There was nothing cozy about Stone House. With the rain lashing against the windows and the wind howling through the Chilkat Valley, you'd think that the house would have been the perfect shelter in a storm. But Stone House was dreary and cold on that first night. I had no real furniture yet. The house came with a few choice pieces, namely a fading sofa that smelled of old man ass, an old dirty refrigerator in the bedroom, and a divan where Horton automatically made himself at home. Overhead lights had been installed, but half of the bulbs had burnt out, and one lone lamp failed to fill the darkness. There was a fireplace, but it was too late in the evening to get a fire going. I was tired and longed for that heated bed which had been my refuge for the last couple of months. But all I had was a air mattress. It was a miserable first night.
Prior to the move, I had made another trip up to Whitehorse. This time I had gone solo, but with Horton in the back (there is something glorious about having a dog's smiling face in a rear-view mirror). The wilderness was just as desolate as the first time around, though the temps had climbed into a more comfortable range, so the threat of freezing to death wasn't as prominent. Just past Haines Junction I came across a car in a ditch. Two young girls were stranded, so I gave them a ride to Whitehorse where they lived. It felt good to perform such a good deed, and the girls were great company for the rest of the drive as they filled me in on life in the Yukon.
Finally I got to meet Chris's cousin Sarah and her family, as they invited to me stay the night. Steve, who I had stayed with in Red Deer on my way up to Alaska, was visiting. Primarily I was in Whitehorse for a shopping trip, but the Frostbite Music Festival was on so I went with Steve on the last night to watch some musicians play. I was expecting a concert venue with crowds and loud speakers and whatnot, but found the event to be quite subdued. We sat down in an auditorium and listened as singer/songwriters told their stories while strumming their guitars. This may sound boring, but it was intimate and had me nearly in tears at times, as their stories were so heartfelt. I couldn't believe I was sitting in this room in the middle of the Yukon experiencing such a thing. Every now and then, these moments seem so surreal, like "How on earth did I get here?" As they sang songs of home and of loss and of discovery, I thought of how far I had come. The move to Alaska had been so meaningful to me. It's one of those things that felt like it was meant to be, as if the universe had steered me there. Ok, corny I know, but the feeling was very strong at the time, and I felt I had finally found my resting place in the world.
Just like his uncle Steve and aunt Jane, Chris's cousin Sarah was charming, as was her husband Phil and their little boy. How lovely to find our closest kin in the far North were quality people. As Whitehorse and the Yukon would continue to have a pull on me, as well as Chris, we would be spending more time with them in the years to come.
So, it was time to take care of business, the reason why I had made this journey in the dead of winter. I parked myself at Walmart, treating Buck to a badly needed oil change, and spent the next few hours cramming several carts full of household items. It's amazing how much stuff it takes to set up a home, especially from scratch. Garbage cans, dish drying racks, pillows, mirrors, bathroom mats, toothbrush holders--all these things had to be taken into consideration. I wasn't focused on heavy duty furniture, that would come later. I just needed the basics to make Stone House a home. All in all, I spent over $1000. It would have been much cheaper in the Lower 48, but at least this was a one-stop shopping experience and I was getting all this shopping out of the way. It had been so long since being in a store the size of Walmart and I was quite the kid in the candy store, pulling things off racks left and right. With Buck cleaned up and running smoothly, I loaded up and we made that epic drive back to Haines. I stopped at the US border, expecting the customary "Welcome back" greeting. But I hit a snag in that I had spent too much money in Canada in the short time I was there. I guess this kind of thing is discouraged, and I was hit with a the possibility of a fee. Thankfully the inspector simply explained the situation to me while waiving the fee. The next time I needed to do a mega shopping trip, apparently Juneau was the better option.
So I had the basics. But somehow the basics didn't seem to cut it, especially on that first night when I simply needed comfort. I had bought rugs, but they didn't cover enough of the thin, dirty carpet which spread across the length of Stone House. I changed the filthy shower curtain in the bathroom and put down cabinet liners on the shelves which stood exposed on one side of the kitchen, but it still felt, and smelled, like a hermit's abode. Perhaps that was part of the charm. Looking back, yes, it probably was on the charming side, in a backwoods Alaskan way, but at the time, I was wanting thick shag carpet and radiant heating, not old XtraTufs and rusted tools in the Arctic entry way, and a gas heater which wheezed spasms of heat.
