Living in the Alaska Wilderness

 Breaking out of the undergrowth again, I came into a small meadow about fifty yards across. Right in the middle of it, a big steer stood facing me. But, there were a couple of details that made it obvious this steer was a bull, and he was not happy to see me there. There were several smaller cattle around him, standing with blank expressions on their wide, flat faces. The bull began behaving aggressively, head down, and snorting and pawing the ground with his front hooves. Without thinking, I pulled my pistol out of its holster, pointed it at the bull, and said in as loud and firm a voice as I could muster, “Hey, don’t even think about it!”

The bull stopped his hostile moves, and stood glaring at me. He seemed to be considering my attitude and the object I was pointing directly at his face. Jerking his head up with a final snort, he turned and walked away, moving off into the bushes followed by the steers. I stood there waiting for something else to happen, thinking how weird this was. Yeah, maybe an angry bear or even a hungry wolf might have hassled me, but a pissed-off bull? I started hiking again, wondering what was next.

George’s map had indicated a trail running up the spine of a steep ridge behind some deserted structures that were supposed to be nearby, but he didn’t show exactly where that ridge trail started. He had just drawn a little arrow and written, “Go this way,” on the map. Working my way through more heavy vegetation, I came to a larger piece of open ground, and on the far side part of a wooden wall and roof were visible. After another minute, I was at the old shacks George had referred to. Though I still had to find his cabin, I felt good about having come this far.

Drinking some much-needed water from my canteen, I studied these three old shacks. They had survived, but were in miserable condition. I was expecting to see log structures, but the frames were just two by fours and the wall coverings were thin plywood, much of which was now missing. I didn’t see any insulation. Judging from the old fire rings, people regularly camped here. I wondered who had built these derelict structures, and what had caused them to leave.

Tired and hungry, I found a smooth, grassy spot by one of the shacks, sat down with my back against a wall, and took out one of the deli sandwiches I had bought in town. It tasted wonderful after my long hike. With the warm sun shining on my face, I soon dozed off, the half-eaten sandwich still in my hand.

A loud whinnying startled me awake. There were three people on horses lined up right in front of me. I just sat there staring at them. One of the riders said hello, then suggested I shouldn’t fall asleep out in the open like that, as there were lots of bears around and it was better not to lure them in with food smells, especially since I was holding the sandwich in my hand.

I could tell, in spite of the man’s friendly tone, that I hadn’t made a very good impression on him. I nodded my agreement at the suggestion, and asked him if he knew where the trail up the ridge might be. The horseman shook his head, wished me good luck, and they all rode away. Quickly finishing my sandwich, watching for marauding bears as I chewed, I slipped my pack on again and started looking for the trail.

But, it was not right behind the old ruins, and I had to wander through the woods for a while before I located it. Crossing a narrow creek bed, I finally found it behind a patch of heavy bushes surrounding another big, old cottonwood tree. The footpath started up a slope onto the narrow spine of a steep ridge closely bordered with trees, bushes, and more devil’s club growing on both sides. The soil on the lowest part of the trail seemed strangely chewed up and loose. It looked pretty unstable to me, but I took a deep breath and started climbing, hoping it really was the right trail. As soon as I started up, I knew this was going to be another extraordinary event.

The acute angle of that first slope and the trail on the narrow ridge spine had me literally on all fours at times, grabbing whatever I could to pull myself up. In no time, I was sweating and breathing hard. I had thought I was in pretty good condition, but now that seemed to have been a foolish assumption. Alaska was again putting me to the test. The silt left inside my clothes from the dunking I had taken earlier was chafing me in sensitive places. If I’d had any ideas that this would be a fun hike, they were now totally removed from my mind. This was getting serious. Having to watch where I placed every footstep, I kept on climbing.

