Deadhorse: A Winter's Jaunt Above the Arctic Circle

Prudhoe Bay General Sto

Most of the passengers aboard the plane between Anchorage and Deadhorse wore some article of clothing emblazoned with their purpose of travel: a Mistras hat; a GCI sweatshirt; a BP windbreaker. Though my allegiances weren’t so overt, TSA undoubtedly knew what I was up to--they'd left their calling card in my pelican case that was filled with various types of vice. To everyone else, though, I'd been instructed to fly under the radar.

“If they want to know why I’m visiting,” I asked Tripp, “What’s my answer?”

“Tell them you’re a housekeeper.”

“When I say that, should I raise my eyebrow?”

“Yeah definitely, and then you should ask them which camp they’re staying at, and if there’s an ATM there.”

Fortunately, no one asked.

As we approached touchdown, I was uncertain if we were over clouds or tundra until I saw the pipeline beneath. We landed; the stairs out of the jet shook in the wind. By the time I ducked inside the terminal, my cheeks were beyond numb. I was overcome by this feeling that I was in a place unlike any I’d been before. I grinned and fell in love a little just then.

Sunrise on the Slope

Tripp was there, waiting. We grabbed the pelican case and swung up into his work truck. It was drawing near to 10 AM, but the sun was barely quivering at the horizon, looking sort of like a Japanese lantern in the haze. We drove out the Dalton--the Haul Rd. I drank in the expanse: vast, harsh, stark. It was impossible to discern the boundaries of land, sky, and sea--this time of year, they bear the same color and texture. It was windy: ribbons of snow were perpetually blowing, nothing to stop them. Driving against them was surreal, like going upstream the braided channels of a glacial river.

It was before noon when we checked into the Aurora Hotel, but we fell asleep shortly after, slumbering on through dinner, finally waking after midnight. It was clear; living in Chicago, you come to appreciate a dark starry night.

“Can we go for a drive?” I begged Tripp.

As always, he was ready for adventure. We fortified ourselves with a thermos of coffee and set out the Haul Rd. again, driving until we were free of the lights of town. This took some time, for it was so cold the transmission wouldn’t shift out of second gear. When we reached a properly dark pullout, we stopped and killed the ignition; wind shook the truck. Outside, the aurora was playing across the sky--great tongues of light passing overhead in giant swaths. A sly tear or two slipped out of the corner of my eye as I sat there next to Tripp, grateful to be there, and to be there with him.

Next Services 240 Miles--the start of the Dalton

When the coffee was gone and the aurora dim, we drove back to town and went back to bed. Tripp rose soon--too soon--for work. Fortunately, he came back soon, too. The day’s assignment had been at G&I--grind and inject. There, drill tailings are brought to the surface, and that which has been thousands of feet subterranean for epochs taints all around with an odor Tripp deems jurassic pussy. It smells about how you’d imagine something with a name like that would.

Tripp and a couple of his coworkers took me on a tour of town. Our first stop was a hotel-lobby coffee shop that had a pool table. These coffee shops are one of the only spaces for socializing--and, though Deadhorse is, on paper, damp (meaning you can consume alcohol if you’ve purchased it elsewhere), it might as well be dry; there are no establishments where you can drink it. Housing and vehicles are all company property, all dry. We then made our way to the general store. As expected, it was a fantastic medley of tourist crack (like mugs and crass t-shirts) and Slope essentials (like an entire rack of Hustler magazines). Town bears this atmosphere of a modernized frontier outpost. Buildings are all bland, alike except for the trademarks of the industries they represent. Most are hardscrabble housing for the hordes of transient workers. In fact, the entire place has the feeling of a work camp. Work stays; workers come and go. There are odd Alaskan amenities, like tanning beds for those here during the long, sunless winter hitches. Everywhere there are bull rails--tall hitching posts with electrical cords hanging down, to preserve your vehicles’ batteries in the cold.

Bull Rail at the Aurora

My third and final morning on the slope, we were socked in with fog. After I checked in for my return flight, Tripp and I took one last drive down the Haul Rd. The fog muted everything even more; there would be no chance of finding the muskox we’d seen distantly the day before. Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, is the end of the road and the edge of a continent...it feels like the end of the world.

