Getting Back to Ekwok

I mentioned that I wanted to write something more about Ekwok, and I still do. Actually, I'd like to get back to Ekwok physically as well as verbally, since it is a very logical take-out for a trip down from Twin Lakes through the Chilikadrotna and the Mulchatna, or a similar route down the Stuyahok or Koktuli. The idea of the long three-river float only tightened its grip on my imagination this summer. And the idea of using village flight service instead of expensive float planes just makes sense.

What makes Ekwok interesting to write about is its status as a native village. That makes it a bit tricky, too, for I am a white boy and I may get in trouble if my comments end up sounding insensitive or condescending or in any way verbally oppressive. I live in the middle of Berkeley, and I do NOT want the Berkeley Thought Police to show up at my door in a Prius and disarm me with a severe astral tai-chi advanced yoga down-dog beat-down.

But you can't pretend it doesn't matter. One of the first things I heard from the first two guys I met in Ekwok was a joke about bears: the reason I didn't have any trouble with them is simply that they don't like white meat, haw haw. They were friendly enough guys but they both had liquor on their breath at 2 p. m. in a supposedly dry town. I tried to ingratiate myself with the first guy by giving him my eight pound anchor, which I no longer needed. I'm pretty sure he was pretty pleased. I saw this guy one more time before flying out of town the next day, when he showed up at my camp to brag to me about his fresh marks and bruises from the night's fighting. This time it was 8 a. m. liquor breath.

Have I done it already? Are the BTP coming in the Prius to stop me stereotyping native Americans as wild drinkers? If so, they are too late. When I really needed them was when a guy appeared outside my hotel room in the middle of the night in Anchorage with his entire t-shirt spattered with blood.

"Jesus buddy, are you OK? Have you been shot?"
"No man, I've just been fighting," the guy slurred. "I've been fightin' em ALL tonight!"

But let's get my narrative back to Ekwok, where I set up a camp on the gravel of the airstrip and dried out my boat and tent in one of the only sunny days of my entire trip. While I was busy with this, at least fifty four-wheelers drove by my camp, often with four or five people hanging on them, and sometimes with people waving to me as they checked me out. In a town where the full-sized roads peter out into forest single-track after just a few miles, cars and trucks are very few. The four-wheeler is king. And the cheechako camped out at the airport is entertainment! After several dozen four-wheelers had paraded by, one finally stopped to say hello. This was George Taylor, who not only introduced me to his wife Vera, but invited me to get on the other fender and come over for coffee. I said I was just laying down for the night but would love to take him up on that offer in the morning.

And so I did! And I'm glad I did. George was a genuinely kind man who seemed to sense what I really needed after two weeks on the river alone, and provided it: morning coffee, a phone for checking on planes, and intelligent conversation. This mellow old fellow, it turned out, was a rabid environmentalist determined to stop the Pebble Mine much as John Muir was determined to stop the O'Shaugnessy dam. I hope he and his associates at http://www.stoppebblemine.com/ end up doing better than John did. George seemed deeply offended that people would even consider putting a mine at the headwaters of the river that ran by his home and provided the salmon for his backyard smokehouse. "They've got a hundred-year history of making fools of us, but I'll tell you, this old Eskimo knows when they're pulling the wool over his eyes."

George actually was an eskimo, a transplant from native lands far north of Ekwok. This apparently made him something of an outsider in Ekwok, which may be what made him sympathetic and kind to the cheechako over on the airstrip. His wife Vera was a true Ekwok native, and I was amused to see that even after only a day in town I recognized a few of the people in her numerous family photos on the wall. Before I left to go catch my plane George made sure to give me a copy of "Shadows on the Koyukuk," which is the bildungsroman of a half-white half-native from the native lands north of the Yukon river. It is a very good, recommendable read for anyone interested in Alaska.

It's funny what an unexpected dose of human warmth from unexpected quarters can do for your psyche. I had to sit several hours in the rain on the Ekwok airstrip waiting for my plane, but I did so with a rather pleasant sense of being in a special, pleasant place (it helped that the town mailman, a guy named Bill, took my water bottle and filled it with hot coffee for me). Sitting there on the bags containing my boat and camping gear, I got some of the odd sense of being a highly random element that accidentally fell into the correct spot in the puzzle, if only momentarily. I've had this sense when landing the tarpon with the Nicaraguan dudes (see January) and a few other times in Japan and elsewhere.



Speaking of elsewhere, the last couple days of my last float ended in a coastal native village called Quinhagak. In Quinhagak there was another airstrip wait, though this one was drier and less lonely; my four buddies and I got special visits from the local artisans who had lots of handcrafts and really seemed to want to exchange them for some hard currency. I step carefully here again, checking the windows for the paisley Prius . . . but just imagine if I were ignorant enough of the marine species protection act, and fascinated enough by local foods and customs, to ask if there might be any seal oil on sale? According to the protagonist of "Shadows on the Koyukuk" and other sources, a little bit of seal oil goes a long way to making a cold outdoorsman warm again, and giving him energy and strength. Western experts note that it is super-rich in omega 3 acids. And if, hypothetically, it were legal to possess, I myself might even consider keeping a small vial of it among my kayaking gear, just in case of cold times.



Ekwok will soon be starting its nice long winter. I hope George will have time to read the two books I sent him: "Coming into the Country" by John McPhee and "Sketches from a Hunter's Album" by Ivan Turgenev. After taking in the native perspective on the wild country, I wanted to send him some cheechako perspectives on the same. McPhee's book is about the Yukon country, with a great essay on floating down the Kobuk. I'm curious to see what George makes of it. I also want to see if he agrees that Turgenev describes weather and country and animals like no other writer. There's snail mail to Ekwok in the near future! And, in the more distant, I hope, more visits.