At one point, where the trail leveled off briefly so I could stand upright, I saw through a break in the bushes that I had climbed hundreds of feet. Looking down, I noticed that just in front of my boot toes there was an almost vertical cliff. Hugging the inner side of the trail, I continued on. Some portions of this precipitous route were less than two feet wide and uneven, with a clear drop-off on either side. Judging from the packed surface of the trail, it was well established, causing me to wonder who would use such a dangerous course on a regular basis, and why. But, I just looked straight ahead and kept pushing up the trail, wondering how much farther I had to go.

Just as my aching legs were begging me to stop, I saw a stunted, twisted spruce tree growing out of the inner side of the trail. One of its branches ran low and parallel to the trail, and I sat down on it for a rest. Judging from the way the bark had been rubbed off the top of the limb, others had rested here before me. I noticed that the name Bob was roughly carved into the trunk of the tree.

Incredibly thirsty, I reached for the canteen in my pack’s side pocket, but it slipped out of my fingers and rolled over the edge of the trail. It seemed to slide, bump, and fall forever. As I listened to it going away, I hung my head and sighed. A lone drop of sweat dripped off the end of my nose onto the dirt. Time to move on.

I stood on tight legs and continued climbing, but not for long. Barely twenty-five yards farther, I reached the top of the ridge, walking onto level ground. Pushing past some tall bushes, I was greeted with the sight of a long, narrow, one-story building, sheathed in wavy-edged slabs of wood. It had two small windows on the side facing me, and a rusting metal roof. A slightly tilted chimney pipe emitted a thin ribbon of smoke. There was a lush, young garden next to the house, and a well just beyond it. I walked forward to knock on the door, but it opened before I got there.

A short, but very wide, frowning man with a thick, unkempt beard stepped out. He was dressed in faded and torn brown canvas pants, a red plaid flannel shirt with both elbows out, wide suspenders, and tall, brown rubber boots that had seen better days. A shapeless cloth hat was perched on his head. I couldn’t help thinking of some somber gnome from a book of old tales. In a deep voice, he asked me what I wanted.

I tried to say hello, but my dry throat didn’t oblige. A raspy growl came out instead. The man just stood looking at me. I managed to explain what I was doing there. When I mentioned George Whiting, his aspect changed, and he seemed to relax. He asked if I wanted a drink of water and I nodded enthusiastically.

Leading me to the well, he dropped the bucket in and hauled it up again full of icy-cold, sweet water. Scooping some out with a dented metal dipper, he handed it to me. I could feel the cold water running all the way down my throat and hitting my empty stomach. It had a slightly silty flavor, but I loved it.

I told him my name was Denny Caraway, and he introduced himself as Monty Leer. Monty told me he was just heading to town to meet his wife, but that I was welcome to rest a while at his place. Before he left, Mr. Leer told me how to get to George’s old homestead, which was only about two miles away. It sounded easy enough.

He said if he didn’t have to meet his wife, he would be happy to guide me to the cabin. Smiling, he said, “But my wife is not someone you want to keep waiting.”

I mentioned how difficult it had been on the steep trail I had just come up. He agreed it could be rough until you got used to it, but that he climbed it regularly to get into his place in late spring, summer, and fall, until the winter snows made traveling the overland route the easier way to go.

Having said that, Mr. Leer walked over and pulled an empty pack from inside the door, along with a long barreled pistol in a worn leather holster. It was the same model as the one I carried. Shaking my hand and wishing me luck, he headed toward the ridge I had just climbed. I called out to him, “Who’s Bob?” Monty looked at me a moment, smiled again, and said, “Bob is the tree.” Then he was gone, headed down to the bay.

It was great meeting Monty Leer. He was the first Alaskan homesteader I’d met who was still living the life. I hoped I would get to visit with him again.

Standing there alone, I realized how tired I was. Taking a break sounded fine to me. Pulling off my dirty boots and sweaty socks, I left them on the wooden steps before going inside.

