Epic Solitude

by Katherine Keith

  “Sorry, Cindy didn’t mean to yell out there”

  She laughs at me.

  “How is Amelia doing?” I ask.

  “She’s great. Happy to have her bouncy chair back.”

  Amelia is bouncing and singing an unintelligible song. This was Alan and Amelia’s favorite game. With a heart so heavy I can’t stand, I tell myself that I have to get some lights on. I go outside to turn the propane bottle connected to a series of copper tubes that end in mantle lanterns. Crossing my fingers, I grab a lighter, turn the valve on the lamps, and wait for the mantle to light. It does! Whew. We light three more and see the house brighten with the soft, warm light of propane lamps. I turn on the VHF radio so we can hear local gossip. Nothing happens—again. The twelve-volt battery it connects to is dead.

  I slump by the woodstove in defeat.

  Today is Thanksgiving.

  “What do you want to do for Thanksgiving?” I ask Cindy.

  We glance at each other with tears in our eyes. Thanksgiving without Dave will be a tasteless meal. Growing up, our family always went to Chicago, where my mom took us to visit her sister’s family. The meals were massive. The cribbage tournaments and ping pong battles always made it a weekend to look forward to. This isn’t Chicago.

  Cindy just shrugs her shoulders, unable to respond.

  I flop down in the chair and watch Amelia for a long while, letting her joy wash over me.

  “It is time for a gourmet Turkey Day dinner—or whatever we can find close to it. Are you hungry, Cindy?” I ask again.

  Hungry or not, cooking seems like the next logical thing we can accomplish without failing. We look through the stash of food that remains free of the bear, squirrel, and mouse interference. We find an unopened box of Hamburger Helper and a box of pasta primavera salad.

  “Score!” Cindy and I yell out at the same time.

  After melting snow, boiling water, and slaving away at the stove for all of five minutes, we have Thanksgiving dinner sitting on a couple of chairs huddled close to the woodstove for warmth. I leave the propane oven door open for extra heat. We eat on paper plates because we don’t have enough melted snow water for dishes yet.

  It isn’t much. The three of us sit there, drowning in grief, all trying to put our strong face forward. We look out the window wondering where Dave is, as if he will drive our way any minute. Every snow machine that comes along our beach fills me with hope and follows with despair when it passes us by. A glass of Thanksgiving Wild Turkey sits in Dave’s memory on the wooden stool he carved my name into as a welcoming gift when I first arrived on his doorstep. Amelia calls out for more food and laughs as Cindy gives it to her. Looking their way, I realize I have a lot to be thankful for. Thank you for giving me a daughter. Thank you for my family. Thank you for this place. I will try to understand, damn you, I will try.

  Man Up

  Kobuk Lake, Alaska | 2004

  Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world,

  which I find myself constantly walking around in

  the daytime, and falling in at night.

  —Edna St. Vincent Millay

  Despite the overwhelming odds, I commit and cling to our dream of raising Amelia at camp, to give her a solid foundation in the lifestyle that Dave and I worked hard to provide for her. I cling to the shreds of the life we shared. I owe it to Dave, and so I try.

  The practicality of living at camp without him overwhelms me. While caring for Amelia, I need to do all the things Dave was a natural at, such as fixing the snow machine, cutting down trees, hauling water, running the boat, tweaking the generator, and repairing the house. I need to learn to be a welder, electrician, plumber, lumberjack, mechanic, survivalist, and more. I hold a basic awareness of these things but never believed I would be the sole operator of everything. Oh yeah, did I mention money?

  Months later, search and rescue calls off the search. I still operate with that tiny pinprick of hope that Dave hit his head and forgot his identity. It isn’t until the following spring break-up, May 29, 2004, that they spot Dave’s body hanging on a pile of ice in front of Kotzebue.

  It is time to say goodbye.

  We bury him at the corner of our still-unfinished log cabin next to Madi. In July 2004, family comes out to stay for the funeral. Many community members attend. The City of Kotzebue rents us a jackhammer and a three-thousand-kilowatt generator to dig his grave. Dave’s body arrives by boat. The casket travels from the beach to the grave site by the four-wheeler. Chuck makes a large wooden cross to match our daughter’s tiny one. Madi’s cross reads, “Our Littlest Angel,” and Dave’s reads, “Our Big Angel.” The two crosses stand side by side overlooking the vast horizon of Kobuk Lake (see fig. 36).

