Thank you so much for the brass button. It fascinates me how an object so small and everyday can be transporting, the way it brings you into direct contact with the past. I put it here on my desk beside my computer screen, and I like seeing it there as I go through the Colonel’s diaries.
Sometimes it still surprises me that I ended up as a museum curator because I always thought history was boring. It was just this litany of meaningless dates and places I had never seen. I knew I should probably care about Civil War battles, and I’d try to focus on the textbook, but it put me to sleep. And then one summer when I was in high school, I was hiking down by the river with my brother and we came across the old railroad bed. I think landslides in recent years have made it impassable now and property owners have put up “no trespassing” signs in other places, but back then you could follow it for miles along the Wolverine. Sometimes we would find the actual tracks, rusted and half-buried, or sections of railroad ties poking up through the ground, other times we were just able to see the grade of the land and know we were still on it. We were making our way through a particularly brushy area when we looked off the bank. Down by the river were several old train cars on their sides, as if they had been shoved off the tracks.
It wasn’t any great discovery, but I think because we had stumbled on them by ourselves, it was like we’d found King Tut’s tomb. There were trees growing up through the train cars, and inside there were old tin cans and whiskey bottles. I also found a railroad spike. When I picked it up it occurred to me that it was really old, probably older than anything I had ever held before. I brought it home with me, and I asked mom when the railroad was built. 1905. It was almost a century old, and by Alaskan standards, that’s ancient. That was when I started asking more questions, and reading books about the mine and the river and how my mother’s ancestors lived here before. What surprised me the most, though, is how little I could find to read. We hadn’t written down much of our own history, and a lot of the old stories had been lost. I think that is what motivates me in my work here at the museum. I don’t want to just find and preserve history?—?I want to keep it alive for Alaskans.
On a separate note, you asked about Isaac. He has as little to do with the museum as he can manage. He’s a graphic designer and illustrator (but I still haven’t been able to talk him into doing the museum’s website pro bono). And he’s my life partner. I met him while I was going to graduate school in Seattle, and then I talked him into moving back to Alaska with me. Even though he never stops complaining about the dark and cold every winter, I think we’re here for a while.
Warm regards and best wishes for your health,
Josh
Lieut. Col. Allen Forrester
June 8, 1885
Our steady pace of travel towards the mountains is wearying. 15 or so miles each day, with little time or strength to gather food. As the Indians warned, we have seen no salmon since we began our travels up the west fork of the Wolverine.
Nat’aaggi spotted a moose on a far hillside. Tillman wanted to hunt it, but it would require a day, possibly more, with no guarantee of success. As hungry as we are, I am keen to arrive at the lake. I believe we are within a few days march.
The valley has opened onto a wide plain, the mountains steadily moving away from us east & west. The Wolverine River increasingly becomes rocky & fast moving. In the distance, the land is dotted with bogs & small ponds. Everywhere wild flowers are in bloom. I wish instead for berries, fruit of any sort. We take our doses of acetic acid in hopes that it will stave off scurvy.
It is midnight, yet nearly daylight. We stopped walking an hour ago to set camp, cook supper. We now rest beside the fire, look towards the mountains & a glacier to the northeast.
It seems that her long talks with Tillman have continued to sharpen Nat’aaggi’s English. I believe she will be increasingly helpful with translation.
This night she recounted a story she heard told about a nearby mountain?—?long ago a woman was looking for her people. She had somehow become separated from them. She walked & walked. She carried her baby on her back. She walked many miles up the river. The summer sun was hot & she was thirsty, but she kept walking. When she reached a glacier, it was cool. She drank from a stream. She laid down on the tundra beside the glacier, her child cradled in her arms. There the two fell asleep. They never woke up. She & her infant had turned to stone.
?—?I see it. Don’t you, Colonel? Tillman said. —?See, that valley is the curve of her arm, that lower cliff her child. Her face, her long legs.
It took me some time. I could not see what they described. Finally, though, they appeared in the shape of the mountain. A sleeping mother, with child in her arms.
June 9
Boyo found a dead goose this morning. Nat’aaggi skinned it, roasted it over a fire.