Exposé on Grief

95 Hardwood Ln., Freedom. 

I:

On the maroon rolling chair under the fluorescent lights and stale air of the library’s computer lab, headphones covering my ears, staring into the screen, like I’ve done so much this year. This is the penultimate Friday of the semester—for me, the penultimate Friday of undergrad. A handful of people are here in the lab, scrambling: cursing the GIS instructor, toying with Lightroom presets, or, like me, tweaking the transitions and audio for the final film project. Premiere Pro’s pink, green, and navy labels in the timeline stand testament to months of vision, of relationships forged, of equipment lists and interview questions, of windy mornings spent filming (and counting migrating seaducks and gannets, for this project was founded on a guise that enabled birding) at Acadia National Park.

I’m proud of this, my first real film. I waded through hours of B-roll in search of the best clips; transcribed interviews to lift the strongest narrative arc. The coursework I tackled at Unity in my pursuit of a degree in Environmental Writing & Media Production were centered on this common ground: no matter the medium, no matter the topic, any story needs a beginning and an end.

I render it and, waiting, check my phone—a message from Gunnar—asking the whereabouts of a mutual friend. Tuesday, the three of us convened on Spankys’ vinyl bar stools, nursing beers while we traded stories from Thanksgiving break and planned future escapades. But I haven’t seen JP since. And I guess the last time anyone saw him was Thursday morning. The computer screen tells me the render is complete. For the first time since Labor Day, I’m on top of my schedule, am largely proud of the semester’s work. I’ve been lusting after this feeling—yearning for next weekend’s jaunt to Quebec, where my friends will join in celebrating the defense of my thesis. But instead of reveling in the moment, it’s overtaken by a sick feeling that bubbles up and seeps through my body with each pump of my quickening heart. I may be on track to graduate, but that doesn’t matter. Something’s not right.

II (Later that night)

“Can you drive?” asks the officer.

“Yes.” I push around people towards the door.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay over tonight?” insists Gunnar (and Danielle, and Sami, and Jon).

“I’m sure.” I back my Tacoma around cop cars, deafen my engine with the stereo, manage through quaking sobs to downshift and upshift through the hills, corners, and potholes between here and home, my refuge. I make it.

Even now a month after, it’s proving difficult to reconstruct the events of an evening that seemed at once both slow motion and fast forward from that horrible moment we all sprinted through soggy leaf litter and dripping woods. It was then the world around us ground into a crushing halt that brought us to our knees, brought us to tears, brought a weight to our shoulders that’s since remained as a burden that makes it difficult to face anything, from the most menial task to the greatest existential questions.

This evening remains a patchwork of events that, currently, are squares thrown haphazardly into a box: untouched, unprocessed, unvisited, never stitched together. The task is too overwhelming, I don’t fucking have time, and I don’t think I’m fit to tackle it anyway. But the parts, even if they’re neglected, cleave to each other and bind themselves into a whole that haunts, maybe forever.

Scene III. (First day)

I come to on the concrete floor in front of my wood stove; my eyes are crusted shut with tears. I open them and gain a new perspective on the cat-hair dust bunnies in the corner. Housekeeping has never been my strong suit. I shove some more birch into the coals, relocate to the wooden chair. It’s grim outside; raindrops race down the windows like the tears racing down my cheeks. I let them fall, wish my words would fall as freely. The pen is poised, paper ready, but nothing comes. I want to write all the memories we shared, preserve them so they never decay—but they won’t come.

“Alison, I want you to know you definitely made my Unity experience better,” he said, less than a month ago.

“Then why are you gone?” I ask. He, one of my favorite partners in crime, made my Unity experience better, too: there was the time we tried (and failed) to bake sourdough amidst the keg and dozens of people my house hosted during my roommate’s 21^st birthday; the time we ditched another party (and an imminent Public Safety interrogation) to carry kayaks all the way from campus to the community bridge for a midnight float under the stars; the weekend the school sponsored the Outing Club to take a ski trip to Quebec. We took a ski trip, but it also had the dual purpose of a drinking trip: we spent at least as much time bar-hopping in the city as we did enjoying Jacques Cartier. When Unity caught wind of it, the Outing Club came under fire. I culled the tasteful parts of our experiences into a redemptive blog post that sort of salvaged our reputation, but preserved the full debauchery in a file titled “explicit Quebec.” I’d planned to give it to him when I graduated, along with a letter commemorating my favorite classless moments with him. That’s the sort of thing I should be writing—not a frantic memory reclamation.

