February 26
Ree Nancarrow gave a slide show presentation last night about life in Denali over the last forty-five years. When she came to the country, there were no actual roads, & local travel required a good dog team or an airplane or a great deal of patience with the ongoing tendency of Alaska to brutalize an automobile. Her cabin was built by hand, as were all of the outlying structures on the property. When the snow fell heavy decades ago, her husband built a bridge over it. When they decided to dig a basement, he did it by hand, with a shovel & a wheelbarrow. In permafrost. & when they ordered groceries, initially the order was placed through mail to Seattle. In the absence of an electric grid, they built their own generator. & in the absence of a well, they melted snow enough to water themselves & their dogs every day. At that time, the entire Denali fleet consisted of seven trucks, one snowgo & twenty-eight dogs. Rangers (the two of them that were here) spent the entire winter with the dogs along the boundaries, building & repairing & patrolling around the cabins that dot the trail, spaced one day’s journey by dog team from one another.
Right now, Kristin is hunkered down outside of one of those cabins, in an arctic oven because the freight-hauler & concessionaire are inside the small space (an arctic oven, for reference, is a tent with a tiny woodstove in it). She & Jess have been breaking trail through three new feet of snow, windblown & iced over, out ahead of hitched-up teams on snowshoes, for almost a week now, during two separate storms involving said three feet of snow, fifty mile per hour gusts & subsequent white-out conditions. Safe to say that I love a bad-ass. But also safe to say that in spite of that weather, I’m absolutely certain that she is loving every minute of it. She is enacting a familiar dream, building around that atavistic vision of how we ought to lead our lives. Here I am in front of four computer monitors, bathed in white light, while she’s out there tackling a grueling project in the sub-arctic winter. & I’m jealous.
I think of all of the half-finished projects I have left in my personal wake, things I meant to do, things I finished half-assed, things I dreamt up & promptly forgot. & often, probably the majority of the time, that’s just fine. I’ve done plenty of things without a full investment that have turned out commendably by some standards, & I’ve derived no small satisfaction from seeing some of my more notably indolent efforts met with praise & satisfaction. But lately I am thinking that I have no further use for smug self-satisfaction & vague compromise. I am thinking that after years in academia, years of wandering around, years of trial & error, I finally followed an old dream & moved myself up to fucking Alaska, & I have carved out an incredibly fecund & meaningful & joyous existence here so far, & there is no part of me that wants to leave it at that. Which is to say I am thinking about the Nancarrows, & I am thinking about how to relate to your sense of place, & how to make it mean such that you feel the blood in your veins. & I am thinking about dog teams & wilderness & quiet. & I am thinking about how best in years to come to flesh out the dream that I came here to pursue. & I like this line of thought.
Right now, Kristin is hunkered down outside of one of those cabins, in an arctic oven because the freight-hauler & concessionaire are inside the small space (an arctic oven, for reference, is a tent with a tiny woodstove in it). She & Jess have been breaking trail through three new feet of snow, windblown & iced over, out ahead of hitched-up teams on snowshoes, for almost a week now, during two separate storms involving said three feet of snow, fifty mile per hour gusts & subsequent white-out conditions. Safe to say that I love a bad-ass. But also safe to say that in spite of that weather, I’m absolutely certain that she is loving every minute of it. She is enacting a familiar dream, building around that atavistic vision of how we ought to lead our lives. Here I am in front of four computer monitors, bathed in white light, while she’s out there tackling a grueling project in the sub-arctic winter. & I’m jealous.
I think of all of the half-finished projects I have left in my personal wake, things I meant to do, things I finished half-assed, things I dreamt up & promptly forgot. & often, probably the majority of the time, that’s just fine. I’ve done plenty of things without a full investment that have turned out commendably by some standards, & I’ve derived no small satisfaction from seeing some of my more notably indolent efforts met with praise & satisfaction. But lately I am thinking that I have no further use for smug self-satisfaction & vague compromise. I am thinking that after years in academia, years of wandering around, years of trial & error, I finally followed an old dream & moved myself up to fucking Alaska, & I have carved out an incredibly fecund & meaningful & joyous existence here so far, & there is no part of me that wants to leave it at that. Which is to say I am thinking about the Nancarrows, & I am thinking about how to relate to your sense of place, & how to make it mean such that you feel the blood in your veins. & I am thinking about dog teams & wilderness & quiet. & I am thinking about how best in years to come to flesh out the dream that I came here to pursue. & I like this line of thought.
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