Four Quarters of Light (15 page)

When we were about some twenty-five miles away we were flagged down by three hikers. They had been camping and hiking out on the back trails of the mountain range but had decided to cut short their stay. The problem, as each of them complained bitterly, was the mosquito swarms. They had hoped that by staying in the high trails and criss-crossing the snow line the chill factor would keep these pests at bay. But summer had set in early and with more intensity than they had expected. They could just about cope with the creatures by staying on the move, but rest periods and sleep had become impossible. They had decided to give up and replan their route after stocking up on supplies of repellent and mosquito nets. One of their parting phrases remained with me: ‘Summer's moving in hard and fast this year and you've got to stay ahead of it if you really want to see anything.' Denali's six million acres might make it larger than Massachusetts, but it was still the size of a postage stamp on my Alaska map. In any case, no matter how big the place was these tiny mosquitoes had ganged up on the seasoned hikers and put them to flight. I certainly had no intention of remaining to be eaten alive. Having completed what seemed more like a Sundayschool safari to the wholly inappropriately named Wonder Lake, there was little else we could do given the limitations of wolves, park regulations and now mosquitoes. When I suggested to Audrey that we should think about moving on the next day, she seemed relieved.

The next morning we walked to the camp's entrance. The yapping of dogs met us as we passed each vehicle. A few owners were already out walking their delicate pets. Here were these people, in the wilds of Alaska, thousands of miles from their own homes, doing exactly as they would at home. At the entrance to the campsite a large noticeboard had been erected and on it was
a largeish poster informing the traveller about what to do if they encountered a bear.

Rule number one: Do not run! Bears, it explains, can run faster than thirty miles an hour.

Rule number two: Back away slowly, which I thought was reasonably sound advice. But what followed puzzled me: ‘Speak in a low, calm voice or sing softly while waving your hands above your head'. I suggested to Audrey that if a bear was charging me I don't think I would want to wave at him and sing him a lullaby.

Rule number three: If a grizzly makes contact, play dead! For sure, I thought, if a coronary hadn't already dispensed with the need for play-acting. This rule concluded with the strong advice, ‘If the attack is prolonged, fight back furiously!' Now that was real Alaskan mountain-man stuff.

Rule number four was even more macho: If a black bear makes contact with you, FIGHT BACK! There was no suggestion here of waving, singing or reciting poetry, or even play-acting and feigning death. No, sir. When it comes to black bears it's a case of getting stuck in with fists and feet flying and no quarter given. Both Audrey and I laughed nervously. The wilderness was more ominous than we cared to imagine, and I thought about the bears we had encountered yesterday in a different light.

One of our fellow campers joined us to check some notices and I asked him why it was necessary to react differently to a grizzly and a black bear. He explained that the black bear was smaller and with a determined effort can be scared off. But in the case of the grizzly or brown bear, fighting was a last resort to save your life – but, he added matter-of-factly, ‘If a big brown decides he's gonna attack you and he gets hold of you, you'd be better praying than fighting because he's gonna kill you and you're gonna hope it happens real quick!'

We drove out of the campsite at Denali with no clear idea of where we might head. Circumstances beyond our control seemed to be forcing us to make changes in our planned schedule. Audrey drove while I studied the map. I remembered the hikers' remark about keeping on the move and trying to stay one jump ahead of
the elements and the insects. We were on the main road to Anchorage and it seemed best to carry on in that direction, stopping at a place called Talkeetna to top up on supplies, then onward towards Anchorage but swinging left at Palmer and motoring hard along the Glen Highway to Glenallen. There we could turn south once more and take a secondary road towards a place called Chitina, following the road until it stopped. Audrey listened, then asked pointedly just where the road did end and why we were going there. I began to explain that mostly we were trying to avoid the mosquitoes, and also to get to a wilderness area that was less controlled by rangers and the national park regime. Audrey thought I should be less critical of the rangers.

I changed the subject. ‘It also says in the Denali information pack that caribou are the animal most plagued by mosquitoes. At this time of the year they frequently head into the hills where the colder atmosphere and the mountain breezes keep the insects at bay. The snow banks and the wind-blown ridges protect them from mosquitoes, and they calve there. At these higher elevations their young are safe from bear and wolf predators. So we are heading into the hills between the Chugach mountains and the Wrangell and St Elias mountains. I think Jack and Cal should be safe from predators there and hopefully we should have left the mosquitoes behind us.'

‘Yes, Brian, but
where
exactly are we going to end up? I don't want us camping out in the wilderness alone.' She paused for a moment. ‘What would happen if this vehicle broke down or something?'

‘Well, the road ends at a place called McCarthy. One way in and no way out!'

Audrey's response was less anxious. ‘I knew it, I just knew it. When I looked at the map two nights ago and saw the name of the place at the end of that road to nowhere I said to myself, I bet we end up there. I just knew it!'

