Isolation

Kodiak Island November 1988
Conclusion of the Travels in the Kodiak Archipelago Story

After our return from Boulder Bay, we settled into an existence of inactivity. With work at the lagoon camp concluded, we decide not to heed the order to continue work at the new site. Our first and only trip was treacherous enough. With the shortening days, it would be difficult to get any progress going at a remote site.
We contemplate an escape. By now, we both have conceded to the idea that Harry Waterfield was not going to return. The matter was in our hands now and so we gauge how long it might take us to achieve this by land or by water.

Our camp was actually at the eastern point of a peninsula, around 150 square miles of rough terrain, surrounded by Ugak Bay to the north and Kiliuda Bay to the south. Each bay with strips of water ten miles inwards from the Pacific and each about three miles wide at its narrowest north to south points. The peninsula had several mountain ranges with 600-foot peaks. Impassable rivers at the valleys. Getting to the base would be an ordeal, just to continue northwesterly toward our destination compounding the navigable land exponentially. All this to achieve a distance of about thirty miles as the crow flies.
Even considering a longer boat ride north than our recent trip to Boulder Bay was questionable. With short days, unpredictable weather, and an unreliable boat motor, the northeast arc around the jutting land north of Ugak made this consideration an impossibility. Even with the destination reduced to an otherwise manageable 50-mile traverse.
Every consideration thought of. Do we take gear? Do we try a light traverse? How do we protect ourselves with coming gales at heights and uncertain paths? Where would we shelter in the certain multi day trip? Our military tent too heavy to carry. To attempt them in the coming winter weather was madness to consider without proper climbing gear. The results daunting. I knew that Jim secretly factored my inexperience in this environment as a liability. He never mentioned it, but I knew it because I considered it as well.
The escape stifled by our hope and depression sets in. We lingered defeated in the tent for an unknown quantity days. Now planning to weather out the coming winter until spring. We start getting on each other’s nerves. With no distractions, Jim and I began to acknowledge each other’s irritable habits. His complaint of my offending sock smell was frequent already, understandably because they too offended me. Without soap, there was so much that could be done washing them in lagoon water and with no option to dry. I reciprocated by complaining of his southern drawl and mispronunciation of certain words. “It’s creek! C-R-E-E-K creek! What the hell is a crik?” My empty complaints petty.
We attempt some space between us but even the spacious military tent became cramped. Storms confined us inside. The blinding darkness of night, already twelve hours long, shuttered us to the extents of our glowing stove. Our only relief was listening to NPR news feeds each day and the obligatory Paul Harvey’s ‘The Rest of the Story’ (…Good Day!)  Nothing more, the need to conserve the radio’s battery life. Re-reading our respective books and newspaper scraps that we have not burned yet. My own Sony Walkman already depleting its battery and my only cassette album of the ‘Cocktail’ movie Soundtrack ran garbled. The Georgia Satellites version of ‘Hippy Hippy Shake’ now a tone deaf drawl at one-third of its original speed.
Our one relief of the mundane was creating a repast from the scraps of leftover food supplies. Powdered potatoes with homemade pizzas (toasted bread with spaghetti sauce) were Jim’s. A Mulligan stew of leftover soups and bits of vegetables was mine. An improvement for me because when I arrived I have never cooked. Now I try different combinations of the available. Some good some not so.
 After some days though, we notice our stores dwindling. Our thoughts then the same, Harry starved us for days before his return with the current supplies the last time. This time, we did not anticipate his return with more supplies. Therefore, we start rationing our meals and minimizing intake to one dinner per day. Without activity, we do not need much to subsist.
Jim decided to hunt for more food. It is a necessity if we are to last the winter.
“How long you gone for?” my concern evident in my voice. Until now, I have never been alone. Family back home always surrounded me. In Kodiak city, I slept on a couch in a two-bedroom apartment with two families and their children. Now Jim anticipates being gone four days. Three minimum.
“What should I do?”
Jim suggests I stock up on firewood. The cold nights gnaws at the bundles of twigs we collect from the seashore. A heft of a bundle would burn out in about two hours and we spend the rest of the night shuddering in our sleeping bags attempting to keep body heat in.
“Right, firewood. I’ll get the bow-saw.”
“No, use the chainsaw. It is faster.” Jim suggested. “You’ll get more done.”
“Sure. Sure.”
The problem, I have never used a chainsaw. The thought of using it brought images of my slipping and cutting off my leg and bleeding to death in the middle of nowhere. However, Jim assigned me the task and I did not want to disappoint. Yet…all that blood. I have seen the movies.