I decided against setting up my bedroom in the back room. The room was big, but it was away from the heater, the only source of heat in the whole house. There was frost on the inside of the windows, and the back door--never a good sign. Plus there was that weird refrigerator that was completely out of place, and that creepy opening which led to the trapdoor which led to the creepiest basement in the history of mankind. Yes, that back room was not for me. I'd be sleeping in the main room that connected to the kitchen and the living room. Horton would be sleeping in his bed which I had bought at Walmart. It was our first night together. I wanted him to crawl into bed with me so I could feel his thick fur next to me, but my bed was simply an air mattress, and for some reason, that really freaked him out. He slept in the living room under those big dark windows, looking out over the expanse of the Chilkat River and Cathedral Peaks, and I felt he was so far away. The emptiness of the house pressed against me, as did the isolation. How in the world was I going to make this place a home?
Roughing It
Ok, maybe I didn't have it too bad. After all, there were people in Haines who lived in cabins with no running water and had to go outside to pee. At least Stone House had proper plumbing and electricity, though these were recently installed. The water was sourced from a stream which ran nearby. Before the plumbing had been put in, residents had to haul their water--not exactly an easy feat. So I had it pretty good in that respect, and also the fact that there was a water heater and the septic system that could handle toilet paper, which meant that I didn't need to resort to a bidet. Also, the lights turned on (most of them, anyway) when I flipped a light switch, so at least I was on the grid. Until recently, residents had to rely on a generator for their light. So Stone House was up to scratch as far as the basic necessities.
Despite these modern conveniences, there was still an element of roughing it. Perhaps it was because I had moved in at the end of February. The place was freezing. It was evident that there was little to no insulation. Though Stone House was indeed made of stone, rock alone is not an adequate insulator against the wrath that an Alaskan winter can bring. The windows which graced the front portion of the house had apparently lost their sealing a long time ago, and the wind whistled through the cracks. The gas heater by the front door ran day and night in a valiant effort to combat the cold, but the cold continuously won out. The only warm place was at the kitchen table in the vicinity of the heater. At night, I slept on the floor, albeit on an air mattress, but I found that the air mattress didn't offer much buffer against the cold. I froze at night, shivering under the weight of my blankets, unable to sleep in my misery. It was almost on par with camping.
There was a large fireplace which took up a good portion of the living room. I didn't rely on it for heat, as I didn't have the resources available. The previous resident had a left a few rounds of logs and an ax in the shed, so on occasion I'd go out and chop myself some wood and start a fire, but only when I really had the ambition. When I did have a fire blazing, I found that I had to sit directly in front of it to benefit from its warmth. The fire failed to heat the house outside of the living room.
It was the cold I mostly battled with. But there were other things as well. There was the pervading stink of the place, as the previous tenant had been a chain smoker. Tar coated the walls, actually running in thick drips from ceiling to floor. It was beyond gross. No matter how hard I scrubbed, I couldn't completely get it off. I can totally understand why landlords don't allow their tenants to smoke. While scrubbing away, I tried to envision what tar could do to a set of smoker's lungs.
Another thing I battled with was the spiders. Now I had done my research, and it turns out that Alaska does not harbor any venomous spiders or snakes. As much of a relief as this was, it didn't stop spiders from invading my well being. On average I was killing about two a day, smashing them against the orange, tar-dripping walls. I felt they'd be sitting there, starring at me, waiting for me to fall into bed so they could trace their tiptoey feet over me. They left me constantly on edge, popping 3-D fashion out of a wall as I walked by.
The spiders weren't the only thing causing me terror. There was a dark hole under the house which the landlord had labelled a "basement." It was like something out of my worst nightmares. It started with a trap door in the floor of the closet in the back room. Pulling on the rope, it was like opening the door to hell. Down some rickety stairs and lit by a lone dim bulb was an area reminiscent of the basement in Silence of the Lambs. You could almost hear a voice telling you "It puts lotion on the skin" while piling laundry into the washing machine. There were corners of the basement which escaped the light, and though I was led to believe it was bedrock. I could picture human skin stretched across the walls. I wouldn't have been surprised. I only went in the basement to do laundry, and I completed that chore as quickly as possible and then hightailed it back into the light. I often feared falling down those stairs and being helpless to climb my way out. I also feared the trap door slamming shut and being trapped in that hole. Living alone, these were all real fears for me.
Another thing I battled with at Stone House was the isolation. It's funny, because this was exactly what I had wanted for so long: a place in the mountains where I could be alone with my books and my thoughts. The nearest neighbor was up a cliff, his house accessible by a road about half a mile away. I really was alone at Mile 8, though the house was located close to the highway. Horton offered some companionship, but his puppy playfulness had evaporated as soon as he walked through the door to his new home. It was odd--he turned into an older, wiser dog overnight. He seemed to take on role of guard dog, and sat on the divan by the window for hours, looking out the window in a severe way, keeping watch on whatever came down the road. In the morning he'd come lumbering into the area of the room where I slept, as glum as a moose, as sit by the bed, waiting for me to get up. The only time he really seemed energetic is when we'd go for our walks, which thankfully were plentiful. If it was a matter of letting him out to pee, there was a fenced yard in the back complete with a dog house. I had purchased straw to put in the dog house, imagining Horton was the outdoor type who would prefer the back yard to staying inside. But he surprised me by eschewing the back yard. I literally had to push him out the back door to pee, and as soon as he had taken care of business he'd be scratching at the door to get back inside. It seemed that he liked my companionship, but kept at an arm's length. Horton definitely wasn't the clinging, cuddly type.
