Small World

We have staff children this year. Danika and Silas are the third generation of family on the ridge; Oliver and Lilly from Tasmania, and who, with their parents, are with us; Maggie is the daughter of a woman who has been a naturalist guide here for years. The youngsters spend a lot of time together here in organized kidcare, and staff members recognize them as their own family members, too.

Working in the office, I get a clear view out the window of the lawn in front of Potlatch and just east of the lodge--the log structure that Woody built back in the early 50s. On Wednesday, Jack, a first year staff member, had stopped washing the outside windows for a moment, and Dan, whose father has been one of our visiting naturalist-lecturers for years, took a moment from his trash-emptying rounds. All of them were cavorting! Kicking a soccer ball, waving a stick, showing handfuls of Australian coins, practicing handstands.

We are really lucky here to be such a small world, to be a community where the youngest has something to offer the oldest, where we can all play together with spontaneity, and where we all look out for each other. Especially the kids. If we're lucky enough to return for a second year, we see the growth in the kids--even Silas now toddles up to Jack, slaps hands in a two-year-old high five and says, clearly, "Hi, Jack!" Danika (4) stands up at staff meeting with an announcement about and invitation to her kids party that will last "until there's no light," and everyone pays attention. Lilly charms us all with her pink mini-wellies and play clothes over which she sports a tutu and fairy wings.

And Maggie, at 9, is an accomplished fiddler. She played with the other musicians at FallFest, serious face, tapping toe keeping the meter. If we see paper airplanes and artwork hanging in the "Smithsonian" staff room at North Face Lodge, we know that Maggie has been holding court with her crafts. While waiting for the incoming guests last Monday, we test-flew the various models in the upper lot. Anya and Jonathan helped pitch the planes, Jack and Tate (on the roof) helped gather them in. And Maggie ran circles around the lot of us.

Yesterday after a half day in the dish pit at Camp, I returned to my room bent on taking a nap. I'd been up since 5:00 in the morning, my feet were killing me, and I was looking forward to lying down. A note was taped to my door, from Maggie and her mother, Maria, asking me over to their cabin to talk beads and have tea. Suddenly I realized how much I wanted to do that, so I packed up my bead supplies, put on my jacket (early Fall here, and it's chilly), and tapped on their door.

Maria put another log in the stove, heated some water for tea, and the three of us showed each other our beading projects, talked about different patterns and techniques. I taught them how to make a star, and Maria showed me an Athabascan-style snowflake pattern that I'll work on this winter. Then as I started gathering stuff to head back to my room, Maria suggested that she and Maggie play the song Maggie wrote, the January Moonlight Song. Maria played melody on her violin; Maggie played the harmony she also composed on hers. I could see in my mind animals and people swirling and pirouetting in the January night as the tunes filled the 60-year old log cabin. Then Maggie played a couple of French Canadian songs--jigs or reels, I forget which. Lively, spirited, and outside the leaves danced on the wind.

And then I thought...in that head-shaking, how-could-I-have-missed-this way...it's not just a privilege to live here in the National Park all summer. It is a privilege to live within this small world, this place where we can leave i-pods and headphones behind, this community where age and youth are equal, where earth--not pavement--supports your feet, and where you rely on your talents and caring to create your joy, where you all--together--are part of this incredible string of once and future generations.

FallFest

The sun has definitely heeled over into autumn, and mornings here at North Face Lodge have started to get routinely frosty. Staff members start to think of what the next season holds--employment, return to school, on to graduate school, back to the winter job. To celebrate the summer and the staff and the place we throw a party for all staff.

The celebration used to be called Christmas. There would be a tree, carols, cookies, and a gift exchange. Staff would draw names earlier in the summer, and make--yes, make--a gift for that person. The recipient's identities would be about the best kept secret in the place next to who writes Ptarmigan Pturds, the staff spoofletter. In an attempt to be a bit more inclusive and to defuse some of the religious significance, we've made a shift from Christmas to Festivus to, finally, FallFest. No tree, different sorts of music, but we've retained the moose-shaped iced cookies, the lingonberries scattered down the center of the table, and the gift exchange.

