Music I Love

Gravity – new (rather sappy) love song I’m enjoying

Eternal – soulful cello

Heal Over ; Change ; Speak Your Heart ; Everything- great love songs

Holding On – sensual techno

Grace Is Gone – just love Dave Matthews.Period.

Sankofa – gorgeous a Capela

One (Live) – Spanish guitar duet

Guramayle – cheerful African vocal

I Was Brought to My Senses ; Over On 4th Street ; King Of Sorrow – special to me

You will notice from these selections I have an eclectic taste in music.

Spontaneous Photography

I was out riding my mountain bike the other day, my iPhone stuck in my jacket pocket, and was stopped mid-pedal by this scene. I took out my iPhone and shot the image below. Then, I just stood there and stared at it for a while.

I am not a religious person, but my spirit is tied very deeply to this Earth. It is what makes me believe in God. To me, this image is like the Light of God bursting onto the Earth. That is why I love photography, or maybe that is why I see photo subjects as I do… I so appreciate the beauty of this amazing planet of ours!

Further up the path, you travel between the two enormous Cottonwood trees and ride parallel to the Rocky Mountains along a mesa for a ways. Hard to believe that just a few days ago, this was all buried under 3 feet of snow. Now it is 73 degrees F! I love that about living in Colorado… it’s beautifully unpredictable.

~Kat

Young and Dumb in the Yukon: Part 5 ~ The End

I was trudging back to my cabin from the lodge in Kevin’s big Sorel boots, only half noticing my surroundings, since the only thing on my mind was a hot bath. I’d helped cook for the breakfast crowd and smelled like bacon fat. As I rounded a stand of trees I saw Tom backing out of my cabin and scanning the area before pulling the door shut. I stepped behind a tree, not sure if he’d seen me. I stood there for a while, uncertain of what to do. As I debated whether to go to the cabin or return to the lodge to fetch Wick, I felt anger heat up my face and neck at the sight of him leaving my cabin. I decided that I had to know what he was doing in there. I raced up to the porch and let myself into the cabin. I hadn’t padlocked it when I went to breakfast, but just set the padlock to appear as if it was locked (you have to imagine the scene of utter isolation, set 150 miles from the nearest town beside a mountain lake in January). I could not fathom a break-in. Nevertheless, Tom discovered my unlocked door and let himself in. He didn’t even bother to reset the lock the way he’d found it.

I walked in carefully, having no idea what that man might have done. I looked around, peeking under the bed and in dressers and couldn’t identify anything out of place or missing. The cardboard box full of Kevin’s traps remained by the door where he’d left them. Wick explained to him about local trappers getting very possessive of land they’d unofficially “claimed,” and that his traps had been collected and pelts kept as punishment for infringing on someone else’s site. In Kevin’s odd way, he accepted the justice of it – knowing that living and trapping out there was not an easy life.

I locked the door from the inside and moved slowly through the room as I prepared to take my bath. I stopped in my tracks when I heard a low, growling noise coming from the linen closet. I carefully opened the door. Simon hissed as he backed himself into a corner. He had been staying up at the lodge with Liz since we arrived. She loved to feed him treats at night from the kitchen and let him sleep in her innkeeper’s quarters. After all the bacon he’d been getting, I wasn’t sure if he was still my cat. Now he was in my linen closet. I reached in carefully, consoling him and pulled him out from the lowest shelf. His tail had been shaved half way up and he had a shaved line down the center of his back. I noticed just then that there were also tufts of hair all over the base of the closet. Simon was mad as hell.

I took him over to the bed and tried to sit with him and calm him down. The shearing was done so closely in some spots that his skin was nicked and bleeding. I dabbed his cuts with a tissue and talked softly to him. Now I understood what Tom was doing in my room. Seemed he wanted to make sure I knew he could get into any space and take whatever he wanted without being noticed or stopped. Why he chose to shear my poor kitty, I don’t know – but I was sure that Simon must have laid his claws into him in the process. This was not a cat who would tolerate being mishandled – and certainly not sheared! I assumed that Tom chose to mistreat him because he had no respect for animals, as evidenced by the coyote pup, and he wanted to scare me. I didn’t have the common sense to be afraid of Tom. He shaved my cat and terrified him! That just made me angry.

I smoothed Simon’s fur with my hand until he relaxed and located a bit of beef jerky to give him as a treat. Once he was calm again, I got into the bath and soaked with the door open, always looking anxiously into the other room. I knew Simon was feeling better, which helped me relax, because when he entered the bathroom, he hopped onto the ledge of the tub and pawed at the water, as he often did in Anchorage. He always seemed to be surprised by the wetness of his paw, no matter how many times he dipped it into the hot bathwater.

After my bath, I exited and locked up the cabin and took Simon up to the lodge to show Liz and Wick what had been done to him. Once they were able to stop laughing at the sight of the shaven cat, they realized how distressed I was over it. Then it dawned on Wick that Tom had broken into my cabin. He wasted no time in going to confront Tom, but soon reported back that he was nowhere to be found. Simon and I stayed at the lodge through dinner. I played cards with Abe, Josh and Wick while Liz read a book in her favorite big chair by the fireplace. There were very few diners that night, so I decided to head back to the cabin before it was completely dark. Just as I was about to leave, Kevin called from Fort Nelson to let me know he’d finally gotten the car into a shop. He said that the repairs were expected to take over a week to complete because the parts would take five to seven days to arrive at the mechanic’s garage. Kevin said he was leaving the Jeep there and hitchhiking back to Muncho Lake the next morning. Wick walked me back in the dark to my cabin. I unlocked the padlock and Wick searched the room before leaving Simon and me alone there. I locked the inside padlock. It did not comfort me to be alone in the cabin in the woods without a telephone, but I knew I had a pistol in the nightstand. I had no doubt in my mind that if Tom attempted to come into my cabin that night, I would shoot him –and I wasn’t going to aim for his kneecaps.

I laid Simon out on the foot of the bed and rubbed his ears until he was purring. Then I climbed under the covers and stared into the room for a long time, too afraid to turn out the light. I decided I would make the gun more accessible by wedging it between the box spring and the mattress with the safety on, but when I opened the nightstand drawer, I was shocked to find that it was gone. Earlier that day it was the first thing I looked for after seeing Tom exiting my cabin. I found it there in the nightstand drawer, checked the chamber for bullets, set the safety and laid it on the towel I’d folded into the drawer. That was exactly where I left it when I padlocked the door behind me. Suddenly, I sat straight up in bed and searched my brain. Had I mislaid the gun in my panic? I jumped out of bed and combed through the room, but it was nowhere to be found. What I did find, however, was the butt of a Marlboro cigarette in a tin ashtray on the window ledge. Neither Kevin nor I smoked and I had not even noticed the ashtray before. I grew anxious as I realized that Tom must have re-entered the cabin after I left. I checked that both of the cabin windows were locked, but found that the smaller one above the bureau would not latch. That must have been how he got in, I thought. It was an old wood framed window, swollen from years of exposure to the harsh elements. The latch parts no longer lined up evenly to secure the window shut.

I grabbed my wooden hairbrush and leaned it against the windowpane. Then I lined up several empty soda cans on the dresser, hoping that if Tom came in through the window during the night, I would at least hear his entry if I fell asleep. I went through Kevin’s nightstand and found the large knife he used to skin deer. I removed the knife from the sheath and got into bed. The cabin was an authentic, old log structure that was made from rough-hewn logs and insulated between logs with peat sphagnum. I propped my pillows against the low headboard and stuck the knife blade into the sphagnum just above my right ear so that I could quickly pull it from the wall if I needed to. After a long time of debating whether or not it was wiser to expose my position with the lamplight or lay silently in the darkness, I opted to turn out the light. Once the light was out, I couldn’t even see my own hand in front of my face. It was as dark as tar out there in the wilderness. I laid there, listening to my own breathing and Simon’s snoring – unable to close my eyes, but desperately needing to sleep. At some point I did fall asleep, but I jumped at every noise. It was Simon who alerted me to the scuffing sound coming from the porch. He suddenly perked up. I could barely make out the outline of his alert ears from the little bit of light coming through the window. I stilled my breathing. Simon stood up and pivoted his ears towards the door. I could hear the slow drag of heavy boots on the porch deck, as if the person on the other side was trying very hard to be quiet. I reached up and put my hand on the knife handle to make sure it was accessible in the darkness. I tried to make out the size and location of the person on the other side of the curtained window, but tree shadows from the moonlight made it impossible. I knew it had to be Tom, trying to scare me again. I could hear the muffled clank of the traps he always had strung over his shoulders. Simon continued to stare straight at the door, unmoving. I reached back and pulled the knife from the wall, and stepped quietly to the door. Taking the key from the dresser I decided that as quickly as I could, I would gently unlock the interior padlock, abruptly swing open the heavy pine door and brandish my knife in my anger at Tom.

Once I got the padlock off, I stopped to listen again. Now that I was closer to the door, I could hear heavy breathing on the other side and the jingle of the trap chains. I put my left hand on the doorknob and threw it open as I raised the knife to my waist. I decided I was going to kick Tom in the groin as hard as I could. As he turned towards me I threw my foot into his lower body with all of my weight behind it. He doubled over and let out a groan.

In a tormented tone I heard, “Shit! Woman! Why the hell did you just kick me in the nuts?” I immediately recognized Kevin’s voice – although I don’t believe I’d ever heard it sound quite like that before (maybe once, when he dropped the end of a huge log on his foot).

I released the knife and kneeled beside my friend who was laying halfway inside the door, folded over in pain.

“I’m so sorry, Kevin!” I said as I put my hand on his back. “What are you doing here? I thought you were Tom trying to break into our room!”

I flicked on the light and saw that Kevin’s eyes were watering and his nose was running. “Come inside,” I said as I tried to pull him into the cabin. He crawled in. I shut the door as he lay on the floor hugging his legs to his chest, moaning. I must have apologized a thousand times before he finally stood up again and made his way to the edge of the bed.

“Why were you worried about Tom so much that you had my hunting knife in your hand?” he asked as he placed his keys on the dresser.

