"It's me or the mountains," Gerard Curwood heard his girlfriend, Adrienne, announce in no uncertain terms. But that was two years ago, and now, standing alone on the deck of the motor vessel, M/V Columbia, he looked beyond the bow, to the north, to where the tide was foaming its way through Seymour Narrows in Discovery Passage.
The Columbia, with a traffic jam of cars and trucks down in her hold, was churning up the marine highway, a make believe road on the water, that would take him through the channels and passages of British Columbia and north into southeast Alaska. The Marine Highway started after the Second World War. A veteran bought a military landing craft and began ferrying people and supplies. The Government saw it was a good idea and bought him out. Chilkoot was the first ferry boat.
Gerard had spent his last night in the lower forty-eight states luxuriating in Room 902 at the Stouffer Madison Hotel in Seattle, Washington overlooking Elliot Bay. The next day, found him on the bus to Bellingham to catch the ferry. When the September breeze from the Juan de Fuca straights sent a chill inside his sheepskin coat, he wondered if the tourists, some clad in bright Hawaiian short sleeved shirts, knew what was in store for them as they traveled to the north this time of year.
With so many friends bidding him goodbye, he hadn't thought of Adrienne too often of late, but when he saw a young lady, more a girl, with an upsweep of soft brown hair, climb the gangway with a graceful step, his heart did a flip; did he really want to go off into the mountains and spend another winter alone.
At eight p.m., his last chance of turning back was lost, the Columbia cast off and headed out into the straights of Georgia, a stretch of rock studded water that lay between Vancouver Island and the Canada mainland.
Later, in the wee hours of the morning, feeling restless, Gerard got up and pulled the sheepskin on to go out and walk the deck. A fellow passenger, who introduced himself as Russell Brooks, explained that he had retired as bosun on this very boat, the M/V Columbia.
"In these straights the current runs so fast that a boat doing 12 knots would stand still, could make no headway."
"How fast are we going?" Gerard asked.
"Oh, we're doing 16 knots on the water and can work our way through slowly, but we'll get through. Also," he chuckled, "there are whirlpools. And back in 1974 I chopped eight inches of ice off the deck while we churned our way against a blizzard up north between Haines and Skagway."
"From Freezing rain?" Gerard asked.
"No. Spindrift from the windblown water. When the spray hit the rigging and spread out on the deck, it froze, then more came aboard and froze on top of that. Freezing spray makes a boat top-heavy. It either sinks from the weight or suddenly turns turtle."
The old man shook his head, lost in memories. "Freezing spray and sometimes just piling snow has sunk many a boat."
As mountains climbed out of the mist, Gerard had felt a release, like a man emerging from near drowning, a man who realizes that he had come close to losing the real meaning of life. Watching the lower forty eight states fade into his past, his mind wandered back over thoughts he had had. The conveniences of the first world United States have a tendency to get hold of one, entail one with licenses and regulatory trivia and demand that one conform. The worst thing is, one hardly realizes he is being led from one stimulus to the next, his life-course being plotted by advertisements on TV, or pressure from peers to join this or that; his life-time ticking away on society's sacrilegious clock.
And crime, he continued his philosophical wandering, people live peacefully with their fellow men either because they respect them or they fear getting caught. Where I am going, one lives by the simplest rule of all, have a proper respect for your fellow man and husband the earth that is our home -- or you perish.
At breakfast, in the cafeteria queue, he smiled at comments about the cold and thrilling remarks about the distant mountains. He looked twice when he saw the young lady, with a group of her friends, in line ahead.
Later, walking the deck to take the air, he was presented with, as if choreographed by the muses, another view of the girl as she promenaded, laughing and talking with the sightseeing passengers. She kept herself busy taking photographs or looking through a pair of tiny binoculars. What caught his eye, whenever he chanced to see her, was the way she reached to adjust her delightful coil of soft brown hair.
To remind himself of his resolve to go north, be it alone, he said aloud, "Since a lad, I have wanted to go off into the mountains with a sharp axe and a long rifle." With determination, he continued. "So I built a little cabin, and when my short stories started paying off I added to the cabin, and, when the novellas sold, I began installing conveniences.
"Adrienne never got to see the cabin as it is now. Even so, I'm sure it would never satisfy her leisure class tastes." In a moment of despair he admitted he had lost the lady he once thought he loved.
His attention was brought back to the moment when a voice from the loud speaker announced, "This is the Captain. Good morning. If you will look to port, there are two whales sounding about a mile away."