Last night was the night, and because the job falls to someone on the offie staff, I was the appointed coordinator. We'd had some sun during the day, so we hoped that the rain would stay away. So when we gathered to take the staff photograph, the sun shone, but the rain fell, resulting in another spectacular rainbow. With the group photo taken, we moved back into Potlatch's dining hall decorated with construction paper cutouts of Sandhill Cranes, local berries, and colored leaves. And a few assorted snowflakes.

There was music, too. Three violin/fiddles, two recorders, one flute, three guitars, a cello, and a washtub bass. The musicians ranged in age from 9 to 87 and included a mother and daughter from Fairbanks, one of the founders of Camp Denali, and a cook from Tucson. This group set the tone for the evening, playing simple reels and jigs (after one rehearsal), some of the tunes set out from memory by the fiddlers. Toes tapped, staff children danced, Jack even played the spoons.

But the gift exchange, like last year's, was the highlight of the evening for me. The creativity and resourcefulness shown by the giftmakers, the attention to who is receiving the gift blows me away. The thoughtfulness, the painstaking searching for ideas, the humor shown.... There were metalwork candle boxes, an outhouse bank with seeds for Alaskan wildflowers, hand-painted tee-shirts, a huge exquisite quilt, appliqued pillow, caribou antler bracelets, jewelery boxes, picture frames, jams, an iron pot rack, even a porcupine hat for one of the guides.

The laughter moved easily to the close of the evening. Musicians played the dance tune Simple Gifts--so fitting for what we all gathered to share--and staff stood to sing through to the end of the song. While we cleaned up Potlatch and returned it to dining room status for guests' breakfast, the musicians continued to play. Silas toddled up to watch Jack play the spoons, four-year old Oliver hugged his father's neck while drowsing. Brian, the washboard bassist, picked up Anya's cello and added a deeper thrum to the melodies, Marshall--on someone's shoulders--pulled down the snowflakes we'd hung on the highest beam earlier in the day. All joined in, all made the evening complete.

About 11:30 I slipped out the door to start the walk down the hill. It was cool out, some clouds silhouetted against the silver sky, and over above Cranberry Ridge the moon was out. First moon we've seen since April. As I walked, I hummed the tunes we'd listened to, added a few of my own, and enjoyed the fresh air, the almost-dark night, and the joy of a rousing evening with folks I didn't know in June but who have become treasured friends.

Occasions like this change you. Those uncomplicated moments we've forgotten to notice once again gain importance, and things like presents, loosely assembled musicians, rainbows, moonlight and kindness remind us again of the blessing of simple gifts.

Cuppa Java

There's something about a cup of coffee first thing in the morning--the aroma, the warmth, the steam, the rich flavor. Even the mug...the thick white diner cups, that hand-thrown mug you found at a thrift shop, or the souvenir mug from Amish country. Whatever that cup of coffee is, in Alaska it seems to be obligatory.

Yes, we have tea drinkers, here at Camp Denali/North Face Lodge although I find tea in the morning lacks...well...a lot. Being from Boston, where drinking tea smacks of Royalism, I find I mostly drink tea in private, in the afternoon, in the winter. But coffee? The morning doesn't start without coffee. The drive doesn't start without coffee. Judging from the stream of guests entering the lodge before breakfast, their day doesn't start without coffee.

I shoehorned a trip to Anchorage into my last two days off. Not a particularly relaxing pair of days, but the trip was productive. The list for Wednesday left little time to spare--battery for MJ's watch, contact lens solution for Sarah, thread and fabric for a FallFest gift, meet Carley (for coffee) and pick up some stuff to bring back to Camp, stop by the bead store for supplies, run by Nordstrom for skin care products, swing into Starbucks for some Pike Place Blend--Decaf, and be done in time for dinner with friends. The next morning at 7:00, I was in the car (with a travel mug of coffee) and on the way back north.