I realized then that the sound I had mistaken for metal traps banging together was Kevin’s multitude of keys jingling as he tried to find the one for the outer lock.

“Why did you bother looking for your keys and not just knock? You must have known I had padlocked the door from the inside.” I remarked.

“I was sure you’d have slept up at the lodge with me away, but noooo, you’re down here swinging daggers in the dark…” His voice trailed off as he leaned back to pet Simon, who was now curled up on my pillow.

“…and skinning your cat? What the hell?” he asked as he ran his hand down Simon’s shaved back.

Simon purred loudly and rubbed his ears on Kevin’s hand. Kevin shot me a confused look.

“Tom strikes again.” I responded.

It would be pointless to repeat here the words that came next out of Kevin’s mouth. I’m not sure I could even spell all of them. After his verbal rampage and stomping about that sent poor Simon and me under the bedcovers, he sat quietly in a chair under the window. I knew he wasn’t calm, but was plotting something devious to get even with Tom. Kevin’s temper worried me most when he got quiet.

I fell asleep with the lights on and woke up before dawn to find a Thermos of coffee and a danish on the nightstand beside me with a note: Get your things together. Leaving at 10.

Not knowing what exactly he meant, I packed up everything of his and mine in our separate duffles and had it all laying neatly on the bed when he walked in and told me that he had arranged to borrow a truck to drive me into Fort Nelson, where I would catch the Greyhound bus to Abbotsford. There my father would meet me to bring me back to Seattle. We argued a while about his inability to protect me (and my insistence that I could take care of myself just fine), but in the end I agreed to go because I could tell that there was going to be trouble at Muncho Lake.

The bus took two full days to reach Abbotsford. The scenery was incredible and I longed for my camera. I was supposed to arrive at 7 AM, but the bus pulled into the Abbotsford bus terminal at midnight. Everything in sight was closed. All of the other passengers hopped into cars or disappeared into the night. I seated myself on my duffle bag against a wall in the cold darkness and did not move again until daybreak. I had one hand on my Swiss Army knife as I stayed hidden in the shadows. I watched vagrants and drunks stumble past me, never noticing the girl shivering against the cold brick wall of the bus station. My parents arrived promptly at 6:45 AM to bring me home. We drove for hours in silence after I answered a few cursory questions. I had to relinquish my knife at the border crossing. It was the perfect ending. Alaska and the Yukon had forever changed me and gave me a sense of fearlessness that has matured over the years, but which is always present when my back is up against a wall. I wish I still had my Swiss Army knife, though.

Peace. Namaste.

Kat

Shortlink: http://wp.me/pwNzo-5J

About this story… It has been a long time since I experienced Alaska and the Yukon as a twenty-one year old, naïve girl. I have done my best to present the people and events as I remember them. Fortunately, I believe that I have a pretty good memory. Still, I don’t recall every word spoken. I have attempted to recreate events and themes here. Any additions or flourishes are owing to an inaccurate memory of events plus intent to tell a story – not an attempt to deceive. This has been my first pass at sharing this story in writing. Close friends and family have heard pieces over the years. Also, there are many other events I’ve left out, not knowing when I began that first Young and Dumb in the Yukon post, that this story would ever reach 5 parts! Finally, memories change with age. What was frightening at twenty-one is a thrilling life lesson & memory for me now. Names have been changed to protect private people, living private lives.

Young and Dumb in the Yukon: Part 4

Liz began to cry when she unwrapped the hand-painted gold pan from the white towel. She insisted that I take it back, but once I saw her face light up as she discovered the detailed mountain scene painted on its face, I knew that I wanted her to have it.

“Liz, please accept this Christmas gift from us. We’re so grateful to you and William and your sons for taking us in. Without your generosity, we’d probably have frozen to death,” I appealed.

Liz smiled, walked over to the fireplace, removed an elaborate turkey platter from its stand on the mantel and put the gold pan in its place. It looked at home there in the lodge along with the antique skis, old fishing baskets and animal trophies that lined the log walls.

She looked back at me from the fireplace, where she sat down on the hearth beside a lit, plastic Santa. “Somehow, I think you and Kevin would have survived without us,” she said plainly.

Wick selected another Christmas song from the jukebox before disappearing into the kitchen. Moments later, he reappeared with a tray of coffee mugs filled with brandy eggnog. Simple gifts were exchanged between the small staff and their families as we sipped the warm nog and got sillier. Having grown up in the United States, where Christmas had turned so commercial, it was really heartwarming to see people exchange handmade gifts, like mittens, pottery, tins of homemade cookies and handcrafted wooden boxes. It was one of the nicest Christmas holidays I’d ever experienced.

Kevin and I returned to the cabin a little bit drunk, full of a generous turkey dinner and feeling completely exhausted. He lit the fire in the woodstove while I finally put the clothing from our duffles into dresser drawers.

“Tomorrow I’ll call AAA for a tow into Fort Nelson,” he said. “I’ll see if I can get a ride into town with the tow truck driver. I need to pick up some money that my mom’s wiring through Western Union.” Before I could question the wisdom of it, he added, “We won’t have enough to pay the tow and the repair.”

I nodded as I rolled up the empty duffle bags and stuffed them under the dresser. As nice as Christmas felt, I missed spending it with my family. I was hoping the repairs would be minimal and speedy.

The next morning Kevin trudged up to the lodge to make some phone calls. The sun was out, making it feel warmer than it actually was. I decided to take the Field & Stream magazine, left in the cabin for guests, out to the porch to enjoy in the sunshine. I was halfway through reading an article on how to properly clean a trout, when I realized that a shadow was being cast over me. I looked up from my page and saw the outline of a man standing with his back to the sun. He was positioned surprisingly close to me.

“Why are you here?” he asked gruffly.

I shielded my eyes to better see him. “What do you mean? Do you mean on the porch?”

He moved closer to me until his boot toes were touching mine. His voice grew louder and rougher. “Why are you HERE? At Muncho in the middle of winter?”

I looked around to see if anyone else was nearby. There was no one.

“Are you Tom?” I asked, trying to smile. I stuck out my hand to introduce myself, “I’m Kathleen.”

He batted my hand away harshly. “I am only here in winter because NO ONE else is here! Why are YOU here?” He growled.

I could see that we were not going to be friendly cabin neighbors.

I tried to explain, “Our Jeep broke down about twenty miles up the highway. Liz and Will…” He cut me off.

“If I had been here when your man broke in, I would have shot him as a vagrant. He’s just lucky Liz found him first,” he threatened.

I was growing afraid of this aggressive mountain man. “Listen, we won’t be here long. We are trying to get back home to Seattle and…”

“City rats! I hate city rats!” he grumbled.

I decided not to correct him that I was not in fact a “city rat.” I grew up on the rural Kitsap Peninsula across from Seattle, which was only a ferry ride away. Still, my backyard was a forested area inhabited with black bears, mountain lions and deer on one side and the cold, deep waters of Puget Sound on the other. Saying I was from Seattle was just easier than trying to explain where on the Peninsula I called “home.”

“We’ll be outta here in a few days, Tom…” I began, but he cut me off again.

“How do you know my name? We ain’t friends missy!” he responded loudly.

I really just wanted to go inside the cabin and lock the door, but was afraid to move. I was glad Kevin had not been there or I’d most certainly have had to try to break up a fight by then. Kevin had a hot temper and a black belt in karate. He would not have thought twice about throwing a punch or taking Tom down. I’d seen him do it before when provoked.

At that moment I was becoming irritated and decided that Tom and I were definitely not going to get along. I learned long ago that an aggressor needs to be met head on, or he would think me a victim and try to frighten me. I was frightened, but this man was not going to get the better of me.

I stood up and faced him, directly, setting him slightly off-balance as my knees smacked against shins. I could tell that by standing up, I surprised him.

“You’re right, we aren’t friends! So, get the hell out of my face and go back to whatever it is that you do! I’m not here to bother you and don’t you be bothering me.” I pivoted on my heel to open the cabin door, understanding the risk of turning my back to him. The mangled carcass of a small coyote landed at my feet.

“Dinner,” he said coolly. “A dog for a bitch.”

He stepped off the porch and returned to the forest trail that wound between the cabins. I could see animal traps flung over his shoulders, clanging as he walked.

I looked down at the dead coyote. It was just a pup. Suddenly it occurred to me that I had heard a coyote howling repeatedly early in the morning. Coyote pups yip and hoot, but this was a mournful, adult howl I heard. I assumed it was the pup’s mother calling for him. I went into the cabin and grabbed a towel to wrap around him and placed his body under the bench until Kevin arrived. I knew this would get to him. He too was a trapper, but he used bait that coyotes didn’t usually go after unless they were really hungry. He hated it when a coyote was caught in one of his traps. He appreciated them and wolves a lot because he loved dogs. Long after I left Alaska, Kevin took in a beautiful, huge German Shepherd-Gray Wolf mixed breed that lived with him for the next fifteen years. They did everything together and he always brought the dog with him when he visited Seattle. He was never willing to kennel his best friend, and would forgo a trip if his dog was not welcome.

An hour or so later Kevin returned to the cabin with bad news about repairing the Jeep.

“It’s Boxing Day.” He said flatly.

“It’s what?” I asked.

“Boxing Day,” he said as he threw up both arms. “Don’t ask me. Josh tried to explain and I still don’t understand what Boxing Day is. All I know is that everything is closed! It’s a national holiday in Canada. No tow today and no tow tomorrow.”

“Why not tomorrow?”  I questioned.

“Because according to the voice message on the machine, tomorrow is employee appreciation day,” he replied.

I looked at him in disbelief. “What? Well there has to be another towing company we can call!”

“I called the four in the phone book and each one had a message saying they were closed today and tomorrow and, in one case, until New Years.” He sat down on the edge of the bed and grabbed my hands.

“What the hell? Are you okay?”  He asked turning over my wrists and exposing smears of blood. I had washed the coyote blood off but missed some that must have gotten on my sleeves. I pulled my hands away and looked at my feet.

“Go look under the bench on the front porch,” I said, unable to meet his eyes.