I give up, text Rose, my former roommate with a beautiful soul who is, providentially, in town.

“I need you to come over.”

Soon, she arrives. I collapse into her arms before she even makes it in the door. This moment will be repeated scores of times today. Sometimes I am the shoulder, sometimes I am the tears; more often, I am both.

Campus holds a vigil that evening, and basically the whole school turns out, testament to his huge, unmatchable presence that has already left a gaping, joy-sucking hole in so many hearts—a hole that, if you spend too much time on the edge, will suck you in. He was an Adventure kid, and Adventure people do this thing where they popcorn words to describe something.

“Smile.” “Passion.” “Patagooch!” yells someone in the back. “Handsome,” says Shelby; a smile flickers on my lips. We all are thinking it, but she’s the only one who could possibly say it. 

Scene IV:

For at least three hours, I sit on Gunnar’s couch and work on my thesis defense. By that, I mean that, for three hours, I move blank text boxes around the same slide of nootka lupines. There’s this wretched realization that the next two weeks will be a continual choice between grieving and graduating; our lives don’t allow for a period of mourning. We must pick ourselves up and press forward, gaining a foothold in the world while our souls pay the balance. Today seems a little better for most of us, but that’s mostly because we were just so bad before.

Scene V:

Monday. I don’t have to be on campus until 10, but I languish in bed till 9:30, finally calling a friend and begging her to talk me out of bed.

“Are you up?”

“Yes. I mean, I’m sitting up in bed.”

“That’s not up.”

She stays on the phone until she’s convinced that I truly am taking steps towards facing the day.

I slouch into the entomology lab for the last time. Here, we’ve tested termites, eaten mealworms, endured our professor’s manic tirades. Today we present our research projects; our control freak excuse of a professor is the only one who knows the order. Turns out I’m second-up, following another of JP’s close friends. I remember standing up, sitting down, holding eye contact with the diabolical prof as I bullshit about dragonfly nymphs—nothing else.

Later, I hear his funeral is tomorrow morning. My thesis defense is early tomorrow afternoon. Friends ask me if I’ll reschedule; I tell them no. Asking for help is, like the overwhelming majority of things I’m faced with, too daunting. The friends persist and I cave; my advisors give approval. I go about setting up a new room.

“Sheila, I am rescheduling my thesis defense to December 13^th, so I can attend JP’s funeral…”

NO.

“Sheila, I am rescheduling my thesis defense to December 13^th, so that I can attend the service…”

I send it.

Scene VI:

I swing by Gunnar’s cottage for a shower; there, the guys are talking about wearing Chacos to the funeral; us girls reassure each other our clothes are funeral appropriate. I’ve read about people in olden times having a specific funeral dress, but I’m 24. I shouldn’t be needing one of those.

The service is in Belfast, so Adri and I climb in John Marino’s Subaru and drive the half-hour through rolling fields, freezing ponds, and tumbledown New England farmhouses. Yesterday, it snowed. JP loved snow—lived to ski—his always-smiling eyes got lit up even more when the first big snow came. He would’ve been happy for the snow this year, and I think he’d probably want us to be happy for the snow too, but “happy” is so far from my mind right now.

There’s something oddly immortal about death in the social media age. Hundreds of posts from his friends and family—people whose lives he touched and enriched—have honored him with photos, memories, feelings. It all demonstrates an incredible gamut of the way people deal with loss. Some are heartbreaking, some spiritual—some in celebration of this wonderful person we all loved. I’m envious of the latter sort. Yes, I understand how I should be grateful for the gifts brought from the nexus of our lives, but right now, I’m devastated. People tell me I should feel angry, that guilt is normal—but I don’t feel angry and I know there is nothing I could have done. Sorrow, deeper than I’ve ever known, is all that’s there.

We park on the street and walk towards the cathedral; from all directions down the slushy side streets, people in dark coats, hundreds of them, stream into the cathedral. This is a powerful gathering—a physical representation of just how big JP’s presence was—is, I guess, because just because someone dies doesn’t mean they stop living on in the people who are left. And maybe someday that will be a good thing, but today it just hurts, for his pain has been transferred to all gathered here and more beyond, like ripples spreading from a rock chucked into a placid lake.  

