If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name Read online

  Back when I was writing the obituary for Lillian Hammond, I learned that she, too, had an unusual nickname. The distinguished Tlingit elder was called Storehouse Mama. The name was given to her by friends impressed by her cooking and especially her well-stocked pantry. She had other names, too: Shalee Tlaa was her Tlingit language name. She was also Mrs. Hammond and always Sister Lillian when she rang the Salvation Army bell at Christmastime in the Pioneer Bar; but the people she loved best of all called her Mom.

  THE OTHER DAY Stoli and I were the only ones home. The tide was high and the water calm, so we decided to take the kayak around Pyramid Island. Paddling away from the beach, she asked what her mother looks like. “Just like me,” I started to say, but that wasn’t what she’d meant.

  “She’s probably tall, dark, and pretty, like you,” I said. All I really know is that she left her three-week-old daughter with a special name in an orphanage and never came back. I told Stoli that her mother hoped she’d find a family like ours, that she loved her and wanted her to have a good life.

  “Mom,” she said, “I wish I had a picture of my mother.”

  I wished I’d read those adoption books more carefully. Luckily, her attention shifted to what we thought was a seal but turned out to be a log. The wind picked up, and the way home was difficult. I paddled hard to keep the kayak upright and level. We got wet. Stoli asked if everything was all right, and I assured her we would be fine. Then I guided the boat with my precious cargo through rough water to the safe shore, because that’s what mothers do.

  DULY NOTED

  Spelunker Kevin Allred helped scientists find some of the oldest human remains in North America in a cave on Prince of Wales Island recently. Paleontologist Tim Heaton says the bones date back ninety-two hundred years. He believes the discovery could prove that people lived in southeast Alaska before the Bering Land Bridge was formed, which means the New World may have been settled by people who traveled here in boats, rather than walking from Asia, as was previously thought.

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  Ever wonder where all those tourists come from? This summer the American Bald Eagle Foundation’s Dave Olerud has talked with people from Israel, Europe, Asia, and the Lower Forty-eight, including a busload of teenagers from Detroit. Dave said visitors generally appreciate the Alaskan wilderness. “This country has so much space they can’t believe it.”

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  About sixty Haines residents attended the Rachel Carson Day festivities Sunday. The celebration included an organic potluck, a reading from Carson’s book Silent Spring, and the showing of a movie adaptation of that same book. “The highlight of the meal was an outstanding cake,” said coordinator Fiona Campbell. The cake, decorated by George Figdor, depicted scenes of environmental destruction. “It was really an exceptional evening,” Fiona said.

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  Haines High School graduate Cody Loomis recently received his airplane mechanic certification from the Federal Aviation Administration. Cody is back home after making the dean’s list at the University of Alaska in Anchorage. He plans to work as a sportfishing guide in Elfin Cove this summer.

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  Peculiar Awe

  THE OTHER DAY I had a near-death experience. I’m exaggerating—a little. I flew from Haines to Juneau in a small commuter airplane, a Piper Aircraft Company Cherokee Six. The planes have low wings and usually seat six, including the pilot. This one had seats for four; the two in the back had been removed to make room for mail. The weather was good and the flight uneventful. It’s just that I don’t like flying. Planes make me scared and sick. When I was pregnant with Christian and J.J., I flew to all my prenatal appointments in Juneau. Our little Haines clinic had stopped delivering babies by then. With two other small children at home, I couldn’t be gone overnight, which eliminated the ferry as an option. I always flew with the same pilot, Barb, a middle-aged New Zealander. She was cautious and brave and made me feel completely safe. Then she died. In a plane crash. Her plane hit a snowy mountaintop between here and Glacier Bay. Later I heard that one of the passengers may have had a can of bear-repellent pepper spray that exploded.

  Now whenever I fly to Juneau I prepare for an unexpected landing. And I’m not the only one. The FAA has been running public service announcements on KHNS, informing rural fliers of passenger responsibilities. They actually tell you to dress for the weather and carry emergency survival gear, to be aware of “pilot fatigue,” and to pay attention to any hazardous conditions. Like bad weather. If that doesn’t make a nervous flier worry, I don’t know what will. You’d think the pilot or airline would determine if it were safe to take off, not me.