In the afternoon, they cleared Port Hardy and plowed out into Queen Charlotte Sound, an indentation in the coast that let the awesome Pacific roll her swells into the ramparts of the mainland. The Columbia eager to be heading north, came awake and climbed the waves, bow up, bow down, and the helmsman set a course for Swindle Island. The wind was sharp along the portside walkway, and, as he approached the bow, he pulled the sheepskin closed across his chest. He was ready to face the wind head-on, but, instead, found himself face to face with the mystery girl.
Gerard nodded his head, acknowledging her presence and moved aside to let her pass. As he stood waiting, she stepped slowly by, returning his appraising examination with one of her own, looking him up and down as if he were part of the scenery she had paid to see.
"Good afternoon," he stammered, surprised at his loss of composure.
"And a good afternoon to you, sir," she returned and, with a sweet smile, went swishing away in a long fall skirt, her shoulders wrapped appropriately in a cashmere coat, the coil of soft hair springing with each innocent swaying step that carried her along the deck as if dancing.
Leaning into the wind, he forged his way to the bow and stared about at the splendor. Talking to himself, he saw the keys of his typewriter tapping out the words, "The islands look like mountain peaks poking from the sea while the bays and channels are drowned valleys. There are hundreds of coves, some protected, but how deep? What a country. Back in Queen Charlotte Sound, where the sea rolled in from the open Pacific, the wind was blowing thirty knots and raising ten foot swells. But as soon as the Columbia entered Fitz Hugh Sound, a stretch of water sheltered from the northwest gales, the wind went calm and the water flattened to a millpond."
Gazing at the wonder he never tired of seeing, his mind typed on, "A formidable wall of mountains ahead and yet, where there is at first no way through, a misty fjord or quiet cove becomes an open passage, and north we go. I watch the peaks on the mainland side climb straight up and up reaching out of the sea for a sacred place in the sky. Sadly, where the land mass slants downward into the Pacific Trench, the sinking peaks struggle to keep their once lofty heads above the water. And the trees, everywhere trees, of all sizes. I recall reading that the Forest Service marks off an area and loggers come in and clear-cut. Later, replanting is done by a army of people who dig a small hole, put in the small new tree, and pack it in place. Then they put a transparent plastic cup or `cap' over it to keep the deer from eating the tender new shoot. After about three years the `cap' disintegrates and the tree is tough enough to survive.
"Yet," he banged away on his mental keys, "farther north, around my cabin huge hemlocks and Sitka spruce live in peace, unscathed for at least a century."
The second morning he sensed the ship was creeping slowly and as he stepped out onto the deck found himself in a fog so dense that not a distant mountain nor a close-by island could be seen. He looked at his watch. "Fog at seven, clear by eleven."
Turning to go inside for breakfast, he froze in midstep; there she stood, a few feet away, once again watching him as if he were part of the scenery.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stare, but you are dressed so differently from the other passengers, your boots are of soft leather and your jacket is sheepskin."
Gerard smiled. Here was a tourist, a person hoping to hear the call of the wild. To humor her, he faked a drawl and explained, "I'm part of this here country, ma'am." Waving a hand to the mountains, he went on in his slatternly way. "Up ahead, I got a long rifle and a sharp axe."
She brightened and took a step closer. "You're going into the mountains this time of year?"
"It's a little late, I know fer a fact. When winter hits here about, you can't cut wood fast enough to keep warm." He chuckled enjoying her obvious admiration.
She moved to the rail and after looking off into the fog turned to him and said, "I heard that white men build big fires and cut wood to keep warm, but Indians build small fires and sit beside them to keep warm."
"That's a fact," he agreed, nodding. "We white folks try to teach the Injuns our ways, when all the time, we should be a larnin' from them."
She surprised him by curtsying. "My name is Esther and our group is going all the way to Skagway, to the most northern end of the marine highway, then back to Bellingham. A round-trip summer expedition organized by the sorority of the college where I just graduated."
"But there be fancy cruise ships for flocks of young chicks like you-all," he slurred, mischievously.
"We are not taking a cruise ship because, besides the lower cost, the Marine Highway ferries stop at more places and you can get off and wait until the next one comes through. This way you can study Southeast Alaska at a leisurely pace."
He looked innocently down into the water and drawled on. "That surely is a nice thing." He was certain now that this pretty young woman was a lady who, like Adrienne, reveled in the soft comforts of the indulgent mass of people who supported the opulent economy of the lower forty eight states. Probably came from a family who had let her go wandering with friends in search of exotic places to photograph so that upon their return they could relate their northern experience to wide-eyed acquaintances.
In a tone approaching exasperation, she explained, "On a cruise ship one is rushed from one grand stand scene to the next and only gets a sample of what this country is all about." Hesitating to catch her breath, she looked at him curiously. "May I ask, exactly where are you going?"
