By noon the most perfect calm had settled upon the water. The sky was cloudless, and although really it was still very cold the bright sun looked like warmth—and that helped a lot. So Olson’s little engine, sputtering, stammering, stopping a great deal, carried us upon our trip. At Humpback Creek there are falls maybe thirty feet high, perfect falls tumbling sheer down from a plateau into a deep round basin. The falls to-day were frozen and spread wide over the face of the cliff; but it was easy to imagine the grace of their summer form. We had to hurry from here or be stranded by the rapidly retreating tide. Next we went to a spot on the bay where Rockwell and I might have lived had we not met Olson that fair Sunday in August. A little cabin stood there—open to the weather through doorway and window but otherwise snug and comfortable. Still, even with that great wonder, the fall, so near, that spot was not to be compared with our own Fox Island home. Next we went to Sunny Bay to visit the old trapper who has been wintering there—the same who stopped last fall at our island while on his way to camp. The old fellow came to meet us as we landed, a feeble, emaciated figure. He has been sick all winter and has done practically no trapping. What a forlorn latter end for a man! He drags himself about each day, cuts wood, lugs water, cooks, and when he stoops dizziness overcomes him. He sets a small circle of traps and drags himself around to tend them. His whole winter’s work is twelve ermine and two mink-thirty or forty dollars’ worth at the most. We offered to bring the old man back with us and from here on to Seward—but he preferred to stay there a few days longer.
And now I sit here with our packed household goods about me, empty walls and a dismantled home. Still we hardly realize that this beautiful adventure of ours has come to an end. The enchantment of it has been complete; it has possessed us to the very last. How long such happiness could hold, such quiet life continue to fill up the full measure of human desires only a long experience could teach. The still, deep cup of the wilderness is potent with wisdom. Only to have tasted it is to have moved a lifetime forward to a finer youth.
Tuesday, March eighteenth.
Fox Island is behind us. Last August Olson picked us up as strangers and towed us to his island; yesterday, after nearly seven months there with him we climbed again into our dories and crossed the bay—and now we extend the helping hand to the old man and tow him and his faltering engine back to Seward. The day dawned cold and windy. We proceeded however at once to the completion of our packing and the loading of the boat.
A little after noon the wind moderating slightly we persuaded Olson to come with us. My engine working beautifully carried both boats along till the other little motor could be prevailed upon to start. In the bay the wind was fresh and the chop high. Half-way across the wind had risen and the water flew. Olson’s engine worked so poorly that most of the time I had the full strain of his dory on the line. I feared the old man’s courage would give out as the sea increased, and I grinned at him reassuringly from time to time. Finally, however, as the white-crested waves seemed to rush ever more fiercely upon us his face grew solemn. He waved to us to turn and run back to the island. But the tow line was fast in my boat and I neither chose to turn nor loosen it. Showing our backs to him we ran for the shelter of Caine’s Head—and made it. From there onward we skirted the cliffs and found it smooth enough. The wind again died out and we entered Seward over a glassy sea.
And now at last it is over. Fox Island will soon become in our memories like a dream or vision, a remote experience too wonderful, for the full liberty we knew there and the deep peace, to be remembered or believed in as a real experience in life. It was for us life as it should be, serene and wholesome; love—but no hate, faith without disillusionment, the absolute for the toiling hands of man and for his soaring spirit. Olson of the deep experience, strong, brave, generous and gentle like a child; and his island—like Paradise. Ah God,—and now the world again!
| The book cover image for Wilderness, A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska was created by Matthew D. Wheaton and is in the public domain. |