Life is an ever shifting kaleidoscope:
A slight change and all patterns alter.
—Sharon Salzberg
LEAVING KETCHIKAN, I paddled beneath the hulking bows of berthed cruise ships, dodged float planes and various pleasure boats, and followed my own bow north past the industrial complex lining the shore, then past the city airport, until after what seemed like an eternity, the city finally disappeared behind me. Roughly 150 water miles zigzagged between my bow and my next resupply port of Petersburg. I slowly settled back into the rhythm of the paddle and desperately tried to put thoughts of Jim out of my mind.
In spite of my meltdown at the dock, it felt good to be back in the boat. Such a lovely fit, Chamellia and I. I appreciated her gracefulness, how I wore her, how I was one with her, how we glided together on this journey, and how this journey was more than just me and this fire-engine-red kayak moving north. It was about the ocean, the moods of the sea, leaning into the elements, and the possibilities of adventure. The womyak, half-woman, half-kayak, was on a life-changing journey, still absorbing the magic of it all. Stay in the moment, stay focused, I kept repeating to myself.
IN THE WILDERNESS OF SOUTHEAST ALASKA, an American flag flapped in the breeze on its pole above a welcoming, manicured lawn. I’d left Ketchikan two days earlier and had covered approximately 33 miles. Curious, I paddled up to the property, wondering if this was the small community noted on my chart as Meyers Chuck. This puzzled me; I didn’t think I had paddled that far yet. A small boat was backing out of the cove, its five exuberant occupants waving to a couple left standing on shore. The laughter from the small boat quickly scattered in the breeze and the man and woman warmly waved me in.
“Helllllloooo,” I said. The man’s outstretched hands reached for my bow, which was scraping up on shore. He reminded me of my grandfather with his red suspenders, broad smile, and hard-working hands liberally speckled with age spots. “I’m just passing through, on my way to Petersburg. Looking for a place to pitch my tent.”
“You can pitch your tent right here,” the woman said, pointing to their inviting, grassy lawn. Her rosy cheeks glowed under black-rimmed glasses and a black ball cap. “No, wait—come to think of it, our daughter is gone for a spell. You can stay in her cabin.” Her dangly hoop earrings jostled with her enthusiasm. Her husband nodded in agreement. My gaze traveled past the lawn and up to a pale green shack. Three small, paned glass windows sat beneath dark green shingles and a sleepy smokestack. Four plastic lawn chairs, also green, were propped against the ocean-facing wall.
Fibrous gray clouds hovered over a patchwork of green forest and green mountains, hugging them like a woman’s shrug. At last the rain had stopped, which felt like a magical touch to a day that started off rather crummy. The weather had been churlish, the sea had grown boisterous, high tide issues had returned, bears roamed the beaches, and Jim was scheduled for open heart surgery. After my hasty and sodden departure from Ketchikan, I was feeling a little down. Earlier that day, as the pounding rain rinsed the salty tears off my face, I had gently rocked Chamellia back and forth underneath me, trying to soothe myself, then slowly paddled forward into the somber weather. Pain radiated deep down my right shoulder as I carried out the cyclical motion of paddling. I had tweaked it the previous day while performing multiple reverse sweep strokes to maintain course in strong afternoon winds.
My gracious hosts’ names were Dan and Karen. “Dan, sweetie, why don’t you fire up the propane water tank?” I fixated on the nearby outdoor shower that Dan started walking toward, and Karen motioned for me to follow her to the cabin. “Feel free to fill your water bags from our rain tanks,” Karen said as we walked, pointing to two large galvanized metal cisterns alongside their house. Behind Karen’s delicate hand, the door of her daughter’s cabin creaked open, and she immediately apologized for the musty smell.
“Karen, this is like the Waldorf Astoria to me!” I said, throwing my head back and laughing. We chatted for a bit, standing just inside the cabin’s doorway. She told me about how they’d bought this property years ago and enjoyed it as a family getaway. Now that she and Dan were retired, they lived here full-time, reveling in the solitude and beauty, but also delighting in its close proximity to Ketchikan. The group of people leaving when I had paddled in were her relatives, on an impromptu visit from town.
“There’s a partial lunar eclipse tonight,” she said as she walked down the stairs to leave me to my chores and thoughts. “If you stick your head out at about two-ish, you might catch a glimpse of it.”