He stepped out onto the porch. I heard him swearing and stomping his heavy boots on the porch deck. He came back inside red-faced.

“Who did that?” he asked. “Not you?”

“Of course, not me! Our cabin neighbor, Tom,” I sighed.  ”I suppose so, anyway. He threw the carcass at my feet after he became very threatening and…” Before I could tell him the whole story, he opened the nightstand drawer and pulled out his pistol.

“What do you mean he became threatening?” he asked as he checked the barrel of his gun for ammunition.

“It was nothing. He just doesn’t like us here. We are cramping his style.” I responded lightly. “Why do you need a gun?”

“Because he’s obviously not a nice guy,” he said as he tucked the pistol in the back of his pants and slid his coat over the waist again. “I’m just going to have a little talk with buddy Tom,” he continued. “Lock the door and don’t open it unless it’s me.”

I knew there was no talking Kevin out of this kind of thing. He was decided. I locked the door behind him but cracked open a window so I could hear any outside noises better. A few minutes later Kevin rapped on the door.

“No one’s there,” he said, clearly disappointed.

He was anxious for the next few hours, running on adrenaline and pacing the cabin like a caged wolf. I sat against the antique headboard, while reading an outdoor survivalist handbook. To ease the tension I called out interesting things I was learning from the guide, like how to build a lean-to shelter out of tree boughs, sphagnum and stripped cedar bark. Finally, understanding that Kevin was not hearing anything I said, I threw on my boots and sweater to leave. I didn’t like being around him when he was this uneasy. It made me nervous.

“I’m going up to help Liz with the lunch crowd,” I said as I left. “Please don’t kill anyone,” I teased.

When I got to the lodge there were only three diners seated. Abe and Josh were in a corner booth playing cards, drinking beer and taunting each other. It was Wick’s day off, so Liz was in the kitchen making Monte Cristo sandwiches and cheddar potatoes. I put on an apron and offered to help. She gladly handed me the spatula.

“Flip ‘em when they’re browned on that side,” she instructed.

She began shredding a bright orange brick of cheese into a casserole pan filled with wedges of potatoes and thick pats of butter and placed it in the oven. I flipped the eight sandwiches on the grill. One landed on the floor.

“That one’s yours,” she said, laughing.

The rest of that day and all of the next I hung out at the lodge and helped Liz and Wick cook, serve and clean up between mealtimes. I was surprised at how many diners such a far away place would receive; but I guess since it was 150 miles away from one town and over 200 miles to the next, anyone traveling the Al-Can Highway was likely to stop in (even if it was just to have a cup of coffee and use the restroom). Kevin and Abe became pretty good friends and decided on the morning of December 28 to go out and set some animal traps in the mountains. Kevin was hoping to get beaver or ermine pelts to sell in Fort Nelson and Abe simply wanted to learn how to trap.

They were gone all day and into the evening. I was getting a little worried, but I knew that Kevin could take care of himself – overnight, if necessary. After the dinner shift ended, I walked in darkness back to the cabin. I saw Kevin sitting on the bench outside of the door. I went bounding up to the porch before I realized it was actually Tom who was seated there, barely visible under a yellow bug light bulb. He’d not been seen in two days.

“Why are you here?” I asked curtly. I could feel my neck hairs stand up.

“Tell your man I don’t tolerate nobody trapping on my land!” He said.

He got up and I noticed he had several animal pelts and a whole bunch of traps draped over his arms and shoulders. He turned and stomped back to his cabin.

Long past dark, Kevin and Abe returned to the lodge where I was worrying with Liz and Wick. William had hitched a ride with a trucker earlier that day into Fort Nelson for supplies. Both men were dirty, cold and tired. Kevin explained that they’d set the traps at dawn and went to a field to target shoot for a few hours. When they returned to check the traps, they were gone.

Liz queried, “Are you sure you know exactly where they’d been set?”

I knew that Kevin always marked his trap sights by breaking branches or scoring nearby trees. I’d never seen him misplace a trap. He shot Liz an insulted look.

“Yes ma’am. I knew exactly where they were set. They were taken, all but one was left  - broken off at the hinges. Looks like it had snared an animal because there was fur and blood on it, but the pelt was missing,” he explained.

Of course, my first thought was that Tom had stolen Kevin’s traps and pelts. I was just too afraid to say anything. I knew Kevin would race down to Tom’s cabin and confront him if I told him I’d seen Tom with a large stock of traps. I motioned to Wick to follow me into the kitchen where I told him about the frightening encounters I’d had with Tom.

Wick picked up a pair of long kitchen tongs and waved them in the air as he spoke. “I do not like that man! He’s a surly cuss who lives here for nothin.’ I keep telling the Ogilvy’s to git rid of him, but they made a ten-year lease deal when they bought this land from his pop. This is his last winter here and he’s angry about it. Hell, he’s angry he wasn’t given the land!” Wick claimed.

I was relieved to know that such nice people were not housing this man because they liked him, but because of an old lease agreement.

“If Kevin finds out that Tom stole his traps and pelts I swear he’ll beat the daylights out of him, Wick. Is there anything you can do?” I asked.

Wick banged the tongs on the grill. “Somebody should beat him silly. He’s no good. Always causing trouble when he’s in the diner, so he was banned from eating in here while there are paying customers.”

Wick looked up at the rafters and grinned widely. “I’ll take care of it,” he said as he tossed the tongs into the sink and stomped out the back door.

Wick was considerably bigger than any of the rest of us at the lodge except Abe, who was tall and lanky. Wick was broader across the back and had arms like a wrestler, plus he was tall. I waited in the kitchen for him to return, rinsing dried pinto beans for tomorrow’s chili to bide my time. He returned about thirty minutes later, as if he’d just returned from an evening stroll among the pine trees.

“What happened?” I finally asked.

He cracked his knuckles and washed his hands at the sink. He let out what can only be described as a giggle. “The traps are in a box under your porch bench,” he replied.

I was afraid to ask, but too curious not to know. “What did you do, Wick?” I queried.

“I reminded Tom of something he wouldn’t want me to share with the Ogilvys or the Mounties. Something only he and I know.” He took the spoon from me and laid it on the counter. “Don’t repeat any of this, ok?”

I looked up at him, this hulking, loveable man, and hugged him. “Thank you Wick. You’re so cool. I won’t mention any of this!” I promised.

He smiled at me. “You remind me of Roselyn when I first met her. We met gutting fish on a commercial trawler off the Aleutians when she was barely eighteen. She was tough, but sweet like you.”

“That’s the nicest compliment I’ve heard in months, Wick. Thank you,” I said, imagining this big man being smitten by a woman whom he met gutting fish.

It took four more days to get the Jeep towed to a Fort Nelson auto mechanic. I hadn’t seen Tom until the night after Kevin left for Fort Nelson, when I found him coming out of my cabin, shortly after the last breakfast patrons left.

(to be continued…)

Namaste,

Kat

Shortlink: http://wp.me/pwNzo-5j

Young and Dumb in the Yukon: Part 3

After about 20 minutes of waiting in the darkness, locked out and freezing on the front porch of a cabin in the Yukon in December, Kevin returned to where I was sitting.  He said he was able to get the window open with my Swiss Army knife on the third cabin circling the lakeshore. I followed him there, hobbling and losing my footing, while he opened the front door for me. He quickly lit a fire as I unlaced my boots and pulled off my thick, wool socks. My toes were hard as ice cubes and shaded a raisin purple on several of the tips. Two of my toes were, quite literally, frozen together. I tried to warm up in the bed while he toasted towels by the fire to wrap around my frozen feet. As my toes thawed, the stinging sensation that emerged was intolerable. Kevin returned to the Jeep and brought back a flask of whiskey and the Tylenol with Codeine we bought over-the-counter in Canada, but which required a doctor’s prescription in the United States.

“Drink this,” he ordered as he handed me the stainless steel flask and a couple of tablets.

I hated the harshness of his cheap whiskey, but I drank it anyway and fell asleep moments later. My own exhaustion surprised me, as I had spent many nights laying awake until dawn, observing the millions of stars in the wilderness sky and reacting to every noise I heard with a flinch. Several times through Christmas Eve night, I was vaguely aware that he’d re-wrapped hot towels around my frozen toes while I slept.

At daybreak I woke up confused and lost. My feet were in so much pain I could barely walk to the bathroom. I couldn’t remember where I was or how I had gotten there. I saw my duffle bag, towels and other items from the Jeep piled up at the foot of the bed, but there was no sign of Kevin. I peered out the window and noticed smoke coming from the lodge’s enormous stone chimney. I carefully slipped my sore feet into my boots and threw on my heavy pea coat. As I stepped out the door of the cabin, I was hit with freezing cold air that immediately woke me out of my stupor. Suddenly, I remembered the drama of the night before and wondered if Kevin had broken into the lodge to sleep there instead.

I trudged slowly up the trail to the expansive log building – wincing with each step. As I got closer, I noticed that a semi truck and trailer were parked out front. Once I neared the building, the unmistakable odor of bacon penetrated my nose and made my mouth water. I stepped onto the back porch and saw through the window that people were enjoying breakfast. Inside was a room full of  men talking and laughing over breakfast and sharing their Al-Can horror stories. A small, round woman with windburned cheeks hollered out from the coffee station to the diners as I entered, “There she is! Sleeping Beauty!”

I looked around the room, having no idea that she was referring to me. I stood there, barely two feet over the threshold, in dirty, green camouflage pants, a man’s gray, wool sweater pulled loosely over a plaid flannel shirt that was poking out at the hem and neck. I had on black army combat boots that were at least a half-size too large for my feet and my shoulder-length auburn hair was pulled into a tight ponytail. I lacked makeup and the only jewelry I was wearing was a St. Christopher’s medal tucked under my sweater. My mother gave it to me the day I left for Alaska and pleaded with me to “be safe.” Frankly, once I realized that this woman was talking about me, I was surprised she even realized I was a woman! I was certainly no Sleeping Beauty.