The best part about Stone House was the location. I could almost forgive the lack of insulation, the spiders, and the dungeon under the house, simply for the view. From the living room, the Cathedral Peaks (the tallest, most dramatic peaks in the Chilkat Valley) were visible, towering over everything else. Stepping out the front door, the river could be seen through a line of trees. In those trees, bald eagles nested. Out the back door, I stepped onto the deck and really took in the view of the peaks and the wilderness across the river. From my spot at the kitchen table I could see clear down the valley, through the corridor of mountains, to the sea. I'd sit there in the morning and watch the sun rise, the light hitting the mountains layer by layer. It was nothing short of magical. As I didn't have TV at Stone House, I spent a lot of time at that window, keeping warm by the heater, drinking cups of tea. There was utter contentment in absorbing that view.
Sometimes the enormity of it got to me. After all, I really was alone in the wilderness. I was connected by wi-fi and a landline, but psychologically I was alone. Most of the times I relished it, but sometimes the aloneness hit me hard. I remember one night when I was invited out by one of my coworkers. It was someone's birthday and a girl named Jess was performing with a band at one of the bars. Seems like forever I had been waiting for invitations such as this in an effort to have a social life. But I couldn't propel myself to go. I had been struggling with this uneasiness around other humans, something that had been plaguing me since childhood. Such uneasiness has come and gone throughout my life, sometimes in depressive episodes, but had been hitting me particularly hard since I had moved to Haines (or more accurately, started working at Mountain Market where the social dynamics were weird to begin with). This uneasiness, and this desire to be left alone, bothered me so much that I actually did research on it, and for a brief moment I believed I had Asperger's Syndrome. Turns out I didn't have Asperger's but, through my research, I was able to diagnose myself with a textbook case of introversion. It was a huge a-ha moment for me, as I've never been able to get a clear answer as to why human interaction exhausts me so much. (Well, for the record, not all interaction exhausts me, just the chit-chat kind where people overtalk each other and talk just for the sake of talking. I'm not one that talks for the sake of talking, to enjoy the sound of my own voice.) People standing around in groups talking has always boggled my mind. What they hell could they possibly be talking about? It's not like they're not devising ways to save the planet. If I get invited into one of those chitchat conversations, I'm looking for an escape route, just itching to get out. But this has always caused me to feel bad. What was wrong with me that I couldn't enjoy these interactions? Something must be wrong with me. To find that there was a word for it--introversion--and other people like me experience the same things, was a huge relief. Since that time, I've embraced my introversion and do not feel ashamed for it. In fact, introversion is in--seems like everyone on Facebook is claiming to be an introvert. It's nice to know that I was ahead of the trend.
Perhaps Stone House was ideal for my introverted ways, but sometimes I felt a hole in my psyche that I could almost be classified as loneliness. On the night of that party, I imagined everyone out having a good time, with music and laughter and swaying drinks. I didn't want that--see, I knew that--but I didn't know what exactly I did want. Sitting around in the dark seemed so depressing, so I flipped on the radio. There's only one radio station in Haines, and that is KHNS. By this time I was familiar with the station as I had developed my own show, but still I had done little to listen to the other shows. To tune in and hear Allegro Non Troppo, the classical music show, was exactly what I needed for my mood. I'm not usually one who sits around listening to classical music (though I do have my favorite pieces I indulge in every now and then) but there was something in the music that really spoke to me, and I found myself crying. I wasn't sure why, it was just one of those things. Then I looked out one of the windows and saw the full moon rising above the mountain peaks. The whole snow-filled valley was bathed in that light. I wouldn't have traded that moment for anything, and I embraced my aloneness at that point, just me, the dog on his divan, and that brilliant winter moon. Yes, I may have been turning into a weirdo, but here's the real beauty of it--nobody was around to notice.