Small pieces of kindling were stacked neatly next to the cast iron wood stove, a pile of newspapers lay bundled on a wooden chair, and a box of large stick matches sat on top of the papers. Cushy toilet paper accompanied a spotless vault toilet less than twenty paces away from the door. Wow, I thought. I had stumbled into a patch of paradise: a roof over my head, a hot shower, a soft bed, a refuge from bears, and a crackling fire to dry my things and warm my heart. Before I could finish that thought, two humpback whales appeared in the distance, exhaling with the rhythm of the strait they were traveling through, intuitively navigating the sea. Later that night, I settled under the flannel covers, a book propped on my chest, happily reading in the beam of my headlamp, while the full moon pushed the tide high on Karen and Dan’s property.
Hours later, with my book still on my chest and my headlamp still glowing, I awoke as the full moon shone brilliantly through the little cabin’s window—the last full moon I would experience on this trip. I groped for my eye drops, moistened my contacts, and stepped outside. The moonlight bathed Dan and Karen’s lawn in a dazzling display of muted shadows and caricatures reminiscent of a Doctor Seuss fable. My eyes followed its beam across the weathered driftwood, down the smooth pebble beach, and out onto the coal-black water of Clarence Strait. With heavy eyelids, I glanced at my watch, took a gulp of the thick ocean air and retreated to my warm cabin, sliding back under the covers. The moon would have to partially eclipse without me.
Early the following morning, a bird soloed outside my window, a song worthy of an encore, yet one which stopped suddenly. Still in bed, I listened to the stillness around me. It was all that I could hear—a palpable quiet where the soft hum of the universe hovered above the cabin.
A few hours later, Dan helped me haul my gear down to the low tide line with his four-wheeler. A 21-foot tidal difference was slated for that day, and the beach was slick and mucky. It was hard to leave the ease and comfort of their cabin; I pondered what it might be like to live with this wilderness at your doorstep every day.
A slight tailwind ushered me through the last bit of Clarence Strait, but when I hung a right into Ernest Sound, a headwind rudely greeted me. The sky collapsed into torrents of wind-driven rain. Aargh! Any remaining energy from my restful cabin reprieve quickly waned, and I fought to sustain a lousy two-knot speed.
Paddling through bear country again, I planned to camp on small islands whenever possible. Bears swim, though, so before settling on any campsite I gave it a thorough inspection. That night, after performing my ritual of scouting the islands, I found a suitable campsite on Sunshine Island, tucked into Vixen Inlet, where it was fairly dry under the heavily wooded interior. I was packed up and ready to depart at 6:30 the next day, just as the morning sun began to shine on Sunshine Island. Behind me, a prominent dome-shaped mountain burst through a swirl of clouds, its peak ablaze in crimson and gold, a tequila sunrise tumbling down its slopes.
I crossed over toward the mainland and hugged the shoreline, paddling in a trance-like state. A mama grizzly bear with one fluffy cub stood grazing on a blind corner, startling me as I floated practically right under her nose. Eyeball to eyeball we met, hers big, brown, and foreboding, set deep in her furry dished face. I quickly averted my icy-blue eyes, but this mental imagery would resurface for many nights thereafter while I lay hushed in my tent.
YEARS AGO, JIM WORE THE BADGE of a National Park Service ranger and so he was experienced at analyzing bear scat. He once said that if I took my index finger and inserted it fully into a pile of bear dung and if that entire finger went in without resistance and was warm, then I should get my finger—and the rest of my body—out of there pronto. If the pile was light and had a thin crust on top (think Bisquick biscuit) then Jim suggested that I might have time to stop panicking and contemplate the evidence in front of me. In other words, I could unhurriedly assess the risks of staying or moving on. Good advice from someone who had spent two summers sticking his fingers in piles of bear shit.
I spent nearly twenty years living and camping in northwest Montana, where many grizzlies of Glacier National Park consider humans part of the food chain, much more so than their coastal cousins. This didn’t make me any less edgy when camping in bear country in the Pacific Northwest. The coastal grizzly bears, a subspecies of the brown bear, generally are bigger than their inland compatriots—sometimes twice the height—due to the rich salmon diet they favor. The coastal grizzlies tend to prefer the mainland and larger islands like Alaska’s Admiralty Island, where density is estimated to be one bear per square mile. Eventually, I’d be paddling in the vicinity of Admiralty Island, but—thankfully—the broadness of Stephens Passage would separate me from the land of the one-bear-square.