Kevin strode over and put a hand on my shoulder, “Liz, this is Kathi. Kathi, this is Liz. Her parents own this place. They arrived early this morning from Abbotsford and found this vagrant sleeping in a booth,” he said as he pointed his thumb to his chest.

Liz threw her arms around me, “Oh, honey we are so glad you and your husband had the good sense to break in! Imagine if we’d pulled up this morning and found two frozen dead bodies on our front porch!”

Kevin winked at me, knowing that I had understood the joke in her calling him my husband. We had to play those roles several times for strangers who couldn’t understand our relationship. Even I didn’t always understand our story, having dated years ago, broke up and remained good friends. I trusted him more than I trusted most people.

Kevin put his arm around my shoulder and joked, “Yep. My wife can be kind of a creampuff sometimes. Went and got herself a touch of frostbite on a few toes.”

Liz clucked her tongue at us, “You should be taking better care of this little lady of yours, Kevin!” Kevin rolled his eyes.

I winked back at him, “Yeah, honey. I kept asking you to turn up the heat in the car but you insisted it was burning through too much fuel.”  He shot me a displeased look. Sometimes I took the joke too far.

“Well, I am just glad you warmed up in one of the cabins, sweetie. Nobody was down there but Tom, anyway. Why, that would’ve ruined our Christmas to find you both frozen outside cuz you were too polite to break in!” Liz teased.

Suddenly it occurred to me that it was Christmas morning. I looked around at the ten or so diners who were all beaming smiles at me over their breakfasts. I was the girl saved from certain death on a cold Christmas Eve’s night and had swiftly become a character in the Christmas Story.

Liz proceeded to introduce me to her husband William, son Abe, younger son Josh and the cook Wickman, or “Wick” – a tall native man whom I came to adore over the next two weeks while trapped in upper British Columbia, where the Al-Can Highway descends briefly below the territory line to make its way around lakes and mountains.

Liz hollered back at the cook, “Wick, got those eggs and biscuits ready?”

Wick slid a plate heaping with food onto the kitchen window ledge and Liz handed it to me with a big grin, “Eat up honey!” she chirped. It was smothered in the best brown gravy I’d had yet.

After breakfast, I borrowed the phone to call my parents collect. My father answered. “Where the hell have you been Kathleen?” he yelled. “We’ve been calling you for four days!”

“H-hi Dad.” I stammered, “Kevin and I wanted to make it home in time for Christmas. Merry Christmas, by the way! Anyway, we broke down twice and now we are really stuck …in the Yukon. The Jeep just stopped running. We got towed to a lodge, which is where we are right now. Hey, did I say Merry Christmas?”

There was a long silence followed by some murmuring on the other end of the line. Finally my father returned to the phone. “If your brother and I leave tomorrow we can be there in a few days to pick you up. Can you hold out that long?”

“You don’t need to come get us, dad. I’m sure tomorrow we can get the car towed to the next town and have it fixed. Maybe even one of the truckers here can take a look at it. They must have to be pretty good auto mechanics to make this run up the Al-Can in winter.” I had no idea how far we were from the next town, but I assumed since we were in BC, civilation couldn’t be too far. Turns out, the next town was 150 miles away.

“Okay, kid. Call me collect tomorrow, or anytime you need help. Keep me informed of what’s going on! Now let me talk to Kevin,” my father said sternly.

I called out to Kevin from the wall phone in the kitchen, “Hey Kev! My dad wants to talk to you.” There was an audible gasp from a few of the diners. Wick nudged Kevin as he took the phone I was holding out to him, “Good luck, buddy!” he said with a knowing chuckle.

For the next ten minutes all I heard from Kevin was, “Yes sir,” “I will” and “You have my word, Mr. May.”

I called my father every day for the next thirteen days, each day believing I would soon be home, so I discouraged my dad and stepbrother from making the long drive to the Yukon retrieve me. Liz moved us into the first cabin later that day because it was easier to find the path leading to the lodge in the dark. She’d opened the diner to feed the truckers driving the Al-Can on Christmas day, but closed again before lunch. I stayed to help her clean up after the last breakfast patron left, while Kevin went out with Abe to cut down a few trees for firewood.

That night Kevin and I were invited back to the lodge for Christmas dinner. I showered and pulled out the nicest thing I owned to wear to dinner – a Peruvian alpaca sweater and navy blue wool pants with pleats and cuffs. I still wore my army boots, though. I put on some simple makeup, combed out my hair and stepped onto the cabin porch just as a man in a deerskin waistcoat and wearing a ratty looking beaver ushanka appeared out of the woods. He mumbled hello to me and hurried into the fourth cabin. I assumed I had just met Tom.

I entered the lodge and nearly cried at the savory scent of turkey and stuffing wafting out from the big commercial range. Liz sweetly greeted me with a plastic wine glass filled to the top with a flowery white wine.

I went into the kitchen and asked Wick if I could help him with anything. “Nope,” he said. “We’re covered.” He pointed with his elbow to Kevin who was peeling potatoes over the sink in a white apron.

“Whatcha doing there, mister?” I asked him with a big grin. I knew that he liked the mindless task of potato peeling.

“Peeling,” he replied without looking up. Potato peels were all over the counter, floor and hanging from the front of his starched apron.

“Can I help?” I asked.

“Nope. Go sit down and drink your wine,” he replied as he motioned back to the dining area with his head.

I leaned in close to whisper in his ear, “These people have been so nice to us. I was wondering if you’d mind if we gave them the gold pan for a Christmas gift?”

He stopped what he was doing and looked at me directly. The gold pan was a hand-painted piece of Alaskan art that he’d bought for me as a twenty-first birthday gift. I noticed it in a shop in Homer and wanted it, but it was expensive. The morning of my birthday he gave it to me, wrapped in the Sunday comics. He also made my favorite breakfast (eggs benedict).

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yes.” I quietly responded; not really sure.

“Ok. But it’s from you, not me.”

“Nope. From both of us and that’s it,” I said firmly.

He nodded and returned to peeling his mound of potatoes.

I snuck back to the cabin, retrieved the gold pan, wrapped it in a clean, white towel and hobbled through the snow back to the lodge.

Liz was setting the table when I returned. I placed the gift on the fireplace hearth and helped her put out the silverware.

“You clean up pretty,” she said to me smiling broadly. “What pretty hair!” she added. I just grinned at her, feeling so grateful that these good people took us in and were feeding us without so much as a word about money.

Liz’s husband William went to an old jukebox beside the big picture window that framed a snowy mountain view and put on Bing Crosby’s Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. He stretched out his hand to take Liz’s hand and spun her around the worn, pine floors of the lodge, like a couple dancing at their wedding.

Wick beamed at them from the kitchen, removed his apron and came out to the dining area to watch. I learned later that his wife of fifteen years had died of cancer the prior spring. I asked him to dance. He bowed, placed his hand on the small of my back and we waltzed to Bing Crosby while Kevin happily peeled potatoes in the kitchen.

(to be continued…)

Namaste,

Kat

Shortlink: http://wp.me/pwNzo-56

Young and Dumb in the Yukon: Part 2

Once Kevin and I were back on the Al-Can Highway – after having blown a tire, nearly broken through a frozen lake and almost having slid into another one, and despite the chill blowing in from the broken tailgate window, we were in high spirits. As the sun went down on the third day of our trip, we began looking for a place to pull off to sleep. We drove and drove and couldn’t find anything more than a simple pull-out strip alongside the highway to rest.  I laid out my sleeping bags on the front bench seat of the Jeep, while Kevin camped out on the ground beside the vehicle (in case anyone surprised us during the night). Our plan was that if someone saw the Jeep parked roadside and decided to rob us, he might not see Kevin lying below the vehicle, who could hear me yell in time to jump up and surprise a robber. In keeping with our method for self-preservation, we each slept with a loaded pistol by our side and tended to sleep very lightly (at least, I know I did). These are the kinds of things that cross your mind when you travel under such dicey circumstances. Still, not a single car passed us during the night, which rolled over into Christmas Eve day.

We awakened before dawn hoping to find a place to have a hot breakfast after a cold night of breathing in the freezing winter air that left ice on the insides of the windows. We came across an obscure lodge in what truly felt like the middle of nowhere – occupied only by truckers trying to make their way home in time for Christmas. A burly-looking breakfast cook wearing a Las Vegas Strip t-shirt hollered out, “Order up!” to Daisy, a gnarly-fingered, older woman who took our order, served our order and raced to the register to ring up our order the moment we stood up from the 1950s style booth where she seated us.

We enjoyed a hearty breakfast with strong black coffee. Unlike in the states, where refills are generally free, each coffee refill cost us an extra quarter. This is only important if the waitress insists on refilling your half-full cup so she can charge you another quarter. I was getting used to the fact that I got funny looks when I ordered black coffee without cream. Even the beefy truckers and wild-eyed fur trappers enjoyed cream in their coffee – and here I was, a 21 year-old girl drinking it straight up, proudly denying the dairy out loud. I was surprised at all the attention my coffee habit garnered. Ordering a shot of whiskey on the side would have no doubt brought less attention. Daisy dropped the tab off at the table and then hightailed it to the register counter by the door lickety-split, as if we might leave without paying. Kevin counted out the money, noting we were down to about $160 after replacing the tire and buying gasoline and oil. We still had a long haul ahead of us and would have to cut back on the sodas and candy bars we’d been buying at the petrol stations. Daisy eyed Kevin anxiously as he scooped mints out of the candy bowl on the counter and stuffed them into his pockets, but she said nothing.

We returned to the Jeep to find that the back of the vehicle had been fully ransacked. Whoever robbed us left the artwork, outdoor gear, snowshoes and the food – but made off with all of my camera equipment and the shoebox full of shot film – all of which had been buried between the bedding and layers of household items and gear. I felt like I had the wind knocked out of me.