I worry. On the night of our arrival, trying to prove my worth, I foolishly volunteer to go for water from a fresh stream up beach in the dark. In that pitch black, flashlight barely producing a narrow needle of light to pierce the shadows, I get lost. Jim and Harry came to my rescue. A week in and we three attempt sleep at the worksite in a two man tent, hoping to bypass the five mile hike from base to camp. That night a storm deluged us. Water rivulets under the tent, shifting the ground under our weight and soon the nylon seeps.  They leave for the shelter at an unoccupied cabin. However, I remained, with my morals preventing me to be party to breaking and entering. Water sweeping downhill from my head to feet toward a waiting creek; the flow now a few inches deep in the tent I try to sleep on my side as I lay my head on the barrel of Jim’s hunting rifle wedged on damp sleeping bags in attempts to keep my head above rushing water. The torment too great I leave toward where I remember the cabin was. Along the way, I find Jim and Harry returning to collect me along the doused path.
Now, if anything were to happen to me, with Harry gone and Jim in the hills hunting, no one will be coming to my rescue. My fate lies in my being cautious. Never before, I had to consider this. The thought of which was petrifying.
Jim departs at dawn with partial rations in his pack and his prized rifle over his shoulder. I never told him how I violated it that stormy night. I watch him round the lagoon westward and disappear into the misty haze and into the bush. I get to work for I have a task to complete, heading over to the beach I hunt for firewood. Welcoming the change of pace and considering that this brief separation will alleviate the tension between us. I am sure he felt the same.
Among the flotsam and jetsam, the beach fills with burnable branches, logs, and wooden debris thrown overboard by fishing vessels. I drag it all over a sandy ridge and stage them beside the tent to cut them down to a burnable size. The daily tides brings the bounty to our shores.
I decide against the chainsaw after all. The fear of self-mutilation is too great. The bowsaw will have to do. Yet the day’s progress was slow. The sawing tiring and I only get a pittance of a pile that only provided about an hour’s worth of heat from the stove that night. I sleep in the freezing weather and wake to a stalactite of my vaporous exhaust hanging from the tent’s roof over my head. I have determined that the quantity of material is exponentially greater than the produced heat returned. I was going to have to increase productivity this day.
Returning to the task that next day, I sawed away and attempt to produce a larger purchase only to be spent within a few hours. Exhausted, I rest to recover my strength and return to work when breath caught. However, the more attempts with the manual saw the quicker I tried out and the longer the recovering pause. Something not considered when we rationed our intake to one meal of scraps a day this past week. I lacked the calories for continued activity. With no choice and fear of freezing, eyeing the chainsaw, I concede to the possibility of mutilation, in any event, my death should at least be swift and no more suffering Morbidly I resolve that if that were the case there will be no need for heat then. Remembering Jim’s instruction on its operation, I proceed cautiously. Turn the lever, choke, and pull the cord. Repeat. Repeat. Re… The chainsaw roars to life. Surprisingly not drawing itself to my limbs. My fears unfounded. I start with small twigs. Leaning in, they split and fly away effortlessly in response. I like this…larger branches yield to the power of the chain…yes…logs just as easily yield kindling, a four hundred year old tree stump that took me half a day to roll over should burn for days. YES! It surprises me how easily the metal cuts wood; the term ‘hot knife through cold butter’ could not be more apt. I make a chair out of that stump. I clear the beach of all burnable material. The pile is enough to last the night.
On my third day, I rest at dusk. Exhausted from the heft of the machine and excess work. Even in my weakened state, I now have produced more firewood than the manual saw. With a three foot pile I am sure I have enough now for the duration of a night. Sitting on my new chair that we will eventually call ‘The Throne’, I contemplate my surroundings, the sun already below the western mountains and temperatures dropping to freezing. I barely the change, my cheeks do stiffen in the cold breeze. The grass waves and the sound of the surf roars against the cliff walls to the north and reflect back, the echo combining the back and forth soundwaves into a combined roar sounding more like a plane’s propeller. The auditory mirage would later haunt me. Nevertheless, for now I contemplate for the first time I have been alone for days. Interestingly, voices start to whisper whisper in my ear their approval “See, you worried for nothing.” Other voices chime in their opinions, each starting to yell wanting to be acknowledged, “Hey! Did you hear me?” Then a songs start to play, one not heard for a while. Melodies and tune exactly as I remembered hearing it before and we pause our conversation to enjoy the melody. I marvel at the precise recollection when my mind clears. We approve of the selection. I find the gentle madness soothing. The solitude relaxing, the abandonment fear abate. It is now dark and I retire into the tent. That night I slept in the warmth of my labors.
