Way across the ice

KOTZEBUE — The sun was leaking over the horizon at noon recently when I met my daughter, China, at the north end of town. I parked next to her idling snowgo and tightened the ties on my rifle scabbard. I couldn’t hear, but thought she said she’d like to snowshoe, maybe over near Bob and Carrie Uhl’s old cabin. I nodded for her to lead the way, glad that the last things I’d grabbed were my snowshoes and hunting license.

It felt good, following my kid, watching her carefully cross the jumbled ice. Orange light lit up the snow, and past the channel, the surface smoothed out and she sped up. Not being in the lead allowed my thoughts to wander — although these past years they wander even when I am breaking trail. I think it’s because my vision is worse, and I no longer have a fierce focus on finding animals for photographs. I miss the person I was.

China stopped to check her ropes. I got out my iPhone to take a shot of the sky. Three snowgoes roared up behind us. A tall man raised his mask, stuck out a bare hand and said something. I recognized Raymond Brown Jr., who I’ve known since he was a scrawny kid. His dad used to boat their family down the Kobuk to camp and commercial fish, same as my family did. Actually, I should admit, many of us were scrawny, rough-looking kids back then.

They roared on. I gestured to the right of Mount Noak, telling China that Bob’s old dog trail was somewhere along that coast. We traveled on. I remembered how much I used to love the first crossing — often much earlier, in mid-October, and on much thinner ice. I traveled alone a lot then and was comfortable dealing with whatever happened. I don’t feel that way nowadays, with my computerized snowgo and destroyed circulation in my hands.

The wind frosted my nose, and I felt my stiff face smiling, remembering taking Dead Air Dave across to visit Bob and Carrie. The ice was thin and he wasn’t. Every Friday on the radio, he’d do a contest called “Guess My Weight,” and buy the winner a pizza. People called in guesses, then he’d go down to Alaska Airlines and weigh himself on their freight scale, usually coming in between 460 and 490 pounds. I had my stainless Colt .45 then — before I gave it to Jim Moto in Deering — and I took it along, telling Dave he was welcome to follow but if he fell through the ice and I couldn’t drag him out with my snowgo, I’d have to shoot him. He agreed that was fair.

Bob and Carrie put out a spread of food, as always, and Bob stoked the stove way too much. Bob’s remaining hair stuck out in wild wisps, and Carrie’s arthritis pained her, and they were extra grateful for company after a dearth during freezeup. They’d listened to KOTZ radio the whole time, and Carrie was happy I’d brought along one of her favorite announcers.

It’s 12 or 14 miles across the ice, and I could tell China was uncertain when she hit grass — the low mud edge of Egg Island. Towers of ice were heaped, from the October storm that flooded Kotzebue, and she wove her way through. A few miles on, at the shore, she stopped. I saw no sign of Bob’s old trail through the willows.

Bob used to have a pet peeve that travelers follow his trail across the tundra to their winter cabin. The only marker I recall was a small lone spruce on the ocean shore, and now the tree was gone. Or maybe it wasn’t — maybe it grew up, and got surrounded by these miles of new willows.

We found a place to drive up the bluff and headed for the hills, keeping an eye out for caribou. The tussocks were knobby under soft snow, jolting our machines. My goggles fogged, and wind seared my cheek. I glanced back at the orange blob far across the ice, knowing Bob was turning in his grave, not impressed by the route we were taking. At a ravine, I peered down for Frank Greene’s tiny bear-battered cabin where I’d taken China and her friend Brandi when they were kids, but the trees were too thick for us to recognize where it might be.

The willows were large and unrecognizable at Bob’s creek crossing, and we decided to snowshoe from there. The creek had fresh overflow ice, but held us and we found what remained of the overgrown trail. After that was open tundra, for half a mile, until we hit the creek again. I remembered caribou everywhere 20 and 30 years ago on this tundra, animals dotting the landscape, cratering for food, resting and leaving dropped antlers. Now, there wasn’t a track, and in the distance, a lone raven in a tree commented.

I wondered what Bob’s comments would be about the changes the seasons have brought since he and Carrie passed. He was the wisest man of my life — for the better part of a century nearly all of his thoughts, observations and obsessions were focused on the land and animals — and daily I wish I could ask his advice about caribou, seals, sheefish and many other things.