Kevin looked around into the three or four other vehicles in front of the lodge, asked questions, and went back and made an announcement in the diner that we’d been robbed, asking if anyone saw anything. People just scoffed at the American fools who left all of their possessions in a car parked in the middle of nowhere. We, on the other hand, couldn’t imagine being robbed in so desolate a place. In my mind, they took the only thing I cared about besides Simon, who was asleep under my seat.  After a while, we climbed back into the Jeep and drove on. I cried for hours as I stared out the windows at the mountains, rivers, animals and lakes that I could not photograph now. Kevin knew me well enough to remain silent. There was nothing he could say or do that would make me feel any better. Six months of shooting film from dangerous and beautiful places in the Alaska wilderness was now gone. If only the thief had left me my film, I would have gladly parted with my camera and lenses.

We drove on through the night, taking turns behind the wheel while the other one slept. Both of us just wanted to get home to our families. There was no longer any reason for me to ask Kevin to stop so I could take pictures, although a few times I reacted to something I saw with a “Quick! Pull over!” – only for him to remind me that I had no camera. The memory of two timber wolves loping through the spruce trees will remain forever in my mind.

Along the Al-Can highway, especially at night, you see all sorts of animals – oftentimes standing in the middle of the road as you make a corner. I was beginning to get tired but Kevin had driven the longest and I felt it was my job to drive at least as long, while he slept. But I felt my eyelids getting heavy and could barely focus on the road. I began looking for a place to pull off when I rounded a corner to find a herd of Big Horned Sheep crossing together around a sharp bend. I hit the brakes and the Jeep skidded off the road into the ditch, barely missing a ewe at the back of the herd. Her eyes widened in the headlamps as she saw this giant white machine swerving towards her. She kicked up her pace and just made it out of our way in time. Again, the front tires bit the gravel roadway and the car stopped just short of a hillside.  Kevin woke up, rubbed his eyes and asked me not to kill him too if I was planning to take my own life over a “stupid camera.” It was hard not to laugh at that.

Our misadventures were becoming more common than our adventures on this journey. Kevin barely batted an eye as he decoupled the trailer and tossed some snowy dirt under a rear tire to get traction so I could back out of the dip I’d landed us in. Soon we drove on – this time I tried to sleep while Kevin drove.

As sunrise peeked over the mountains on Christmas Eve I decided to be grateful for what I had and not entertain regret for what I’d lost. The images I shot and those experiences in Alaska and the Yukon would forever be in my mind. I assumed that some day I would re-tell those stories. We drove for several hours past dawn before the Jeep made a funny noise, began grinding and seizing and then just stopped running entirely. Kevin coasted us to the side of the road, got out and looked under the hood. Something had gone very wrong, but it proved to be too sophisticated a problem for us to figure out. The Jeep wouldn’t turn over – didn’t make so much as a whinny with the turn of the key. We sat there for hours upon hours – bundled up in our outdoor gear in sub-zero temperatures, rear window missing, and cold Yukon air blowing in – trying to figure out what to do. The sun began to go down and Kevin decided to walk a ways up the highway to see if there was any kind of cabin or business nearby. He handed me a loaded pistol and told me to shoot in the kneecaps anyone who was even remotely threatening. I sat shivering in the cab of the Jeep, watching him trudge along the roadside with his sleeping bag and a daypack loaded with food and survival gear we had assembled for exactly this kind of situation. A few hours later, just as the sun was slipping behind the Wrangle Mountains and I could no longer feel my toes, a retro conversion van with California plates pulled up to the Jeep. I steadied my pistol against my leg wondering if I was a good enough shot to hit someone’s kneecaps. Out hopped two men who could have easily been the 1970s television potheads Cheech & Chong. They looked just like those men and I had to do a double take to make sure they weren’t. As they slid open the passenger door, Kevin stepped out, followed by a waft of gray-yellow smoke.

“These fellas will tow us to a lodge located about 20 miles down the highway,” he said with a grin. The two men proceeded to tie a 10-foot rope to the front of the Jeep and the rear of the van. Kevin got into the passenger seat of the Jeep and asked me to manage the tow. I thought he was kidding.

“How am I supposed to keep from rear-ending that van with such a short tow rope, on icy roads, hauling this Jeep AND the U-haul trailer?” I asked.

“Use your brakes,” he responded.

For roughly twenty miles, being towed at about 10 miles per hour, I tapped the brakes on corners and hills, twice nearly sliding into the rear of the van on steep declines. As we rounded Muncho Lake in upper British Columbia I saw the silhouette of the lodge in the disappearing daylight. The man who looked like Cheech hopped out and untied the rope from both vehicles.

“Ok, man. Here you are! Good luck mi amigos!” And with that he jumped back into the van and headed with Chong northbound on the highway to Alaska.

Kevin and I approached the front door of the darkened lodge hoping someone would be there to let us in, but the place was locked up with a “closed” sign and a note hung on the door indicated the owners would return on December 27. The temperatures had dropped significantly as the sun disappeared and was replaced by a bright moon shining in the clear night sky, making the hoarfrost glint and sparkle on everything it encrusted. Kevin went around the parameter of the building, trying windows and doors and returned to find me shivering on the front porch bench.

“I can’t feel my toes any more.” I said when he reappeared.

“C’mon. I saw some little cabins down by the lake. Let’s see if we can get into one of them.” he responded.

I told him that I didn’t want to break into someone’s property on Christmas Eve. I insisted that I would sleep in the Jeep even if he managed to get into one of the cabins, but he walked off into the darkness towards the row of cabins anyway. I sat there on the bench and carefully unlaced one of my boots. There was very little light under the porch, but once I got my boot and sock off, I could see that my toes were not a normal shade of pink. I couldn’t feel several of them at all and the others stung from the cold.

Kevin returned with a flashlight and saw me there massaging my feet. He came closer, bent down and observed my toes.

“Can you walk?” he asked.

“It really hurts to stand, let alone walk,” I replied.

He stood up, pulled me to my feet at hoisted me onto his back, carrying me down the dark trail to the cabins as I lit the path with the flashlight over his head. He stepped onto the porch of the first cabin and slid me off his back. I yelped in pain as soon as my feet hit the ground.

“You appear to have a touch of frostbite,” he said seriously. “I don’t care what you say, we are getting into one of these cabins tonight.”

I nodded and hoped that the owners would forgive us if we had to break a window in order to get in. For the first time since leaving Alaska, I was genuinely scared that we were in deeper trouble than we could even imagine.

Kevin asked for my Swiss Army knife and vanished again into the darkness. I slid my back down the log wall of the cabin and tried not to cry.

(to be continued…)

Namaste,

Kat

Shortlink: http://wp.me/pwNzo-4X

Young and Dumb in the Yukon: Part 1

A few weeks before Christmas the year that I turned twenty-one I decided that I would leave Alaska and return to Seattle. I had been working and experiencing Alaska as fully as I could for six months, but I missed my family and friends and the idea of spending Christmas without them was unimaginable.  Despite enjoying the wild beauty of Alaska, I was lonely. I also had two shoe boxes of film that I wanted to develop and begin assembling my favorite images into a book. I knew that I would need to live with my father for a while so I could work on that project without having the worry of rent and a lot of overhead. It was time for me to move on.

I resigned from my job managing a retail store and started giving away the things I had acquired since I’d arrived. Still, my outdoor and camping gear, camera equipment, the native Alaskan art I had collected, and a few small antique furnishings discovered amongst bread loaves and car batteries in the tiny, eclectic shops in the small towns that dot Alaska filled a small U-Haul trailer. My friend Kevin, who had also been my roommate for six months, decided that he too wanted to visit his parents for Christmas and elected to make the 2400 mile trek with me. I think that was only partially true; he also wanted to make sure I survived the winter drive from Anchorage to Seattle, much of which was traveled along unpaved portions of the Al-Can Highway. It wasn’t until making the drive I realized how grateful one could be for a gravel road in December!

We packed up the U-Haul and Kevin’s old Jeep Wagoneer with my things plus Christmas gifts for our families and headed out of Anchorage just three days before Christmas. We knew if we pushed it we would make it to Seattle by Christmas Eve to surprise them. We left with roughly $300 between us and a cooler full of beverages, yogurt, cheeses, lunch meats and a supply of dry snacks. Although it was cold, the weather promised to be sunny and we had plenty of gear and a large Thermos of hot coffee to keep us warm. We decided we would just sleep in the Jeep and save the money to buy gasoline and hot breakfasts along the way.  Also accompanying us on this trip was my six-toed, Maine Coon cat, Simon, whom I rescued from an Anchorage animal shelter. He was the only cat I ever met who thought he was a hunting dog.

[ Anchorage to Seattle Route: http://www.mapquest.com/mq/6-MvuyuTWW5jlXF6ZR ]

Kevin and I set off early after having a big breakfast. I was really excited to make the journey with my camera in hand and about 30 rolls of fresh film chilling in a separate cooler.  The morning sunlight made the hoarfrost covering tree branches, shrubs and telephone lines sparkle and glint brightly. It was like cruising through a brightly lit fairyland. I reached back and stroked Simon, who was curled up on piles of sleeping bags, blankets and pillows. Despite the sunny day, it was still only 25 degrees outside. As we drove out of Anchorage, I asked Kevin to stop so I could get some shots of the city and the Knik Arm glowing pink and purple in the morning light. I knew I would be back here someday, but I wanted to take the memory of this road trip with me.