By the time of Jim’s return, I have a sizeable supply of wood. He approves. He shows me his prize, a backpack full of deer and fox. The venison is for consumption, he has plans for the fox pelts. He tells me of a mallard eluded his traps. Nevertheless, the meat was a welcomed site. Jim starts to dress them in the tent. Stripping them of fur and chopping into modest proportions. The remainder stored in a plastic cooler and the skins and unusable remains buried in a shallow grave just outside of the tent.
We ate like kings that night. Being the welcomed guest Jim has the honor of sitting on ‘The Throne’. Dinner conversation consisted of his experience alone on the hill. I admit my fears over the chained contraption, how I overcame them. We were genuinely glad to be in each other’s company again that even repeated jokes welcome a chuckle.
Sleeping that night with bellies full, we do not even notice the fire going out. Sometime in the middle of the night, I wake to the sound of grunting. My eyes open but the darkness so complete it feels like they are still closed. I cannot see my waving hand and I poke at my eye with an ‘ow’.
“Shhh!” Jim berates me to silence.
“Wha...” I hear more grunting and scraping just outside of my side of the tent. “What is…?”
“Shhh!”
Bears generally isolate themselves and stay away from human settlements. A few wander through and if an encounter proves to be confrontational, usually the human not knowing how to react, they do tend to react. At least once a week NPR news reports of such encounters around the Kenai Peninsula where the result is serious injury from the antagonized. One such report announced that a bear, annoyed when the hunter attempted to shoot it in the head “…in self-defense”, its thick skull barely breached from the short-range shot. The report concluded with reporting that the man hiked miles to a hospital with half his face ripped off, gaping slashes on his torso. He staggered in holding his dangling eyeball in the socket the entire time. He lost that eye.
Kodiak brown bears, indigenous to Kodiak Island, reportedly the largest members of their species, grow to a towering eight feet and can weighing as much as 1500 pounds. They are a powerhouse on four paws, and unpredictable when encountered.
When is the time to avoid them? Generally all of the time. But especially when they protect their families or when they are searching for food to last the winter’s hibernation. Our bad luck, a family of bears, about three, caught the scent of our buried carcasses. Hibernation time approaches after this month. As they dug up the remains, I could hear sound of tearing and chewing occurring mere feet from my laid position just outside our canvas walls. I saw nothing, pitch of night that made me think I dared not open my eyes. Nevertheless, they were open so wide with fear that the cold frosted their exposed liquid film. It was all sound, the scraped dirt splashing the tent wall, the mewing of cubs, the snorts of adults. All as if whispered in my ear. If they scented us, these bears looking for hibernation feed, would turn to us. We could not run anywhere, nor protect ourselves from invisible attackers with acute senses. The realization paralyzing. I do not know how long we lay there. It felt like hours. We were frightened in place, laying in darkness anxiously. That fear exhausting us we went back to sleep unaware of their eventual departure.  
When I woke Jim was dressed and putting on his boots. I followed suit. We checked the shallow grave. Empty. Not a scrap remained. We considered ourselves lucky. Even more so that they did not scent the food in the plastic cooler inside the tent. Probably my offending damp socks deterred their advance I joked. We both chuckle nervously.
We still had more meats that needed dressing in the cooler so we resolved that all scrap and refuse from then on would be dropped on the opposite end of our lagoon. Sure enough the next time we did so we rowed our boat across and tossed the materials into the tall grass and noticed as we rowed back a flurry of activity at the drop off site.
The rest of that week went without incident or encounters and we settled to a mundane existence again. I was now the woodworker, the sawdust pile my pigpen. Jim suggested using some of that dust as an insulator between our bags and the ground. The grass collected flattened quickly and needed to replace continuously. Jim, an optimist, continued studying the topography maps contemplating routes of possible return.
Jim departed for another hunt, this time for sport but the yield will provide more food. We had enough meat to last a while but considering that the weather would turn worse, it would be best to stock up. This time he was gone a bit longer. Both of us welcoming another bout of solitude. In my spare time, I started crossing the lagoon to the nearest tree line to grab more wood to drag back. The beach already combed clean, the surf produced minimal amounts of timber. Before I knew it, he was back.
***
One evening, while we sat in the tent, conversations brief with nothing new to say, we re-read our respective books to while the time away. Jim reading Farley Mowat’s ‘The Siberians’ while I attempted Gene Roddenberry’s version of ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture’. In his absence, I started reading his book, found it enticing and now longed to continue where I left off but refrained asking him for it. Suddenly Jim looks up. “Hey, that’s a plane.”