  So I made sure to dress carefully for my flight to Juneau. I wanted to look nice for the meeting I was going to and still be able to survive on a cold mountainside or wet beach until the Coast Guard rescued me. Before I left the house, I stuffed a zip-locked bag with a Power Bar, a lighter, paraffin, a space blanket, and a Swiss Army knife into one pocket of my coat, a jacket with a fleece lining and a waterproof shell. In the other pocket were gloves and a hat. I did have on a nice shirt, but I wore jeans, wool socks, and running shoes. I’d change into a skirt and clogs in Juneau.

  At the airport, I climbed into a plane about the size of a Subaru station wagon. It was just me and the pilot. I’d never seen him before, and he was young. I like old pilots. They’ve lived longer. To reassure me after the stomach-dropping takeoff over the river flats, he shouted something about a narrow strip of beach we could land on in an emergency. He tipped the plane so I could see what he meant. I didn’t look down. A few minutes later he announced that we were four thousand feet up in the air and moving through it at 140 miles an hour. I asked if we could fly lower. He said once you’re over five hundred feet it’s all the same. “The death spiral would just be less dramatic.”

  The death spiral? I was hot. It was a warm day, and I was wearing too many layers. Moisture beaded up on my forehead. I was flushed with fear and nausea. I felt a pulse in my stomach. I put my head between my knees and breathed in and out, slowly. The pilot asked if I was all right. “Fine,” I shouted to the vibrating floorboards over the whine of the engine. We hurtled through the air for what seemed like hours but was actually about forty minutes. There was a light sort of dip as the pilot steadied the little plane above the end of the runway and a jolt when tires met tarmac. After a short taxi to the terminal the plane stopped.

  The pilot tapped me on the shoulder to see if I was conscious. Still in a tuck, I looked up. He grinned and said, “The most dangerous part of this flight is when we get out of the plane; you can slip on the wing and hit your head pretty easily.” He was teasing, but I heard concern in his voice, even pity.

  Hold it.

  I play shortstop for a softball team called the Diehards. I have run six marathons. We were on the ground now. Terra firma. I sat up, looked my pilot right in the eye, pulled down on the latch above me, and popped open the door with as much authority as Beryl Markham. Then I crawled out onto the wing, slid off on the seat of my pants, and stood, dizzy but successfully deplaned. Inside the terminal, I raced to the bathroom and threw up.

  I’M SURE MR. CAVE never got airsick. He loved to fly. The first time I saw his plane land on the beach was when we were still building our house and the Caves were thinking about buying the one next door. It was, coincidentally, the same home my capable Kiwi pilot had owned before she’d died, a few years before. I was painting upstairs when a small blue-and-white airplane went right by what was going to be our bedroom window—just beyond the spruce trees at eye level. I thought it must be a crash landing and I thought about Barb. I didn’t want to see what that looked like. My heart beat fast and I ran outside in my coveralls, pretty sure I was going to witness a terrible, fiery explosion. Luckily, the landing was right side up. But I still sprinted to be sure the pilot was okay, see if he needed help getting to town or calling whoever you call when your plane is on the ground someplace other than an a
irport.

  I don’t understand how planes, big or small, stay in the air. I mean, I know about lift and thrust and air moving over wings and propellers and jet engines and all that, but I don’t trust something so heavy to fly for long. However, I do think pilots are exceptional people. Mr. Cave didn’t disappoint. He climbed down from the pilot’s seat, smiling, and assured me that he was fine. Finer than fine; he’d landed his plane here on purpose. Mr. Cave didn’t look like a bush pilot. He was dressed like an insurance salesman, in pressed slacks, a golf jacket, and clean suede Hush Puppies. Here was a man who could land a plane on the beach so confidently that he didn’t dress for “the unlikely event of an emergency” landing. He was so sure he wouldn’t get his feet wet that he didn’t even wear rubber boots. I was awestruck.