The part I enjoyed most about Stone House was the hiking out back. There was a well-established trail which led to the stream, about 100 yards into the forest. The stream fed into the lake which lay just south of the property. Following the stream upriver, cascades of water fell over rocks, though it was more like frozen cascades in the winter. The path wasn't as clearly distinguished past a certain point, and seen as how a few trees had fallen, I had to step onto some rocks in the stream to skirt the trees. That was what I considered my safe point--if I made it back from a hike and got to that spot, the trail took me right down the hill to the house. Anything past that point seemed far away, as if escape from a bear or a moose wasn't as certain. There was also a tree I liked right at my safe point, a hemlock that rose straight and proud with no branches until the very top. I don't know what it was about this tree that made it stand out from the others, but I designated it as my tree, and every time I headed out into the forest I would stop and say hi to it. When I touched it I imagined that I was absorbing its strength. I also had the notion that it was protecting me. Some hippie shit, yes I know, but--why the hell not, right? It made my hike more meaningful.
Every time I headed out the door, I faced the dangers of the forest. I had heard stories from the landlord about angry moose kicking her car. From all the moose droppings on the trail, it looked as if I were walking a moose highway. I had also heard about wolves in the area, though they were incredibly elusive. It was only a few years back that a dog in Haines was attacked and eaten by a rogue wolf. Stuff like this is very rare, but it does happen. Coyotes were also about, as were cougars. One time when I was letting Horton out into the backyard, a flash of fur darted into the trees. From the long tail, I could only surmise that it was a lynx. They are the quietest of predators in the forest. And then of course are the bears. Even though I started hiking in those woods in winter, when bears were hibernating, I still feared that I'd break through one of their dens and step on them, arousing them from their slumber. This was a plausible scenario, considering that much of the forest floor was actually decaying foliage that could give away. While hiking, I always wondered where the bears were sleeping. Was I walking right on top of them? And what about the odd bear who woke from his slumber mid-winter, confused, ornery and hungry? There were so many ways to die in Alaska, just by stepping out the door. The possibilities were continually on my mind. But that didn't stop me from hiking every day, sometimes twice a day.
The initial trail led to a larger trail which actually looked like it had at one time been a road. Turning right on the trail could take me to my closest neighbor's house (at least I knew that the house was accessible, even if it was a hike up a mountainside). Turning left, the trail ran through a birch forest and then out to a meadow. Past the meadow, the trail entered into dense forest and then past a sizable creek. After that, it took a few dips and climbs but ultimately ended at a huge chunk of bedrock jutting out of the mountainside. All in all, the trail was about a mile long.
I had different levels of comfort with each section of the trail. Of course, the first part that was close to home was the most comfortable, even with all the moose droppings. I even felt pretty good on the road section, as the trail was wide and open, and if I screamed, perhaps my neighbor would hear. The meadow section was a nice breather as I could see all around me and take in the rest of the mountain that was otherwise hidden from below. Anything past that--I was high vigilant. It was the dense forest which concerned me the most. I made as much noise as possible walking through. Horton would warn me of any danger, running ahead on the trail. I watched the swish of his jaunty pantaloons (the furry part of his hindlegs), glad he was my hiking companion. There was one time when I really freaked out. We were on our way back and I thought Horton had run into the brush. I heard a snort beside me on the trail, and I figured it was Horton--until I saw Horton ahead of me. So--what exactly snorted then? I didn't stay to investigate; I booked it along the trail. I was far along the trail at that point, and far from my safe point. Horton was acting bizarre for the rest of that hike, staying so close to me that I was literally tripping over him. He seemed spooked. I had never been so happy to get to my safe spot, to my tree, where it was a straight shot back to the house.
Just about every time I headed out the door, I prepared myself for danger. And every time I made it back, I marveled at how we made it back safe, without any incident. Nothing bad ever happened on that trail. My confidence in the wilderness was growing somewhat, not in myself, but in my ability to keep wild animals at bay. I learned to trust the forest creatures. I knew they were there. The scat was everywhere. But the fact that they stayed away meant that I was doing something right in the forest, either my giving warning of my presence or having Horton nearby. There was only one time where a bear took interest in us, and that was around May of that year when the bears were coming out of hibernation. There was one night when Horton wouldn't stop barking. I knew that something was outside. It was a night fraught with much worry, as I had heard stories of bears breaking down doors (in fact, after I moved out of Stone House, a bear did break down the back door). It occurred to me that maybe the bear was after Horton's bag of dog food, which I kept in the Arctic entry. I moved the food inside, but Horton's barking continued throughout the night. In the morning, on our first walk of the day, we discovered the big pile of bear scat in the yard. As we moved up the trail, just past our safe place, I found a paw print in the mud on the side of the stream. It was interesting to see that the bear took the same path as me, skirting around those trees. Thankfully the paw print pointed away, meaning that the bear had left, but the print was huge. Judging from the size of the claws, I figured it was a brown bear.