I’d already passed through the only area on earth where the Kermode bears roamed. I knew that the more familiar black bears were found throughout the Inside Passage, including on the smaller islands, which they had a penchant to swim between. Grizzlies, rumor had it, tended to stay put.
In dealing with bears, I took all the preemptive steps to dissuade encounters, except hanging my food. It was a huge hassle, although I suppose nursing wounds from a grizzly mauling would be more of a nuisance. But on the IP, it’s not always possible to string up food. In places it’s a jungle habitat, where I couldn’t even see my feet, let alone move through the mess to find a suitable hanging tree. Plus, if the food was not properly hung, it merely ended up being a bear piñata.
Distance was the only other solution, so I would stash my kayak as far away as possible from my camp, and stow my food bags and garbage inside the hatches at night, along with a triple-bagged handful of mothballs. A fellow kayak-adventurer had shared the tip of using the strong odor of mothballs to mask the odor of food, emphasizing they not touch the food, to avoid contamination. I figured he was still alive to write about it, so I dutifully shoved them in the hatch each night, hoping he knew what he was talking about. Either I was extremely lucky or this technique was effective for me; not one scratch on Chamellia’s deck or hull resulted from the paws of a nosy bear.
I chose to travel alone in bear country, and I fully understood what the risks were, and that by virtue of traveling solo I was at an enhanced risk of bear confrontations. Groups tended to naturally cause more disruption in the wilderness, thereby giving the bear plenty of advance warning to gather cubs, if applicable, and disappear before the humans showed up. A single person walking on a soft trail in the deep, dark forest with wetsuit booties doesn’t make much of a racket. Bears certainly understand the path of least resistance; they like trails too and can be fairly reluctant to surrender them, so my interest in walking on deep, dark trails in bear country was zilch. Instead, I opted to stay put on the open beaches.
I didn’t carry a gun. If one is going to pack a gun in the backcountry, one really should know how to use it. I’d timidly touched a gun twice in my life, not counting a few painful, hematoma-forming rounds of paintball. I had no desire to learn how to properly handle a gun and had even less desire to piss a bear off with nonexistent marksmanship skills. I had to rely on other precautionary measures.
I needed to be a lot of things to be bear safe. I needed to be noisy, tidy, smart, and observant. I had a protocol when choosing a campsite in bear country. First: Is there a bear standing in the proposed campsite? I wasn’t about to get in a property dispute with some bruin, so my first rule was if there was a bear on the beach I wouldn’t camp there. Pretty basic rule. If bears were not visibly loafing in my intended campsite, I would land and have a look around. Rule number two: If there were signs of bear, such as a steaming pile of bear dung (I didn’t need to stick my finger in it), tree bark gouged by two-inch claws, or long, coarse strands of bear hair snagged in the tree bark, then I would move on.
When on land, I kept my super-sized canister of bear spray always within reach, if not attached to my hip. I also carried an obnoxiously loud whistle, a foghorn, and bear bangers. A bear banger, impressively loud, would scatter anything in my vicinity and gave me a transitory peace of mind. No bigger than a pen, it deployed much like a handheld flare. The device had a spring and a firing pin attached to a sliding trigger mechanism that, when pulled, struck a cartridge, propelling it about thirty yards, at which point it exploded, ear-splittingly loud. I’d practiced unscrewing the barrel and pulling the chain many times, knowing full well my knees would be mush and I’d be shaking like a leaf if I had to deploy it in a combat situation.
Just as you may prefer that guests not eat chocolate pie on your white davenport, I needed to keep my rehydrated soups, granola bars, and cans of tuna off my tent, sleeping bag, hatch cover, clothes, fingers, hair, and even the moss or logs in camp. I didn’t want to extend any invitations to unwanted visitors, but even so, my campsite locations near the tidal line put me right next to a veritable supermarket. Mussels, clams, crabs, and other sea critters, fish, and sea plants were numerous and in various stages of being alive or dead and were a big draw for bears, raccoons, birds, and a myriad of other wildlife. Ample wild berry patches and the occasional abandoned fruit orchard also caused a bit of discord between me and the bears. And just when I thought I had it under control, I found a half-eaten salmon on my tent stoop, probably dropped by some butter-taloned eagle.