But on the drive I was impressed by the sheer number of small coffee shacks one sees here in Alaska. These are little more than ice-fishing structures, taller than they are wide, with a door on one side for the proprietor, and a window on the other side where you drive up and communicate your order. Some sport hand-made signs, others blink brightly with neon. Nenana Coffee is, predictably, in Nenana. Right by the side of the road on the south side of town, and the only decent coffee between Healey and Fairbanks--roughly two and a half hours of driving.

Driving south to Anchorage that morning from the entrance to Denali National Park (withOUT a cup of coffee because nothing--that is, the Chevron station in Cantwell--was open at 4:45 a.m.), I was distracted first by the beauty of the drive, even on a rainy morning, but second, by the presence, every so often, of coffee shacks. At Trapper Creek, there is a huge building where you can get everything from a shower to liquor to propane to coffee; at the Talkeetna turn-off, there is a Subway that carries Seattle's Best Coffee (yes, I did, it's a four and a half hour drive). Then in Houston I saw a vehicle license plate: XPR-SSO. Then a sign for Aroma Borealis. In Anchorage there are Common Grounds, Terra Bella Coffee, Kaladi Brothers Coffee, Kobuk Coffee, and (I'm not sure why) Bustin' Ass Coffee. Walking through the Town Park in Anchorage, you almost can't hear conversations for the sound of milk steamers chorrrrrrffshshs-ing.

Maybe this is one of the reasons I love Alaska--pretty good coffee no matter where you look. Maybe the puns tickle the English major in me. Perhaps it's the entreprenurial spirit that resonates--Eklutna Coffee even has an E-Z return to expressway sign. Zip off the highway, swing through to get your coffee, back on the road again. You can set up business for the cost of a commercial-grade espresso machine. Demand and supply. Add a clever name? You've got cash flow.

Next time I drive south, though--in September after my last work day here--I will stop at Aroma Borealis. The name draws me in as surely as the olfactory promise.

Why the Tarmagain, I mean Parmesan, um Chicken...

...crossed the road.

Last week on my day off--and when the sun was shining brilliantly, I decided to go for my favorite walk. After breakfast I packed my lunch, got into my hiking boots, spritzed on some insect repellent, and set off.

I can't help but take pictures of the wildflowers. I have about skadey-eight shots of Fireweed in various phases of bloom, but when another stalk backlit by the sun glows in front of me, I stop, turn on the camera, and snap another picture.

After one such photo op, being bent double trying to get the best angle for the picture, I heard a very strange noise. I think noises are stranger when you're bent double out here in the wilds of the park, but maybe that's just me. Anyway, I straightened slowly, turned more slowly, heard the noise again, and looked.... Zip. Nothing. I moved and heard said noise again. This time there was a rustle in the underbrush; the noise maker could probably hear my heart beating at this point.

Long story short, there at the side of the road, under the grasses and shrubby willows, was a Ptarmigan! With the unknown noise resolved, I felt much braver, and turned the camera toward the State Bird. Then there was more rustling, more of that strange muffled raspy cluck, and.... Chicks! First there were two, then across the road there were more little cheepy whistles, and more chicks, four...five. Seven in all. As I've related before, these are not the brightest of our avian friends. They cluster in times of peril (thus maximizing their chances of dispatch), and at other times, they scatter will-nilly in as many directions as there are birds in the brood. And sometimes, they just plain stand still and look at you.

