My first two
months in Juneau were idyllic. Fresh from the steel and concrete landscape of
my home city, I was intoxicated with the sheer quantity of nature. I’d expected mountains, I’d expected ocean, and
I’d expected forest, but there was no way I could have been prepared for the
vastness and immediacy of all three. Even when I leaned against the marble
columns at the entrance of the state capital building, I was within easy
walking distance of wilderness. Mother Nature loomed over me and I reveled in
her intimate proximity.
In
mid-April, within days of arriving, I managed to rent a one-room log cabin with
a curtained bathroom and a sleeping loft. Set alongside a picturesque stream
and up against the green-drenched forest, the cabin seemed to embody every
rustic daydream of my youth. I imagined myself as a modern day Thoreau, and the
stream as my Walden Pond.
I spent the next
five weeks learning how to keep a fire burning in the cast iron wood stove that
heated the cabin. In between whispered curses, shivering, and repeated jostling
of the smoldering firewood, I tapped out the entire first draft of my book.
Words flowed out of my fingers and onto the screen of my laptop with an
alacrity they’d never shown in a better heated, more civilized environment. The
novelty of my situation set free a downpour of words that mirrored the heavy
showers of the temperate rainforest outside.
By late May,
the pile of firewood on the porch had begun to dry out and I was finally
getting the hang of making fire. Rain gave way to several weeks of sunshine and
I put my manuscript aside in favor of adventuring with friends. I was, after
all, in paradise and there were ice fields and glaciers, fjords, hidden bays,
and beaches. When the rain returned, more of a drizzle than a downpour, I had
blisters on top of blisters from the new set of boots I’d broken in. I was weary
from too many late night bonfires, too much companionship, and too many miles
of hiking. I looked forward to the sedentary task of revising my manuscript,
and to the solitude of the cabin, with a giddy sense of optimism.
It took less
than a morning of revision to squelch my giddiness and after two days, my
optimism hung in tattered shreds. Where had all my lovely words gone? Where
were the clever turns of phrase, the layers of symbolism, the rich characters
that I’d rejoiced in? They were gone and what remained were only hollow echoes.
My disappointment tasted sour, and vaguely rotten, on the back of my tongue. In
the long days that followed, I pored over my manuscript, tweaking and shifting
phrases and sentences until my head spun, but that vague rotten flavor only
grew stronger.
I was a week
into revisions when an absent-minded stroll down to the stream beside my cabin
revealed that it wasn’t disappointment I’d been tasting all along, but in fact,
the rank stench of rotting fish. Several cadaverous salmon bodies littered the
stream bank, half-eaten and covered in buzzing horseflies. The sight of empty
eye-sockets and putrefying fish flesh sent me stumbling and retching back to
the cabin where I brewed a cup of peppermint tea. While helpful in settling my
stomach, the tea did nothing to alleviate the stink. Once I was aware of the
source, I couldn’t stop smelling it. I couldn’t stop smelling it, and I couldn’t
stop thinking about it.
Over the
next few days, I stopped working on my manuscript. Instead, I filled the cabin
with sweet-scented candles, the flames flickering day and night. I brewed and
drank cup after cup of peppermint tea, and I smeared essential oil of clove
beneath my nostrils, but nothing blocked out the rancid odor. Nothing washed
away the sensation of having that smell somehow lodged inside of me, lingering
in my nose and throat. Instead, the stink seemed to thicken and linger, mixing
with the sweet scents I tried to combat it with, melding with them until peppermint,
clove, and candle wax were inextricably linked, in my mind, with the smell of
decay and death.
I watched
from my cabin window as more and more salmon arrived, half-rotten but still swimming,
still flapping, still struggling up the shallow stream. I watched them strand
themselves in shallow eddies, thrashing against the rocky stream bed where they
slowly suffocated. I assumed, of course, that this bizarre incursion of
ocean-going fish, and their subsequent deaths, was a sign of something dire.
Perhaps the fish were lost, their brains damaged by too much pollution. Or,
maybe they were confused by the sonar pings of too many ships. There could be
some enormous predator just off shore, driving the terrified fish up stream. By
the time I worked up the courage to call one of my new friends, I was more
than halfway convinced that I was witnessing a sign of end times.
My worried
phone call was met with laughter and a brief explanation of the reproductive
cycle of salmon. The salmon were spawning, laying and fertilizing eggs right
there, outside my cabin. No, the adult fish couldn’t be saved. No, there was
nothing that could be done about the smell. No, there was nobody I could call
to come clean up the mess. The dead salmon were an important part of the
environmental niche. Wild animals and the flow of the stream itself would take
care of the clean-up before winter began. Wild animals? Oh, you know, otter,
mink, eagles, ravens, and bears. Bears? Yes, bears. My friend instructed me to
keep my distance from the bears, to avoid getting between any cubs and their
mama, and to stop trying to cover up the smell of decomposing fish. I was
wasting my time with candles and essential oils. It would only get worse before
it got better.
I hung up
the phone feeling both relieved, and much more worried. On one hand, the dying
fish, while macabre, were perfectly normal and natural. On the other hand…bears.
Sure, I’d wanted to see bears in Alaska, but I wanted to see them from far
away. I wanted to see them from a boat, or a plane, or a car. I did not want to
see them from my home.
As though
the bears had overheard my phone call, I saw the first two late that very evening
as dusk settled over the cabin. In the dim light, the two animals were little
more than silhouettes. I watched them lumber gracefully along the stream for at
least two minutes before retreating to the sleeping loft where I huddled,
trembling, under my blankets.
As my friend
had predicted, the smell of rotting fish grew stronger as the days progressed.
I also began seeing bears alongside the stream each day. I became more and more
isolated, too afraid to make the short walk from the front door to my car when
there were bears nearby, and too distracted by the stink and by my fear to
concentrate on revising my manuscript. Besides, I rationalized; there was no
point in revising something I loathed.
I finally
reached my breaking point in July. I’d been putting off leaving the house to go
grocery shopping and was down to crackers and a jar of sweet pickles. I spent
all morning peeking out my windows and waiting for the right moment to make my
exit. Finally, in the mid-afternoon, there was a break in the bear activity. I
checked every window twice. Not a bear to be seen. I grabbed my keys and
wallet, opened the door, prepared to run the fifty feet to my car, and came to
dead stop. There, on the porch, was a porcupine the size of Shetland sheepdog! The
creature faced me, blocking my escape route, and with a gleam in its shiny
black eyes it began to hum the melody to “Teddy Bears’ Picnic”. With slow
deliberation, the porcupine waddled across the porch, down the steps, and into
the nearby brush, still humming. I turned on my heel, went back inside, piled my
clothes and laptop into my suitcase and walked out of the cabin by the stream,
never to return. That place was not Walden, and I was not Thoreau.