The kindest of human intentions can also be a problem in bear country. Fishermen, spotting a kayak on the water, tend to develop a mothering instinct. They want to give you seafood, and the catch of the day is fresh and unimaginably scrumptious. It is also messy, smelly, and hard to cook. An entire regimen of odor control can go out the window with a big slab of cod. Once, I graciously accepted a slippery donation from a well-intentioned fisherman. Later, as garlic and fish oil dripped down my elbows, I realized the grievous error of my choice. Without a hot shower to hop into afterward, I was essentially walking bear bait.
Nonetheless, I reasoned I was much more likely to die from any of my other fears than from a nasty bear encounter. The fifty-degree water I was paddling on, for starters, could zap my body of precious heat 25 times faster than the cold air. Playing chicken on the nautical superhighway with a big ship was also a more plausible method to meet my demise. Making a stupid decision was even more probable than getting eaten by a bear. Still, I would be vigilant and hedge my bets in bear country, and I would keep my imagination in check.
To avoid being on any bear’s dinner menu, I cautiously played my bear cards. I didn’t smear my body with salmon oil, and I didn’t camp in berry patches. I didn’t walk on deep, dark trails and I never, ever ate or kept any food in my tent. I fully intended that any too-close-for-comfort bear encounter would go something like this: I see the bear; the bear sees me. We both panic. I reach for my bear spray; the bear turns and runs into the woods, never to be seen again.
DURING THE EIGHT WEEKS I’d been paddling, my hands, pickled in salt brine and continually irritated by the friction of salt and sand between my skin and the carbon shaft of my paddle, had become quite horrid. I’d tried wearing both full and fingerless gloves, but they only seemed to trap the irritants and were ineffective at deterring the blisters that appeared in new spots, it seemed, nearly every day. Some days, I would bandage my hands, but the bandages never stayed. Eventually calluses formed, yet my hands were swollen and tender, pruned, pale, and seemingly bloodless, my cuticles white and cracked, my nails paper thin and caked with dirt. The saltwater stung like lemon juice on a fresh cut, and almost as a consolation, the occasional wicked hangnail gave me something to chew on to take my mind off the discomfort.
Fatigued, I allowed the tranquility of Zimovia Strait to lull me into complacency, and floated deeper into its potent silence and luminous solitude. But I wasn’t alone. A pair of loons drifted beside me, aware of my presence, yet atypically unafraid. I stopped paddling, simply listened to the quiet, and studied their beauty. A droplet of saltwater clung to the bottom of one’s broad black beak, which led skullward to a tear-shaped eye turned sideways, a blood-red ruby, inset hauntingly into its coal-black face. A triangular band of black and white vertical lines adorned its neck and joined an emerald green choker that encircled the thickest part. Self-assured, the birds floated low in the water, like I did, the top of their checkerboard backs barely above the surface. They called briefly to each other, keeping in touch. I waited patiently to hear their distinctive cry, often a quintessential wail or tremolo that eerily pierced the silence. Now less than ten yards away, both loons simultaneously dipped their necks and knifed their bills underwater. Their broad bodies followed and they slipped out of my sight. I was alone again, breathing in the wholesome, sweet wildness of the Inside.
Meanwhile, back in Montana, Jim pecked at his keyboard. Nothing, it seemed, would escape his literary clutches, not even his own health crisis. I was able to access Jim’s brief group email on my cellphone a few miles south of Wrangell:
To undisclosed recipients
June 25, 2010
SUBJECT: A Medical Cape Caution
Hi everyone,
Just a quick update. My heart catheterization found significant heart disease. While on the marginal edge of being addressed with cardiac stents, reduced kidney function is indicating that a multiple bypass is the safer option. Things are moving quickly. The surgery is scheduled for June 30th.
Susan is aware of this development. I will keep in touch with her trip, as I can. She is now north of Ketchikan ‘n kayakin’ — propelled through the earth’s winds and over her restless waters by the force of your support and well wishes! Thank you for being such good friends to Susan.
It has been a great pleasure for me to be part of her adventure and to renew contact and friendships with some of you, and to cyber-meet others. Let’s stay in touch, everyone!
Thank you for the encouragement in my attempt to “armchair kayak” the Inside Passage and for your well wishes.
Jim
I was aware of this development, yet reading his words made me fully understand that Jim’s love affair with my adventure had just collided with his medical reality. I felt leaden, glum, and helpless and couldn’t shake the image of him lying on a cold, sterile table, with his heart exposed to the mercy of a surgeon’s hands. I’d had an in-depth phone conversation with him the night before. He had sounded positive and strong, but his optimism didn’t squelch my concerns. His voice smacked of confidence in his surgeon—one of the best, hailing from Alamo Cardiothoracic Surgical Associates in San Antonio, Texas. Cardiothoracic: I repeated the word several times to myself, my tongue tripping over the syllables, my mind refusing to grasp what it really meant.