The interior of Monty’s home was the complete opposite of his scruffy appearance, being neat, clean, and organized. I decided his wife must be very tidy, and probably demanded the house be kept in order. Laying my pack on the linoleum flooring in the kitchen area, I had a look around. There were a lot of books on home built shelving. In fact, everything in the place, except for the couch and several stuffed chairs, was handmade, not fancy but sturdy, which I found very appealing. The interior walls and ceiling were all wood. On the floor was a bearskin rug, clawed paws, toothy head and all. What must have been a beaver hide tied onto a round wooden hoop was on one wall across from a set of moose antlers on another. There was one large window on the back wall, and the view through it was like a classic picture postcard of the Alaska woods. This was definitely a homesteader’s home the way I imagined it might be, except for its large size.

In my dirty clothes I didn’t know where to sit, so I just sat on the floor, my back against the couch. I must have nodded right out. Sometime later, I awoke to someone nudging me in the hip. It wasn’t Monty Leer.

This man was taller, leaner, and more neatly dressed. Clean-shaven, about five foot nine, he was wearing the same type of canvas pants, with a blue flannel shirt and the same brown rubber boots Monty wore, but his clothes were clean and in whole condition. I had to find out about those boots. On his head was a baseball cap with the word STIHL embroidered on the front. He also had the same type of .44 Magnum pistol in a holster on his hip. I decided this must be the basic uniform for living remote in Alaska.

His personality was different from Monty’s. Mr. Leer was friendly enough once he got to know you, but he had a generally serious demeanor, while this fellow was all smiles and hellos, a few too many in fact. His eyes never stayed still, flicking back and forth even when he was talking directly to me. My gut told me to be wary around him.

I introduced myself, and told him I had met Mr. Leer and he had offered me the use of his home to rest up.

Giving out a loud barking laugh, he said, “Mr. Leer?” stuck out his hand, and told me his name was Bucky Waters.

I shook it, noticing that though his hand was rough and calloused, the shake had no firmness, no feeling to it. That made me pull my hand back a little too quickly. His eyes stopped moving momentarily, and his smile flattened out, but he quickly recovered his friendly façade. Waters went to the kitchen area and started heating water on the small gas range. I silently watched him as he moved around like he owned the place. I concluded that he must know Monty Leer and his wife well. The hot cup of strong tea Waters handed me a few minutes later was, at that moment, a perfect drink.

As we sat at the Leer’s table, Waters kept up a steady line of conversation laced with lots of questions regarding my whos, whats, and wheres. I quickly realized he was trying to draw me out to find out what he could about me, and I carefully worded my responses, keeping them vague. He finally gave up.

Finishing our mugs, Waters said his place was about a mile from George’s old homestead, and that he’d take me there “if you think you could make it.”

I just nodded. There was a condescending tone in his voice I didn’t appreciate.

Stepping outside into the cool afternoon air, I discovered there was only one of my socks on the steps. As I stood wondering where the other had gone, a squirrel chattered from a nearby tree. Looking up at the owner of that cranky voice, I saw that the darned thing had my sock with it on the branch.

Seeing what had occurred, Bucky said, “I guess he’ll have a nice soft nest and you’ll have one cold foot.” He gave me a wide, toothy grin that I found very irritating.

I pulled another pair of socks from my pack, putting them and my boots onto my blistered feet. I was stiff and sore all over. Likeable or not, this character had easily read my exhausted condition.

We started hiking away from the house, going into the woods along a well-worn path with roots extending across it. I had to watch my step as I tried to keep up with Bucky, who was making good time ahead of me. Heading down a short slope, we hiked across an area consisting of a series of low, narrow, wooded ridges with little swampy draws in between, before coming to Waters’ homestead on top of one of the ridges.

His “cabin” looked like three or four sections of differently designed homes joined together, as if he wasn’t sure how he wanted it to look. It had a large picture window in the front wall with several sliding windows on the side, in contrast to the small, square, solid windows at Leer’s place. The structure even had a number of different types of roofing. It was pretty strange.