  I remember little of those days. Things go by in a blur. I ping pong from one disaster and broken-down piece of equipment to the next. People check on Amelia and me at camp. Friends install a stove, bring by coffee, drop off a fish, etc. Autcha Kameroff, her brother Frank, and Ruth-Ann take shifts helping me go to the woodlot and watching Amelia. Perry Weyiouanna helps to finish parts of the house and teaches Amelia to walk. My faith in humanity grows. I don’t live in an isolated bubble at camp but in a community that cares for one another (see fig. 37).

  Autcha Kameroff comes out to help me sort Dave’s clothes. Things that no longer have a distinct purpose go in a big pile and are burned to release his spirit. Another close friend, Tracey Schaeffer, lends constant strength and compassion along with practical parenting-at-camp ideas. Dickie Moto accompanies me to the airboat remains on a gravel beach at Lockhart Point. We watch the boat burn as we both say farewell to our friend.

  Dammed up grief overwhelms me like flood waters gushing out of a broken levee. I insulate Amelia, now fifteen months old, from the raw bitterness. I keep him in our hearts through stories, but she won’t have memories of her amazing father.

  Cindy goes home to Minnesota and is back at school. I continue to work on critical chores and repairs while keeping Amelia safe.

  One cold, wet day in September, I wake up to find a leak in the roof. After coffee and a brief examination, I need to climb up to make the repairs. Amelia, an exploratory toddler, is still learning how to balance herself. Feeling confident I can contain her baby enthusiasm, I install a childproof gate on the door opening outside. I am wrong. I am up on the roof, when Amelia pushes her body the gate, trying to find me. She succeeds. She makes her way through the doorway and falls over a foot face-first onto an industrial metal grate. The jagged metal surface connects with her nose and rips away the flesh, causing massive bleeding. Hearing her screams, I scramble down from the roof. It looks like she broke her nose. Holding her close, I run to the four-wheeler and drive the mile down to the boat parked in the lagoon.

  At the lagoon, I put my screaming baby down. I jump in the water, without waders, pull the anchors, and start the outboard. I strap Amelia into her seat and begin the eighteen-mile boat ride to Kotzebue. Kobuk Lake is rough today, and the jarring bounces cause Amelia pain. Partway to town, I run into Autcha and Ruth-Ann coming back from their camp. Autcha hops into our boat and drives the rest of the way so I can tend to Amelia. Once we park in the boat harbor, we rush across the street to the hospital. They clean up Amelia’s wound, strap her down, and give her six stitches down her nose. At least it didn’t break (see fig. 38).

  January gets cold. We huddle in a bed pushed next to the woodstove because it is forty below and the house lacks insulation. To keep the house warm, I have been keeping two woodstoves going around the clock. To shut the house down for the night, I add wood to the stoves, stock the house with wood so I don’t have to go outside at four in the morning, turn off the generator, bring it inside to warm up by the woodstove, turn off the propane lanterns, and blow out the votive candle I often light in memory of Madi and Dave.

  Amelia and I are both sick with the flu. We take cold medicine. Being sick, Ameli
a is restless, crying, and needs Mom to lie down and snuggle with her. Holding her close, I rock her to sleep. Knowing I still need to complete evening chores, I force my eyes open. Hours later, I wake up to find our house filled with smoke and a blazing fire. Our house cat, whose primary goal in life is to keep mice, shrews, and squirrels from getting into our food totes, has knocked over the votive candle and started a fire on the main support log of our house.

  I jump up and douse the flames with an extinguisher, but the smoke conditions are extreme. I grab what clothes I can find, wrap Amelia in a massive parka, and go outside. The snow machine is too cold to turn over. I can’t start it. Grabbing the generator from inside the smoky house, I start it and point the generator exhaust toward the snow machine carburetors. Amelia coughs. Already sick, her oxygen levels diminish from the smoke. It takes thirty minutes of being outside in the forty below zero temperature before I can start the snow machine and drive us to town.