Her continued inquisition spoken with such an intriguing note in her melodious voice, brought him to attention. He looked up from the churning waters alongside the ship and found her bright eyes open in wide wonder. Contemplating his answer, he watched the roll of soft brown hair, now bound in a mysterious chignon that clung to the back of her head, dance lightly on the upturned collar of her fawn colored jacket, perched as if posing, waiting for his answer.
Gerard dropped his country dialect, and bowing, offered, "I am Gerard Curwood, and I am going to Sitka where I shall off-load my gear and head into the mountains for the winter."
"Oh! You were acting," she balled a fist as if to punch him.
"My apologies," he said and raised his hands to defend himself then letting them sweep down his jacket to indicate his wardrobe, he explained, "Actually, I do live in the mountains and animal skin attire is best in the back country and certainly the most enduring."
"You LIVE up here? You... you live in these mountains?" she whispered in awe and looked off to the surrounding hills with dreamy eyes.
"I guess maybe I do," he answered, smiling at her obvious amazement.
"Alone?" She looked at him then around the deck as if expecting someone to appear.
"Yes. I'm afraid so."
"Will you be afraid, alone in the mountains?"
"Remember, I have a long rifle."
"Oh, yes. And a sharp axe."
He turned his eyes from her face, a face that had begun to enchant him, and stared unseeing into the opaque fog. She was not a teenager, she was certainly somewhere in her early twenties, nearly his own age.
"Will you sleep in a tent or do you have a cabin?"
"I have a cabin," he answered succinctly.
"Then this is not your first winter up here," she deduced.
"Third."
"Your family is waiting for you?"
"No family," he replied, then, feeling that he was being too brusque, added, "My girlfriend, actually, my former girlfriend visited during the summer that I built the cabin. Since then there has been no one."
"Oh, that's so sad."
At that moment, to save further explanations, Fate had Russell Brooks, the retired bosun, walk up to them. As if they had been waiting for him to introduce a subject worthy of their intellectual concern, he started into a soliloquy wherein he described the incredible weather. "Absolutely clear skies except where the mountains have thrown silver fox fur clouds around their shoulders to keep warm."
"How poetic." Esther smiled.
"But, beware! This is not representative of the weather we will encounter farther north. Why back in 1974, I chopped ice, eight inches thick, from the decks of this very ship."
"In September?" Gerard asked wanting details of the same story the man had told earlier.
"September? No, I guess it was December. Yes, I remember, day before Christmas, it was." Reminiscing aloud, Russell talked on, "This boat, the Columbia, burns 500 gallons of diesel fuel each hour."
"Do you mean that in two hours the ship burns enough fuel to heat a big house all winter?" Gerard exclaimed.
"They load 90,000 gallons for the round trip from Bellingham to Skagway and back," Russell added, knowing from past experience that this statistic would surprise them.
"Fascinating," Gerard declared, taking mental notes to include in some story.
"Well, I gotta be going." The lore of the inland waterway excused himself and wandered purposefully away.
After a pause, Esther resumed her enquiry. "Your girlfriend didn't like these beautiful mountains?"
Gerard chuckled, recalling the miserable weather the summer that Adrienne had visited, the summer he started building the cabin. "I raised a tent for her and a young lady who came with her for reasons of propriety. It rained piteously and the ladies spent all of their nights and most of their days huddled in the dripping tent."
He looked at the girl who had, in the few minutes of this delightful foggy morning, become a young lady. Chuckling, he continued, "The first sunny day, after three weeks of rain, she emerged from the tent and announced, in no uncertain terms," -- here he stiffened his voice and growled, -- "Gerard Curwood, it's me or the mountains!"
"And you chose the mountains," Esther concluded in her uncomplicated way of neatly wrapping up conundrums.
"During that first winter, alone in the cabin, I sometimes wondered if I had made the best decision."
"But here you are, going back again."
"Yes," he leaned on the rail and turned in time to see an eagle drop out of the lifting fogbank and glide silently just above the still water. Looking at the bird, a symbol of this land, he said, with a sigh of resignation in his voice, "I'm getting to know myself. Everyone should be required to spend time alone."
"I like to be alone. But why on earth would you want to force people to spend time with no one else to talk to?"
"To find one's self." He smiled. "That first winter, alone in the cabin, I felt despair and bitter loneliness, but I was forced to look into my own soul."
"And what dark shadows did you find lurking there?" she asked, tempting him to continue.