The scenery from Anchorage to Tok was majestic!  I shot several rolls of film in the first two hundred miles and decided I’d better pace myself. Who knew if I’d find film in some backcountry gas station? About twenty miles outside of Tok, we blew a tire. Kevin and I both got out to survey the damage.  The tire was in shreds on the roadway. Fortunately, it didn’t take long for a passerby to stop and offer us a lift into town, where we hired a tow truck to retrieve the Jeep and bought a retreaded tire for $100. We lost a few hours of travel time and had to try to make it up. Kevin was reticent to stop again for me to shoot photos of scenery we passed, so I didn’t ask. We drove on into the evening. Darkness came early in December in Alaska. By two o’clock, the sun was already slipping behind the mountains.  I had no idea the scenery that was coming on the road ahead. As we crossed from Alaska into the Yukon Territory and began winding through the Wrangle Mountains, I just couldn’t wait any longer to take pictures. We drove past an open field lined with spruce trees and dotted with animals that we couldn’t make out from the distance. I begged Kevin to pull into the snow covered field so I could get off a few shots. The sun was still illuminating the field in a golden glow, but it was shadowy. I was going to need my tripod for this shot, which always made Kevin nervous – as he knew that meant more time spent. While I rummaged around behind my seat for my tripod, Kevin pulled slowly onto the field so as not to startle the animals.  We quietly exited the vehicle to find a large herd of reindeer grazing and playing on the other side of the field. There were several young reindeer clumsily galloping around the adults. I pulled out my longest range lens and began to lock it onto my camera when Kevin and I both heard a loud cracking sound. We looked at each other, instantly realizing that we’d heard that sound before when hiking over a glacier. Kevin reached down and cleared a circle of snow at our feet to find a thick layer of ice. We had parked our fully-loaded Jeep and trailer onto the middle of a frozen lake. The cracking sound got louder and we watched a line of ice split and buckle in front of us. At that moment it felt as though we were caught in a slow motion action scene from a Hollywood movie.

“Oh, hell!” Kevin yelled as he scrambled to jump into the Jeep and pull it off the ice.

He quickly backed it off the lake, trying to maneuver the trailer, while I ran alongside, watching the ice crack and buckle underneath the tires. As we neared the edge, the ice became more stable and stopped splitting. I climbed into the cab, observing the path of broken and jutting ice we’d left before us.  Not to be deterred from getting a shot of the reindeer – which seemed to not even notice our presence across the lake, I set up my camera on the hood of the Jeep and fired off a few shots before the sun went down.

We drove in darkness on to the town of Whitehorse, where we found a park we could spend the night in the Jeep. Whitehorse had a reputation for rampant thievery at that time, so we slept with loaded guns within our reach. Simon slept on my chest under my sleeping bag all night. I laid there for a long time, listening to the wolves howl and my belly grumble. I was so excited at the thought of having a hot breakfast the next morning. I assumed by the end of this trip I would never eat another yogurt cup again!

We awoke at dawn and drove out of Whitehorse where we found a lodge along the highway serving cheap breakfasts. It amused us that Canadian eateries seemed to put gravy on everything. We ordered biscuits and gravy that came out with hash browned potatoes topped with the same thick, beige gravy. Needless to say, it was a hardy meal that stuck with us throughout the day. We left the lodge restaurant full and happy and began again on our journey through the mountains of the Yukon. We knew that today we were really going to have to make some good time so we could arrive in Seattle at least by Christmas day. As we passed through the small town of Teslin, I hit a patch of ice on a stretch of road that followed closely alongside a narrow lake. Without any warning the Jeep and the trailer jackknifed and I could see the trailer in my side view mirror swinging around, about to slam into my door. It’s the kind of thing you just brace yourself for, knowing there is nothing you can do to alter what is about to happen. The Jeep and trailer met metal to metal as the coupling broke loose. In slow motion, or so it seemed, the vehicle and the trailer slipped and slid towards the lake bank. Kevin and I were just hanging on, powerless to stop it. Having become a pretty good winter driver, I hit the brakes hard just as the front tires found the gravel lake bank and we stopped, just short of the lake edge. The trailer was halfway into the water.

“Nice driving cream puff.” Kevin said with a smile. He liked to call me cream puff whenever I managed a particularly good save – like reaching out to snag a falling camera lens as I dangled from a rock face (not a good idea, by the way).

We got out of the Jeep and observed that the safety chains were still attaching the trailer to the Jeep. It took us an hour to empty most of the contents of the trailer onto the roadside, right the trailer and re-hitch it to the vehicle. The side of the Jeep had a nice big dent and the mirror was hanging off. Kevin found the tool box and wired and screwed the side mirror back onto the door. We had not seen another passing car in hours and knew that we were out there in the middle of nowhere on our own.  We climbed back into the Jeep, with freezing hands and toes, cranked up the heat and returned to the road, undeterred from our mission to make it back to Seattle by Christmas.  Simon slept on my lap as Kevin and I sang along to AC/DC Back in Black. We drove another fifty miles before the tailgate window let out a shriek and fell into the tailgate channel, exposing the rear of the vehicle to the cold winter wind. Kevin pulled over, tried for a while to see if the window could be raised again and finally gave up. We drove on with the heater and AC/DC blasting as the cold Yukon air blew down the backs of our necks.

It was hard to imagine that anything else could go wrong again. By now we must have used up the bad luck of every jinx and black cat crossing imaginable. We’d been on the road less than 2 days and already had several minor misadventures, but our spirits were high and we were determined to make it home in time to surprise our families for Christmas. There was no way to know then that we would not get out of the Yukon for two more weeks and lose everything we owned.

(to be continued…)

Namaste,

Kat

shortlink: http://wp.me/pwNzo-4O

Self-discovery in the Mountains of Alaska

The summer before my twenty-first birthday I sold everything I owned, bought a new Canon SLR film camera, a few lenses and filters, a good flash and a heavy wool winter coat. I took the money I’d made from selling my car, furniture and the little bit of jewelry that I possessed to buy a one-way plane ticket to Anchorage. I had no plan other than a friend had already moved to Alaska a few months prior and had been telling me how awesome of a place it was. He had a small apartment in Mountainview bordering Elmendorf Air Force Base. I had no idea what to expect, but he offered me a place to stay if I wanted to “see Alaska.”

Despite having been only twenty years old, I was already quite capable of taking care of myself. I’d been working since I was fifteen and by seventeen had graduated early from high school, gotten an apartment and had a full time job managing a string of health food stores. I was open to whatever adventure Alaska would bring!

Arriving in Anchorage was like slipping into a different world. As the plane circled above I saw a small city that formed a crescent around the Knik Arm and reflected a pink June sunset on the bay. The Chugach Mountains soared above the city in the background, appearing to be pushing it dangerously close to the freezing cold water. I was immediately in love with the isolation of Anchorage.

My friend Kevin picked me up at the airport and drove me to his apartment as the sun went down. It suddenly became freezing cold while I was pulling luggage and boxes from the back of his Jeep and scurrying them into the apartment. Once inside he lit a fire that made even the dingy apartment look appealing. I had a bed in the living/kitchen/dining room while he took the one, small, bedroom facing the carport. Thank goodness we’d been friends for years already or we may have killed each other over use of the single, miniature bathroom.

That night, after greeting me with a wonderful dinner, he walked me in the darkness to an elementary school, handed me an old pair of skates and led me onto an outdoor ice rink. The arena lights were all off, but the moon was full. We skated around that rink until two o’clock in the morning laughing and tripping over ruts in the ice.

The next day I was sleeping in my bed below the only window in the living space. The apartment was partially subterranean, so the window was up high (ground level from outside). I heard a very strange noise up against the glass, so I reached up and pulled aside the drape. It took me a second to realize I was looking into the steaming nostrils of a beast that had its face pressed up against the window. I jumped and screamed loudly.

Kevin came barreling out of his bedroom with his gun in his hand, “What?” He yelled. “Why did you scream?”

“There was a huge deer outside the window!” I yelped.

He stepped upon my bed to peer out. “Look! You have to see this!” he motioned me to the window.

I stood there in awe, watching a female moose and her calf grazing on the shrub outside of my window. That was just the beginning of the wonder and surprise I found in Alaska.

Although Mountainview turned out to be a pretty risky neighborhood in which to live, I didn’t care. It was home to me. I took a job managing Hallmark card stores at a couple of malls and walked to work every day and home every night in the dark alone. Kevin was a full time university student and was often out the door before dawn and home long after dark, leaving me alone in the apartment. I could sometimes hear gunshots and screaming from the streets outside my door, followed by emergency sirens. Neighbors in the house adjacent to our apartment complex owned wolves that were penned and would howl constantly to the free wolves that howled back from the other side of the fence separating them and the air force base from the rest of us. Every morning and night I listened to fighter jets rev up their engines and take off or decelerate and land on the hidden runway over the fence. It was a surreal life, unlike anything I’d experienced growing up on a sheltered little peninsula across from Seattle.

Every chance Kevin and I had to head into the mountains, we did. I trusted him with my life over and over again as we climbed up rocky mountain faces so high that rivers below looked like pencil lines drawn on paper. We chased marmots through settled rockslides, unaware that one unfortunate step could cause a new slide that would catch us and crush us in a heap of boulders – never to be found again amidst the rubble. Who would think to look there? We never told anyone where we were going or what we were doing anyway.

After a few near encounters with brown bears, I started carrying a rifle on our many hikes through peat bogs and over glacier fields. Kevin spent a lot of time teaching me how to take aim and shoot the Remington 30.06 rifle he gave me. Prior to Alaska, some might have thought of me as the last person to shoot a gun; but in Alaska you just had to know how to own, clean, carry and shoot a gun. Everything about me changed once I moved to Alaska – including my physical form. When I first arrived in Alaska, I weighed 110 pounds and couldn’t do a single chin up. When I left six months later I weighed 160 pounds of solid muscle and could pull myself up narrow mountain ledges by my fingers.

Fall came and went and I had spent most of my paychecks on developing the film I’d shot. Film developing was very expensive, so I hoarded rolls in a shoebox, figuring some day I would be able to develop them all. For my twenty-first birthday that October I saved up a few paychecks and went with new friends to celebrate at the Captain Cook hotel. They gifted me the processing of five rolls of my film. It was one of the most thoughtful presents I’d ever received! Kevin gave me snow shoes he’d picked up at the Army-Navy resale store, along with two down “mummy” style sleeping bags, two waterproof tarps, a pair of silk and a pair of wool long underwear, wool socks, hat & gloves, a pair of camouflage pants and a green, wool Army field jacket. His gift was intended so I could be out in the wilderness with my camera, allowing me to blend in and stay warm while I took photos of wildlife. Little did I know at the time those things would later save my life.

