I have to admit, I wish there were a giant, mysterious creature in that lake. It would make a better story than the ones we tell about it now. The public access is littered with junk cars, broken glass, syringes, and old trash fires. Every year there is at least one drowning there, usually with alcohol involved. Last summer, two teenagers who were partying overturned their canoe. They weren’t wearing life jackets. One managed to get to shore, by some miracle?—?it’s a glacial lake so the water is unbelievably cold. The other boy died. And then last winter, state troopers found out that a man from Anchorage had been killing young Native women, driving them out and dumping their bodies into the lake through holes in the ice. He had a fishing tent, so everyone just thought he was ice fishing. Needless to say, you won’t catch me going for a swim in there.
You’re right what you said in your last letter, that it might be easier for me and Isaac to live somewhere else. The people here aren’t always the most tolerant, and Alpine copes with some difficult social problems. Isaac says I’m too much like Pollyanna sometimes, that I only want to see the good. When it’s 20 below zero, I say, “Yeah, but the sun is shining.” When the wind picks up on the river and the air is hazy with glacial silt, I say, “Sure, but at least it’s warmed up some.” And when a kid on a four-wheeler shouts a nasty comment at us while we’re out for our evening walk, I say “That’s Wesley. His mother is so sweet.” I don’t mention the fact that his father died in a motorcycle accident five years ago, or that Wesley has been in and out of rehab for meth and heroin since he was 14, or that a lot of people think he’s the one who has been burglarizing the summer cabins.
It is tough here, in a lot of ways?—?the weather, the people, the history, but somehow that’s why I love it so much. It’s like when I go for a walk by the Wolverine River. The riverbed here is wide and the channels are lined with gray sand and boulders, and there is a cold wind that comes down from the glaciers. Out there among the boulders and silt, there is a plant called dryas that blooms these small white flower with translucent petals. It seems so fragile and beautiful and unexpected, all the more because it survives in such a harsh place.
I do sometimes wonder what would have happened if the Colonel had never traveled up the Wolverine River, had never broken the trail for the miners and all that came with them. I’m sure someone else would have come along eventually. It doesn’t matter what draws explorers?—?wealth or fame or military power, or even genuine curiosity?—?they alter a place just by traveling through it and recording what they see. Within 20 years of the Colonel’s expedition, largely because of his reports, the mining companies and fur traders had moved into the Wolverine Valley, and by the 1920s, the Wolverine tribe was hit hard by tuberculosis, influenza, and alcoholism. For example, I am fairly certain that the man the Colonel calls “Ceeth Hwya,” died in the 1918 flu epidemic. And those who survived were in a fast-changing world where they had little say over their own fate. Where their fish camps had been, trading posts were built. Families were drawn into a cash economy that did not serve them well, and their children were sent off to government schools. But until 1924, the only way Alaska Natives could earn citizenship and the right to vote was to “sever all tribal relationships” and “adopt the habits of civilized life.” According to family stories, when my great-grandmother was a little girl, she used to secretly speak Indian words with her sisters, but if they were caught, their dad would punish them.
It is a paradox, though. Where can we go to learn about Alaska’s people, how they lived and worshiped and dressed and spoke before living memory? The explorers are witnesses to the before. The Colonel’s diaries, like the writings of Meriwether Lewis and Captain Cook, are a kind of cursed treasure. I have to say, when I read the Colonel’s description of the men’s copper earrings and the red dye on the faces of the women, it was an incredibly moving experience. It’s ironic that such details would be preserved by the very man who would set off so much change.
On a separate note, you seem surprised that I mention Isaac in my letters, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ve come to think of you as a friend, Walt, and that means learning more about each other. You shared with me some of your own life, so it seemed natural to tell you something about myself. And of everything, I think the people we love are the most important.
Warm regards,
Josh
Dear Josh,
The rules keep changing around me so damned fast that I can’t keep up with it anymore. More times than not, it seems like a bunch of hooey, people worrying about labels and arguments instead of just going about their business. I guess I’ve always liked what the Colonel wrote: “All that matters is how a man lives in this world.”