Ok, just a little run down of the different bears found in Haines. There are black bears, and then there are brown bears. Brown bears are the bigger of the two. They are also known as grizzly bears, but are only called that away from the coast. Brown bears are different from black bears in that they are much larger and have a slight hump on the back of their neck. Brown bears love salmon and usually seem content along the coast with the abundance of fish and berries. They usually mind their own business, but can be very dangerous when confronted. Black bears are the less intimidating of the two kinds, as they are smaller and are not known for fatal attacks. On a trail, I'd much rather prefer to come across a black bear. (Just to make it even more confusing, black bears aren't always black. I ran into a bear the other day while out hiking. It was brown, but it was not a grizzly. Black bears that are colored brown are called cinnamon bears).
The bear came back the next night. I know this because I found more scat along the trail, close to the house. Needless to say, Horton and I didn't hike for a few days. Eventually the bear moved along and we headed out hiking again. I never took bear spray. Still don't. I rely on my instincts and my trust of bears to keep their distance. I don't know if this is wise or not, but it's worked so far.
There was always a sense of accomplishment when coming back from a hike, like a test of survival. On days off, I'd come back, chop some wood and start a fire. I'd read a book, or set up a writing station by the fire, or simply stare at the fire and think of how awesome my Alaskan life was. And I was doing it all on my own. If that doesn't make a girl feel powerful, then I don't know what would.
Just like his uncle Steve and aunt Jane, Chris's cousin Sarah was charming, as was her husband Phil and their little boy. How lovely to find our closest kin in the far North were quality people. As Whitehorse and the Yukon would continue to have a pull on me, as well as Chris, we would be spending more time with them in the years to come.
So, it was time to take care of business, the reason why I had made this journey in the dead of winter. I parked myself at Walmart, treating Buck to a badly needed oil change, and spent the next few hours cramming several carts full of household items. It's amazing how much stuff it takes to set up a home, especially from scratch. Garbage cans, dish drying racks, pillows, mirrors, bathroom mats, toothbrush holders--all these things had to be taken into consideration. I wasn't focused on heavy duty furniture, that would come later. I just needed the basics to make Stone House a home. All in all, I spent over $1000. It would have been much cheaper in the Lower 48, but at least this was a one-stop shopping experience and I was getting all this shopping out of the way. It had been so long since being in a store the size of Walmart and I was quite the kid in the candy store, pulling things off racks left and right. With Buck cleaned up and running smoothly, I loaded up and we made that epic drive back to Haines. I stopped at the US border, expecting the customary "Welcome back" greeting. But I hit a snag in that I had spent too much money in Canada in the short time I was there. I guess this kind of thing is discouraged, and I was hit with a the possibility of a fee. Thankfully the inspector simply explained the situation to me while waiving the fee. The next time I needed to do a mega shopping trip, apparently Juneau was the better option.
So I had the basics. But somehow the basics didn't seem to cut it, especially on that first night when I simply needed comfort. I had bought rugs, but they didn't cover enough of the thin, dirty carpet which spread across the length of Stone House. I changed the filthy shower curtain in the bathroom and put down cabinet liners on the shelves which stood exposed on one side of the kitchen, but it still felt, and smelled, like a hermit's abode. Perhaps that was part of the charm. Looking back, yes, it probably was on the charming side, in a backwoods Alaskan way, but at the time, I was wanting thick shag carpet and radiant heating, not old XtraTufs and rusted tools in the Arctic entry way, and a gas heater which wheezed spasms of heat.
I decided against setting up my bedroom in the back room. The room was big, but it was away from the heater, the only source of heat in the whole house. There was frost on the inside of the windows, and the back door--never a good sign. Plus there was that weird refrigerator that was completely out of place, and that creepy opening which led to the trapdoor which led to the creepiest basement in the history of mankind. Yes, that back room was not for me. I'd be sleeping in the main room that connected to the kitchen and the living room. Horton would be sleeping in his bed which I had bought at Walmart. It was our first night together. I wanted him to crawl into bed with me so I could feel his thick fur next to me, but my bed was simply an air mattress, and for some reason, that really freaked him out. He slept in the living room under those big dark windows, looking out over the expanse of the Chilkat River and Cathedral Peaks, and I felt he was so far away. The emptiness of the house pressed against me, as did the isolation. How in the world was I going to make this place a home?
Roughing It
Ok, maybe I didn't have it too bad. After all, there were people in Haines who lived in cabins with no running water and had to go outside to pee. At least Stone House had proper plumbing and electricity, though these were recently installed. The water was sourced from a stream which ran nearby. Before the plumbing had been put in, residents had to haul their water--not exactly an easy feat. So I had it pretty good in that respect, and also the fact that there was a water heater and the septic system that could handle toilet paper, which meant that I didn't need to resort to a bidet. Also, the lights turned on (most of them, anyway) when I flipped a light switch, so at least I was on the grid. Until recently, residents had to rely on a generator for their light. So Stone House was up to scratch as far as the basic necessities.
