Epic Solitude

by Katherine Keith

  We need fish. The dogs are getting skinny, and we use two bags of dog food daily. In the warmth of camp, over two days we weave floats and rope through the tops and bottoms of two 150-foot-long nets taking meticulous care to hang them in even intervals. Once finished, it is time to place them beneath the ice of Kobuk Lake.

  Ed, his brother Mark, and Peter take two snow machines. Ruth, the kids, and I follow by dog team. Two hours later, we find them nine miles from camp on Kobuk Lake.

  The giant, white sea leads out to the foreign horizon. The traditional process for placing sheefish gill nets under the ice is nuanced. We cut holes in the ice ten feet apart and thread a rope under the holes using a twelve-foot spruce pole with an antler secured to the tip as a hook. We do this for three hundred feet until the rope is all under the ice. Meanwhile, the temperature is ten below with harsh winds blowing in our faces. My gloves and clothes, now wet, quickly freeze solid, which makes holding on to an ice-covered tree pole a challenge.

  After finishing the net, we run the dogs back to camp. The sun dips down below the icy horizon, and the full moon rises in the east in perfect counterbalance. A bright orange fireball sets the white ice on fire. The ice turns to molten lava as the moon creeps away from the edge of existence. Jupiter and Saturn shine, indifferent to our efforts and to the spectacular antics of the moon. The planets march their way through the zodiac, and one by one the stars add their light to the blackness of the heavens. This silent song sings to my soul. Frozen and numb, I enjoy the run home.

  After feeding the dogs, I sit on the pond by the water hole again, looking up at Jupiter as it shines out, ascending in the north. Northern lights reach from west to east curving in a green arc. The outermost ring is a brilliant reddish orange. The lights follow the plane of the ecliptic. Perhaps, if I could stand on Saturn, this is what its rings would look like. I sit. Not a single thought floats through my consciousness. Sitting, taking God in, letting self go. Breathing. Breathing. Breathing. To maintain a healthy and strong mind, I have renewed my Buddhist practice.

  My earlier Buddhist teachings follow me up north, but they now take a turn into metta, universal loving-kindness. In secret, I endeavor to be a great and humble bodhisattva, a spiritual warrior who delays reaching enlightenment so they can help others to get there first. This is who I want to be. I want to take my ugly trauma and transform it into a magnificent lotus flower from which all people can inhale the essence and heal in that instant. In this manner, my suffering may have meaning and may be worth it. No, I don’t have an ego. But, yes, I want to ease suffering. Please let me help!

  I want to be a torch, one that sparks inspiration and hope in others; a hermit in the night, wandering through the dark fog, lighting the way for lost and lonely travelers. I wish for others to say yes rather than giving up on themselves. All people should have someone in their life as I had Judith that night when, in a desperate state, I needed to hear that one strong word: live. That spontaneous answer was my truest gift. I am not a real believer in God. I try on religions like shirts in a thrift store. It isn’t the shirt that matters but who wears the shirt. I’ve been an atheist, a shaman, a Buddhist, a Catholic, a new age spiritualist, a light worker, all within the first twenty years of my life. That yes changed me.

  I understand that to be a bodhisattva, I need to gain bodhicitta, an awakened heart. An awakened heart is not a fake-happy thing. An awakened heart, while wounded, softens with an awareness of suffering. While out in the dog yard, feeding ninety hungry canines, I have time to recite the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism as if a mantra. “Suffering is a part of everyone’s life. The cause of suffering is our own desire, ignorance, and hatred. We can extinguish desire by liberating ourselves from attachment. We can overcome suffering by following the Eightfold Path.”

  It is part of my master plan that living in the middle of the wilderness in “Nowhere, Alaska,” will help me follow the Eightfold Path. It demands a commitment to be the best person I can be. In such capacity, maybe I can overcome suffering. It’s that easy—eight steps:

  1.Develop a deep understanding of the Four Noble Truths to inspire us to continue with the remaining steps.

  2.Commit to self-improvement.

  3.Speak in kind and truthful manner.

  Okay, great. Steps one through three I have covered.

  4.Develop “right action” through behaving with compassion toward others.

  I wonder what this means. Does this mean compassion for my abuser? No thanks. I fall into the category of a nice Minnesotan. I will cook you goulash and tuna casserole and send you on your way. But yes, I will send you on your way. Plus, I might spit in your goulash.

  5.Earning a living harming no being.

  Where does dog mushing come in? I feed the dogs fish. It brings the fish harm to keep the dogs alive. Is that wrong? What about when the dogs injure their shoulders or wrists while racing? What about the horses? We ride horses, and they help with manual labor. Is that harming them? Also, since coming to Alaska, I’ve been eating a lot of meat. In fact, it is my main food group. I am going to hell. Oh, wait, this is not Catholicism.

  6.Banishing negative thoughts to conquer ignorance and desires.

  Wow, I am terrible at this. The Eightfold Path might be harder to follow than I think. I am the queen of hating myself. I hate myself so much that I was ready to kill myself. How does a person ever change being negative? I have been through tons of therapy and learned many skills, but my mental loop is the same as it ever has been.

  7.Encourage wholesome thoughts. All we say and do arises from our thoughts.

  8.Develop and strengthen the depth of our concentration.

  Number eight seems to be the easiest.

  I am a terrible bodhisattva and a terrible Buddhist to boot. Can we clean our slate? Can we erase karma? My mantra is now “May all beings be well; may all beings find happiness; may all beings be free from suffering; may I not be a loser.” Humor helps.

  I hear my stomach growl as I face the most difficult decision to date: Do I stay here outside, coexisting with hard-won, complete sanity, or do I go where dinner and wine wait? Realizing, the sky won’t be going away, it doesn’t take long before I am warming up indoors.

  Moose

  Kobuk Lake, Alaska | 2000

  Stillness of the dead of night

  Stillness between tides and waves

  Stillness of the instant before creation.

  —Journal entry, December 9, 2000

  At noon I take off to the sheefish net, nine miles away. My lead dog, Devon, has a different goal in mind. For two hours Devon insists on going the wrong way. Devon turns the team around at every opportunity. I tip my sled over twice and break two snow hooks. Realizing Devon is only interested in messing with me, I try other dogs up in lead, but none of them can lead the team. I have to turn around to get a different leader. Twenty minutes after getting back, Peter pulls up with the other good dogs. I grab two, putting Garrett in lead, and am relieved to find he is a perfect fit. We head out toward the net again with no problems. The temperature drops after I get to the nets. The brisk twenty degrees below zero now turns to minus thirty.

  I want to visit to Dave’s camp to say hi, use his jigsaws, and go sledding with Alan. Dave is leaving for three weeks for the Christmas holiday. It will be a long three weeks, but perhaps it will clear my head and let the butterflies in my stomach rest. After checking the net, I take the dogs another two miles to find an empty house and a locked door. I see my reflection in his window. I’m frozen. Ice covers my eyebrows and lashes. My hair is solid white. I get home, not once being inside for the past seven hours at thirty below. It takes over an hour for my face to thaw.

  A week later I take my skate skis and start the ten-mile trek to Dave’s camp. After calling ahead, I know he is home. I spot four new sets of moose tracks. Near the beach, I hear a moose call out in front of me. It sounds like a snow m
achine stuck in the snow, revving its engine to break out of its hole. I assume that it is a mom separated from her calf with me in between. Instead of bolstering my courage, my past close encounters with a mountain lion and bear only help me realize that I don’t care to be in this situation again. I can’t keep turning around only to feel stranded and alone, afraid to venture out anywhere. I need to learn to shoot a gun. I need to get to Dave’s camp regardless, so onward. The three of us have a great time and say our goodbyes for the holidays.

  Weeks pass by at a crawl. Dave’s long absence from Kotzebue makes me eager to see him again. I spend New Year’s Eve in Kotzebue to watch the fireworks as a treat. On the way back to camp, I stop at Dave’s, aware he is home. It is a pitch-black night, cloudy with no moon. I make it to Dave’s around eight o’clock in the evening. Alan is in town for the night. It is awkward at first, without Alan there to connect with or distract me, but Dave brings out the Wild Turkey, and any tension soon dissipates.

  The music is blaring while Dave and I blabber on about everything and nothing. Throughout the night, we loosen up and let go of any blocks holding us back from getting close. Through our stories, I discover that Dave doesn’t want marriage, because of how it binds and ties you down, how it restricts and suffocates. Dave discovers how I feel a relationship should be as two wholes coming together in freedom. In our own ways, we check out each other’s perspectives.

  By three in the morning, we figure out I am not leaving, and he offers me his bed. We lie next to each other’s naked skin. Nothing feels finer, so comforting, so warm. It doesn’t take long for our bodies to unite in passionate, mad lovemaking. We cling to each other in desperate craving for the union we’ve been longing for. Hungry for every inch of him, I won’t let him go.

  In the morning, Dave mentions his plans for the log cabin he is constructing, plans that now include me. I feel we will either slide into this courting-type situation, or I will move over to Dave’s camp, starting a new life at once. Knowing myself, it seems likely I will be extreme.

  After seven months of living at the Itens, I absorb all I can from them, and it is time to leave. Ed and Ruth provide me with a plane ticket to Anchorage. I pack my bags and get a ride via snow machine to Dave’s camp. Dave isn’t expecting me.

  I pull up with my luggage and ask him, “Can I stay for a few days? Maybe a couple weeks while I decide where to find work?”

  Dave says, “Want you to stay? Heck, I even have a chair with your name carved on it waiting for you. You are not going anywhere.”

  From that point forward, we wind up making our plans together (see fig. 15).

  Iditarod, Mile 188

  Rohn, Alaska | 2014

  Well the race it won’t be easy

  For the masters of the trail

  And some of them will make it and

  some of them will fail

  But just to run that race takes a

  tough and hardy breed,

  And a lot of work done by the dogs

  that run across snow with whistling speed.

  —Hobo Jim, “The Iditarod Trail Song”

  After a long, winding ascent to the 4,875-foot summit of Rainy Pass, we dip down into Dalzell Gorge. There is no snow. The trail is an endless vertical chute of dirt, glare ice, ice blocks, tree stumps, and rocks. Ice bridges exist, but half the time their angle swings me and the sled into a gully to smack into a wall of ice, stopping all progress. The danger is real. The sled brake and tracks need snow to be effective. I have little to no stopping power. The dogs know they have control, and it feeds their enthusiasm. Faster and faster we fly through the gorge. Every second of the trail requires full focus to balance on the sled and avoid tipping over and colliding headfirst with a tree. We crash our way down Dalzell Gorge, helpless to avoid catastrophe. Between moments of panic and adrenaline, I laugh with the pure joy that comes from being in a flow state, completely absorbed in this ultimate challenge. In the dark of night, the turns ahead are invisible. My hands grip the sled in expectation. Every ounce of strength and concentration is at my disposal. I don’t know if the difficult part is over or whether another death-defying section is just around the bend.

  I am ecstatic when I finally pull into the stately, pine-tree-surrounded Rohn checkpoint in one piece.

  “How was the trail?” Bruce Lee asks upon my arrival.

  “It was awesome!” I say, and I mean it too. I’m in a state of excited triumph and feel more alive than I have in years.

  I feed and bed down the dogs, when exhaustion sweeps over me. I crawl into my sleeping bag next to the dogs on a pile of straw protected by a large pine. My body aches as I lay down to rest, feeling for the first time all the bumps and bruises from the run. At twenty below zero, I am warm enough. The smoke of firewood from tent frames combines with the fish from the dog cookers to produce a pure Alaskan aroma. I crawl deeper into my bag hoping for sleep. There are likely two hundred dogs in Rohn—all of them wired after the Gorge. Rounds of long, soulful howls roll across the checkpoint in waves as they join in a chorus of harmony.

  After forty-five minutes of trying to sleep, I give up. I require coffee. I stumble into the checkpoint station to fill up my thermos.

  I overhear Jake Berkowitz say, “The next run will be tough. It’s just as challenging as the run we completed getting here.”

  My schedule calls for a four-hour rest, and I pace around the dog yard trying to keep from leaving early. Reports highlight over a dozen scratches from the race so far. In addition, the trail injures übertough mushers, some of whom are still racing. Hans Gatt flew into a tree and didn’t know where he was. Ralph Johannessen broke ribs. Aaron Burmeister tore the ACL in both his knees. I see printed-out reports of people scratching. I’m uneasy, but I must continue.

  The trail through the Farewell Burn has no snow either. I make it through the first five miles at a slow crawl. The uphill climbs have coarse sand that drags on the plastic sled runners. I push my sled up the hill, running alongside it. The sled gets caught on roots, rocks, and anything else that feels like it. The downhills on the frozen rock become steep, fast, long, and full of obstacles. The burn is worse than the gorge. I dance on the runners as my sled flies down one steep hill after another with no steering.

  This continues until we bounce off one tree, hit a rock, then fly headfirst into another tree. Crack! Did my head hit the tree? Did my sled hit it? Dazed, I walk up to check on the team hoping they are okay. I walk back to the sled to resume our traveling.

  “Up, Up,” I call out.

  Nothing happens.

  “All right. Good dogs! Let’s go! Up!”

  Again, nothing happens. Maybe I hit my head harder than I thought.

  Living

  Kobuk Lake, Alaska | 2001

  In the caribou tundra, in the wild barren land.

  On the fierce arctic ice, where the polar bears stand.

  Where the trail of the Eskimo hunter is worn.

  This is the country where legends are born.

  Where the northern lights blaze above a cold arctic

  haze and caribou come to an old shaman’s drum.

  —Hobo Jim, “Where Legends Are Born”

  The serenity I find with Dave in the heart of this landscape I’d envisioned since I was a child feels too good to be true. Dave and I struggle to trust one another enough to become vulnerable. He comes to our relationship with his own baggage too, having been in a relationship with a woman who left him with sole custody of their now-eight-year-old son.

  Alan has trouble adjusting to my presence in his life. I want to be his friend yet also a mother and teacher. Dave and Alan aren’t keeping up with Alan’s homeschooling. I encourage rebellious Alan to get his work done and take his required tests. Alan misses the solo time with his dad, but we find avenues to connect. We can play various games until the generator runs out of gas, the gas lights run out of propane, and Dave is snoring.
Even then, we can stay entertained.

  Chores take up a lot of time. Dave is an expert at working a chain saw and building things. I don’t have the technical skill, but work ethic gets me through. I try to build a chicken coop, doghouses, outhouse, greenhouse, etc. It is still so early, but with each passing day, my heart falls deeper in love with Dave. I’m done looking back or even too far forward.

  I look up at the sky. “What future is there for Dave and me?” I ask the moon, lacking other company. “How can I help Alan adjust better to life with me? Will I ever not feel so alone? … The nightmares have gone away since moving in with Dave. Are they gone for good now? … Is it okay to want a family? to put down roots in this world?” The moon appears serene and all-knowing, and I hope for answers as if it were an oracle goddess.

  The moon answers me the same way she has answered women throughout the eons. Regardless of my words, the moon reaches into my soul and answers the question in my heart, not those in my mind.

  “Follow the moon shadow,” I hear. “When the heart follows the moon shadow, you will never go astray.”

  Unsure about the relevancy of the moon’s reply, I assume I should follow my heart and look to nature for answers.

  Without nightmares plaguing me, my waking hours are relaxed, carefree, and happy. Feeling safe with Dave has positive effects. I tell Dave everything that happened in my past, trusting him to hold my truth and not run away. The struggles that drove me to Alaska slip away from my awareness like a cloud gliding off a mountain top.