Walking, carrying my lambskin parka under my arm, I couldn’t help wondering what he’d think of the latest turn our nation has taken, trading in truth and kindness for what we’re not sure. Honesty and generosity had been foundations of life for he and Carrie, with knowledge and food from the land and ocean their main currencies. Today’s intense lust, and trust, in money would have made no sense to them.

At the second creek crossing the ice was thin. The snowbank caved in. Water soaked the snow. I took off one snowshoe for a probe, crossed gingerly and then went back to help China. Ahead, thickets leaned in on the old trail and marten and squirrel tracks pocked the soft drifts. Spruce stood silent, only the tops swaying. The trees had grown shockingly large, and then through the branches was the brown wall of the Uhls’ plywood cabin.

Beside it, their older log cabin was gray and gaping open. The doors on both were wide, with snow and scampered tracks visible inside. In the newer structure, belongings were strewn on the floor and table and bed, rifled by animals. Peering in, I felt the years come rushing back: memories of visits, the stove warm and the lights bright, the table filled with food, the room full of conversation and laughter, and Carrie’s guestbook full too — still here — with the names of so many friends come and gone. The single room had been crowded with the necessities of wilderness life. And crowded too with accumulated wisdom from Carrie’s traditional culture and Bob’s lifelong quest for knowledge — all of it offered for free to any stranger or friend who stepped through their door. Offered with food and drink and as much warmth and human compassion as any of us could hold.

I heard a chick-a-dee and turned to glance into the silent woods. I remembered doing the Winter Bird Count here, one of Bob’s naturalist passions. Beside me drifts draped rusted drums and a low rotting woodpile. My snowshoe binding came loose and I fought with it. When I looked back inside, the stove and floor and bed looked sad and trashed, the walls and roof barely protecting the tatters scattered about. I stared beyond the little school chair, where I used to sit, trying to see if Bob’s notecards with quotes from Henry David Thoreau and Henry Beston were still pinned there. I wanted to read them, though not at the cost of treading on their processions. All I could recall was something about animals, “caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.”

Bob was a hundred times smarter than me, and far more patient — a valuable combination — and as my eyes roamed the floor, I couldn’t help feeling what lay messy, tangled and damaged was analogous to my sparse memories and feeble attempts to emulate his sterling clarity of thought.

Already the day was dimming, and China and I snowshoed out the trail, crossed the creek and started across the tundra. The north wind was cold. I stared around for caribou, my hand straying to my pocket and to my hunting license. I unfolded the paper. Duck Stamp? Ruefully, I grinned, knowing Bob would get a chuckle about that — probably all winter, and even after the ducks returned.

At the machines, we tied our loads, and I had China lead us south toward the coast. I was lost again in memories of old-timers and past events. It surprised me to find myself thinking of Dead Air Dave again. I’d forgotten about bringing him here in December, to cut Carrie a Christmas tree. When he stepped off his snowgo, he went down to the ground like a moose. His face was level with his snowgo seat. “Hey Seth!” he shouted. “How do you get back on this thing?”

I was chopping a tree, in a hurry because it was getting stormy, and already almost dark. “I don’t know,” I said. “I never really thought about it.” Dave had come from Arizona, where the terrain he knew best was strip clubs — different from the Arctic in December, I assume — and he thrashed and struggled to get back on while I tied the tree on my sled.

After a requisite meal and visit with Bob and Carrie, night had fallen. Outside a blizzard howled. They tried to talk us into spending the night. I insisted we could make it back to town, and led us over the tundra to the ocean ice. I stopped beside Bob’s little marker tree. The wind and snow were blinding, visibility just few yards, and I strode over to Dave and shouted, “Stay RIGHT beside me, ok? Don’t stop unless you see this tree again!”

I drove into the nothingness, mile after mile, for what seemed like forever, not looking ahead but only watching my left ski and the angle of the snow blowing over it. Finally, a glow appeared in the snowy darkness. In front of us were the lights of Front Street and I made out the looming post office. Dave roared up beside me waving his arms. “I’ll bring us in!” he shouted. “I can lead from here!”

Right then I saw China stop again. The light was falling, and she bent to examine a single narrow caribou trail in the snow. It was old and drifted in, the tracks heading west, and we smiled, happy to see the sign.