Despite these modern conveniences, there was still an element of roughing it. Perhaps it was because I had moved in at the end of February. The place was freezing. It was evident that there was little to no insulation. Though Stone House was indeed made of stone, rock alone is not an adequate insulator against the wrath that an Alaskan winter can bring. The windows which graced the front portion of the house had apparently lost their sealing a long time ago, and the wind whistled through the cracks. The gas heater by the front door ran day and night in a valiant effort to combat the cold, but the cold continuously won out. The only warm place was at the kitchen table in the vicinity of the heater. At night, I slept on the floor, albeit on an air mattress, but I found that the air mattress didn't offer much buffer against the cold. I froze at night, shivering under the weight of my blankets, unable to sleep in my misery. It was almost on par with camping.
There was a large fireplace which took up a good portion of the living room. I didn't rely on it for heat, as I didn't have the resources available. The previous resident had a left a few rounds of logs and an ax in the shed, so on occasion I'd go out and chop myself some wood and start a fire, but only when I really had the ambition. When I did have a fire blazing, I found that I had to sit directly in front of it to benefit from its warmth. The fire failed to heat the house outside of the living room.
It was the cold I mostly battled with. But there were other things as well. There was the pervading stink of the place, as the previous tenant had been a chain smoker. Tar coated the walls, actually running in thick drips from ceiling to floor. It was beyond gross. No matter how hard I scrubbed, I couldn't completely get it off. I can totally understand why landlords don't allow their tenants to smoke. While scrubbing away, I tried to envision what tar could do to a set of smoker's lungs.
Another thing I battled with was the spiders. Now I had done my research, and it turns out that Alaska does not harbor any venomous spiders or snakes. As much of a relief as this was, it didn't stop spiders from invading my well being. On average I was killing about two a day, smashing them against the orange, tar-dripping walls. I felt they'd be sitting there, starring at me, waiting for me to fall into bed so they could trace their tiptoey feet over me. They left me constantly on edge, popping 3-D fashion out of a wall as I walked by.
The spiders weren't the only thing causing me terror. There was a dark hole under the house which the landlord had labelled a "basement." It was like something out of my worst nightmares. It started with a trap door in the floor of the closet in the back room. Pulling on the rope, it was like opening the door to hell. Down some rickety stairs and lit by a lone dim bulb was an area reminiscent of the basement in Silence of the Lambs. You could almost hear a voice telling you "It puts lotion on the skin" while piling laundry into the washing machine. There were corners of the basement which escaped the light, and though I was led to believe it was bedrock. I could picture human skin stretched across the walls. I wouldn't have been surprised. I only went in the basement to do laundry, and I completed that chore as quickly as possible and then hightailed it back into the light. I often feared falling down those stairs and being helpless to climb my way out. I also feared the trap door slamming shut and being trapped in that hole. Living alone, these were all real fears for me.
Another thing I battled with at Stone House was the isolation. It's funny, because this was exactly what I had wanted for so long: a place in the mountains where I could be alone with my books and my thoughts. The nearest neighbor was up a cliff, his house accessible by a road about half a mile away. I really was alone at Mile 8, though the house was located close to the highway. Horton offered some companionship, but his puppy playfulness had evaporated as soon as he walked through the door to his new home. It was odd--he turned into an older, wiser dog overnight. He seemed to take on role of guard dog, and sat on the divan by the window for hours, looking out the window in a severe way, keeping watch on whatever came down the road. In the morning he'd come lumbering into the area of the room where I slept, as glum as a moose, as sit by the bed, waiting for me to get up. The only time he really seemed energetic is when we'd go for our walks, which thankfully were plentiful. If it was a matter of letting him out to pee, there was a fenced yard in the back complete with a dog house. I had purchased straw to put in the dog house, imagining Horton was the outdoor type who would prefer the back yard to staying inside. But he surprised me by eschewing the back yard. I literally had to push him out the back door to pee, and as soon as he had taken care of business he'd be scratching at the door to get back inside. It seemed that he liked my companionship, but kept at an arm's length. Horton definitely wasn't the clinging, cuddly type.
The best part about Stone House was the location. I could almost forgive the lack of insulation, the spiders, and the dungeon under the house, simply for the view. From the living room, the Cathedral Peaks (the tallest, most dramatic peaks in the Chilkat Valley) were visible, towering over everything else. Stepping out the front door, the river could be seen through a line of trees. In those trees, bald eagles nested. Out the back door, I stepped onto the deck and really took in the view of the peaks and the wilderness across the river. From my spot at the kitchen table I could see clear down the valley, through the corridor of mountains, to the sea. I'd sit there in the morning and watch the sun rise, the light hitting the mountains layer by layer. It was nothing short of magical. As I didn't have TV at Stone House, I spent a lot of time at that window, keeping warm by the heater, drinking cups of tea. There was utter contentment in absorbing that view.