Back about a mile I'd passed road work. Large Park Service maintenance vehicles busily dumped gravel, and while the grader spread it out, the dump truck--a huge dump truck (my head came about to the floorboard of the cab)--would zoom off for another load down at the south end of Wonder Lake. As I stood there watching the mama Willow Ptarmigan stand there in the road, I could hear the truck returning. As it came around the curve it slowed (they have a no-dust policy when encountering pedestrians), and then slowed some more, and came to a halt just as one of the chicks toddled onto the road to see what was going on. Talk about winning a game of Chicken! A natural world Ptarmiganimen Square.

The ptarmigans stood there and looked at the truck. The driver and I sat/stood there and looked at the birds. This went on for the better part of ten minutes. Finally, the female ptarmigan shooed her chick over to the other side of the road, I walked on, the truck slowly passed by.

Huge truck. Tiny birds.

That's what I like about things here in the Park. It's about the animals, not the humans. Large trucks and women out for a walk stop and let the locals move freely--it's where they live. We give way to them.

And that's why the Ptarmigan crossed the road: to move her chick to safety--at her own pace, without having to dodge anything.

Halfway

Last week marked the halfway point in my time away from Milwaukee. Not halfway through the guest season yet--about three more weeks for that--but I've been away from my apartment, friends, books for about fourteen weeks.

Today I took another of my walks to Wonder Lake and found a fireworks explosion of cotton grass. It was a wonderful sight as, because of the 24 hours of light in the summer, we won't see real pyrotechnics until September and the end of the guest season after our Thanksgiving dinner.

This season finds me doing much the same in the way of time on the job and time off the job. The difference lies in the comparison. I'm not a greenhorn any more, the hill up to camp is not the endless climb it used to be. My responsibilities demand less of me physically and so I'm not losing weight the way I did last summer; those responsibilities demand that more of me be involved in what's going on around me, have my mind concentrated more on the larger picture. Because of this I'm not as ready to add posts to this blog as before. Everything was new before and made for reasonably interesting readin; now not so much. And the new parts I do have this year are personnel related and not as easily written about.

Hmmm. A blog post about not writing....

Still, my mind is actively thinking through what I'm doing, my body is just now feeling a few aches and oofs (I scheduled myself for a physical shift of breakfast service and a day of cleaning/puttering in the lodge, with a one-mile walk to start and end the day). If I examined the tone of last summer's writings, I am pretty certain I would unearth about the same emotions as I'm feeling now; namely the following:

a. I'm slightly homesick,

b. It's a l-o-n-g way to September, and

c. I'm starting to get the hang of things.

Just as I tell my guests each Monday morning before they board the bus taking them back to the remainder of their vacations, this is a wonderful place to be, it's a privilege to live here for the summer, and those 10 days of rain just past may come again, but right now the sun is shining, the flowers are blooming (yes, the fireweed blossoms fluff out the lower third of each stalk), and life is pretty good.

Neither Elegy nor Eulogy

On my day off today I walked to Wonder Lake, climbed Blueberry Hill, and ate my lunch. Fair weather cumulus and sun filled the sky, moderate breezes kept the the bugs away. Buses passed (both VTS and Denali Back Country Lodge), so I waved; brief snippets of conversation and laughter from the two canoers on the lake added to the background. Over there to the southwest, Denali hid behind a cloud layer--we'll see it on another day

Everywhere wildflowers bloomed--yellow Arnica, pink plume, white shaggy-headed cotton grass, the purples of early Larkspur and lupine--but it was the Chiming Bluebells lining the road that caught my eye and my heart. They're tiny flowers, but their color is brilliant. I don't know why, but they reminded me of Nancy. Maybe because they were plentiful and she was full in my mind. But they rang for her, all those little bells.

Nancy died last Saturday. She had struggled for years, fighting bout after bout with cancer. But like the Chiming Bluebells fighting out the Alaskan winter, she never gave up; she kept showing up. Her body gave out on her in the end, but not the parts of her we remember.

We met as students at Bates College, finally rooming together as juniors. If I were back home in Milwaukee, I'd rummage through the old photo albums to find snapshots. But they're in my mind as are the sounds of us talking and laughing with others. Singing, too. We used to sing along to Pete Seeger's "Bells of Rhymney"--maybe that's why the bluebells resonated.