A medical Cape Caution did indeed loom on Jim’s horizon, just as he had implied in his email. The doctors would intentionally keep him anemic to minimize the blood needed. His post-op instructions strictly forbade driving or lifting for six weeks. Jim had already cancelled all his plans for the summer, including a caving expedition into the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana and a Bowron Lakes kayak jaunt in British Columbia. Now he also hung up his correspondent hat, sending one last group email, wishing everyone a good summer, and me congratulations in advance. “Well done, kid,” was the last prose he typed relating to my journey.
After a thirty-mile day I took a short time-out from my wilderness paddling and camping routine, and landed at a public campground just outside Wrangell. A civilized reprieve, it featured a covered picnic table; a broad, flat area to pitch my tent; and a vault toilet a fair distance away. The community of Wrangell, with all its niceties, sat a mile north of the campground. I headed into town to grab a shower at the laundromat and a bite to eat at a local inn.
A magenta sunset lingered in front of me, a sweet accompaniment for my walk back to camp. Once there, it was time to do homework again. I spread out my chart and current tables and fired up my GPS. The next day, I’d be going through an eerie, problematic chunk of water that I had been forewarned about—Dry Strait—where the largest navigable undammed watershed in North America meets the sea. The mighty two-hundred-mile-long Stikine River dumps into this ticklish patch of water, creating a shallow deltaic flat spanning nearly twenty miles. Dealing with its extensive mudflats would require precise timing and a bit of strategy; successfully negotiating the seventeen-foot tidal difference that can occur in a span of six hours would take balls. I measured and remeasured the distance, while pushing away persistent feelings of self-doubt. Time to be logical, not emotional. I systematically checked the speed of the tidal currents in Sumner Strait and read, then reread the tabular tidal data on my GPS. Self-doubt, go away! I needed to be 100% certain that I was extrapolating my data from the correct date and tidal station.
It wasn’t rocket science to know that I needed to paddle through here on a rising tide. There would be absolutely no dillydallying. Dry Strait would reach its peak flood at four p.m. I calculated it would take me four hours to get through the thick of it, with a reserve of water under my hull until I entered the deeper waters of Frederick Sound. A noon departure seemed like a good strategy, yet I seesawed from being resolute in my decision to sweating a miscalculation that would leave me stranded and vulnerable to hypothermia. Being off by just an hour could mean being grounded for up to six miserable ones. I was also forewarned that if I did screw up to STAY IN THE BOAT, unless I enjoyed quicksand. Got it. Better yet, get it right the first time. Measure twice, paddle once. Calculate twenty times, paddle right on through, and pray for a tailwind.
I would leave my campsite on that Tuesday morning, on day 56, knowing that Jim would be undergoing quadruple bypass surgery Wednesday at seven a.m. The surgery would last about six hours, the same amount of time it would take for a full flood cycle to chug up Dry Strait, and he would remain in the hospital for six or seven days, with at least two of those days in the intensive care unit.
I TOOK MY FIRST STROKE out of Wrangell just before noon on a rising tide. Skies were overcast, and the sea barely rippled, but the weather forecast looked grim. Awake and restless since four a.m., I was tired and moody and worried about getting through Dry Strait. Jim’s surgery continued to weigh heavily on my mind. The water was murky from glacial silt and churned-up mudflats. Twice my paddle blade hit mud, and I held my breath, thankful I couldn’t see how close the ocean’s bottom came to kissing my hull. Back in camp, I had taken my grease pencil and drawn in a squiggly black line on my chart that I wanted to follow. I was lined up for the south end of Kadin Island as Wrangell grew smaller behind me. From there I headed west to Rynda Island, aiming for Blaquire Point, and I scooted right on through anxiety-producing Dry Strait.