  At dinner, when I told the family all about it, Chip was equally impressed by our potential neighbor-to-be, but the kids didn’t see what the big deal was. They assume that all planes land safely. The next few times Mr. Cave flew in, they watched him land the plane, but after the Caves bought the house, we all got used to seeing them fly in and out of our backyard.

  The last time I saw the Caves was the weekend before Eliza and I flew to Bulgaria to adopt Stoli. Mrs. Cave came over while I was weeding the garden. I gave her some lettuce, and we talked about our families and my big trip. She was interested. She said she’d like to volunteer in a foreign orphanage some day. The nature of the Caves’ visits—weekend getaways—made them a different kind of neighbor than my Haines friends. Our relationship was more formal. Mrs. Cave said to call her Shirley, and I did, sometimes, but I never called Glenn Cave anything but Mr. Cave. We didn’t talk about the weather or birds. We didn’t walk into each other’s kitchens without knocking. The Caves left for Juneau later that afternoon. My nephews were visiting from New York and thought a plane taking off from the beach was pretty cool. It was clear and calm when we all went out and waved them off. My sister asked if this was dangerous. She and the boys had come up from Juneau on a small plane, and she hadn’t liked it. (She and her husband also try to fly on separate jets when they travel, just in case.) I could understand her concern, but I told her they do it all the time.

  Halfway down Lynn Canal the Caves landed at a church camp on Berner’s Bay for dinner with friends. Afterward they offered their friends’ newlywed son and daughter-in-law a ride back to Juneau. Near the airport, they ran into clouds and couldn’t see where they were going. The guess is that Mr. Cave tried to turn around over the water but became disoriented in the clouds. He hit a wooded hill on Douglas Island instead. All four of them died instantly. My sister was more stunned than I was when we heard the news. The kids couldn’t believe it, and still don’t quite understand what happened. But they don’t think it has anything to do with airplanes.

  There is risk to getting around in this country, and you can’t let fear of flying (or boats or even wild animals) keep you from it—or you might as well live in New York. My sister doesn’t let her boys out of her sight except in supervised school or club activities. The highlight of the first trip my five- and seven-year-old nephews took here was walking from our old apartment above the lumberyard down the road to Mountain Market for bagels and back without a grown-up. The store was out of bagels, so the boys went past the library, school, and shops on Main Street to the bakery and came home with doughnuts instead.

  After I heard the news about the Caves, I talked to my neighbors Don and Betty Holgate. They are no strangers to tragedy. If their only son had lived, he would be forty-two now. Close to my age. Don and Betty could have had a whole pack of grandchildren, just about my kids’ ages. They talk about Jonathan a lot. He drowned with three other young people from Haines twenty years ago, when their boat sank while they were halibut fishing. Once I asked Don if it was hard, remembering. He said it was. Some people couldn’t see why he and Betty stayed in Haines after the accident. Especially, they reckoned, since this wild country took his son’s life. After he told me this, Don shook his head, baffled that anyone would blame Alaska. “There really is no place like this, anywhere, is there?” he said. “Besides, where else would we go?”

  Now Don and Betty—she’s a former flight instructor and he’s a veteran pilot—wondered out loud about Mr. Cave’s experience flying with instruments. Don said that in the clouds you can’t rely on your senses. What feels like up may be down. When I got home, I read Psalm 139, for the Caves, and for Betty and Don: “If I take the wings of the morning and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.” At dinner we said a special prayer for the Caves. My sister said, “Big planes are fine—but not these little puddle jumpers.” Then Sarah told the story about another fatal crash, this one over the Davidson Glacier, two sightseeing planes ran into clouds. One pilot turned around and came back to the airport; the other said over the radio that he was sure he could make it to the “other side.” The joke then was that their new slogan was “From Here to Eternity.” That’s how we deal with these things around here. Laugh nervously and change the subject. Chip tried to be more serious, assuring Kathleen that the regularly scheduled flights between Haines and Juneau never crash. “I can’t think of one,” he said. Neither could I. But Kathleen decided to take the ferry to Juneau on the way home, instead of flying out of Haines.

