First Wilderness, Revised Edition. Sam Keith

place much longer, they’d have sent home a coffin … and I’d be in it.”

      One day, we were digging in a ditch when a Great Dane that belonged to one of the officers came up to inspect our work. His big paws touched off a small landslide of shale back into the hole.

      “What the hell you think you’re doing?” roared Long Gone. “Now I got to shovel all this up there again. Ain’t you got any respect for a working man at all? Suppose you were down here and I was up there doing what you just did. How would you like it?” The dog cocked his head, moved his ears attentively, and stepped back, flicking his tongue as if ashamed of himself.

      When Long Gone finally left, I hated to see him go. I hoped he made it to Southeastern. He’d blown his check in town the night before he left and had to sell some of his things to get plane fare. I picked up the Michigan-type trail snowshoes that he’d won in a poker game.

      The Historian had something to say about those who were leaving, too.

      “Men come up here,” he observed, “and they think they’re going to save a lot of money. For a month or so they stick close to their rooms, put money in the bank every week, and they feel good that things are turning out the way they planned. Then the day comes when it gets to them. The roof caves in. They find themselves in ‘The Snake Pit’ or one of the joints in town.

      “All of a sudden they’ve found something that’s too good to be without. Life is too short. That’s when the trip downhill begins. They borrow money. They take days off. Their next week’s pay is gone before they get it. Look at Everson. His contract was up last August. He didn’t have a dime to go Outside, so he figured he’d hang on. Now he hasn’t got as much as he had in August.”

      In spite of The Historian’s sage advice, I went on a shopping spree and did some damage to my wallet. I was able to send home a Christmas package that included the mukluks for Deena, a heavy woolen shirt for Dad, and some pieces of Alaskan jade set into ivory for Anna. For my Christmas present, I asked her to ship me the Ansley Fox twelve-gauge shotgun as soon as possible. Now that the snow was here, I had ptarmigan hunting on my mind. Skunk Bear had told me enough about these grouse of the high country to make me anxious to get acquainted.

      I learned how to dress for the job in all kinds of weather. I loved the warm hug of the “long handles.” If I could keep my hands and feet comfortable, and keep moving, I didn’t worry about the elements. I washed my woolens often in lukewarm water and squeezed the suds all through them. Clean wool was warmer wool. I wore deerskin chopper mittens over woolen liners, and I wore loose arctic boot covers over my work shoes.

      Often the williwaws rattled the windows in their frames and showered grit against the panes. I felt an eeriness in the stillness between the blasts.

      Even when rafts of ice floated in the bay and the wind blasted pellets of snow into my parka hood, I ran the jackhammer with a frenzied energy until my blood flooded heat all through my body. With numbed face I laughed at the gales. I didn’t know the frost of fifty below yet, but I felt I was an Alaskan just the same. The winds belied the thermometer. Coming in out of the weather to a warm room, I welcomed the burning feel in my face.

      A great change came over the mountains. They were severe in their white wraps that were creased with blue shadows. I loved to look at them when a few stars still had their lights on.

       January 3, 1953

       Dear Dad, Molly, & Mrs. Millet:

      I finally bought my camera. It is an Argus C-3. It cost $69.50, so it ought to be fairly good. I’ll take some black and white pictures first before I go fooling around with color slides. It is 35mm and a shutter speed up to 1/300th of a second. I should be able to get some swell pictures….

      My laundry bag is bulging at the seams. I’d better get busy.

      Love to all,

       Sam

      I OFTEN ENTERTAINED MYSELF WITH MY new 7×35 Rangemaster binoculars and my Field Guide to Western Birds. In the open water, there were large gatherings of ducks. During low tide, when dark green weed rolled in the shallows, the mallards laid their throats on the surface, and the ripples played from the sifting action of their bills. Pintails, mostly females, fed on the same fare while a few of the drakes, clustered out of the wind, displayed their gray-etched feathers and stretched their slim necks and white shirt fronts.

      Rafts of bluebills bobbed farther on. Here and there a pair of goldeneyes slanting up and slanting down on the swells, a boisterous knot of long-tailed ducks, and blocky bodied eiders headed into the wind; now and then a surfacing merganser in close, his crest like a boy who combed his hair too quickly and didn’t get the spikelets down in back. Once what appeared to be a swimming toucan turned into a loon attempting to swallow an oversized fish.