Relieved, and proud of myself for negotiating a drama-free passage, I obediently hugged Mitkof Island. A brooding green forest fringed the waterway, lined up to watch the parade of a solitary kayak. A great blue heron stood at the water’s edge, with a quiet dignity, unlike the raucous Heckle and Jeckle ravens that frequently pillaged my camps, then soothed me with their cryptic caterwauling. I paddled beneath a gray curtain of clouds until I was confident that Chamellia and I would continue to float. Finally, my shoulders dropped about two inches and my eyes began to take in the dramatic Alaskan coastline, commanding my attention. And I discovered that in spite of my anal-retentive, obsessive-compulsive calculating and extrapolating of data the night before, I still managed to get something wrong. I had figured my next campsite was 24 miles away—but it was really only seventeen miles away. I had erred in my favor! I only had to paddle to the top of Mitkof Island, hang a left, and I could accurately welcome myself to Petersburg.
I PEERED OUT FROM BENEATH my sagging tarp and marveled at the scenery of the Tongass National Forest. I was camped in a small cove on Mitkof Island, just south of Petersburg, enjoying a splash of spiced rum and nibbling on dried nectarines and squares of dark chocolate while admiring the view. The huge expanse of Frederick Sound loomed in the foreground. Hundreds of icebergs, having escaped from LeConte Bay, rode the northerly current toward Petersburg along the opposite shore. Many were bigger than suburbans.
Holy cow, I thought, my first icebergs! One of the holy grails I had sought on this trip. Suddenly, spouts appeared between the icebergs: humpback whales! The icebergs borne from North America’s southernmost tidewater glacier now had the company of these large, acrobatic mammals. I stood up and retrieved a pair of small waterproof binoculars from my deck bag. I pressed the barrels against my eye sockets and rotated the focus rings until the ethereal blue and white shapes filled the lenses, fully losing myself as I gazed peaceably at the parade of icebergs.
Then, my attention was diverted when I caught a whiff of what was simmering on my camp stove. After a long day on the water, I was ready to chow down. I dined on a delicious stir-fry, with rehydrated tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, broccoli, snap peas, pineapple, and tofu. My meal was seasoned with coconut milk, red curry and a pinch of tarragon, and served over a bed of whole-grain rice that I had cooked and dehydrated that previous winter. I washed down the feast with a glass of merlot and reveled in my good fortune and my full belly. Although I ate fairly well on this trip, thanks to an entire winter of food preparation, meals like this were extra special.
The next morning, I descended the boulder-strewn beach, slipped into Chamellia’s cockpit, and speared the water’s mirror-like surface with my blade. I knew Jim was deep in the throes of open-heart surgery while I paddled fifteen chilly miles on my way to Petersburg.
I thought about this as I paddled into my 57th day at sea, alongside floating icebergs, undulating dolphins, and beaches littered with brilliant fuchsia fireweed. I worried about him when I paddled beneath craggy mountains, atop a super-sized aquarium over dazzling intertidal life clinging to seaside cliffs, past loons, cormorants, and guillemots indignant about my presence. I longed to be off the contemplative water and immersed into my resupply chores, where I would be distracted. I also knew that Linda and Dave would be checking in with me later to tell me how things went during the surgery. I quickened my cadence.
Leaving Frederick Sound temporarily behind me, I swung around Hungry Point and headed south into Wrangell Narrows, past the county park, past several canneries, past red and green channel markers that pitched and rolled with the fast current coasting me into the harbor. Men in bright orange fishing bibs pulled in seemingly unmanageable fishing nets, while the din and clang of the canneries hovered above them. Larger than Wrangell but smaller than Ketchikan, Petersburg harbors one of Alaska’s most prosperous fishing fleets, with hundreds of fishing boats coming and going from its busy harbor every day. The big cruise ships don’t dare enter Wrangell Narrows, so Petersburg is not touristy or overpriced like some of the other ports of call I’d encountered. Most of the seaside folks here were friendly, genuine, down to earth. Men and women who wore mostly rubbery yellow oilskins and stout knee-high boots, and made their living off the sea; real people living out real lives in what was called Alaska’s little Norway.
“I’M NOT A TOURIST,” I said, annoyed. “I’m a traveler.” I set the empty beer glass down on the maple-top bar and gestured to the bartender for another. “I’m paddling the Inside Passage.” The jack-ass drunk was seated beside me, and I hoped he’d take his pool cue and go back to his game.
But instead he egged me on. “Oh, I thought you were a surfer chick,” he said in a smarmy tone, swilling his whiskey. He had dark, greasy hair that lightly framed his pock-marked face.
“Why, because I’m blond and tan?” I asked with a not-so-subtle hint of disdain.