  After the dishes were done, I went out in the garden and looked at the Caves’ house. Mr. Cave had been building an addition, a big sunroom, and he had left his ladder up. He must have planned to fly back the next day. God, it was just so awful. The crash made the Chilkat Valley News, but the Caves’ obituary was in the Juneau Empire. They didn’t really live here. I’m glad I didn’t have to write it.

  Their house was empty for a year. I wasn’t sure if anyone would live in it again, ever. The Caves’ grown children had scattered their parents’ ashes in the backyard, making it almost impossible for them to let go of the property. Then one night when I was tucking the girls into bed, we saw lights from the windows next door. Someone was in the Caves’ old house. I hoped it wasn’t another pilot. They say bad things happen in threes around here. Deaths are even supposed to line up that way. I’ve tried to keep track, but it depends on when you start counting. You can always make it work or not. Turns out our new neighbors were the Caves’ friends from the church camp. A pastor and his wife. The same friends who’d lost their son and daughter-in-law in the plane crash. They were going to spend the winter in Haines. In that house. Stoli asked about the Caves and the new couple next door. The accident had happened before she’d arrived. I told her how the Caves used to be our neighbors before she got here, but that they had died when their plane crashed. “Now do they live in heaven?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said, and hoped heaven has a runway on a beach just like ours so Mr. Cave can take off and land all he wants without ever getting his feet wet.

  THE CAVE CHILDREN never did sell the house. Those first tenants became the new pastors at the Port Chilkoot Bible Church and moved to the parsonage. The place was vacant for a season, and Pastor Hicks, from the Assembly of God, moved in when his apartment in the church was needed for meetings and Sunday school. But before his second stormy winter, he, too, moved to a more protected location. Now another church-affiliated older couple is house-sitting.

  John Muir wrote about a trip he took in southeast Alaska in 1879: “No words can convey anything like an adequate conception of its sublime grandeur, the noble simplicity and fineness of the sculpture of the walls.... Still more impotent are words in telling the peculiar awe one experiences in entering these mansions of the icy north.” Wild places are reminders that the world doesn’t revolve around us. It doesn’t care about our little successes or smashing failures. The tides ebb and flow and the seasons change regardless of how we live or die. That, I think, is what Muir meant when he wrote that his first view of glaciers prompted a “peculiar awe.” It is both inspirational and humbling. I like that feeling. I think most people w
ho live here do, or they wouldn’t stay.

  So, despite my fear of flying, when Ken, who used to be “the new millionaire” in town, and maybe the only one, but is now a friend and very good neighbor, called and asked if I wanted to fly out to Yakutat to see the Hubbard Glacier close off Russell Fiord, I said yes. He knows I don’t like to fly but thought I should see the glacier make a new lake from an old inlet. It could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The sky was unbroken blue, there was hardly a breeze, and it was sixty-five degrees. “It’s a perfect day for flying,” he said. Ken also knows how curious I am about everything that goes on around here, both natural and manmade. So I said yes, because I really wanted to see it—and because I trust Ken.

  We fly 131 roadless miles north of Haines over raw mountainsides covered with snow, ice, and wide, mostly gravel river valleys. When we get near the Hubbard Glacier, Ken drops down to a thousand feet for a closer look. The Hubbard is six miles wide and over seventy miles long. The front wall stands up four hundred feet above Disenchantment Bay. It’s big and impressive. Of course, in this setting, with ten-thousand-foot peaks rising out of rivers of ice on all sides, everything you see is big and impressive. We are mostly silent, trying to take it all in. I murmur “wow” a lot. Russell Fiord is a deep teal. It is startling in this brown-and-white world. Disenchantment Bay is so thick with debris from the calving glacier that it looks like a terrazzo floor. I strain to see any boats. There are none. There are no planes or helicopters either, just us. The glacier hasn’t closed the fjord off to seawater yet, but the dam of ice and mud that it’s pushing forward has. All that’s left is a roiling river, about thirty feet wide, running out the bottom of the pile of rocks.