Every spring, I think of the old-timers who
didn’t make it through yet another Alaska winter. This year, I lost two
such friends. They lived in Eagle, a town of 135 people on the Yukon
River. These are their stories.
Some would call Dave a hermit. Others might call him a gentleman. His home was an eight- by 10-foot cabin made of plywood five miles up the Yukon River from Eagle. His previous dwelling—a drafty log cabin not much larger—had been too big, “Like living in a ballroom without a dancing partner,” he said.
In the winter, Bill, my boyfriend, and I would check on Dave every few days, walking the mile and a half from our cabin to make sure he had enough wood and food as the temperatures fell to negative 30, 40, 50 or below. Our visits always followed the same pattern as we fit into the simple rhythm of his day.
We hailed his cabin as we approached on the narrow trail through the woods. Dave, a gaunt figure in his 70s with an erect bearing came to the narrow doorway dressed in heavy wool pants and sweater. “Greetings,” he called out in a gentle voice, giving us a slight, but welcoming, nod. Dave rarely received visitors—most people were deterred by the Keep Out sign at the entrance to the trail. His unwashed hair stood up stiffly and around his mouth his tangled gray beard had yellowed from decades of pipe-smoking. Dirt thick enough to have been laid on with a palette knife covered his face, already discolored and scarred by frostbite. Soot ground into his pores stippled his face with black dots. It was commonly known that Dave didn’t take a bath all winter, but that was not considered particularly odd behavior in Eagle, where many people lacked running water. The road to Eagle closed every winter, and the effect was always a delicious feeling of isolation from the outside world, which suited Dave, and us, just fine.
Our neighbor invited us into his cabin for tea. With a courtly gesture, Dave offered me the best seat in the house: the end of his army cot closest to his tiny woodstove. He sat on an overturned bucket and Bill sat next to me. Dave always apologized for having only one cup, but we came prepared. Bill pulled a tin cup from the pocket of his parka, along with half a loaf of homemade bread or, Dave’s favorite, a hunk of cheddar cheese.
Throwing a handful of loose tea leaves into a pan, Dave would let the tea steep while he filled his pipe from a pouch of Prince Albert tobacco. He took his time, as he did in all things—what did time matter in a place like Eagle, where life moved according to the seasons? Dave was also slowed by his right hand, which had been impaired by a stroke some years earlier. And yet, somehow he still managed to cut all his firewood with a bow saw, haul water from town, and do not-always-easy tasks, like refilling the kerosene lamp.
I never tired of looking at the simple setting. A dented wash basin. A cast iron skillet. A single shelf held his meager larder: oatmeal, corned beef hash, canned peaches, and not much more. Wool socks dried on a line above the stove. A trapper’s hat made of marten fur hung on a peg on the door. The few people Dave accepted as friends often passed things on to him, but he refused to accumulate more “scatter,” as he called it; new things didn’t stay long before he gave them away. We never left his cabin without a used sharpening stone, a handful of .22 shells, a can of evaporated milk.
by Louise Freeman, Anchorage Press | Read more:
Some would call Dave a hermit. Others might call him a gentleman. His home was an eight- by 10-foot cabin made of plywood five miles up the Yukon River from Eagle. His previous dwelling—a drafty log cabin not much larger—had been too big, “Like living in a ballroom without a dancing partner,” he said. In the winter, Bill, my boyfriend, and I would check on Dave every few days, walking the mile and a half from our cabin to make sure he had enough wood and food as the temperatures fell to negative 30, 40, 50 or below. Our visits always followed the same pattern as we fit into the simple rhythm of his day.
We hailed his cabin as we approached on the narrow trail through the woods. Dave, a gaunt figure in his 70s with an erect bearing came to the narrow doorway dressed in heavy wool pants and sweater. “Greetings,” he called out in a gentle voice, giving us a slight, but welcoming, nod. Dave rarely received visitors—most people were deterred by the Keep Out sign at the entrance to the trail. His unwashed hair stood up stiffly and around his mouth his tangled gray beard had yellowed from decades of pipe-smoking. Dirt thick enough to have been laid on with a palette knife covered his face, already discolored and scarred by frostbite. Soot ground into his pores stippled his face with black dots. It was commonly known that Dave didn’t take a bath all winter, but that was not considered particularly odd behavior in Eagle, where many people lacked running water. The road to Eagle closed every winter, and the effect was always a delicious feeling of isolation from the outside world, which suited Dave, and us, just fine.
Our neighbor invited us into his cabin for tea. With a courtly gesture, Dave offered me the best seat in the house: the end of his army cot closest to his tiny woodstove. He sat on an overturned bucket and Bill sat next to me. Dave always apologized for having only one cup, but we came prepared. Bill pulled a tin cup from the pocket of his parka, along with half a loaf of homemade bread or, Dave’s favorite, a hunk of cheddar cheese.
Throwing a handful of loose tea leaves into a pan, Dave would let the tea steep while he filled his pipe from a pouch of Prince Albert tobacco. He took his time, as he did in all things—what did time matter in a place like Eagle, where life moved according to the seasons? Dave was also slowed by his right hand, which had been impaired by a stroke some years earlier. And yet, somehow he still managed to cut all his firewood with a bow saw, haul water from town, and do not-always-easy tasks, like refilling the kerosene lamp.
I never tired of looking at the simple setting. A dented wash basin. A cast iron skillet. A single shelf held his meager larder: oatmeal, corned beef hash, canned peaches, and not much more. Wool socks dried on a line above the stove. A trapper’s hat made of marten fur hung on a peg on the door. The few people Dave accepted as friends often passed things on to him, but he refused to accumulate more “scatter,” as he called it; new things didn’t stay long before he gave them away. We never left his cabin without a used sharpening stone, a handful of .22 shells, a can of evaporated milk.
by Louise Freeman, Anchorage Press | Read more:
