The stool Dave carved my name into sits on the side of the house facing east so I can enjoy the incomparable hillside vista. The quiet majesty of the land strikes a healing cord, soothing pains from the past and washing away impurities. The snow sparkles with twinkling fairy dust, a crystal finer than an empress’s best, reflecting the sun’s warmth in speckled harmony. My mind is as still as the ice which I gaze out upon this clear springlike day in mid-February. The chickadees and blue jays are flocking about, singing and dancing in the richness of the day. The branches of the alder trees wear hoarfrost and look as if they’d grown thorns overnight. Kobuk Lake wears many faces. The glare ice can be as smooth as a baby’s bottom or rough and pockmarked like the face of an old man, some areas are riddled with cracks and wrinkles that look like the weathered eyes of a grandmother, and the lake can have large rolling drifts like a giant field of marshmallows.
Building a house and supplying it with gas requires cash. We have a wide variety of entrepreneurial ideas. Local stores overcharge for rifles and ammunition is expensive, so I obtain a federal firearms license. Other than the two stores, there is only one other license holder in town. We order in bulk and help provide local hunters with affordable caribou meat. I dream about opening a bakery in town and calling it Simply Scrumptious. But saving up for a big dream kitchen, I instead stick with bake sales, coffee shop stands, and special orders. Alan has a snow cone machine he sets up at the local softball field. It is a slick appliance that requires a steady supply of ice—tricky without a freezer. Alan becomes an expert at taste-testing different snow cone flavors (see fig. 16).
Dave and I also make money by searching out and selling mastodon teeth, mammoth ivory, and other rarities. The permafrost preserves the remains of these massive, powerful animals that once called northwestern Alaska home. Dave, Alan, and I take off for a week or two at a time in our boat, an Olympic cabin cruiser, to search along the beach bluffs of Kotzebue Sound for long tusks that have fallen out of frozen mud or stick out along the bottoms of rivers. We fill up a couple drums of gas, load them on the boat, grab a tote of food, lots of bug spray, and take off. At night we crawl into the front of the boat to sleep. Good quality mammoth ivory sells for about $130 a pound, so if we uncover a big beautiful tusk, all fossilized, we can sell it for $13,000 to $18,000. Our explorations lead to the discovery of other things that appeal to my archaeological interests as well: ivory carvings, dogsled parts made from bone, glass fishing floats, and other amazing artifacts (see fig. 17).
In the winter, we set gill nets under the ice for sheefish. Dave has a superb system where he catches a bunch of fish, charters a small airplane, then delivers the fish to surrounding villages, where he can trade them for phenomenal carvings he then sells in various stores in Seattle or Anchorage. Dave also makes money as a mechanic, fixing up four-wheelers, snow machines, and outboard motors (see fig. 18).
In our spare time, we build our log cabin by hand, with only the simplest of tools. We dig into a hillside overlooking Kobuk Lake, six hundred yards off the beach. By building into the hill, Dave hopes to keep the north winds from cutting through the house in the winter. Since the hill is all permafrost, digging out the foundation by hand with no excavator has taken two full summers. The sun can melt about two inches of permafrost a day, so we can only dig down that far before having to stop and wait for tomorrow’s few inches to thaw. Building a house in the city can be a challenging undertaking. Building a log cabin eighteen miles from town, off the road system, and five hundred miles from the nearest Home Depot, is a different matter altogether (see fig. 19).
In the summer, Dave goes on a trip back home to Washington State to take care of some family business. Alan and I stay at camp watching over things. We drive Dave to the airport with our boat, then go back out to camp after stocking up on groceries for the week. I park the boat in front of our house because the water is too low to make it into the protected lagoon.
The next day a strong storm kicks up from the south with fifty-mile-per-hour winds, and the water level rises. Alan and I nickname it Hurricane Sunflower because it causes all of our sunflowers to fall over. Our boat heaves on the swells, and every passing wave threatens to pull the front anchor out, pushing it closer into shore. I need to move the boat and get it to safety, but I am by myself. I get on my hip boots and take the four-wheeler down to the boat. The water is high, and the four-wheeler is half underwater when the waves come.
I can’t both make it to the boat and stay dry. With conviction, I grab the shore anchor and pull the boat in as close as possible. I walk out to it, water going over my hip boots, and make it to the outboard in chest-deep cold water. I heave myself onto the outboard, kicking my knee up onto the lower unit so I can get into the boat. I toss the shore anchor into the boat and now need to start the outboard and pull up the front anchor tied to an eyebolt on the bow. The rocking and heaving is extreme, so my footing is precarious under the wave conditions. Mud and pressure act like cement on the front anchor. I cannot pull it loose.
I start the outboard and get it warmed up so that once the boat is free, I can take off before getting pushed into the beach. For half an hour, I try to free the front anchor. I tie the front anchor to a clip on the boat rail and give the outboard full power to pop the anchor free from the mud. Unsuccessful, I crawl onto the front of the boat and, taking out my knife, cut the front anchor rope, hoping that I can recover it after the storm. I scurry back to the steering wheel and shove the throttle forward, away from the shore. Water pours into the boat until I can angle it into the waves. I steer the boat toward a narrow opening of the lagoon leading to the boat harbor and hope I can make it there without getting pushed up onto the shallow sand bars.
I navigate into the boat harbor. The waves disappear, leaving me to contend only with the wind. After a few breaths, I maneuver to the beach, where I tie off to a permanent anchor. Finding the four-wheeler, I drive back up to the house to check on Alan, sit down by the woodstove, dry off, and enjoy a hot cup of coffee.
Life is full of simple wonders, from the blowing snow to the chickadees. The little, unimportant details just slip away like a hot breath on a chilly night. I learn profound lessons intermingled with the practicalities required by daily life. If we seek answers, solutions are available all around us, clear as day. The richness of living dwells in simple present moments. Why waste it on worries and fears? How can I capture these happy years like fireflies bottled on a hot summer night?
Iditarod, Mile 263
Farewell Burn, Alaska | 2014
You’re never the same after you run the Iditarod, and I still
lust to go out and run with dogs, even though I know that
I shouldn’t. But I’d give just about anything to be able to do
it again. To see the horizon again from the back of a dog
team would be wonderful.
—Gary Paulsen
I clear my head and examine the sled. The brush brow gained a hearty crack from the trip through the Dalzell Gorge and now has failed. This last tree claims victory by inserting itself through the brow, between the runners, and down through the base of my sled, which refuses to separate from it. The dogs want to pull forward; the problem is that the sled needs go backward about three feet. When brute force fails to move the sled, I transfer the gang line to the victorious tree, using spare rope to tie the dogs off to it.
I try to pull the sled free, when Jake Berkowitz comes by. “See? Told you,” he hollers out while putting his hook on a nearby tree to stop his team. After ensuring they are under control, he walks back and helps pull my sled off the tree.
“Thanks,” I say, depressed. I am in serious risk of not finishing my first Iditarod. The tree has totaled my sled.
“Have tools?” he asks.
“Yep! I carry about ten pounds of tools and spare parts. I’m good. Thanks for the help.”
“Anytime!” Jake shouts as he runs back to his t
eam.
I have no clue what repairs I can make out here that would allow me to go another mile, let alone the fifty to Nikolai. The sled will fall to pieces the next time I hit a stump or rock. To make matters worse, the removable plastic runners that let it glide over the snow wore down in the gorge. In fact, the rocks ripped one of them off, and I have no spares. I am running on aluminum. Using wire, I tie the sled up as best I can. I try multiple configurations, but no matter what I do, there is always a piece of plastic from the bottom of the sled grinding into the dirt and creating drag. After my poor fifteen-minute repair job, I transfer the gang line from the tree back to the sled.
“Ready?” I call to the resting dogs. “Up! Up! Up!,” I say, hoping we make it a few feet.
A hundred feet later, my fix-it-up job fails. I find another tree to tie off to and get more serious with my sled repair. Duct tape, ripcord, zip ties, and wire find themselves woven into an intricate spiderweb around the runners and sled bottom. I try again, this time with more success. Mile after painstaking mile, we make our way closer to Nikolai. But there’s no way we are going to reach it. I think up contingency plans in case the sled falls apart. I could walk the entire way, nursing my sled into Nikolai. Fifty miles at two miles per hour? I could be there in a day.
Two miles after my major crash, I come across Jake, now in the same situation as me. He crashed, and his sled is far beyond repair.
I stop. “Jake, what do you need?”
“Nothing at all. Our race is over.”
I am stunned. “What do you mean? Do you need tools?”
“No. I have everything, but the runner and stanchion have both snapped in half. I can’t fix this. Just keep going while you still can. I’ll figure something out.” Jake, a veteran, knows what he is talking about.
The Farewell Burn has seemingly endless numbers of steep hills with sand on the uphill sides and snow only on the downhills—go figure. I stop a dozen times to piece together the sled. We make it into Nikolai eleven hours after leaving Rohn.
At the Nikolai checkpoint, I search for another sled. Martin Buser comes to my rescue and offers me his spare.
“It’s not much,” he says in his humble manner.
I check out his perfect, homemade, all-plastic sled. “Whatever, this is gorgeous!” I switch my gear over, and my day turns around 180 degrees.
The sled effort takes so much time that the team has slept and is now ready to depart Nikolai. I still have not slept, myself, but the next rest stop is Takotna, where I will take the mandatory twenty-four-hour rest. Sleep for me and food for the dogs will hit the reset button.
Takotna creates a space out of reality to focus on dog care. The dogs are walked to test for stiffness and stretch muscles. To cook their meals, I add four bottles of Heet to the cooker, light it, and then add water or snow to the dog pot along with about ten pounds of chipped fish. These dogs love cooked sheefish, caught and chipped in Kotzebue. I add chipped beef to the cooking fish, then add eight pounds of commercial dog food. This delicious soup takes about twenty minutes to prepare but is worth the wait. I doze in and out of sleep, waking to care for the dogs and feed myself before sleeping more.
After the twenty-four-hour break, the next seven hundred miles follow a predictable pattern of unpredictable trials and triumphs. We travel over rock, sand, tundra, and glare ice out of Unalakleet and over the Blueberry Hills until we find ourselves stuck in a shelter cabin halfway between Shaktoolik and Koyuk for eighteen hours.
Break-up
Kobuk Lake, Alaska | 2001
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human
stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.
—Albert Einstein
We begin mornings with coffee and toast on the woodstove, listening to KOTZ Radio to hear the news from around the world. We sit and talk about our plan for the day. Alan, being a kid, sleeps in as long as possible. This quiet time starts the day off with a sense of well-being and connection that keeps us centered. Once awake, Alan drinks hot cocoa and works on school. Dave goes to “write a letter to the president,” which is code for using the outhouse. The outhouse view is spectacular. Overlooking Kobuk Lake, the lights of Kotzebue bubble up to a dome. In early morning, I keep the door open to admire how the stars glitter in sync with hoarfrost on tree branches. On lucky days, the northern lights enter the moment and leave their lasting mark in my mind before vanishing just as quickly.
Trouble seems so out of place here in the Arctic, where one person is just a minuscule object when compared to the vastness of the landscape. The suffering, confusion, and pain rise and then, like the northern lights, vanish from my sky. I settle into this life and trust it is possible to find happiness. I yearn for a baby. I am ready and eager to grow the family with Dave and Alan. With much work to accomplish, however, it is not a convenient time to have a baby.
Life flies by from one season to the next—break-up, summer, freeze-up, long winter. I consider the first day of spring to be December 21, when we gain light by the minute. Summer starts after the last of the ice flows away. The first day of fall is June 21, the longest day of the year. Break-up is one of the most marvelous things to witness. Unable to go anywhere by boat, snow machine, or airplane access, we enjoy our peace. This lasts for two weeks in June. The snow melts and is heavier on the surface and drier and lighter below. These conditions make it easy to punch through the rigid surface up to your hip.