"Oh, there were a few guilt trips. But what I found most interesting is that life is like a good movie. If you get a chance to see it a second time, as you do when locked up alone on cold winter nights, you see the subtle parts. You can hear the voice of your mother, clear as a bell, telling you a bedtime story when you were a mere child."
"I've read that the subconscious mind can dig up long forgotten experiences," Esther commented as if contemplating her own past. Looking off, she saw the eagle and squealed, "She caught one," when it grabbed a fish in its talons. When it rose from the widening ring of disturbed water and disappeared into the fog, she commented, "Back to the nest, high in some gnarled tree clinging to some ragged peak, with food for her chicks."
"You like eagles?"
"When I was a child, I wanted to be an eagle and soar in the sky," she answered, then shrugged and asked, "What good things came from your contemplation?"
"While suffering, I recalled a friend saying, An experience is only worth the stories you can tell about it. So, drawing on the trials and tribulations I encountered while building the cabin, I wrote a series of short stories, stories that an outdoor magazine published and for which they paid me a modest fee."
"Was that last winter?" she asked.
"No. That was the first winter. The second winter my despairing lonely soul produced three fictional novellas about living alone in the wilderness for which I was paid rather handsomely."
"You must be developing a reputation," she observed, then wondered aloud, "What will this third winter produce?"
"Who knows." He looked into her eyes then off into a distance revealed more each moment by the slowly lifting drapery of natures morning fog.
"I suppose your hero with the long rifle and sharp axe will find his one true love somewhere in these lovely mountains."
"Things like that only happen in story books." He sighed.
"But aren't you the one writing the story?" she countered.
"Am I?" he asked, surprised that her eyes were dreamy and damp, as if the morning dew had settled on her long lashes.
The trip, that had started out a funeral dirge for the civilization he was leaving, was becoming an adventure that kept him keenly alive with anticipation. He listened, finding himself spellbound, when she pointed into the surrounding ranges and breathed, "The far mountains are more purple than their closer cousins. The contrast gives depth and distance to the ranges and ridges that seem to go on forever."
Looking about, she asked, "Where is this terrible weather?"
Explaining, as teacher to apt pupil, he said, "Wind from the North means clear skies. Wind from the SSE brings clouds and rain."
"I like the rain on my face and the wind in my hair," she said with a sigh.
Russell Brooks stopped by to point out that the fish are going upstream to melt and bears and eagles are following the fish. "Of course," he added walking away, "the fishing fleet is winding down."
Coming through layers of fog; sometimes looking over, sometimes under, sometimes blind, the Columbia docked at Wrangell. Esther announced possessively, "I understand departure time is 13:00 so you will have time to take me ashore for lunch."
Sitting in a little shop with a window overlooking the harbor the fog rolled back just in time for them to see a float plane come humming down from a clear blue sky. It banked and came winging down the valley fjord, dropping below the surrounding peaks. Its pontoons down and out in front like a duck about to land, it touched the water daintily, a waterskier skimming along until it lost its airspeed, then taxied to a float plane landing ramp.
"Oh, look! Another one, and this one is leaving." She nodded to where a plane rumbled a steady, struggling roar, its pontoons spraying sheets of white water as it picked up speed. Then, suddenly there was no wake, just the prop wash making gentle waves. They watched it turn and fly between the same mountain peaks until it was gone, leaving the pristine sky silent, blue, and empty.
"So much to see." She thrilled, watching the Matanusak, another traffic-jammed ferry that plies the Marine Highway, depart, heading south, its long hull and smoke stacks framed against a distant glaciated mountain. "I read," she explained, "the Matanusak is larger than the Columbia and can carry 770 people while we can only take 660."
"You read a lot?" he asked.
"I guess so. Do you read on cold nights?" she hugged herself as if feeling winters grip.
"The only company I have are a shelf of books on the wall."
Underway again, she hooked her arm in his and steered him into the lounge where the forest service was to give a talk. Looking at slides and listening, he was reminded of the immensity of Alaska: Iowa would fit in Alaska ten times and Rhode Island 427 times. Other useful information included: Ketchikan has 152 inches of rain and Prince of Wales Island has caves. Wrangell has petroglyphs, carved years and years ago in the stones that lay along the harbor's edge by prehistoric people. Some say the carvings were to mark a good camping and fishing spot. Others claimed they were of religious significance.
"What we don't understand, we endow with religious significance," Gerard whispered.
At dinner that evening, Gerard sat alone at a window table far to one side of the rather crowded dining room. Admiring the white linen table cloth and toying with his soft cloth napkin, elements of sophistication that he seldom bothered with at his cabin, he asked himself, What else am I leaving behind. He was nibbling on an appetizer in anticipation of a medium rare, fillet mignon entree, the last fresh beef he was to have for many months ahead, when a gentle fragrance wafted to his nostrils. Not unlike a mountain lion sensing an interloper on the wind, he lifted his head and sniffed the air.