Audrey was doing the driving and the boys were strapped into the dining-area bay seat playing with some plastic dinosaurs we had bought for a few dollars at an open-air market in Fairbanks. I sat up front trying to catch up on some reading and making notes. I had grandiosely inscribed my notebook with the words ‘Captain's Log' and underneath had printed ‘The RV
Pequod
: Star Date 2001'. The mongrel mix of Herman Melville and the
Starship Enterprise
had not lost its quirky appeal for me. For some reason I was humming the Beatles song ‘The Long and Winding Road' to myself as I scanned my notebook making amendments and adding afterthoughts to my observations. The song, Melville's book and the TV series have the common theme of a journey and they had tied themselves together subliminally in my mind. But it was a particular kind of journey, a journey in search of resolution, revelation and perhaps paradise.

I suppose it could be summed up as a spiritual quest that would hopefully conclude in some kind of personal transformation. Such quests have a long history, but in contemporary times such transformations are linked to a spiritual homeland where the weary old rationalist and traditional ideas of self and salvation are cast off as
powerless impediments. This search for a renewed experience of authenticity was the objective of writers such as Richard Burton, T. E. Lawrence and Gertrude Bell, each of whom found in their desert landscapes a sense of beatitude and timeless quiet in which their spirit was cleansed and nurtured anew.

My favourite travel writer in this genre is Freya Stark. Her book
Beyond Euphrates
, an autobiographical account of five years' travelling and living in Iraq and what was then Persia, is a vivid example of finding a place of belonging, somewhere that was totally alien to all her European upbringing. Beyond the great Euphrates lay the uncharted mountains and valleys she mapped for the British Embassy. Freya found her soul-home there, a place and a people that inspired and stilled her. Many of these writers found their cathartic home in the Islamic world. But in my own mind, if there was such a place that could heighten, enrich and ultimately transform my understanding I was sure I would not find it in those parts of the world where religion had deeply embedded itself. I wanted to discover somewhere that still might be pristine and elemental, untainted by well-wrought belief systems, dogmas or regimented codes of ethical and religious observance handed down by religious elites. Yes, I wanted paradise without proscription, liberation without a leash. I felt I might find it in the wilderness where the law was not man-made and enlightenment was not revealed in a holy book – in short, in a living encounter.

Samuel Johnson defined ‘wilderness' in 1755 in his
Dictionary of the English Language
as ‘a desert; a tract of solitude and savageness'. But wilderness has a dual aspect, as recorded in fairy-tales. I remember particularly from my childhood the stories of the brothers Grimm. Their woodland wilderness had a twofold emotional tone: on the one hand it was inhospitable, alien, mysterious and threatening; on the other, beautiful, friendly and capable of elevating and delighting the beholder. Involved in this second conception is the idea of wild country as a sanctuary in which those in need of consolation can find respite from the pressure of civilization.

This was near to my own understanding of the place. For me,
Jack London's books had only extended this sanctuary metaphor of wilderness. Dictionaries and logistic analysis are only holding pens for language. Ultimately an understanding of wilderness is as complex as it is partly contradictory. It elicits instinctive responses, can awaken feelings that are preternatural and emotional. It can reveal a new psychological persona and a more expansive communion within its quiet. It disinters parts of ourselves that domesticity has consigned to some dusty attic of our being. For wilderness is primarily a state of mind, a response more than a place apart. But whatever it was, it was out there waiting for me to enter into it and to draw from it whatever authenticity it offered me. My cerebral musings were in any case creating their own kind of wilderness and I was happily ready to jettison them for the real thing.

Our arrival in Talkeetna brought me back down to earth. The small town apparently took its name from a Tanana native expression meaning ‘river of plenty', and it turned out to be just that after our Spartan experience in Denali. It had retained much of its frontier character with small log and clapboard cabins lined along narrow dirt roads. The main street, which is no more than about 150 yards long, boasts a sign which reads ‘Welcome to downtown Talkeetna'. Downtown comprised a handful of coffee shops and restaurants and a gem of a general store called Nagleys which hadn't changed a lot since it was built in 1921. Inside, huge rusty bear traps lined the walls along with an assortment of bric-a-brac from the early establishment of the town as the engineering centre for the railroad north. The assortment of rusty iron railroad fittings made for a curious accompaniment to the piles of fresh bread, baskets of berries, jars of homemade preserve and sacks of dry beans. At the other side, across from the food, were stockpiles of everything a homestead community would require, from hatchets to headgear. There was even a display case full of handguns.

The other principal commercial enterprises were a filling station with a mechanic's work bay, and adjoining that a laundry with shower rooms which Audrey was especially relieved to find.
‘Civilization!' she sighed at the discovery. I nodded in silent agreement. A hot shower and fresh clean clothes were the nearest thing to civilization I might encounter over the next few months. Across from the store was the unimaginatively named Fairview Inn which was as original as the store and would have made a perfect setting for a saloon scene in any Hollywood western. Even the customers had that ‘howdy, pardner, give me three fingers of red-eye whiskey' look about them.

Within minutes we had walked to the end of downtown Talkeetna and were standing on the banks of the Susitna River. ‘Civilization doesn't last too long in Alaska,' I said, reminding Audrey of her joyous remark on seeing the laundromat. She laughed, stating that she was only too happy to take whatever was on offer, and with that we made our way back to the RV and found ourselves a campsite only a mile or so from the main street on the banks of the river.