  It is three o’clock in the morning when we arrive in Kotzebue. I can’t get the emergency room’s attention. I start our unheated pickup and drive around town searching for help. At last, the ER lets us in. Amelia warms up, receives oxygen, and the doctors clear our health to leave.

  We have another problem: we have nowhere to go. Camp is a disaster. In a freezing, dark truck, we drive around the lonely town of Kotzebue for hours. Another close call puts Amelia’s life in jeopardy. I decide right there, with finality, that it is time to leave camp. In this moment of utter failure, it’s time to let go of Dave and the dreams we held together. I know his response to my desperate unasked question. I have to choose the living. There is no choice. We must leave the house we built together. I have to choose Amelia and her life above all. I know what I have to do next, and my heart breaks even further.

  Part Four:

  Finish Line

  Iditarod, Mile 446

  Galena, Alaska | 2015

  The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,

  the more joy you can contain.

  —Kahlil Gibran

  A year has gone by since my 2014 rookie Iditarod. I am in the 2015 Iditarod during my twenty-four-hour layover, this time in Galena. I realize subjecting myself to the harsh conditions of this race—the profound fatigue, the vulnerability to nature, the pressure to continue because your life and the lives of your dogs depend on it—leaves me so raw and exposed that I can’t help but receive the profound beauty that the wilderness unfurls before me.

  If I allow myself to get wrapped up in adversity, the wallowing can wreck my race. If I surrender, ride the waves, some breathtaking gift—a sunset, a moonrise, the northern lights—is always waiting just around a bend in the trail. This is the balance. Not only the race, but life itself.

  I leave two dogs in Galena, so I have ten still in the game. After the twenty-four-hour rest is an eighty-two-mile run to Huslia. When I arrive at Huslia, the checkpoint rocks. The community goes way over the top to welcome the Iditarod for the first time. Huslia is an active sled dog community. For miles along the road leading to town, they have signs up encouraging the mushers with positive phrases. The temperatures are sixty to seventy degrees below zero. The northern lights tonight in Huslia will win awards for any ambitious photographer. I stay in Huslia for six hours. The dogs are working hard, and the cold weather is taking a toll on them.

  The temperatures from Galena to Huslia to Koyukuk are the lowest I have run dogs in, let alone camped in. When we camp, it is the middle of the night and sixty below. The cooker won’t start. It is hard to get Heet to ignite when it’s colder than minus thirty-five Fahrenheit. I shiver from cold, so getting the tinder out to start the cooker is a big project. I need to start a fire. Sleeping on the dogsled will not cut it tonight. At such cold temperatures, you need skill to get a roaring fire going. There isn’t a ready supply of wood when we pull over to camp. I walk off the trail, break off chunks of dry branches, carry them back through the thigh-deep snow, then repeat. The exertion of finding wood warms my body despite my fingers still freezing. I take care of the dogs, feed them, massage them, and help them lay down before I get my sleeping assembly ready by the small fire. I put down straw, a Therm-a-Rest pad, then my sleeping bag. I invite my lead dog, Ears, to rest with me by the fire.

  I am full of discomfort and fear this deep cold. I am accustomed to danger, but one tiny mistake out here could have serious repercussions for me and the team. I calm myself and warm my hands by the fire until I think to look up. Above the black spruce trees that line the trail, I see a dazzling display of northern lights that dance around as if on Broadway. The moon is new, so the stars stand out in bright contrast to the black night sky. They sparkle in harmony with the green, red, and orange fireworks that spread out across the entire expanse of the sky. I won’t sleep in the cold temperatures, and this wonder-filled night keeps my rapt attention.

  This is the reward for being out. This is my why—what I search for. These two hours supply answers to many of my lingering questions. I leave with a better understanding that resisting life’s lows is not only futile but foolish—making it impossible to fully experience life’s highs. Am I brave enough to allow myself to experience the full range of emotions that life has to offer? A challenge is inherent in this question. The “low” waiting for me, on the horizon, will be a big one given the staggering beauty of the “high” I experienced tonight. These thoughts, and more, occupy my mind as I drift in a waking dream that lures me into times past.