Who we are at 19 is not who we become. But it is a time of testing. Testing our intelligence in class, talking about family dynamics, visiting each other's homes, trying on defiance, finding new ways of defining our worlds. Part of my test was to leave Bates, to try life. It meant leaving Nancy, too, that nice corner room in Frye House now hers alone for the last month or so of the semester.

We stayed in touch for a while, stood as bridesmaids to Corky and Al, but then we didn't contact each other that much, and we lost touch. Then when I was in Atlanta for my last summer of graduate school, I received a round-about message that Nancy was in the city, too, for an NEA conference. We met, had dinner, talked and laughed, laughed and talked as if the years hadn't passed. She and John were getting married, and she wanted me to be there. And I was. Her happiness was palpable. It was a treat to see her siblings again, and a treat to see other Bates friends with whom I'd lost touch.

Because of Nancy, really, I stepped hesitantly back into that circle of friends.

So what I remember of Nancy--beyond the twinkling smile and the throaty voice in which she sang "Scotch and Soda"--is the connection, the link to others that she offered. Bless that connection.

And bless her. She will be missed.

Season Opener

The preparation is over; the formal training/orientation is complete; and the first guests have come and gone. We're still working out the kinks in scheduling, in new jobs with new staff members even as we explore life together here at the end of the dirt road.

When we arrived for office opening at the end of May, there was still a fair amount of snow patching the Kantishna hills, and in upper Camp, frost heaves and soft spots still dampened the drive outside Potlatch. Early Openers, having flown in at the beginning of May, found much more snow than we did. But as we prepared for the arrival of staff, the air was warm, smiles brightened the landscape, and people darted back and forth about their jobs.

A couple of weeks in, we're all starting to find jobs familiar. New housekeeping staff have located the battery supply for the guest alarm clocks, the greenhouse is supplying herbs for the kitchen, edible flowers for garnish--and working that compost bin! Cooks have shown their mettle with the indredible meals prepared (fresh Alaskan cod, apricot/pistachio-stuffed lamb, roasted vegetables, cinnamon bread French toast, and homemade breads and desserts you wouldn't believe possible)--you can see what my focus is!

Outdoors, along the roadside and across the tundra, flowers spring to life as winter recedes and the short summer overlays the land. Blue chiming bells, yellow Arnica, white Canadian dogwood, pink prickly rose, all these bloom next to tiny low-bush cranberry and blueberry flowers. Birds trill, ducks dip and dive in the kettle ponds. Animals move freely along the road--on Opening Day we had a moose cow and new calf in Nugget Pond (see the blog at www.campdenali.com) --we've spotted a lynx across from North Face Lodge, caribou dot the tundra, ground squirrels whistle and dive into burrows even as bears dig wildly in those burrows to snag a snack.

Of course, the mosquitos are back, too. The first hatch is big, slow, and stupid, and you can usually catch them out of the air with your fist. Following those are the smaller, quicker, hungrier ones. Those are harder to capture, and their bites itchier. It's fun to sit in the office doing my work, and in the quiet I hear a slap--pause--and a whispered jubilant "Yes!" as another of them is taken out of the pool. The good that they do, though, is often forgotten. Mosquitoes are pollinators. When I look at the flowers and scratch those itchy places, I need to remember that! It is also satisfying to know that fish eat them. The mosquitoes, not the flowers.

You'll figure from the preceding that I am happy to be here. I can't think of a stronger understatement. As much as I need time in the city, visits with my daughters, trips to see friends, and weekly church services, I find more and more that this unique National Park is home. The connection to seasonal rhythms with no televison or newspapers to "keep me current" but with an unbelieveable variety of flora and fauna and landscape to observe--this connection grounds me more thoroughly than I can describe.

What a privilege to live here for four months of the year!