“Pretty much,” he said, arrogantly twisting the end of his pool cue into a small block of blue chalk. A waitress wearing black slacks and a red checkered shirt plunked down a plastic, paper-lined basket of fish and chips and tartar sauce, thankfully disrupting the scene. As much as I wanted to antagonize him, I picked up the basket and carried it with me to a table in an adjacent room. Many communities full of friendly, genuine people have schlubs like him, I reminded myself, and I certainly didn’t need this situation to escalate. I was hungry and tired, yet fully aware that I was a woman alone in a bar full of rednecks.
After dinner, I walked back to my room at the Tide’s Inn and sorted through a few charts and seashells and other odds and ends I had picked up along the way. I still hadn’t heard anything about Jim, but I would mail these items back to him for safekeeping: all the way to Eureka, Montana, to his home perched above the Koocanusa Reservoir. A small home with an old piano, a Venus flytrap, a compendium of books, a quartet of cats, and an astounding view of the Canadian Rockies. I didn’t know how long he’d be in the hospital, but envisioned him opening this box when he returned home, looking at all these things, and picturing me, following in his paddle strokes, blazing a path up the Inside Passage. I knew, if all went well, Jim’s recovery was predicted to encompass the rest of the summer and into the fall. Suddenly, I felt a deep need to see him as soon as I could. From my motel room overlooking the harbor and the narrows, I made the decision to end my trip in Juneau instead of Skagway, ninety miles nearer to where I presently stood.
It was as if a voice of reason took over to help me reflect on the course I’d just taken and offered up a way to help me judge the course ahead. Ending the trip in Juneau now made sense and seemed the prudent choice on logistical, emotional, psychological, and practical levels. I felt good about my decision. It was the right thing to do. Even though I was having the time of my life, my heart and soul ached to be reunited with friends and loved ones back in Montana. I was a bit homesick, and worried sick. Plus the nagging pain deep in my right shoulder concerned me because it was not going away like it used to when the muscles warmed up.
Lynn Canal, and the miles of water between Juneau and Skagway would just have to wait until another time. I made my ferry reservations for an early morning departure out of Juneau on July 13, and I arranged for Becky to meet me at the ferry terminal in Bellingham, Washington.
Thinking of Bellingham made my mind wander to a few coveted items left behind in a duffel bag in Becky’s possession: my hair dryer, dangly earrings, a silver ring, skinny jeans, a white cotton T-shirt, some frilly underwear, a non-sports-bra bra, a pair of pink cotton pajamas, an oversized towel, and a pair of fluorescent orange running shoes. I smiled, imagining how deliciously self-indulgent it would feel to be wearing cotton again. For over two months I had worn the same two synthetic tops, nylon pants, sports bra and “technical underwear, ” and I was ready to slip into something not made of nylon, fleece, or rubber, and that didn’t have a permanent stench to it.
I decided to take a short stroll through Petersburg to clear my head, grabbing my cellphone on the way out, in case Linda called. Just a few minutes into my walk, the phone vibrated in my pocket. Shielding it from the rain with my open hand, I answered Linda’s call.
“Jim is out of surgery. It’s gone well, and he’s in intensive care now,” her endearing British voice said on the other end. I breathed a sigh of relief. “We’ve spoken with his surgeon, who seems quite positive.” She paused, waiting for my reaction, but at that moment only tears would come. “Jim insisted the rock you sent from Tree Point go with him to the hospital. It’s on his nightstand,” Linda added, as if to break the silence and soothe my spirits.
We talked at length about Jim’s ongoing care and how my returning to Montana a bit early would dovetail nicely with their plans; how I could step in as caregiver while he continued his healing process. By the time I returned, Jim would be back at his home in Eureka, and Linda and Dave could head out on their big caving expedition in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, the same trip that Jim had been planning for over a year but had been forced to back out of. Linda had already scheduled twice-weekly visits with home-health nurses. Things were falling into place, and we all remained hopeful. When the cavers returned, we would have one big party to celebrate my safe journey and Jim’s recovery.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, less than 24 hours after Jim’s surgery, complications set in. Internal bleeding, clotting, and renal failure necessitated a brisk second operation. Surgeons opened his chest once more, then released him back to his recovery room in the ICU. I was already back on the water, and Linda, not wanting to upset the ballast of my trip, didn’t tell me when Jim’s world went awry. There was nothing I could have done on my end, anyway. Juneau was in my crosshairs. I was near the finish line. My summit hovered less than a week’s paddle away, if Mother Nature cooperated.