DENALI PARK JOURNAL, PART 1
NOTES FROM A RESIDENCY
When I told my writer friends that I was going to serve as writer-in-residence at Denali National Park and that if things went well, this could become a regular thing like the artist-in-residence program, everyone had the same reaction: Don’t screw up!
I spent ten and a half days at the Murie Cabin on the East Fork of the Toklat River, near Polychrome Pass. It was furnished with a double bunk bed, a propane stove and refrigerator, and had impressive bear-proof shutters with long rusty nails sticking out to discourage break-ins. (But I was told that grizzlies liked to scratch their backs on the nails.) Built as headquarters for the construction crew working on the park road, the cabin is best known for the fact that the naturalist Adolph Murie lived there while studying Denali Park’s wolves. The location couldn’t be more central, 43 miles from the park entrance and the same distance from Wonder Lake at the far end. I had free run of the park road with my formerly green, now very dusty-brown, Subaru Impreza, and I quickly learned that whatever you plan or expect, something else, possibly something quite amazing, is likely to turn up.
I had been to the park many times before, but on this visit I felt from the start that an extraordinary experience, possibly something life-changing, was happening. Being “in residence” means, in a sense, being at home, and living in the Murie Cabin made me feel a part of the wilderness whenever I stepped outside.
Day 1 (June 19, 2009). Driving in to the cabin, I saw a herd of 14 caribou being pestered by a pair of long-tailed jaegers—move along, move along!—the birds swooped and shouted, protesting the intrusion on their territory. Focusing my binoculars, I accidentally hit the car horn with my elbow and the caribou stopped dead and looked around for the source of the noise. I thought, “Strike one, for me.”
As I arrived at the cabin, a resident ground squirrel was perched on the porch. With ears cupped and stubby tail erect he came to attention, sizing up his new housemate.
After moving my gear into the 14’ x 16’ cabin, I heard some loud talk and laughter coming from down toward the East Fork River. Kennen and Karen Ward—naturalist filmmakers—and a pair of park rangers were watching some fox kits poke their heads out of their den and peak over the top of the hill. As we watched them watching us, we talked about how, if you’re patient and willing to stand around and wait, something remarkable is likely to reveal itself. A day or two before, the Kennens had come upon on lynx sitting on the branch of a tree, waiting patiently for a meal to wander by underneath.
While eating my dinner—some chicken cacciatore that Nancy had cooked and frozen for me—I read what earlier cabin residents had written in a log book set out on the table, and I found myself moved to tears, feeling a rush of assent at what one of the artists’ had written: “It’s as if you’d dropped my off in Paradise.”
Day 2. Scanning with binocs at the river, a dark rock-like thing sitting on the ridge-line across the river and past the East Fork bridge turned out the be a golden eagle; profiled against the blue sky it looked regal. Every once it a while it turned its head, scanning into the distance, and after about ten minutes, two more eagles circled in. Seen straight on, their wings practically disappeared in the blue haze, turning them into shadowy ghost-birds.
After lunch I took a bus to the Eielson Visitor’s Center, about twenty miles west of the cabin. On the ride I sat next to a guy who reminded me of my late father-in-law—something about the sharp angles of his face and the assertive way he talked. But when I mentioned that I’m a poet, he brightened up: “Oh, I love poetry!” and named a poet he’s been reading lately, a woman I’d never heard of who writes religious verse. I was almost sorry that I’d brought the subject up, but he went on the explain that what he liked about her poetry was the way she expressed fresh ideas—things you’d never think of yourself—in clear and memorable language. Not a bad tribute.
The newly restored Eielson Visitors Center was smaller than I’d expected, and designed to fit into the landscape. It holds an impressive collection of resident artists’ work, with a beautiful wall-size quilt by Ree Nancarrow tracking the seasons in the park prominently displayed. Now we’ll have to get some writers in there too.
Day 3. Drove to Tattler Creek and hiked in through willows ringing my bear bells—not to attract them of course but to warn them off. Found the side-canyon where a couple of geology students recently discovered some dinosaur footprints and took a photo of what may be one—though it isn’t the common three-toed kind. On the drive back, a mother ptarmigan and two tiny checks crossed the road. I pulled over and heard her soft motherly peepings as she hurried them along.