Even as he recognized the bouquet, he felt a gentle bump on his arm and heard a murmured apology as Esther squeezed past with a huge purse dangling on her arm and a book in her hand, obviously heading for the last free table. Half way there she stopped dead in her tracks; a blowsy couple, the man in a garish Hawaiian shirt and the lady with the peaks of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea rising from her chest, had cut her off. Gerard watched them take possession of the table as if the ship was the Titanic and the table was the last lifeboat.
When Esther turned slowly, looking hopefully for another place to have her meal, he stood up and half bowing, indicated the vacant seat across his table.
"Oh, I have already imposed too much on your privacy," she declared and looked around again.
"Actually, I won't get to talk to many pretty young ladies where I'm going," he offered. Then, wondering if he was blushing, stepped around and eased the chair out for her.
"Well, I certainly appreciate the offer," she whispered. Her curtsy surprised him and he lifted his eyes to look into her face. In those few moments, the girl who had already become a young lady, became an alluring woman.
She set her book aside and spread her napkin across her lap in a genteel manner, then, without a moments hesitation, lifted her eyes to his and exclaimed, "This is the most beautiful country I have ever seen." At this, she turned her head to look out the window.
He followed her eyes until he was looking at forests, never so green, distant mountains, never so purple, and a sky, never so blue. What is the matter with me, he
wondered. These are the mountains that are bitter and cold in the winter. Aloud, he warned, regretting it even as he spoke, "The winters can be brutal."
Turning eyes that frowned, she asked, as a child whose storybook has been taken from her, "If these mountains are so desolate, why haven't you starved to death or been eaten by bears?"
"I have a long rifle." He whispered, relaxing.
"Oh, Yes. And you haven't frozen because you have a sharp axe," she reminded him. With happiness returning she laughed and their eyes met and, in that strange instance, they became more than mere acquaintances.
After dinner they strolled the deck as twilight faded to darkness and found bright stars in a black sky. She took his arm and hurried him forward when the Captain announced Northern Lights off the bow, which could be seen if one looked before the moon came up. Gerard stood in silent reverence while Esther gazed in rapture as curtains, laced with streamers of soft yellow, gold, and blue, waved slowly as if draped across an open window that was letting them have a glimpse into heaven.
The aurora borealis was lost to view as the bright moon rose over the mountains. But, when the ship turned into the Petersburg narrows, a solid fog set in and even the moon was lost. Navigational markers flashed close by, and a man, a lookout at the bow, peered into the mist searching for dangers that might lie ahead. Occasionally the Captain turned the spotlight on, and every minute or so he sounded a stunning blast on a foghorn.
"Sound travels a mile in five seconds," Gerard whispered, and they looked into the fog, counting thirty ticks, until the echo returned from the hills.
"Six miles?" Esther wondered.
"Three. The sound has to travel over and back," Gerard spoke from experience.
Taking breakfast together on the way to Petersburg, they heard the Captain announce two humpback whales and felt the boat slow to let the passengers see them blow and flap their mighty tails.
Watching the two whales cavort, Esther, with full pouty lips, perhaps the most beautiful he has ever seen, explained, "When I return from this trip, my father wants me to set a date to marry the son of his business partner."
"You're engaged?"
"Not really. It has always been assumed by our parents that we would marry."
"But do you..." Gerard choked, "love him?"
"Oh, he's nice enough, but we never seem to agree on anything. He says I'm a dreamer and will need a housemother to keep our home in order, and I tell him that if there is not a potential profit in an undertaking, he is not the slightest bit interested, even if the esthetic rewards are bountiful. It seems to me that two people should discover they both like the same things before they...." Suddenly she stopped talking and looked at him with an open mouth and startled expression.
Juneau, the capitol of Alaska, sits smartly on a narrow ledge, backed by mountains and fronted with a deep water passage. Leaving this small town with its twenty mile long road, their ship moved out into the Lynn Canal, which is not really a canal but rather a long deep, water-filled valley, that runs straight north. Together again, they stood at the rail and watched the rising sun turn the gray water green and marveled as west winds, lifting the foggy veil, let mountains appear in the pale, mountains that hung from the heavens on wispy wings of white haze. In this wilderness haven they saw eagles soaring in the clean air of primitive skies and whales blowing in unspoiled icy water.
Esther grabbed a pen and wrote in a little notebook, making him repeat, when he said, "That which we receive from the Sun is free, but that which we take from the earth is on loan."