“No, that is just the echo of the surf off the cliffs.” I retort.
However, the din persisted and we exit the tent to investigate. The sight unexpected, a seaplane was banking in our lagoon. We stood there dumbfounded. Dropping off two men and their kits before taking off again. The men winded up the path, approached us and after introductions asked if they could stay with us until daylight. Their arrival delayed and now have lost the advantage of the brief daylight to set up camp.
“We got beer.”
Sure.
They were hunters on a final leg of an expedition. In our seclusion, we forgot that hunting season was upon us. Kodiak Island is vast, the chances of encounters brief. Yet here these two were. They, engineers working the North Slope, are vacationing these two weeks and taking advantage of hunts across Alaska. Kodiak, specifically our location, their last stop.
We welcomed the chance encounter, talking well into the night. We offered our only whiskey bottle to counter their beer. We talked of our mishap and abandonment and they explained their work experience, two continuous weeks of work in the eternal night of the arctic and two weeks flown home anywhere in Alaska. I was fascinated, that there are extreme jobs like that influenced me that night to study engineer if I returned. Maybe with luck to work on the slope like them. No one slept, talk of our lives back home, sharing jokes and depleting the libations happened until dawn. At which time they excused themselves and retreat into the hills.
Upon their return in a few days to await the returning plane, they visited once more. Plans were made to secure a flight for us upon their return to Kodiak City. The following day a small plane appeared. Small enough for one passenger. Jim offered for me to take the spot. I declined. He knew how to contact Waterfield. He was better equipped to negotiate a pick-up. We both knew that I was not adept to follow the plan through, yet he offered. I ceded the seat to Jim.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I answered. Confident in my ability to survive in solitude, yet inwardly fearing a renewed abandonment ‘what if he forgets about me’.
We shook hands and they were off. Stifling the nascent fear, I was confident in Jim’s promise to get me out of here. He has not failed me in the past month yet.
Truly alone this time. I lose myself in busy work. Woodpiles the eternal chore, dumping of refuse across the lagoon, digging a new latrine downwind. I have learned a lot in these long weeks. I nearly forget the luxuries of city living. Such luxuries seem pedestrian to me now. At night sitting by the glow of a cherry red furnace (experimenting with the delicate adjustment of the flue pipe), I find a further appreciation in Jim’s book. That night I dream of the ice foundations of Siberian architecture.
In the following days, expecting the return of a rescue plane, I start looking up with every echo of the surf against the mountainous range. It was frustrating. I knew they were mirages but maybe this one time… Finally, one turned out to be an actual plane. Jim returns. I was surprised. He felt bad leaving me alone and came back with more supplies.
“Why? You could have just sent the plane for me”
“Well, when I finally got a hold of Harry he threatened to hold our pay if we did not close up camp and return with our field notes. So I figured I would schedule us a pickup for this Friday. Charged it to Waterfield and associates. I came back to help pack up.”
The news of pay was promising, but Harry’s apology for his delayed return felt contrived. My trust in him lost.
We ate the last of our stores in those final days, packed all of our goods, and locked all of Harry’s away in the igloos, which he was forbidden to use as well by the lease company.
Friday came and we waited. All day we sat on our packs. He tells me tales of what has transpired in our absence back home, trying to distract the lag of time. Hope of our return made us antsy. False echoes picked away at that hope. As the day waned, we resolved that poor weather must have prevented flights that day. Deflated, we started returning to the igloos (our tent packed away) to wait for another day. Suddenly a low flying plane surprised us as it crossed the eastern sandy ridge and landed on the lagoon.
The pilot warned, “Storm’s coming!” He hurried us but had only room for one person at a time again. I insist Jim go first. I will wait for the return flight. The pilot warns that if the storm prevents his return tonight he will attempt again in the morning.
I was not worried. I trusted that my friend Jim would ensure my rescue. Waving them good-bye, I return to the igloo resolved that he would not return that day. Yet, within the hour, to my shocked, he in fact did return and I rushed back to shore, not waiting for him to fully stop, I throw my stuff in the open door and jumped in. Buckled in the back seat and holding the struts he takes off with the pitting sensation, a mix of dizziness and nausea digs into my gut. He looks over his shoulder to asses me. We cannot speak, the propeller roar is too loud, and I indicate an affirmative with thumbs up. As he banked northward toward the only city, I notice a setting sun breaking through darkened clouds off to the west. One of a few times that I saw it in so many weeks. It shined reddish orange on the darkening blue waters of Ugak Bay. The bay extending so far off to the horizon that I barely see the land beyond even at this altitude. I realize how foolish our plans of overland escape would have been. This vastness was unforgiving.