Late that November, Kevin and I set out to snowshoe at Hatcher Pass, an abandoned old mining village in the mountains outside of Anchorage. It had snowed for three days prior and now it was sunny and relatively warm, which meant it may have been in the low 20s. We left early after having packed up a carload of food and survival gear, which we carried with us any time we set out. The pass was situated above the tree line and when we pulled into the openness of the old mining camp it was like parking in the center of a giant sugar bowl! The snow on the enveloping mountains glistened and glinted like diamonds sparkling in the sun. It was so beautiful, I was breathless! We strapped on our snowshoes and started out – me with a 60-pound pack on my back and my camera slung around my neck and Kevin carrying a 75-pound pack and two firearms, a handgun and a rifle. We headed towards a small cabin we could see in the distance, but because there were so few perspective markers and so much snow, we misjudged the distance. By the time we arrived at what turned out to be a ranger’s cabin it was nearly dark. It didn’t matter to us though; we had plenty of supplies and would just light a fire in the stove and spend the night there.

I’ll never forget when Kevin swung open that door and lit his lantern. We watched what seemed like hundreds of rats scurry to the corners, hissing at us. He lifted his lantern and they were everywhere! Rats were hanging off shelves and crowding the two bunks mounted to the walls. They were huddled on top of each other in the corners and scuttling across the wooden floor to take refuge from the lantern light.

Kevin shrugged his shoulders and said, “Well, I guess you will not be agreeing to sleep here tonight.”

I laughed and stepped back out of the cabin clumsily, still in my snowshoes, “Not a chance in hell!” I replied as I made my way back to the Jeep. “Let’s just go home!” I hollered as I retraced my tracks in the snow by moonlight.

Easier said than done. We finally reached the Jeep in utter darkness – thank heavens for a white vehicle illuminated in the snow by a full moon. We tossed our packs in and started looking for the road back out of the pass without luck. The darkness had obscured every detail in the snow and, after about a dozen circles and attempts, we finally gave up, parked the Jeep, left on the headlights and began to assemble our gear, expecting to sleep in the snow.

The sun fell quickly behind the mountains and took us by surprise, but Kevin was an accomplished woodsman and survivalist (who still lives in Alaska, near Fairbanks). He had loaded wood, kindling and cured sphagnum into a dry pack and was competently building a fire in the snow. I laid out tarps and sleeping bags and began putting on layers of clothes from within the warm, running Jeep. It was becoming very cold quite rapidly. Once we’d established our “camp,” we sat on the tailgate of the Jeep and ate as much beef jerky, yogurt and soda as we could consume to load up on the carbs and protein our bodies would need to help us stay warm. It’s funny now to think back to how foolish we both were then.

With a good fire burning, Kevin and I both climbed into our own Army down sleeping bags, two each –one inserted into the other. We both wore three to four layers of clothing: silk underwear, glove and boot liners, wool long johns, a wool sweater, two wool hats –one a face mask and the other an aviator style with ear flaps – a pair of camouflage pants and a wool field jacket, topped off with down mittens and Army boots. We pulled tarps over us in case it snowed overnight and attempted to go to sleep. We lay there; peeking out from under the tarps, looking at the snowy mountains lit up by the full moon and talked about how much we’d enjoy a hot meal and showers in the morning.

As the night wore on the temperature dropped further and further below zero.  I was shivering so hard that my teeth were rattling loudly inside my head. I remember pulling off a mitten to try to zip my sleeping bag up higher and having the immediate sensation that the tips of my fingers were turning numb and hardening. I quickly slid my hand back into my sleeping bag and pulled my mitten back on. After a while, the fire went out and I couldn’t get Kevin’s attention any more. I honestly didn’t know if he was asleep or unconscious because we had been talking through our clacking teeth only moments before about how cold it had become. Suddenly, it occurred to me that we could die out there on this snowy white field of nothingness. I asked myself if I was ready to die at only twenty-one and was this how I wanted to go?

Laying there like an overstuffed ragdoll, I continued to shake so violently from the cold that every muscle in my body ached. I kept thinking that if only I’d not developed so much muscle and kept some of my body fat, I would have been better off. Whatever I could think about, I ran through my exhausted brain in order to stay awake. I recited poetry in my head. I relived childhood memories, recited phone numbers, counted off the names of friends back home and thought about my father and how hurt and angry he would be if I died out there, with no one around to find my frozen body – until some asinine snowmobiler ran over me. All I knew was that as long as I could think and shiver – I was still alive. I feared however, that my friend beside me was dead. I tried to get a response out of him several times without luck and began to shout at him; but the cold was making it difficult to even speak, let alone yell. I felt horrible guilt because some of the extra layers I was wearing he had given to me for comfort, rather than wear them himself. How would I ever explain to his mother our foolishness?

After what seemed like an entire night, I finally could not keep my eyes open any longer. I kept fighting to stay alert, but I was exhausted from the constant shaking and shivering, So, against my better judgment, I closed my eyes for a few minutes. I laid there listening to my own labored breath and the unbelievable silence of nature, wondering what the end of life would feel like. I hoped I would just slip away into sleep and never know that I would soon be frozen solid in the snow, like a dog I once came upon at the base of the Matanuska Glacier.

With my eyes closed I consulted the value of my life. Then I heard a strangely loud and foreign whoosh noise. Another whoosh swept over me and I snapped open my eyes. The moon had slipped behind the mountains and all I could see were millions of gleaming stars. The sky evoked a woman’s black velvet dress encrusted with sequins.

Suddenly, from beyond the mountain peaks a neon green streak of light raced across the night sky. “Whoosh!” it said as it ripped by.

“What the hell was that?” I asked out loud.

Then a pink streak of light shot overhead where it met up with the green streak. They danced for a moment together above me and then flew over the mountains together.

“Holy shit!” I yelled loudly, my own voice echoing off the mountains.

“What?” Kevin asked.

“Oh my God! You’re alive? You’re alive!” I screamed and rolled myself closer to him.

He turned towards me and suddenly I had the beam of a flashlight piecing my sight. Tears sprung to my eyes.

“Don’t cry, stupid! Your tears will freeze your eyes shut!” He scolded.

“I thought we were both dead!” I squealed.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I was sleeping. Why on earth did you think we were dead?” he asked.

I rolled back over and looked up at the sky. “Because of those streaks of light. I thought maybe that’s how you go? You know… following the light of God.”

Kevin scoffed at me and turned his face to the sky, “Hey! Cool! Aurora Borealis! Oh man I’m so glad you got to see it!”

I had no idea at twenty-one what Aurora Borealis was. I’d heard about the Northern Lights and still didn’t know what they were; but here we were, freezing to death under the most spectacular light show put on by God and Mother Nature you could ever imagine! For another two hours or so we just laid there watching these amazing streaks of pink, green, white and yellow ribbons of light dance and sway and shoot across the sky. Like kids at a Fourth of July fireworks celebration we oooh’d and ahhh’d repeatedly through our chattering teeth at the glory of the magnificent display. I’d forgotten how cold I was and I never did fall asleep, but I will never forget the experience of what I saw.

When the sun began to finally peek pink again over the mountains we climbed out of the safety of our down feathered nest and returned to the Jeep to find that the full soda cans had exploded and froze in place like stalactites and stalagmites all over the inside the Jeep’s cab. Everything inside was covered in a thick, brown frost.

Kevin surveyed the mess, “Yep. It sure was cold last night!”

He started up the Jeep and cranked up the heater while we packed up and loaded our gear, still shivering like mad – neither of us discussing how foolishly close we came to ending our own, young lives.

We headed down the snow-covered road that we could now make out in the morning light. As we exited the road out of Hatcher Pass we stopped into a lonesome convenience store at the mouth of the road for hot coffee.

The clerk gave us a strange look, “Did you two kids just comedown from the pass?” she asked. We nodded.

“Did ya know it was sixty degrees below zero down here last night?”

“No kidding?” Kevin replied. “It was a helluva lot colder than that up there last night!”

The clerk just shook her head at us, “Yer lucky yer frozen dead bodies weren’t runned over by the snowmobilers this morning!” she clucked.

Kevin and I left with our coffees and drove home in silence, neither of us really knowing what the other was thinking and not really wanting to know. When we pulled into our apartment complex I turned to him and said, “I’m sure glad you’re still alive, Kevin. You’re mom would have never forgiven me.” He just laughed, “Yeah, well if you’d have died up there your dad would’ve killed me anyway.”

That experience at Hatcher Pass forever changed my outlook on life. I had been so afraid of so many trivial things that loomed large in my mind. I was often incapable of making an important decision or a necessary change that was difficult, but in my best interest. That experience in Alaska taught me that there was nothing so scary as dying. I went forward with the courage and certainty that no one and nothing could ever make me afraid to do what was right for myself again.

A month later I left Alaska to return home to Seattle as a Christmas surprise for my parents. Kevin, worried about my safety, agreed to drive the 2400 miles along the AlCan Highway with me. We made it as far as the Yukon, where we broke down on Christmas Eve, 200 miles from anything. We remained trapped in the Yukon Territory for two weeks after Christmas… but that’s another story.

Namaste,

Kat

Why Twitter?

I am fortunate enough to be blessed with some truly wonderful friends whom I love and feel extremely loyal to. Most I have met at work, a few from high school or college and others through shared interests. My friends are all busy people with families, careers, hobbies, spiritual practices and other commitments that keep them hopping. Luckily, I’ve enough friends nearby that I can usually find someone to join me on a hike, meet at the gym or for yoga, enjoy dinner together and sometimes even find time to get away for a weekend to goof off or go skiing. I cherish those friendships and my friends know I would do anything for them that is within my power to help. That is just who I am.

Being a pretty outgoing person, I decided to join Twitter last fall 2008, but I was slow to jump in. I feared putting up my own photo or releasing much personal information about myself to an unknown community of virtual strangers. I tend to be a pretty private person anyway. After a few months I decided I was just not a “Twitterer” and stopped visiting the site. Then a friend suggested that as a nonprofit CEO, I really needed to try social media networking to see if it could benefit my struggling agency.

