JULY, 1993
At Exit Glacier you can walk right up and
give the million-year old ice cube a hug. There was evidence of the very large glacier
calving all over the place. There were signs all around deliniating a safety boundary. DO
NOT CROSS, they said. Michael paid them no heed and started walking all over the thing.
"Come on!" he said. But I was not too excited to walk on something that might squash me at any moment.
Michael chastised me and said that he'd pay my fine if we got caught. I mused that Michael was like a sugar daddy of death, or at least danger.
Being a pushover (or perhaps just obedient for a sugar daddy), I followed him around the corner of the glacier and up onto the thing. I said something about being squashed by falling ice and Michael chided me, saying, "Dammit, you only live once."
It was an assertion I could not counter.
I traversed Alaska alone, heading for the Yukon.
I noticed the wilderness.
I longed for a husky puppy companion.
The wilderness' relationship to me is obvious.
It will nurture, it will comfort -- but only if I allow it.
Only if I respect it.
Only if I play by its rules.
I can not tame the wilderness;
only live with it or destroy it.
The drive from Anchorage, Alaska, to
Destruction Bay, Yukon Territory, is roughly 14 hours. This, of course, is counting the
stops one is required to make for scenery, fuel, and road construction. I drove there and
back again in less than two days.
You cannot repair roadways in Alaska during the winter. Therefore, in the summer the roads are almost all being repaired in one way or another. While driving across Alaska there are frequent signs warning LOOSE GRAVEL. These are followed by loose gravel that my Tempo could do about 70 in sometimes, but usually it was deep enough to slow me to 50.
The Yukon is a whole other animal. LOOSE GRAVEL in the Yukon means LOOSE REALLY SMALL BOULDERS. I was flying into the Yukon at about 65 mph and came across a LOOSE GRAVEL sign. I lowered my speed to about 60, preparing for what I had just seen in Alaska. Instead I was greeted by an entire roadway made up of grapefruit size rocks. The stones pounded against the undercarriage of the car so hard that I was certain they were going to breach the floorboards and smack me in the head.
I stopped at the first place I came to for
something to drink. I bought a tonic water after waiting about 15 minutes behind some guy
who just asked the clerk stupid questions like "How much nicotine is in those
cigarettes?" When I put my can down on the counter the clerk said, "Oh, thut wuz
uh prutty lung wait fur thut, eh?"
In the Yukon, "u" is the favorite vowel.
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