On this trip I find that my interest in bears and moose is somewhat less but my interest in the smaller creatures grows: my neighbor foxes, the rabbits who nibble leaves and grasses near the cabin, and the ground squirrel family who den under the porch. The squirrels are eager to be my friends or at least to get handouts. I’m also watching some recently fledged magpies who hop and flutter around in the low spruce trees near the river.
And thanks to the artists who’ve painted here, I find myself responding more fully to the landscapes of the park. Not just the spectacle of Mt. Denali, but more locally the smaller mountains seen through this cabin window, with dots and streaks of snow and, from slightly a different angle, looping green and brown hills rising to snow-splashed peaks, with shifting clouds and cloud-shadows, as rabbits and magpies hop and flit in the foreground.
Day 4. After showering at the staff washhouse at the Toklat River, I continued out to Eielson and hiked above the visitor center. The wildflowers were amazing—such varieties of colors and shape, the alpine forget-me-nots an incredible neon blue. On the drive back I saw the Ward’s camper pulled over and their camera set up. A sow grizzly and two 1st year cubs—tiny by comparison—foraged in the middle distance. She’s blond and they’re both brown and when she lay back for them to nurse I tried for a photo, though it was probably too far for my camera. The Wards complained about a tour bus driver, who, after they’d spent a long time setting up for the shoot, pulled in and made them move their stuff. It seemed like gratuitous rank-pulling because there were plenty of other spots along the road to view the bears from the bus.
While in the park, I’ve been reading Robert Richardson’s book Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind. It turns out that Thoreau experienced true wilderness not at Walden Pond—a short stroll from his home in Concord—but rather on Mt. Katahdin in northern Maine, where, alone in howling wind, surrounded by barren rock and feeling sick and worn-out, he encountered a nature that was in no way hospitable to our species. He realized that nature has a range of experiences on offer and concluded that in essence there isn’t just one nature, but two. The familiar one, almost domestic, offers a healing relief from the petty distractions and restrictions of human communities, but at the other end of its range lies a hostile, barren world, which he called “Demonic Nature.” Thoreau felt that this harsh and alien environment was also important to humans, because, as he wrote, “We need to witness our own limits transgressed.”
And reading this, I realized that at the present time, while I’m relaxing in the cabin or cruising up and down the park road, picking from a menu of easy to moderate hikes, there are climbers taking on Mt. Denali at over 20,000 feet, voluntarily putting their lives at risk, testing their limits and in some cases having their limits transgressed.
Day 5. A little after one a.m., the excited barkings of a young fox got me out of bed. I saw it dashing toward the den, pause and bark as if calling for a parent or sibling, then turn and race back into the brush where it continues to bark as I write this. A first kill perhaps? The look on its face a mixture of terror and pride. Clearly, it had come upon something utterly new and amazing. Its bark, not like a dog’s, could be mistaken for a crow cawing, as I did at first, but the barks are longer than caws and the silences between more spread out. Foxes are usually thought of as quiet and stealthy, but this one feels it has something to crow about.
Its excitement reminded me of some great discovery going way back into my childhood, learning to walk, or speaking my first complete sentence. Or later on, belting a softball over the right fielder’s head. And in a way it also connects to the present moment, to the honor I feel in having been given this residency.
Straightened the cabin and with some difficulty made the upper bunk, since Nancy and Ben will be spending the next few days here. Then I walked along the gravel toward the East Fork Bridge, to see if we could get past it and explore to the north, but a solid rock-face blocks the way. Going, I saw a fragment of a small animal part—possibly the leg of a rabbit—and coming back the fresh prints of what I took to be a young moose and another creature, the second one having hand-sized claws with five claw-marks, so possibly a small bear. They seemed to be in contact, which I read as a pursuit, but which in the Disney version would be featured as a cross-species buddy movie.
I drove to Savage River to meet Nancy and Ben who were coming out by bus, and to pass the time till their arrival climbed a steep pinnacle on the Savage Rock Trail. Starting down I took the wrong route and could have gotten myself in serious trouble, but another climber corrected me. Getting straightened around took some serious (for me at 65!) rock climbing. I remembered my catastrophic fall 50 years ago in New Mexico and felt pretty stupid for getting myself into this mess, but by focusing on making one small move at a time—and not looking down!—I got myself back to the trail.
[More next week]