In Haines, she insisted, "Oh! You must go with me to the Forest Service talk so you can explain what the man says."
A big man in brown service uniform, certainly an ad for Smoky the Bear, talked about glaciers and lateral and medial moraines. He told how glaciers grind out flat bottomed U-shaped valley floors while rivers and streams erode V-shaped valleys.
Even Gerard, who thought he knew this country well, listened when the man explained that fish canneries came into this area in 1882. The gold rush was in 1897 and only lasted two years.
After Haines, on the last leg north to Skagway, she asked, "Have you looked for gold in them thar hills?"
"I found black gold," he replied.
"Oil?"
"No, typewriter ink."
"Oh, you." She doubled a fist and, this time, did punch him on the arm.
They both were startled at the intimacy of the contact and first looked into each other's eyes, then each cleared his throat and looked away.
Breaking the hiatus, she took a deep breath and queried, "Tell me about your cabin," and stood listening attentively to rough board floors and a rough stone fireplace and small windows that were so high you can only see out if you stand on a chair.
"I took an old timer's advice and built a second, smaller cabin and stocked it."
"A guest house? Do you have guests visit way up here?"
"Not for guests. The second cabin is in case the first one burns down in the middle of the winter."
"No fire department, I suppose," she offered, giggling delightfully, then said, "Certainly you could call for assistance."
"No telephones.
"Then you could drive out to some town and take a room."
"No roads."
"You're being difficult."
"The north country is difficult. Perhaps it's more of a challenge than modern folk are prepared for."
"Am I modern folk?
"Are you?" he returned, then, looking at the book in her hand, asked, "May I ask what are you reading?"
"James Oliver Curwood, The Valley of the Silent Men. Are you a descendent of his?"
"Not that I know of, but his stories of the Canadian wilderness may be why I am here in the north."
"I've read every one of his books." She lifted her chin.
"I've read several," he said, then asked, "How many are there?"
"About fifty. The Gold Hunters, the Wolf Hunters,..."
"The Plains of Abraham," he added.
Broadway is the main street of Skagway. The roads are paved, but the sidewalks are wooden. The boat was to lay over until evening, giving them a whole day in town before it started back to the south on a route that would include a stop at Sitka, his destination.
She came bursting in at breakfast and announced, in no uncertain terms, "I am treating you to a flight over Glacier Bay this afternoon." He let her lead him up Broadway where they found the trees in town still green while up on the mountain sides the first bold strokes of Jack Frost's cold brush had already painted swaths of yellow and gold. In every direction there were snow capped peaks.
"People back in the lower forties have pictures hanging on their walls, just like the scenes these people see everyday," she said.
They took in a Park Service slide show of the Gold Rush and agreed the period slides narrated by Hal Holbrook were excellent.
"What an insane wonderful time," she enthused.
"But it only lasted two years," he reminded her. "By the time the stampeders arrived in 1898 all the mines had been claimed."
"But there was work in other peoples mines and in the towns," she argued, adding, "I never realized that Soapy Smith, the villain who provided music and showgirls, only lasted eight months before the people cleaned up the town and chased him out."
"People establish their moral codes and make them laws."
"What time is it?" she asked.
"Noon, why?" he wondered.
"It's noon but look at our shadows! They're longer than we are tall."
"In the dead of winter, when the sun is down in South America, the shadow of a six foot man is fifty feet long at high noon here in Skagway."
They caught a van to the airport, and the pilot of a little charter plane flew the two of them out over the Lynn Canal, and up a valley. Up amongst the peaks they winged their way over ice fields, immense areas of mile thick ice, never seen from the cruise ships. The pilot explained that vast reserves of ancient snowfall, compressed to ice, feed the glaciers that grind their way through valleys, drawn by Newton's gravity down to the sea.
The pilot pointed down. "Those tiny crevasses you see in the glaciers are as deep as fifteen story buildings."
"But they look like you could step across?" Gerard amazed.
"I thought Glacier Bay was just a little park, but it's immense!" Esther marveled. In the clear air they could plainly see mountains seventy miles away.
"The park, itself just a little corner of SE Alaska, is larger than Connecticut," the man at the wheel explained.
When the plane banked and headed back towards Skagway, Esther squeezed Gerard's arm and sighed, "I would have all this to gaze down upon had my wish that I grow up to be an eagle come true."
He smiled, thrilling in the sensation of her touch, watching with her, from the heights of the lofty mountains, as the setting sun painted the snowy glaciers a pale pink. Below them, mirrored lakes sat like epaulets on the broad shoulders of weather making mountains and small streams meandered snake like, down and down, dawdling back and forth across the valley floors as if loath to leave the inspiration of these noble monuments.