Adri points out a Herring Gull perched on the steeple—JP would approve; they’re nuisances with a tendency to take things that aren’t theirs, and this, in the most loving, diplomatic, manner could be said about him too.

Adri, Katie, and I hold hands through the service, ditch it soon after it ends. Too many sad people offering hugs—it’s oppressive.

On the drive back, we spit a few thoughts.

“I guess everyone’s got their own way of grieving…as long as it’s not hurting anyone else, there’s no wrong way.”

 “I’m worried that when I finally start feeling a little okay, I’m going to feel guilty that I feel okay again.”

“It’s been a week since I saw him. I just wish I would’ve given him a hug when he walked out the door.”  

“I fucking loved him. He was my friend.”

Mostly, I’m just thinking of the point in the service when we’re told to be silent and remember him. There are so many things to remember, but the only one I can conjure is of Friday night, when the world as I knew it stopped. I fucking wish that memory would stop too, but it’s always there, echoing in the background, louder when I don’t have enough to keep me busy.

Later that night, I—and most of his other friends—wind up at UHOP. The bar is packed, people are spinning, dancing, jostling into me, pouring beer down my dress.

Jon—all 6’7 of him—is dancing with Dave and Tom; I steer clear and huddle in a corner with Rose and Adri.

Marina dances over to me with a bear-hug and a shot of tequila; I accept both gladly.

My former roommate Kellen corners me and apologizes repeatedly—for this, for things that happened in our house, for not being a better roommate.

“Not your fault,” I tell him, equally repeatedly.  

It’s like a gallery of grief, everyone feeling it, displaying it, wearing it differently. I am entirely too sober.

Scene VII:

Every day, it surprises me that the sun keeps rising and the world keeps going. I’m not sure this is a good thing. I try to make it out of my driveway without crying. Every day, I fail. I’ve fallen so far behind that I skip a class to gain a little catchup time. I could spend this it fixing the audio on one of my interviews or going to crisis counseling. Graduate or grieve? I want to get out of this place, so I trudge down to the lab and work on my audio.

Scene VIII:

One week. The relationships forged that otherwise might never have been aggregate in a cozy home on the Pond. We eat, we drink wine, we talk, reminisce—laugh—maybe my first genuine laugh since it happened. It feels strange, but certainly not unwelcome. A bowl of words gets passed around the table, each one pulled has an uncanny significance to the person who pulled it—“play”, “adventure”, “resilience.” We all choke up. I pull “strength.” It hasn’t been easy, but it hasn’t completely eluded. It’s a strength I didn’t know I had, a strength that isn’t always an attribute.

Scene IX:

I survey the room full of professors, friends, and my parents. There’s Laurel—we wrote a grant together; Stef—she gave me a squash and goat cheese for my birthday; Barry—he taught my first class at Unity, stats, and was solely responsible for the increase of my usage of “goddamn.” I take a breath.

“Thank you so much for coming today, it means a lot—I couldn’t have done it without you.”

I explain, justify, and read from my thesis—two hard semesters where I wrote a book. It goes well, and I feel surrounded by love, support, and pride. I hug my dad after. “I did it!” I say in disbelief.

But I definitely don’t feel the triumph and joy I’d been banking on for those two semesters of toil. Instead, a deep exhaustion percolates through my being. That’s over—now what?

Scene X:

Today is the day I pack my house up. I light a fire, pack up the lower level while I’m waiting for the heat to rise to the upper levels. I retrieve the Budweiser can from the recycling bin—the last beer we drank together. I wish it had been a better one, and he probably did too. I hand the can to my parents, who’ve been sober my whole life. “I’m saving this.” They shrug and place it in a box with other things from my kitchen. While the water tank upstairs drains, I sit on my bed and watch the sun sink behind the white pines. Usually, I get all sentimental about leaving. Tonight, I just want to go.

Scene XI:

Graduation, it feels inconsequential. I feel like walking across the waxed gym floor in heels without tripping is a bigger accomplishment than anything else that night represents for me. People cheer for me, Alison Világ, B.A., and I appreciate the love there is for me in this place, and the love I have for those here. I could not have graduated without any of them, especially after this week. They’ve given me couches to sleep on, shoulders to cry on, ears to spout into. Later that night, I’ll spend quality time with many of them—but I cherish the moment for them being there, not for anything that I’ve accomplished.