During that flight, I remembered a conversation Jim and I had one night before zipping up in our respective sleeping bag. He asks, “Gil, what do you expect from your life?”
Unsure of what he meant I respond, “I don’t know. I never give it much thought.”
“That is your problem. You are letting others dictate your path. You need to get control and do your thing. Don’t follow someone else’s dream.”
Thinking he was just annoyed with me again, I respond bothered. “I don’t do that, I am here ain’t I.”
“Well, if we returned after our two week contract, you would have returned to your life of others providing for you. Safe in expecting their charity. Probably find yourself a wife soon so you can rely on her to do things for you. Cook, clean. All that stuff.”
I retort. “Nuh-uh!”
“I bet you that you will. Let’s bet you will be married in the next five years”
“YOU will be married before me I bet you.” my clever reply.
“What do you wanna bet?”
The only thing I can remember in my annoyance was a scene in the movie ‘Cocktail’ where Tom Cruise lost a bet and had to buy his mentor a $500 bottle of scotch. Therefore, I suggest that. We agree and go to sleep. Disturbed, that conversation lingered in my head. Eventually though I realized what Jim was trying to say to me.
I will always remember that moment as a liberation of not just a six-week abandonment but also of living in confinement and ignorance. I existed isolated of such possibilities and without confidence to explore beyond the safety of my four walls. Until this experience, I did not know what life I had to live.
 
Epilogue
I will not deny that I survived because of the benevolence of a good man. Whether intentionally or by accident, Jim’s guidance and patience birthed a confident soul, curious of the beyond, and willing to explore the unknown. As a result, returning home to Indiana, I would venture out for days without notice. Distressing my poor suffering mother. “Where does this come from, mijo? No one in the family does this.”
Our friendship continued as we returned to Kodiak City. I returned to my couch in the crowded apartment, Jim ever the recluse rented a cabin outside of town without running water and electricity. We cliff climbed in our spare time, and he taught me more of natural living. We both so inspired by the engineers that we registered to the University of Alaska in Kodiak to continue our education. Where he met a beautiful co-ed with similar interests. Her name merely P.J. (I joke that their initials were inverted). A quick romance they soon moved in together in the small cabin. Our excursions now deterred to make way for blossoming love. I was not disappointed. My visits varied not wanting to be a fifth wheel.
Harry finally contacted me weeks after our return looking for the logbooks. Jim and I split them to ensure payment. However, the job service recommended we sue him in small claims court. Jim could not because of his salary but I could. I relinquished the books to a lawyer. I notified Harry of that. Angry he threatens to hold a salary that he never intended to pay. That was the last I heard from him.
My lawyer discovered that Harry and a partner have swindled workers from small boroughs across Alaska with the same promise of work and pay. Seven teams on Kodiak alone. Some with less favorable outcomes than ours. One man fell off the cliffs and ended up with broken legs. Each team awaiting their own small claims court to secure payment. Jim and I discuss this and agree that we will not see our payday from this. We move on.
The job service, wracked with guilt in suggesting the surveying job, secure me some choice positions. I still work the cannery but I also become the maintenance man for an elderly home on Erskine road. The job affords me a one-bedroom apartment on the premises for half the price of rent. I move out of the couch and have my own place. That position leads to the night manager and eventually the only manager while the boss leaves for Seattle to tend to frostbit limbs. Peppered with odd jobs of painting homes, tarring roofs, drywall installations, I make a modest living.
Exxon Valdez happens and all business on the island dry up. I cannot afford my existence on just the one management job so I decide to return home temporarily to wait out until fishing resumes after the cleanup. I say goodbye to Jim and PJ and other friends made and return to Indiana.
Life happens and one thing turns into another. I have a nomadic existence for a few years bartending weekend and traveling off tips made during the week. A few odd jobs here and there. However, eventually, that experience runs thin so I return to school and fulfill my aspirations to become an engineer, working days in a mill to make tuition and nights at school. It takes me some time but I achieve the title and even better secure a position where travel is a priority. I am satisfied with one lone regret. I do wish to return to that land in the north.
After departing my contact with Jim diminished. The original off the grid person our only contact was by mail. We have that kind of friendship though that does not require constant validation. I have a few friends like this. We do not need to keep in constant contact. We would gap our calls, meetings, and continue as if our last contact was just the day before. This is Jim and me.
I know that he and P.J. married and had children. I expect them to have a large brood of grandchildren by now, all with good manners influenced by the humble man that I call my friend.
I also know that that S.O.B. owes me a 500-dollar bottle of scotch as well.