Into the Wild of Alaska: Adventure Stories and Perspective

Yesterday’s visit with a friend who stopped by, this friend who lives in the mountains of Colorado surrounded by wilderness, prompted memories and conversation about the 15 day trip my husband and I took to Alaska. This was our second trip, and what I had in mind was a couple of weeks on board a ship, resting and recovering, and celebrating my recent graduation from 4 arduous years in seminary.

Instead, we boarded a ship in Vancouver that let us off in 3 days for the rest of the journey through Alaska and the Yukon by train, boat, bus, and some of the territory traveled on foot. Who knew?

Much later, inside Denali Park, we rented a Jeep and found the trail where Chris McCandless began his Alaskan adventure into the wild. Jon Krakauer wrote the non-fiction book Into the Wild that was later made into a movie released the summer before our trip.

Chris had given himself the name “Alexander Supertramp” after graduating from college in Georgia, hitch-hiking across the country, and eventually reaching his destination in Alaska.

One of my professors said he learned from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings “You can choose to get involved in an adventure but you can’t choose how much it will cost.”

North to Alaska, from the start

740.7 nautical miles from Vancouver, Canada, the ship spit us out in Skagway, Alaska.

One of our first stops was a cemetery in Skagway, where the notorious “Soapy” Smith was killed on the very date we were there, July 8. The hero, the man who shot him, died 12 days later of wounds received from Soapy’s gun.

The tour guide said there was no gold in Skagway but it was the gateway to Dawson City, 700 miles further north. Adding there was another, shorter and steeper trailhead, he said, “but once on either trail, you regretted your choice.”

“Their hearts turned to stone, those who did not break …”

Jack London

Desperation fueled by hope-filled prospects account for the Klondike Gold Rush. By the time most individual miners got there, “focused on their own intense purpose” [1], the territory had been staked out by those who were there when the rush began.

A small sign on the highway read, “Worry is a waste of imagination.”

I wrote in my journal “It’s a bad start boys” (line from the movie Silverado) to note the undoing of the rest I got onboard the ship for 3 days. We’d been dumped on the streets of Skagway to wander for hours, had an early lunch at the Red Onion Saloon, and finally awaited the distribution of room keys at the hotel.

Our waitress Teodora at breakfast was from Bulgaria, the server the night before named Jasmin, and boys on the cruise line were Balinese. My husband said that the cruise line is working its way through the alphabet, employing people in disadvantaged countries.

“I feel like a cog placed on a conveyor belt” I said, after hearing that 4 more cruise ships would arrive that day. “But then, this town and these jobs would not exist if people didn’t come.”

I had been reading the Africa Detective series by Alexander McCall Smith, whose main character Mma. Ramotswe reasoned, “If you make more money than you need to live, you owe it to someone else to give them a job.”

“Balinese Bobby,” our server at dinner each night told us to call him Bobby, though his name tag read, “Made Youmani.” He said, “Made” means second son and rhymes with body.

I learned a lot from Bobby about life aboard a cruise ship, but what fascinated me, these Balinese boys (South Pacific) appeared so happy, so congenial. What of their personal lives? Were they escaping human injustice? My imagination ran wild, exploring how so many individuals from a people group should find a haven amidst a facade of wealth, cleaning up after people who pay to be pampered.

I feel a sadness hanging over this place and wonder if it echoes the dreams of riches that brought people here more than a hundred years ago––dreams that for the most part ended in an early grave.

“You can choose to get involved in an adventure but you can’t choose how much it will cost.”

LORD of the Rings

To the Yukon Territory and Beyond

A tiny narrow-gauge train hauled us to the end of Chilkoot Pass, where angels fear to tread, on to Whitehorse, the capital of Yukon.

We took a 40 minute hike, noting signs of campsites where miners had paid dearly to get this far. Rusted tin cans: were these relics or signs of more recent visitors?

Nature, by itself, can say only so much. This vast place has too much scope for the imagination, and the story of people always involves the particulars.

I saw so much green, my eyes hungered for relief and somewhere to focus.

James Taylor song lyrics come to mind: ” … hide it behind your eyes, carry it in your heart” because there’s no way a camera can capture the grandeur and beauty of this place.

Our tour guide told us this was his fourth and last summer as a guide because he was getting married in 41 days. (But who’s counting?)

He added that those of us on this tour had booked the best tour, adding “Do you think I say that to every group?” He said that he stipulated he would work this summer only if he got to pick the tour. “You folks are in for a treat.”

His words understated “the treat,” especially considering the perils that lie ahead for our group.

Best to remember when choosing to get involved in an adventure that places like this are not Disneyland and the bears don’t have names.

(to be continued)

[1] caption above a photo in the Skagway museum showing the stampede of miners setting out on the Chilkoot Trail. From 1896–1897, the Canadian Government refused permits to anyone entering Canada without a year’s supply of food. Our guide said, “Bureaucracy killed them.”