  Two days later, I leave Kaltag for Unalakleet with nine dogs. This run tests teams as the eighty-five-mile run can put a lot of pressure on a tired team. Alaska Natives have used this route for thousands of years. It works its way southwest up the Kaltag River valley through a wooded trail. After ten miles, the trail climbs up the south side of the valley to the summit of the portage at eight hundred feet. The difficulty of this section depends on weather and trail conditions such as snow depth, wind speed, and whether there is a trail at all. My few remaining dogs are doing great and maintaining a positive attitude. Nine dogs is still plenty to make it to Nome. I am not concerned. Scratch that. I am a new musher and concerned about every single little detail. How is Loki eating? How are Ear’s hips? Do Ripple’s shoulders seem sore? Do I have enough spare booties? Where do we rest? Do I take straw? Endless questions come up which keep me concerned that in a sleep-deprived state I might miss some crucial detail that will derail the team and hence the race.

  I arrive at the Old Woman shelter cabin, where the Iditarod’s more protected inland trail transitions into a stretch along the Bering Sea coastline that leaves mushers and their dog teams exposed to harsh offshore winds. Stories hint that the cabin, named for the nearby Old Woman Mountain, harbors wandering spirits, including the ghost of a woman who died in an avalanche. Iditarod historians warn racers to leave her something, like food, lest bad luck follow them all the way to Nome. Some mushers report hearing the Old Woman humming a haunting melody. I know the legends but remain skeptical. Old Woman is a welcoming place. My plan is to stop for a four-hour rest. I hope for at least one hour of sleep for myself, fortifying me for the last three hundred miles to the finish line.

  I stop my team, secure the sled with snow hooks, and get ready to snack the dogs, when I notice blood dripping from the nose of my beautiful, blue-eyed, young leader, Loki. Within two minutes the drip becomes a gush, blood pouring from his nose and mouth—a dark red stain spilling out onto the white snow. Holding him close, I hear a rattling in one of his lungs, and before long he is struggling to breathe. I look around for help, full of worry he has a spontaneous pneumothorax causing blood to pool in his lungs. The Old Woman shelter cabin is not an official checkpoint, and the nearest veterinarians are in Unalakleet, thirty-five miles away.

  My leader is in crisis, and my tired team offers our only transportation. I lay out straw so the other dogs don’t get stiff. They need rest while I figure out how best to help Loki. Four other mushers
are in the shelter. They break their rest to provide aid, each lending their relative expertise and experience to the situation. This is always the case during a crisis for musher or dog. Mushers set aside competition. Averting that crisis and ensuring the safety of all involved becomes the sole focus. It is a fundamental code.

  Together, we lay Loki down on what appears to be his stronger side to avoid putting pressure on the weaker lung. We try to get the blood to drain out his mouth rather than going down his throat to the lung. It isn’t working, and Loki chokes. Everyone present agrees that Loki will not make it without emergency care. It will take me at least seven hours to get to Unalakleet. My only other option is to push the “help” button on the SPOT Tracker carried by every Iditarod musher. Designed to help race fans watch each musher’s progress in the race online, SPOT Tracker technology has advanced to allow for one-way communication. I can send a distress message, calling for a Coast Guard helicopter with one button. With another, I can call for snow machines to rescue us.

  The 2015 Iditarod rules dictate that when a musher pushes the help button, they scratch from the race. I have no choice. The more experienced mushers and I all agree. I take the device out of the dog booty pinned on the front of my sled. I lift the cover, and realizing the futility of Loki’s situation, I take the irreversible step that ends our race. There is no promise in how long it takes help to arrive.

  Lance Mackey, an Iditarod champion with four consecutive wins, drives his team through Old Woman, planning to stop and snack his dogs for a few minutes before moving on. He comes over to see what the trouble is and offers help. Concerned that the snow machines might not get here in time to save Loki, Lance offers to carry my leader in. His dogs travel faster than mine, so I accept. I watch as Lance carries him away, convinced this is the last time I will see Loki alive.

  It takes all my strength to refocus on taking care of my remaining eight dogs. Operating on autopilot, I start the dog cooker to melt snow for their dinner. I snack them with frozen sheefish, massage their feet, and go inside the shelter cabin. Gripped as I am by anguish, my attempt to sleep for the remaining hour fails. Once the dogs have their four hours of rest, we set out for Unalakleet to find Loki.