As they descended, the pilot mentioned that more men now hike these mountains than ever climbed them in the days of old for gold. Swooping down over Lynn Canal, he headed for the runway and pointed out that the tide was high. "Notice where the moon is when the tide is high and every day the tide will be high when the moon is there. It's called charting a harbor."
"How many days is the rule good for?" Gerard asked.
"Forever! Come back ten years from now and the tide will be high, night or day, when the moon is in the same place."
"We better catch the boat or we'll still be here ten years from now," Esther joked as Gerard helped her down from the plane.
Approaching Angoon in the moonlight, the Columbia plunged into yet another low lying layer of white fog and, of all the wonders around them, only the moon above the gossamer blanket could be seen. The Captain, apparently not dismayed, blew the fog horn and flashed the spotlight into the milky mist while only slowing the ship a bit. In Angoon the fog thickened more and they could only see the pilings where the ship's hands tied the dock lines.
The air cleared when they crossed Chatham straight on the way to Sitka, and they marveled as the ship went between Chichagof and Baranof Islands. The narrow winding passes had long ago been christened with names like Peril Pass and Poison Cove.
In the late afternoon, she came to where he was standing at the rail and stood beside him for what to him seemed a lovely eternity before she broke the spell and asked, "What do you see?"
"I was looking for my cabin."
"You can see it from the boat?"
"In the winter, I can see the boat from my cabin, but I'm not sure, with the leaves still green that I can see the cabin from the boat."
"Are there farms around your cabin? The landscape is so rugged, too steep for farming I suspect, and I don't see the usual patchwork of agricultural communities. What do your neighbors do for a living?"
"I don't have any neighbors." He was certain that the loneliness of his isolated existence would discourage her.
"Oh, how perfectly private!" she enthused, then stopped short and, pointing very unladylike, accused, "There, see, a house or something sitting up on the side of that promontory. I thought you said no one lived here."
"That's it."
"That's what?"
"My cabin."
"But it's not a tiny hovel! The way you described it I saw a one room log shack with chinking missing between the timbers, cracks that you would have to patch up before the winter chills, and a bearskin door to keep the north wind at bay."
"It's slightly more comfortable than your imagined crude shelter."
"How many rooms does it have?"
"Well,..."
"Come on, and don't lie to me again."
"I haven't lied to you, you just assumed the worst.'
"Well, how many rooms?"
"A living room..."
"How big? How long? How wide?"
"In response to your architectural curiosity," he smiled into her waiting eyes, "the living room is fourteen feet by twenty four, and there is a fireplace."
"A fireplace! How perfectly cozy," she gazed off with an unbelievable dreamy look in her eyes that made him wonder. Hadn't his girlfriend, his former girlfriend, said, "It's me or the mountains." Is it possible, he asked himself, that there is a woman who might like the harsh, isolated, lonely winters of southeast Alaska.
Inhaling the sweet mountain air, she turned and pinned him with eyes that were not dreamy but determined. "Now, Sir. Is it really just a one room cabin?"
"It has a small kitchen with spring fed running water, a small bedroom, and an inside bathroom."
"You eat in the kitchen?" she asked and, in her concerned eyes, he saw the lord of the manner eating downstairs with the help.
"In the living room, before the fireplace," he explained.
"Oh, fine. And where do you sit to write?"
"Before the fireplace," he repeated.
"And why do I have to stand on a chair to see out the windows?"
"They are high to let light in when the snow gets deep."
"Is there a window for springtime?"
"Yes. There it is," he enthused pointing to the cabin in the green hills where with just a hint of pale yellow the aspens promised to turn to gold. "It is a picture window and is also in the living room, but opposite the fireplace."
"I'm surprised you don't sleep in front of the fireplace."
"I do most of the time. And, by the way, the bearskin door is on the sofa -- before the fireplace."
"How cozy," she whispered, smiling, but then stiffened as if stung, and asked, "Bearskin! Do you shoot bears?"
"It was me or the bear."
"Oh, well. I suppose you were trapped, and you had to,..." she choked, "You had to kill it?"
"I was walking across to the extra cabin when I heard a growl behind me."
"You had a gun with you?"
"In the extra cabin, a spare rifle."
"The bear chased you?"
"Crashed in before I could get the door closed. The rifle was loaded and ready."
"Frightening?"
"I must admit, it did make me cautious about running around unarmed. But I won to duel, and, to preserve the majesty of that mighty beast, I took it upon myself to tan the hide. It took a month but now it's soft and, as I said, it's also in the living room."