Instead of the forest that had presumably been there originally, the land around his home had been completely cleared. There was a big vegetable garden, and what looked like some kind of berry patch, maybe strawberries. There was also a greenhouse and a large, unfinished outbuilding.

Lots of equipment lay around in various states of disrepair, including several broken snow machines and a couple of old chainsaws. In contrast, there was a small, new-looking tractor by the side of the outbuilding. I wondered how difficult it had been to get it to his homestead.

I couldn’t tell what the inside of his home was like at that point, because he didn’t invite me in. We just walked a short distance behind his place onto a wide, cleared trail. He pointed toward a couple of fifty-five-gallon barrels several hundred feet from where we were standing, and told me to walk to the barrels and turn left onto the trail that crossed there, and that would take me to George’s old homestead. Turning around he walked away, and that was it. It was obvious to me that not all the people I would meet here in the Alaska bush would fit my concept of a traditional homesteader. The contrast between Leer and Waters certainly proved that.

It was also obvious to me that I was probably the most inexperienced person in this part of Alaska. I found consolation in the fact that while I didn’t know much about where I was or what I should do, at least I had chosen the right gun. That would have to do for now.

Shifting the pack on my back and adjusting my holster, I headed toward the trail he had pointed out, turning left onto it as I had been told. It appeared to be an established path, but not recently used, judging by the grasses growing in it. I followed it for about a mile, through some of the prettiest country I had seen so far. The forest consisted of mostly large spruce with some smaller birches in among them, and a lot of low bushes. I saw wild flowers in abundance as I walked along. Sunlight filtering through the trees gave the place a peaceful atmosphere.

Several times, I came to an area where someone had cut down a tree, and processed it for some purpose I didn’t understand. What had been done to the trees stirred my curiosity. There were long, half-round strips of bark-covered wood lying around that appeared to have been cut from the outside layer of the trunks. I wondered why.

Hiking along the slightly uphill path, I came out of the trees onto the edge of a long, narrow expanse of tundra. The trail ran straight across it. I hoped this was the tundra George had marked as the one near his cabin site.

Heading across the one hundred yard stretch of squishy muskeg enjoying the light breeze blowing steadily over it, I was surprised to see what looked like a pair of small shorebirds fly up right in front of me, shrilly expressing their irritation at being disturbed. They repeatedly strafed my head until I was well past their territory.

Entering the woods on the far side of the tundra, I hadn’t gone very far when I spotted a small cabin in the trees to my left. It must be George’s old home. Forgetting my tired muscles and blisters, I eagerly trotted to the little structure, full of excitement over finding it.

But upon closer inspection, my feelings of satisfaction at discovering the place faded. The cabin was in sad shape. The roof was sagging in, the only window was broken, and the door was hanging by one rusty hinge.

Walking through the tilted door, the view inside did nothing to raise my spirits. The interior looked as if looters had ransacked it. There were books, bottles, cans, and cooking gear scattered all over. A little handmade wooden table lay on its side like some long-dead animal. Slipping my pack off, I sat down on the one chair in the place and continued to survey my surroundings. It was an awful mess, not at all what I had expected from George’s description. But he hadn’t been there in years, and the untended cabin had suffered the consequences of that neglect.

I stepped outside again to explore the property, and to momentarily forget the cabin’s condition. I looked for the land’s corner markers. It took a while, but I was finally able to find them all. They helped me get an idea of the parcel’s general shape and location.

The piece of land George had settled on was high enough above the level of the tundra to be dry and good for building. He had limbed trees to head height all around his cabin, giving the area a groomed look, but after five years they needed trimming again. The ground was covered with ferns, mosses, and tiny, leafy plants. It was pleasant and parklike.

Going back inside, I turned the table upright and sat there as I ate the other sandwich I had brought. As soon as I was done, despite being bone tired from my hike I set about straightening the place up, putting all salvageable items like books and kitchen utensils on the shelves along the back wall, and the usable pots and pans on nails already driven into the wall logs on either side of a narrow, wooden counter. The worthless things I put in a pile outside the cabin next to the door. One item in the pile was an empty blue and white box that had held something called Pilot Bread, but it looked like big crackers judging from the faded picture on the box. I’d have to find out what these were.

