3/26/23
Newsletter #287
The Crack of Dawn
Meanwhile, back in Tok Junction, Alaska, in June, 1977 . . .
Having purchased a potato, an onion, and a half-pound of bison meat, I slung my pack on my back and hiked into the woods behind the grocery store. About twenty-five feet in I came upon a rusty, broken-down, heavy-duty John Deere tractor with a snowplow on the front from the 1960s. Twenty feet farther into the woods was an even rustier, broken down, International Harvester snowplow from the 1950s. Behind that was another International Harvester from the ‘40s, then one from the ‘30s, then a Ford snowplow from the ‘20s, mostly rotted away due to having been made with many wooden parts. There was even the remnants of yet another older snowplow, also a Ford, possibly a Model T from the teens, which was now only a rusty engine block, a frame, and a snowplow, almost entirely grown back into the soil.
Not too much farther into the woods, but no longer visible from the road or store, I found a clearing and set up camp. As a thousand mosquitoes took a last stab at me, I hastily erected my fluorescent-orange two-man tent and scrambled inside. I zipped closed the mosquito netting on the door, then quickly set about killing every one of the fifty enormous mosquitoes that had the misfortune of getting in. It was about 90 degrees in the tent. I stripped down, removing my hiking boots that hadn’t been off my feet in at least three days. My feet were deathly white and wrinkled with a big ugly blister on my left heel. I popped the blister with my Buck knife (that I had gotten for my Bar Mitzvah), then stretched out and relaxed for the first time in a week. I lit a cigarette.
I chopped up the one potato and one onion and mixed them with bison meat. I set up my little butane stove and cooked it up. It smelled incredible. Ravenously, while it was still too hot, I scarfed down the whole thing, which was about a pound of food. I lay back feeling bloated, but no longer hungry. I lit another cigarette, blew the smoke up to the top of the florescent orange tent, and felt well satisfied – I’d achieved my goal and made it to Alaska.
Grrrrrr . . .
A low, throaty growling of something inhuman was coming at me from very close by. I peeked out the tent’s flap and two feet away from my face was the face of an enormous wolf, its teeth and fangs bared, saliva drooling from its mouth, growling like it absolutely intended to kill and eat me. I froze with fear. Sweat broke out of every pore all over my naked body. My shaking hand crept to my Buck knife, with its mighty six-inch blade, now covered with chopped onions.
Was I about to fight a wolf with a knife? Naked? Get the fuck out of here! And meanwhile the wolf kept growling and drooling, edging closer, now just a couple of inches away — a piece of mosquito-netting separating us. Obviously the smell of the cooked meat that had attracted it, and now I had to get rid of it. I lit a cigarette and blew the smoke all around the tent. When the filterless Pall Mall was burning my fingers, I lit another one and continued the process. This went on for over an hour. The tension and fear were so overwhelming, plus I smoked so many cigarettes in a row, and I’d been awake for so long, my head began to spin and I passed out.
When I woke up at some unspecified amount of time later – it was still light out – the wolf was gone and I was still clutching the knife. I hastily got dressed, pulled down the tent, packed my crap and got the hell out of the woods.
Since I had to have $200 to enter Canada and I had $218 left, either I was moving to Alaska and looking for a job, or I was leaving. Attired in my army coat, mosquito head-net, and gloves – it was 86 degrees and 90% humidity – and back to trying to exist in a cloud of big, dumb, stupid mosquitoes intent on killing me should I stop moving for a single second and allow them to land and suck my blood. It was an untenable situation.
So, having made it to Tok Junction, Alaska, 150 miles over the border from Canada, in nine days, I had achieved my goal; I had hitchhiked to Alaska from Los Angeles. Big fucking deal. Had I sufficiently matured as a writer in the intervening nine days to now write The Call of the Wild? Get the fuck out of here. I was the same inexperienced, 18-year-old writer I was nine days ago, only now I had to go 150 miles back to the border without spending more than $18.
Dropping my pack on the side of the road, I positioned myself to hitchhike back east, from whence I came. And this was a fine plan, too, except that all of the traffic consisted of cars pulling Airstream trailers into to Tok Junction for the Airstream conclave, and nothing was going east. I glanced toward the woods behind the grocery store to make sure that the wolf and its pack weren’t stalking me.
“Fuck this,” I proclaimed, and began walking the 150 miles back to the border.
If you land, it’s a good flight. If you wake up, it’s a good day.