Classically, the school forgets to give me my honors cord when I’m walking across the stage and pull me aside afterwards, apologizing. I tell them it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t feel like anything matters, really. I always thought that graduation would be a joyous celebration, triumph and festive, not a hollow formality. People tell me I shouldn’t let the last weeks take center stage, and though I guess they mean well, I feel like telling them to fuck off. They weren’t there.

Scene XII:

Today, we leave Freedom, my home for the last year. It’s ironic—living here has been the least free season of my life: there’s been continual stress about finishing my thesis, increasing existential angst about life beyond graduation.

The last thing to do is load my canoe on my truck. Dad and I drive to the farm, carry her up from the barn where she’s lived since summer. I love this boat; she’s gotten me through heartbreak before, and has done more for my soul than any other material possession possibly could. We’re tying on the last strap, and I notice a dreadful cold crack, undoubtedly a result of the below-zero night last week. I guess Freedom got the best of her, too. Driving off, I feel way sadder than I should be. I’d been entertaining a trip down a wild river, alone, where maybe I can find healing and solace like I have before. But instead of kneeling in the canoe--

Scene XIII:

I’m kneeling on the tile floor in front of Gunnar’s toilet, hair wrapped in a towel. The shower took care of the stale booze emerging from my pores—but that’s about all. I think of the imminent drive between Connecticut and Michigan and gag. I think of whisky and gag again, and again. Finished, I take a look at the filmy slick of spinach, clams, and booze rippling in the porcelain bowl and feel accomplished. It’s been months since I’ve thrown up from drinking, but it’s not just that—for the first time since he passed, I finally feel anger. Last night, the bartender had poured us shots on the house. “You’ll hate me tomorrow,” he promised as we clinked glasses for the last time. But it’s not him I’m angry at—it’s JP. “This is because of you,” rings in my pounding head. It’s not his fault—I chose to drink this much. But I wouldn’t have had a reason to if he was still here. It’s all strangely cathartic.

Though this morning is a bad morning, it’s just the debt from a good night, one strewn with honest conversations that left each of us with the reassurance I’m not the only one who’s not okay.

Scene XIV:

I’m home; Bob comes over to make cookies.

“In your life, when’s the time you’ve been the most sad?” I ask, for this is mine.

“I guess after your accident,” she says, which is surprising for to me, this event wasn’t a big deal. “It just flipped a switch or something; I was sad for the next two years. It sucked.” The turning point in her sadness was when we hiked the Kalalau Trail in Hawaii, when she got heat exhaustion and threw up on the trail and found strength she didn’t know was there to carry her back to the trailhead. I’m glad I’m not the only one who uses vomiting as a life milepost. Wilderness healed her, and I know it can heal me, too. I look up how to repair cold cracks and pull out maps of Quebec and Ontario. Give me a river—one with rapids and spruce and Winter Wrens.

Scene XV:

The next day, Bob blindsides us all—including herself.

“Can you ask Mom and Dad if I can move back in?” she texts me. Merry Christmas, Mom and Dad. Your present this year is your two emotional wrecks of daughters and all of the shit they’ve accumulated. At least we can cook? I go with Bob to the house she’s shared with her boyfriend of two years and help her move out—it’s something I’ve gotten pretty good at.

On the way in, we cross paths with her ex. He’s oozing pain, slams the door, squeals his Silverado and fishtails out of the driveway. In between the bouts of her lying on the floor sobbing, we put all her belongings—four vehicle loads worth of them—into boxes and carry them out. I’m so fucking tired of being around hurting people. Back at home, there’s a pile of stuff in the living room, in our bedrooms, in the garage, in the basement.

“It’s good that you’re back home,” my dad says. “She’ll be glad to have you around for this.”

I love my sister more than I ever have or ever will love anyone else and I want to be there for her too—but I’ve got nothing left to give. I want to curl up on the floor and cry too, or go daydrink by myself. Fortunately, there aren’t any bars within walking distance that are open at 10 AM.