Twenty-four hours of daylight puts life in full swing. The sky and ponds are full of migratory birds. Our schedule adjusts with the changing light. We stay awake until two in the morning and sleep until ten. There are chores to do as we clean up the residue of winter, prevent flooding from snow melt, and provide animal care. Frozen food hides under insulating sawdust. Our increasing number of sled dogs stash food in hidden places that smell awful without snow cover. March seedlings need room to expand to flourish in the greenhouse.
I walk down our beach to the lagoon, where I can witness the daily changes in the ice. Ice separates from the lake floor, which has overflow and ice melt on top of it. The ice breaks away in pieces before a mass exodus of ice sheets make their way out of Kobuk Lake and into the Chukchi Sea.
We are eager to get to town after break-up because after a month with no refrigeration, we are out of cheese, milk, and other supplies. By necessity, the boat was out of the water and high on the gravel beach before the lake froze up in October. Without a truck and trailer, considerable thought and effort goes into the process of putting it back in the water. We use our four-wheeler and an intricate system of tripods, block and tackle, come-alongs, PVC pipe, and rope that Dave rigs together. We work for hours to get the heavy deep-V-bottom boat back in the water. Dave gets the outboard running, replaces the gear oil, and changes out the spark plugs.
We and our neighbor Phillip all hop into the cabin cruiser and head to town. The lake looks clear of ice, but we are unsure of what the jams closer to Kotzebue are like.
“Let’s gear up,” Dave says.
It is easy to forget what you need on a boat. We should stock it with emergency gear, food, oil, tools, radios, etc. Instead, in a disorderly fashion, we grab a thermos of coffee, life jackets, and a few snacks. Throwing on our hip boots, we drive the four-wheeler down to the lagoon, load up the boat, and take off. The water remains free of ice for eight miles until we approach Lockhart Point on the Baldwin Peninsula. Lockhart Point is the landmark to sight the way to town. The land rises high above the water, visible in all but the foggiest weather or blizzards. Fast-flowing sheets of three-foot-thick ice fill a deepwater channel near Lockhart point. Dave shuts off the engine. Delicate but loud sounds carry out to us—ice chunks bouncing off each other. We deliberate about pressing forward versus going back to camp, but thoughts of the Empress Restaurant’s breaded pepper chicken and a chocolate milkshake persuade us to continue on to town.
Phillip ate fatty d
uck soup last night, gifting him with diarrhea. On a small boat full of people, what do you do? Phillip leans out over the back of the boat’s engine mount to take care of business. He needs to make it to town for obvious reasons. Plus, he is out of cigarettes.
We drive along the edge of the channel, waiting for an opening. Ten minutes later, we observe a sparse section. Dave gets the boat moving fast to beat large, oncoming chunks of ice. The risk is getting marooned in the ice floe. If that happens, you can’t get free and can damage the boat. After a mile, the ice closes in around us. We’re unable to escape. Phillip, again desperate, jumps out of the boat onto a stable sheet of solid ice and pulls his pants down. Hoping to dislodge from the ice, we wait for a couple of hours. As the ice moves downstream, we edge closer to town at less than half a mile per hour. Hours pass by, and we wish we had brought more food. We can all but smell the breaded pepper chicken and french fries from Empress.
Ice grinds the sides of our boat to produce an unnerving screech. Can the ice puncture our fiberglass boat, causing us to take on water? A substantial chunk of ice flips over, slams into the outboard’s lower unit, and wreaks permanent damage. Being stranded among three-foot ice blocks is less than ideal. Time to take some serious action.
The radio, forgotten, remains at home. The ice jam thrusts us toward the beach between Lockhart Point and Kotzebue. The compressed ice between us and the beach offers a potential solution.
“I bet you guys could just walk into town,” Dave says.
Arching my eyebrows, I stare at him.
“Oh yeah, I do that all the time,” Phillip says.
“It’s an eight-mile walk. Could be days before I arrive on the boat,” Dave says.
I shake my head. “No way. You would be a sitting duck. What can you do for the boat? The ice shows no mercy.”
A full-body life jacket, a.k.a. float suit, is in the cabin as a precaution in case the boat springs a leak.
Epic Solitude Page 13