There were a lot of food cans, but they were all empty and crushed, with holes in them. They must have been worked over by bears. Several of the pots had dents and punctures in them too. On the floor was a mound of dirty white stuff lying on a mangled box that apparently used to be powdered milk, but wasn’t anymore. It was surprising that animals hadn’t licked it up. Taking a worn down broom from a corner, I swept up all the debris from the floorboards.

The sheet metal stove, which would double for heat and cooking, had a light film of rust all over, but seemed to be solid. The stovepipe had been knocked apart, but only took a few minutes to reassemble.

The cabin was about sixteen feet square inside, which seemed more than adequate for me. I set the little table against the wall with the window in it. After several hours of cleaning, the cabin looked so much better that my spirits were up again.

There were some rusty tools in one corner, along with a bag of nails and some screws, also rusty but usable. I reattached the upper hinge to the door and put a piece of heavy, clear plastic sheeting I found over the broken windowpane. Though it wasn’t particularly cold out, I gathered some small, dry branches and made a fire in the stove. The one-gallon container of water in the bottom of my pack that I had regretted carrying as I was climbing up the ridge trail, was again a good idea now that I was here. There was supposed to be a spring box somewhere behind the cabin, but I didn’t know what condition it was in.

Rinsing out a small sauce pan with bear dents but no holes, I poured in some water and heated it on the little wood stove. As I quietly sat there, the crackling and popping of the burning wood were sounds that I found very soothing. When the water was boiling, I mixed in a packet of powdered cocoa, and on a whim, tossed in a spoonful of instant coffee. Sipping it slowly, I enjoyed the flavor, and decided it was a hearty drink, just right for enjoying in a log cabin.

With the door closed and the window covered over, the cabin felt pretty snug, even though there were lots of little gaps in the chinking between the wall logs. The wooden chair was solid, so I leaned back against a wall and allowed the feel of the place to sink in as I carefully scanned the interior. The roof needed some propping up, but wouldn’t be too difficult to fix. I’d have to put a pole under the middle of the top roof log, trimming it until it was just the right length to hold the roof level. In the corner of the cabin with the other tools was a really heavy duty jack, the largest I had ever seen. It looked like a bumper jack for a semi truck. I could use it to set the roof right. When I was outside, I’d looked up at the roofing and it seemed in good shape, with no visible holes or tears.

By the time my drink was finished, I had decided this cabin would be fine to start with, but that I would build a larger frame cabin a little farther into the trees as my permanent home. I would spend a couple of days looking for a good building site on the five acres. I also wanted to do a little exploring before heading back into town to conclude the deal with George. His price seemed reasonable, and I was certain this was the place I had been hoping to find.

In the middle of that thought, there was a raucous noise outside the front door. There could only be one source for the grating sound. Opening the door, I saw a blue jay sitting on a crude, wooden bird feeder, a short piece of plank nailed onto a spruce pole set in the ground. Seeing me, the bird increased its complaining. I had the feeling it was condemning me for the empty feeder. I wondered how many times the jay had come over the years to find no one home and nothing to eat. George had mentioned how they would show up every day, sometimes eating out of his hand. Apparently they hadn’t given up yet. I didn’t know how long jays lived, so this might not be the one that had come to George’s cabin when he was here.

Apologizing to the bird, I went in and took a bran muffin from my pack and broke off several pieces. As I approached the feeder, the jay flew up to a higher branch, waiting for me to leave the food on the feeder and back away before coming down to eat. While it was eating, another jay came down to eat too. It was smaller, and I figured they might be mates. Finished with their treat, they took off, continuing the rude noises as they flew away.

TRAILS

Living in the Alaska Wilderness

Warren Troy