Scene XVI:

I cry all day; I’ve been trying to write about it—to write about anything—but the words still aren’t coming, and their absence is suffocating. Do you have any idea how scary it is to be unable to do the task you just got a degree in? I have no purpose, no drive, no excitement for any of the things I've always loved. I assume it won’t feel like this forever, but they’re still terrifying feelings. How much are they going to take from me before I’m better? Is this what he was feeling? No purpose, no place in the world, an existence hard to justify?

I’ve been trying to get out of bed in time to see Bullet, our Brittany, eat breakfast. He gets so excited about his meal that his spastic tail, almost-suppressed woofs, and happy tap-dance are almost contagious. It’s comforting that something is still enjoying life without inhibition.

When people ask me how I am, I don’t tell them “I’m fine,” because I’m not. I shrug instead. “I’m here,” is more honest, will suffice. But it’s really hard to talk to people who aren’t privy to the situation; I’m quieted by some strange mix of wanting to spare people my burden of pain and feeling unsure how to talk with someone who hasn’t been there before. I’m here, but the insomnia and the PTSD are wearing me down. I can’t walk a sweep to find a Long-eared Owl; I shut down and shake when my sister stops texting me after she goes to the ex’s house to grab some things; sirens set me off. I withdraw from it all, don’t want my pain to transfer to everyone else.

Scene XVII:

Driving to O’Hare to get Scott, the anchor I've needed, I get on the toll road by accident, delaying our overdue reunion. It’s just another episode in the sequence of stupid shit I’ve done in the last few weeks—stuff I’d never do ordinarily. I don’t even have the cash to pay the toll. On the radio, they’re talking about the New Year, 2017. I think of the last three years. They’ve had their high points, but there’s also been a broken engagement, a serious family illness, a violation of my body, a roommate that had once been my rock losing his sanity, the election, this. I realize that if right now, I knew the next three years would have this sort of pain, I’d probably decide it wasn’t worth it. I guess it’s a good thing I don’t yet know what they hold.

The past few weeks have been the sort that make you less innocent, that force you to face truths about the world you didn’t have to believe in before. They awaken feelings inside you never knew that you had—feelings that scare, that sober. Although I’m still aching from his loss, I’ve moved past mourning him to mourn the person I used to be.

Any story, regardless of medium, regardless of content, needs a beginning and an end. This time though, I’m finding the resolution elusive; I need someone more experienced than me to show the way. The counseling office finally calls me back; their next opening is January 17. Immediately, I start to write—people have different ways of grieving, and this is mine. I force the reluctant words out, capture them so I can remember to tell the therapist what’s wrong. This time, I know not to bury the pain alive.  

Fall's Advent

Moody seas at Ridge Wall, August 2016

It's difficult to pin a date on the advent of fall in the Pribilofs. When the first southbound Ruddy Turnstone pecks down Marunich's rouge-and-olive kelp racks, it's the last week of June. Relicts of spring--a Gray-streaked Flycatcher lurking in my beloved Upper Cut, pausing on its journey north--remain. This time of year, when you walk home from the bar at 1 in the perpetual twilight, you're already racking species for the new day's eBird list. Sure doesn't feel like fall.

Is it fall when the Crested Auklets lose their namesake breeding plumes, follow their fledglings off the cliffs, out to sea until next spring?  This is late July, and it still doesn't feel like fall.

Last year, "fall" to me was synonymous with the Season of Sharp-tailed, when rain squalls abated to reveal masses of the bright sandpipers snaking out of the fog, into the tundra. We'd just started bird-dogging through the hip-high celery. The skies were troubled and the days were short and it felt like fall.

But this year, fall seems earlier. Perhaps, this is just my flawed imagination, for my own seasons are changing--I leave next week, two months earlier than last year. I'll miss out on the masses of Sharp-tails and the celery sweeps. But maybe the reality of this pushes me to notice nuance--the wind is more insistent. Young longspurs are gathering on the roads' edges. We're lose daylight by the minutes now--we use our headlights when we retrieve our clients for breakfast at 7:30. The seal pups edge closer and closer to the water while the Orcas come closer and closer to land.

Orca, Southwest Point

I eat constantly, remain unsatiated. Have this overwhelming urge to move, to migrate, like I always do this time of year. But do I feel this way because it's fall, or is it fall because of my feelings?