I began putting out a few tweets each day about nonprofit development, then – with some thoughtful responses from others – I tweeted more frequently. It didn’t take long to gain about 50 “followers.” A few of the people I chatted with more frequently asked to see my face, so I put up a picture of myself.  I believe that by just being human and interacting on a personal level; the numbers of my Twitter followers began to grow. During this time frame I ended up having to dissolve my nonprofit organization, owing to a lack of funding and poorly developed programs, which I inherited and was trying to turn around. Unfortunately, the ship had already hit the iceberg long before I jumped aboard and all I could do was try to save the passengers. I was tweeting about my feelings of failure in being unable to save this sinking organization and was quickly surprised by the level of care and understanding that people bestowed upon me via Twitter. These people were no longer “followers” but had become friends.

After a few months I had several hundred Twitterfolk following my tweets, while I followed their’s. Among them I’d made some really wonderful friendships with people from all over the world. I was getting less and less sleep as I anxiously awaited my friends in South Africa, Alaska and the Philippines to awaken so we could discuss photography and swap images, or my friends in England and France to discuss gardening, or my friends in India and Quebec to discuss art. Through the “Twitterverse” network of people I eventually developed connections with people in Australia, throughout Asia and the UK, Iran, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, Canada, Mexico and all over the United States. I have friends now to talk to about all of my varied interests any time I am lucky enough to find them online. I get good advice and encouragement, words of wisdom and every now and then a piece of criticism that I really needed to hear. Isn’t that what friends do for each other anyway?

I keep reading the mainstream media’s attempt to unravel the mystery that is Twitter. They focus too heavily on the big celebrities who joined the party late, sucked up a lot of oxygen and then got bored and “virtually” disappeared. The media has also chortled over the lowbrow antics of marketing hacks that have joined Twitter and tweet one of two tireless messages, “buy my product” or “learn how to make money on Twitter.” Most of us just don’t follow or summarily block those tweeters anyway – just as we do the porno “tweeps” who show up in waves and then disappear under their rocks again. In my case, I ignore them until I can’t stand it any longer and then I take evasive action and start unfollowing or blocking the riff-raff.

For the better part of my experience with Twitter, I have met people that I wouldn’t hesitate to invite for dinner if they suddenly ended up in my city and offer myself as a tour guide. In fact, I would love to meet them in person! At last we could have real, face-to-face conversations without the limitations of 140 characters per tweet with per hour tweet limits (APIs) that drive us all batty!

My “flesh and bone” friends – those I really can have lunch with on any given Tuesday, but whose lives often consume their days – tease me about my “Twitter friends” and threaten (teasingly) a “Twitter Intervention”  - as if my Twitter friends are not real people. They say they are concerned that I have thrown over a real life for a virtual one. Still, I manage to exercise, work, eat, hike, run and enjoy my free time anyway!

It’s true that Twitter can become addictive – just as it’s true that people who work together and share common workday experiences will whittle away an otherwise productive afternoon by gathering around the water cooler, box of donuts or meet over the lunch hour to discuss how their days are going and who last offended them via e-mail. Two years ago I worked for an employer where co-workers just a cubicle away from each other would e-mail questions and answers rather than get up from their desks and go have a real conversation. Frankly, I am doing the same thing with my Twitter friends who really can not meet me at my cubicle (ok, I don’t have a cubicle) but they are just as important to me and they are sometimes entire continents and oceans away! I chat with witty and intelligent stay-at-home moms and dads, CEOs, entrepreneurs, artists, lawyers, authors, performers, scientists, filmmakers, documentarians, educators and doctors about art, politics, kayaking, running, traveling, photography, music, gourmet cooking and a myriad of other topics. I don’t know about most people, but I have been lucky to know only a small handful of that many talented and interesting people in my life. Through Twitter I now know hundreds of them!

Twitter offers a level playing field on which you may talk to a woman writing her third unpublished novel in Tehran in the morning and have a discussion about Impermanence with Deepak Chopra at lunch time (yes, Deepak is real enough to follow you back and “talk” to you).

Frankly, I don’t care what the nay-sayers and media elite have to report on their limited experiences with Twitter. Those of us – and I am sure there are many – who have made real friendships (and in some cases found romance) know that, despite a few crazies and guru overkill, it is nothing less than people talking to each other about their lives and experiences. It’s  nothing more than humans being the social creatures we are. Personally, I find it to be one of the greatest teaching tools ever to emerge from the Internet! What better way to learn what is going on after the last Iran election than to talk directly to real Iranian citizens? The news comes unfiltered, sure – but isn’t that the best way to communicate anyway? It doesn’t remove personal responsibility to question and confirm the authenticity, integrity and personal biases of your source. In fact, it puts more responsibility on individuals to communicate clearly, ask questions and use reasoned judgment – rather than being spoon-fed the so-called “facts” by the media.

A friend asked me recently; Can’t these “virtual people” just be lying about whom they are? My answer? Of course, as can anyone I meet in any place. The difference is that they have to be really good at sustaining it. It is harder for me to be blinded by cunning winks and grins delivered in person  …unless ; ) or : ) count. I don’t hear the inflection in their voices or see if they are rolling their eyes when I respond to something another person writes. This forces me to ask questions for clarity, and it requires me to really get to know someone well before divulging personal information. Many social cues are missing in 140 character exchanges! As a result, I know some things about my Twitter friends that I could not answer about my “real” friends. In 140 characters, barriers can sometimes drop when two people living half a planet apart start talking about the challenges in their lives and find a common bond.

It’s okay with me if the media and the critics dismiss Twitter. That just means the marketing hacks may find it less appealing and leave me and my friends to have real conversations, without constantly being marketed something useless.

I am proudly a Twitterer!

Namaste,

Kat

Leaving My Shell to Meet a Turtle

I was asked by a close friend recently to, “Describe a day you remember, in the past 10 years, as being a perfect day.”

I knew right away what day I would describe. I’ve had a lot of great days and wonderful experiences in the past 10 years, but this day was one of those kinds of days you’ll hold in your memory forever.

I’m not an early riser. I’m a night owl. I always wanted to be an early riser because they see the best skies and enjoy a unique kind of solitude that only morning people truly appreciate. While the rest of us are stumbling around looking for strong coffee at dawn so we may fully open our eyes, the morning person has already been awake an hour or more and had his coffee, gotten in some exercise, seen the sunrise and is now making breakfast. As much as I appreciate the peace and quiet of the night – which is when I tend to do most of my writing – I have enjoyed some of the most gratifying experiences of my life just before and during sunrise.

Awaking before dawn at 4 am and walking along the west rim of the Grand Canyon to watch the sun come up over the east rim is worth every effort it takes to get there. My hiking partners and I were lucky enough to find the nesting area for dozens of California Condors on that hike. We watched and photographed them for hours as the sun rose, bathing everything in amber light. They are the most beautiful ugly birds I’d ever seen!

That was a tremendous early morning experience and it came at a very troubling time in the world… I drove there 3 days after having been trapped in San Diego by the 911 attacks in New York. After making sure New York and New Jersey friends were safe, I decided I really needed to see the Grand Canyon on my way back to Colorado.

As beautiful as the Grand Canyon is, it put me more in the role of observer than participant, which was the perfect state to be in at that moment in history – just observing the beauty of our planet. But the amazing day that sticks most in my mind was the occasion during another September a few years ago when I decided to force myself to rise by 4 am while vacationing in Maui to meaningfully participate in sea kayaking.

Disbelieving the alarm, I rolled out of bed and cursed the darkness for 20 minutes (morning people jump out of bed, not roll). I grabbed a cereal bar and bottled water and drove my rented Jeep along the Honoapiilani Hwy to a beach further around the island where we would launch into Maalea Bay. Before the sun was even up, I was already paddling my sea kayak with a guide and 2 other kayakers from the shore into the breakers. Once past the breakers, the water turned to glass and the kayak sailed across the surface. Commercial and tourist vessels were not yet chopping up the water, so there was an intense sense of calm as we all paddled in silence, only the sound of water lapping over the oars.

It took about an hour to make our way to the fairly sheltered waters just off the coast of Lanai. By this time the sun was streaming in over the island, casting unusual ribbons of light over the bay. Our pod of kayaks broke away from each other and we found our own slice of heaven on the water for an hour alone, with the agreement to meet back where we divided. Our guide had given us suggestions for key areas to discover.  I started with the coral reef. Once I’d paddled my kayak to the location of the reef I tethered myself to my boat, outfitted myself in snorkel gear and dove overboard. I can’t even tell you how long I just floated along there observing so many colorful fish, coral in all shapes, sizes and colors, anemones, eels and a few sea critters I’d never seen before. It was like hovering over a beautiful and highly-organized city. I was in awe again of this planet.

Along my way back to rejoin my pod, I encountered a sandbar on which four giant green sea turtles were resting. Moments after finding them they began to move about, swimming up to the surface, gulping in air, circling around each other underwater for a while and the resettling on the bottom. I was amazed at how graceful these ancient looking creatures were underwater. At one point a male took an interest in me and surfaced to float within a few feet from my face. Although I was wearing dive goggles, I was looking into the large black eyes of this wonderful turtle! They are so old and wise looking and I would swear they appear to be smiling.

It moved a little closer, but I’d decided we were close enough.  I slowly paddled backwards and he decided he was done with me and returned to the sandbar. I too returned to my kayak pod, told them about the turtles and we all paddled over together. I stayed in my boat that time. I’d already had as good of an experience as I could have expected!

After 6 hours on the water, a liter of water, and as much Super SPF sunscreen as I could slather on, we finally returned to our landing in Maalea. The tourist and fishing boats now owned the water, and although some of the swells they created were good fun to ride out – I was hot and exhausted and, despite the snacks we had in out boats, I was hungry like a lion.

I realized when I returned to the condo in Kaanapali that I was burned to a fritter crisp. Aloe and herbal poultices recommended by a concierge did an amazing job restoring my skin and reducing the whimpers of pain. I had to wear the same swimsuit for 2 days because the lines matched the unburned areas.

Despite the burn (yes all you docs out there – I understand the stupidity of the burn) – it was the day that really sticks out in my mind as having been perfect. I know that if I hadn’t broken out of my old patterns and been willing to try something new, I would never have met that turtle. And that would have really been too bad.

Namaste,

Kat