I need. I give Ruth a call and talk to her about what the job entails. They buy an airplane ticket and arrange transportation from Kotzebue to their camp. I sell my bus for a profit in Girdwood and make my way up to Anchorage, where I catch a flight to Kotzebue in late September.
Horses
Fish Creek, Alaska | 2000
Argue for your limitations,
and sure enough, they’re yours.
Epic Solitude Page 10