Sometimes the enormity of it got to me. After all, I really was alone in the wilderness. I was connected by wi-fi and a landline, but psychologically I was alone. Most of the times I relished it, but sometimes the aloneness hit me hard. I remember one night when I was invited out by one of my coworkers. It was someone's birthday and a girl named Jess was performing with a band at one of the bars. Seems like forever I had been waiting for invitations such as this in an effort to have a social life. But I couldn't propel myself to go. I had been struggling with this uneasiness around other humans, something that had been plaguing me since childhood. Such uneasiness has come and gone throughout my life, sometimes in depressive episodes, but had been hitting me particularly hard since I had moved to Haines (or more accurately, started working at Mountain Market where the social dynamics were weird to begin with). This uneasiness, and this desire to be left alone, bothered me so much that I actually did research on it, and for a brief moment I believed I had Asperger's Syndrome. Turns out I didn't have Asperger's but, through my research, I was able to diagnose myself with a textbook case of introversion. It was a huge a-ha moment for me, as I've never been able to get a clear answer as to why human interaction exhausts me so much. (Well, for the record, not all interaction exhausts me, just the chit-chat kind where people overtalk each other and talk just for the sake of talking. I'm not one that talks for the sake of talking, to enjoy the sound of my own voice.) People standing around in groups talking has always boggled my mind. What they hell could they possibly be talking about? It's not like they're not devising ways to save the planet. If I get invited into one of those chitchat conversations, I'm looking for an escape route, just itching to get out. But this has always caused me to feel bad. What was wrong with me that I couldn't enjoy these interactions? Something must be wrong with me. To find that there was a word for it--introversion--and other people like me experience the same things, was a huge relief. Since that time, I've embraced my introversion and do not feel ashamed for it. In fact, introversion is in--seems like everyone on Facebook is claiming to be an introvert. It's nice to know that I was ahead of the trend.
Perhaps Stone House was ideal for my introverted ways, but sometimes I felt a hole in my psyche that I could almost be classified as loneliness. On the night of that party, I imagined everyone out having a good time, with music and laughter and swaying drinks. I didn't want that--see, I knew that--but I didn't know what exactly I did want. Sitting around in the dark seemed so depressing, so I flipped on the radio. There's only one radio station in Haines, and that is KHNS. By this time I was familiar with the station as I had developed my own show, but still I had done little to listen to the other shows. To tune in and hear Allegro Non Troppo, the classical music show, was exactly what I needed for my mood. I'm not usually one who sits around listening to classical music (though I do have my favorite pieces I indulge in every now and then) but there was something in the music that really spoke to me, and I found myself crying. I wasn't sure why, it was just one of those things. Then I looked out one of the windows and saw the full moon rising above the mountain peaks. The whole snow-filled valley was bathed in that light. I wouldn't have traded that moment for anything, and I embraced my aloneness at that point, just me, the dog on his divan, and that brilliant winter moon. Yes, I may have been turning into a weirdo, but here's the real beauty of it--nobody was around to notice.
The part I enjoyed most about Stone House was the hiking out back. There was a well-established trail which led to the stream, about 100 yards into the forest. The stream fed into the lake which lay just south of the property. Following the stream upriver, cascades of water fell over rocks, though it was more like frozen cascades in the winter. The path wasn't as clearly distinguished past a certain point, and seen as how a few trees had fallen, I had to step onto some rocks in the stream to skirt the trees. That was what I considered my safe point--if I made it back from a hike and got to that spot, the trail took me right down the hill to the house. Anything past that point seemed far away, as if escape from a bear or a moose wasn't as certain. There was also a tree I liked right at my safe point, a hemlock that rose straight and proud with no branches until the very top. I don't know what it was about this tree that made it stand out from the others, but I designated it as my tree, and every time I headed out into the forest I would stop and say hi to it. When I touched it I imagined that I was absorbing its strength. I also had the notion that it was protecting me. Some hippie shit, yes I know, but--why the hell not, right? It made my hike more meaningful.
Every time I headed out the door, I faced the dangers of the forest. I had heard stories from the landlord about angry moose kicking her car. From all the moose droppings on the trail, it looked as if I were walking a moose highway. I had also heard about wolves in the area, though they were incredibly elusive. It was only a few years back that a dog in Haines was attacked and eaten by a rogue wolf. Stuff like this is very rare, but it does happen. Coyotes were also about, as were cougars. One time when I was letting Horton out into the backyard, a flash of fur darted into the trees. From the long tail, I could only surmise that it was a lynx. They are the quietest of predators in the forest. And then of course are the bears. Even though I started hiking in those woods in winter, when bears were hibernating, I still feared that I'd break through one of their dens and step on them, arousing them from their slumber. This was a plausible scenario, considering that much of the forest floor was actually decaying foliage that could give away. While hiking, I always wondered where the bears were sleeping. Was I walking right on top of them? And what about the odd bear who woke from his slumber mid-winter, confused, ornery and hungry? There were so many ways to die in Alaska, just by stepping out the door. The possibilities were continually on my mind. But that didn't stop me from hiking every day, sometimes twice a day.