"It sounds like you do everything but brush your teeth in the living room."
"So far, I guess you're right about that."
"Then the bedroom could be used by a guest," she stated, rather than asked.
He looked ahead, as the boat rounded a bend and the cabin was lost from view, and heard her ask, "Why aren't they stopping the boat so you can get off?"
"I'll get off at Sitka. I've got a canoe there."
"A canoe? Oh, yes. I remember, no roads."
"Ah, Sitka!" he breathed as the buildings came into view and sucked in great gulps of air from the Pacific.
"Your destination," she said and lowered her eyes.
"Your group is taking a tour?" he asked.
"Yes, we must see it all, you know." She answered with such a forlorn sigh, he wondered that she may be tired of traveling.
"And I must locate my winter supplies down in the hold." It was his turn to sigh now.
Taking her hand in his, he said, "Goodbye, Esther. In only these few days that we have had together, I feel I've found a friend who loves Alaska as I do."
"You will write, in the Spring, and tell me all about your winter alone in the cabin."
"I'll write and tell you all the nice things I found about a young lady that I met on a ship on the way north."
"But I want to know about the ways of the North," she whispered and after giving his hand a squeeze reluctantly took hers back when he finally released it.
"Goodbye and good luck on the rest of your trip back to the States," he offered, loath to leave her.
"Thank you, and you keep your sharp rifle close at hand."
"Long rifle, sharp axe," he paraphrased. "Your group is going ashore," he warned and nodded to the dozen young ladies marching down the gangplank in single file.
"Yes, goodbye," she whispered and stepping to him, stood on tiptoes and placed a quick kiss on his cheek.
Then she was gone, and he stood alone, looking to where she disappeared in the group of chatting young ladies.
Gerard Curwood covered the kiss with fingertips and stood staring after her. But finally, he shrugged and turned to look for the purser who would locate his gear, down in the hold of the ship. As he hauled his cartons ashore, he found his enthusiasm for getting back to his paradise waning in an upheaval of abject confused loneliness. He began to wonder how he ever tolerated the last two winters in such isolation, with no one to engage in the delights of conversation.
The tour guide looked into the lustrous eyes of a dozen young ladies and explained the bustling activity on the fish processing wharf. "These cardboard cartons are full of frozen fish. A lighter will carry the cartons out to a Japanese freighter."
"Sitka is selling fish to Japan?" a young lady asked.
Ignoring the interruption, the guide continued with, "All the fish are caught on hooks and are therefore of the best grade. The fishermen here do not use nets to scrape the bottom.
"Historically," the man led them on, "here, amongst these coastal mountain islands, the Russians hunted fur seals and built forts using the enormous trees that crowd the many islands in this Utopian climate. And, in the park, you will see totem poles carved by the Indians."
Back across the bridge to the main island, the group was led into Ye Ole Gun Shop, and Esther saw racks of rifles on the wall.
She listened attentively as the proprietor described the different bores of the barrels and the range and impact of the different calibers. When he warned, "Never go ashore in southeast Alaska without a gun to defend yourself from bears," she choked and, whispering something to a surprised friend, excused herself and slipped out the door.
Alone, his canoe loaded for the trip to his cabin, Gerard shook his head, and whispered to the wind, "Boy meets girl, boy loses girl,... Is Lady Luck so fickle as to throw two people together, two people who look to the mountains, who breath mountain air with the same gleam in their eyes, who want desperately to live," he sighed, "and love in the mountains, only to impose previous scenarios and scripts to tear them apart."
When he heard himself singing the lyrics of the song, I never knew I loved you, until you went away, he stopped, and looked to where he last saw her and gasped.
She was coming down the dock, dressed, not in her pretty dress and cashmere coat, but rather in a buckskin skirt and jacket. She was bowed under the weight of a backpack and in her hands she hefted a long rifle.
"Do you shoot bears?" he asked.
"Your rifle is in your cabin, right?"
"I suppose it is. Yes."
"Well, the man said, one should never go ashore in Alaska without a gun to protect himself from the bears."
"Thank you. I... I guess I do need protection," he admitted, chuckling.
"Maybe I do too," she replied and, with that settled, stowed her backpack and gun in the canoe and commandeered the bow seat as if she belonged. He watched her dip a paddle in the water as if she had been born an Indian and heard her say, "I called my father. Daddy said I could extend my trip.
"Extend your trip?" His mouth dropped open. "For... for how long?"
She turned and, with an exasperated pout that slowly became a beaming smile, she tossed her bewitching coil of soft brown hair and offered, "You're the one writing the story."
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