Fall is leaving: school then and now, the Philippines, laying under the stars with a summer fling as a few of the myriad songbirds winging south divulge their presence with a seep. The leaving has started hurting more than it did before. Places become a part of you. The more times you leave, the more of you remains behind. There's part of me that will always be on an Au Sable River dock, another part uncomfortably wedged into a bamboo floor on a Palawan mountaintop. And yes--some of me nestled into a St. Paul cliff, where seals porpoise across the Bering Sea and murres laugh under me.

I'm not sure what they've got to laugh about this year--sitting on the barren cliffs watching everything fail this year has made me feel like crying.

Almost everything. The fulmars at Ridge Wall made a baby, and it is adorable, a fluff explosion with a tiny tube on its beak. Although they're not as charismatic as the puffins, the fulmars are one of my favorite cliff birds here. They're masters of the wind, gracing land only to nest. When their breeding season ends, they'll depart the cliffs, their mate, but both will return to the same spot the next year, start the cycle again.

I wonder how a fulmar feels about leaving its land and its mate, if it leaves part of itself on St. Paul, then part of itself in the deep ocean canyons where it forages. Perhaps, fulmars do not feel such things, but they sure seem happy whether on land, where they cuddle and preen their mate, or over sea, where they ride the winds joyously.

Northern Fulmars, Low Cliffs

Back in mainland Alaska, a Tacoma and the AlCan are waiting for me. I'm excited for new horizons, sad to leave St. Paul and the part of me that will always live here. Fall is here, with unsettled skies and an unsettled spirit.

St. Paul Island, late fall 2015

Extralimital

Yesterday, we were driving between cliffs, as we so often do this time of year. It's the solstice; after a month of squinting over windmaps, of tracing the squiggles leaving Asia (and losing them somewhere over the Okhotsk or Bering long before they ever reach St. Paul), a month of willing winds from all the wrong directions to change, we secede a little. Of course, we've still got hope for a late migrant--a flycatcher or a cuckoo--but the listers are phasing out, replaced by the photographers. We spend much of our time at cliffs or traveling between them.

Priblovian weather had driven us off Reef Cliffs early. It was the sort of day where you spend more time reclaiming your optics from sea spray than you do actually looking through them. We were headed to Ridge Wall. Not because I expected conditions would improve--all our cliffs are a rough time in southeast gales--but because traveling to Ridge would allow us the longest recovery before we'd exit the van to cold and misery somewhere else.

We stopped at Salt Lagoon, and I peered between the raindrops on my binoculars. Even through the condensation, Glaucous-winged Gulls remained various cycles of sorry. Guides on St. Paul, like workers anywhere, carry a toolbox. Not just physical--lens cloths and spotting scopes and field guides--but one less tangible. Tools like: a soft touch to ease a decrepit 12-passenger van from a treacherous sand pit; the sense of working with wind, light, and a Jack Snipe so the group gets the best views as it flushes; how to best console a client who got PenAir'd.

This spring, "endurance", "optimism", and "art of convincingly using time" have been tools in regular rotation. The fun tools--"pin a name on that Asian flycatcher" for example--have not. The winds haven't been with us. We've been poised, ready--begging the winds for an opportunity to use our full repertoire. There's so much that we could do. But there's also only so much we can do, because we need luck.

Yesterday, it was luck that bad weather drove us from the cliffs early.
It was luck that Gail wanted a scope view of the Red-legged Kittiwakes on Salt Lagoon.
It's luck that, after setting her up, I happened to look skyward at the right place, the right time.

A bird cut over the harbor towards us. It didn't fly like a regular, I was catching a weird angle--maybe a Tringa? A Wood Sandpiper would be nice. I swung my bins up and here's where I was wrong: what I'd thought were legs was actually a tail...

"SWIFT!!!!" I shrieked. "GET ON IT IT'S ASIAN!"

Suddenly, I needed all those tools I'd been longing to use all migration. Dropped bins, raised camera, fired off shots before the dark manifestation of aerodynamicity vanished to anonymity. Dark. That'd been the first impression we'd all gotten.

"Well, whatever it was, it was an ABA-bird for me," said Sam, speaking for us all.

Swifts are aptly-named; this one was gone, evidenced just by my adrenaline shakes and our photos. Thankfully, these showed both the dorsal and ventral. All dark, all right!

"It was COMMON!"

Despite its name, Common Swift is anything but--in North America. In fact, the amount of times it's been seen here can be counted on one hand. This is all according to "Rare Birds of North America", the only North American field guide where you'll find Common Swift.