The initial trail led to a larger trail which actually looked like it had at one time been a road. Turning right on the trail could take me to my closest neighbor's house (at least I knew that the house was accessible, even if it was a hike up a mountainside). Turning left, the trail ran through a birch forest and then out to a meadow. Past the meadow, the trail entered into dense forest and then past a sizable creek. After that, it took a few dips and climbs but ultimately ended at a huge chunk of bedrock jutting out of the mountainside. All in all, the trail was about a mile long.
I had different levels of comfort with each section of the trail. Of course, the first part that was close to home was the most comfortable, even with all the moose droppings. I even felt pretty good on the road section, as the trail was wide and open, and if I screamed, perhaps my neighbor would hear. The meadow section was a nice breather as I could see all around me and take in the rest of the mountain that was otherwise hidden from below. Anything past that--I was high vigilant. It was the dense forest which concerned me the most. I made as much noise as possible walking through. Horton would warn me of any danger, running ahead on the trail. I watched the swish of his jaunty pantaloons (the furry part of his hindlegs), glad he was my hiking companion. There was one time when I really freaked out. We were on our way back and I thought Horton had run into the brush. I heard a snort beside me on the trail, and I figured it was Horton--until I saw Horton ahead of me. So--what exactly snorted then? I didn't stay to investigate; I booked it along the trail. I was far along the trail at that point, and far from my safe point. Horton was acting bizarre for the rest of that hike, staying so close to me that I was literally tripping over him. He seemed spooked. I had never been so happy to get to my safe spot, to my tree, where it was a straight shot back to the house.
Just about every time I headed out the door, I prepared myself for danger. And every time I made it back, I marveled at how we made it back safe, without any incident. Nothing bad ever happened on that trail. My confidence in the wilderness was growing somewhat, not in myself, but in my ability to keep wild animals at bay. I learned to trust the forest creatures. I knew they were there. The scat was everywhere. But the fact that they stayed away meant that I was doing something right in the forest, either my giving warning of my presence or having Horton nearby. There was only one time where a bear took interest in us, and that was around May of that year when the bears were coming out of hibernation. There was one night when Horton wouldn't stop barking. I knew that something was outside. It was a night fraught with much worry, as I had heard stories of bears breaking down doors (in fact, after I moved out of Stone House, a bear did break down the back door). It occurred to me that maybe the bear was after Horton's bag of dog food, which I kept in the Arctic entry. I moved the food inside, but Horton's barking continued throughout the night. In the morning, on our first walk of the day, we discovered the big pile of bear scat in the yard. As we moved up the trail, just past our safe place, I found a paw print in the mud on the side of the stream. It was interesting to see that the bear took the same path as me, skirting around those trees. Thankfully the paw print pointed away, meaning that the bear had left, but the print was huge. Judging from the size of the claws, I figured it was a brown bear.
Ok, just a little run down of the different bears found in Haines. There are black bears, and then there are brown bears. Brown bears are the bigger of the two. They are also known as grizzly bears, but are only called that away from the coast. Brown bears are different from black bears in that they are much larger and have a slight hump on the back of their neck. Brown bears love salmon and usually seem content along the coast with the abundance of fish and berries. They usually mind their own business, but can be very dangerous when confronted. Black bears are the less intimidating of the two kinds, as they are smaller and are not known for fatal attacks. On a trail, I'd much rather prefer to come across a black bear. (Just to make it even more confusing, black bears aren't always black. I ran into a bear the other day while out hiking. It was brown, but it was not a grizzly. Black bears that are colored brown are called cinnamon bears).
The bear came back the next night. I know this because I found more scat along the trail, close to the house. Needless to say, Horton and I didn't hike for a few days. Eventually the bear moved along and we headed out hiking again. I never took bear spray. Still don't. I rely on my instincts and my trust of bears to keep their distance. I don't know if this is wise or not, but it's worked so far.
There was always a sense of accomplishment when coming back from a hike, like a test of survival. On days off, I'd come back, chop some wood and start a fire. I'd read a book, or set up a writing station by the fire, or simply stare at the fire and think of how awesome my Alaskan life was. And I was doing it all on my own. If that doesn't make a girl feel powerful, then I don't know what would.
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