Nathan B. Spooner
So you want to live in Alaska, well then go ahead, but try moving
there sometime in January, in Juneau ,when the Taku Winds scream off the
mountain and down along Franklin Street at close to a hundred miles per hour. I
could say how fast they’ve been recorded but you wouldn’t believe it and I
don’t either.
Once the wind gets way beyond the speed limit and the temperature
drops below zero, try moving on glare ice, or try get from your vehicle to your
front door. Oh well, you have no business being outside anyway.
I remember waking up one January morning in the Glacier View
trailer park and our neighbor’s 70 foot mobile home had been blown a dozen feet
of its mounting support during the night. I could see plumbing lines hanging
embarrassingly off into nowhere, water intake and exit lines dangling loose as
a tree branch in November.
But wait, other times in the night, step outside to follow
glowing, pulsing northern lights, changing, shifting colors with unbelievable,
magnificent phenomena that keep your eyes wide open with shades of grey, then
blue, white and yellow, motion upon ever changing patterns, heaven-created,
angels in the sky, beyond our touch.
Yet others from the land tell us how the lights, almost touching
the earth, spirits dancing in the icy night sky, lost ancestors they say. And
then I think, no scientist will ever find out more about the phenomena than
people of the land already know.
And then, eight miles south of Ketchikan, living at a place called
the Homestead, Omar in school and Sonya sleeping in her crib, a nice spring
day, Lise and I walk a few yards along a little path to the edge of the forest
and sit on the soft, spongy ground cover that springs up so fast after the snow
melts. I have my Russian balalaika and as I’m quietly strumming and singing a
song called “Dark Eyes”, we hear a rustling in the forest.
We both look in that direction as a young black bear, about 400
pounds, steps out of the forest and onto the path maybe 15 feet away, between
us and the house.
That wild animal stops for a moment, slowly turns its head toward
us as I keep on playing the instrument, trying not to miss a beat. I can’t be
sure but I think the creature may have swayed it’s massive head just slightly
back and forth before moving on into the forest.
I like to think the bear appreciated the music. In any case, it
all happened so quickly, so flowing with the moment, and the bear really did
appear to listen, even if only for a moment.