There's a lot of "common" birds in Rare Birds of North America: Redshank, Rosefinch, Cuckoo, Sandpiper...

So what are they? Common or rare? That depends on where you are and where you care. If you're Sam, who's been to Attu and has spent a lot of time chasing down birds in the ABA-area, it's a mega. If you're like John and Janet, UK photographers, a Common Swift is well-named.
"We've got them in our garden," they laughed.

Where is St. Paul, really? Any map would show it being really far from anywhere. A map from 2016 would say USA, but a map from the 1830s would say Russia. In town is a Russian Orthodox church whose congregation bear Russian surnames. There, Russian (and Aleut and English) are used. 4th of July, a decidedly American holiday, is celebrated in decidedly American ways: beer, a loud parade and community barbecue, red/white/blue everywhere. Our birds are conglomerate also. Here, crecca Green-winged Teal reach the eastern limit of their range, carolinensis the western. The two often hybridize, producing offspring with both stripes and no stripes.

But to a lister it's pretty clear: St. Paul is definitively (albeit barely) inside the ABA-area, a volcano-made island in a man-made construct. And listers tend to flock to the limits of this man-made construct--places like southeast Arizona and Newfoundland and the Florida keys--places where extralimital birds show up from time to time.

"Extralimital," said a client a few weeks back. "I love the word...it conjures being in the right location in the right place, at the right time, when the alchemy of wind and El Nino and season finally works itself out."

Today the alchemy had come through. We continued on to the cliffs, high on a "common" bird rendered rare by a boundary. The listers were satiated, the photographers keen on Ridge Wall's Beringian specialties, which, ironically, are birds unrecorded in most of the world yet common on St. Paul. In the end, who's really after the rare birds?

Parakeet Auklets, St. Paul Island

The Gathering

Tsmanna trail

Last week, I had a day off. A day off, but also a date--with the cliffs, the hinterlands, and myself. Away on the north shore of the island is Tsmanna, a windswept camp house adjacent a muddy pond. A seven-mile walk  down a grassy four-wheeler path, it's a bit of a commitment to get out there. And it's always worth it. Sometimes it's a bird surprise: a McKay's Bunting or a Common Ringed Plover. Sometimes it's sitting on the edge of a cliff shuddering under the pounding surf. Sometimes the beauty comes simply from the opportunity to unwind, to reconnect with the parts of your soul that become neglected through the constant rewind and replay of vagrancies and weather patterns and future North American records that our clients love to dream about. 

Tsmanna trail

This evening I head out from Southwest Point with an objective in mind, rare for me on a day off. I want to smell the lupines and watch the kittiwakes gather mud. The evening is calm, quiet, wrapped in Beringian Fog that lifts and settles. It beads on my eyelashes when it descends; when it lifts, it's as if a curtain has been drawn. Now, as far as the eye can see are purple plains--painted by the explosion of Nootka Lupine, two weeks earlier than it came last year. Above it all is a wild tinkling like wayward windchimes--the Lapland Longspurs, skylarking over the tundra. 

Rush Hill

Southwest lava fields

Nootka Lupine

Despite frequent falling to my knees to bury my face in lupine perfume, I make it up and over High Bluffs, beyond Rush Hill, past myriad Rock Sandpipers. There it is: Tsmanna, the pond shimmering in the distance. I'm now accompanied by a constant stream of kittiwakes, also Tsmanna-bound. They leave their cliff ledges, veer over the tundra towards the pond. When they return, they're toting bill-fulls of sticky black mud. This is not just a sprinkling of kittiwakes. It is hundreds. Although days are long, summer is short and if the nests are to succeed, the gathering must happen now. 

The gathering

The gathering

The whole way to the pond, I walk beneath the kittiwakes and think about intimacy. Although their movement is above me, past me, I still feel a part of some wondrous happening. Their urge is biological, mine more spiritual. The world is big and I am small and I, like most humans, yearn for intimacy. Intimacy with place, intimacy with relationships, intimacy with my place in the grand scheme of things. Intimacy is something that cannot be demanded, nor is it immediate. Yet we want it so badly that we try to bypass the process, often settling for poor substitutes. 

Rock Sandpiper

For example, you have two weeks to experience Thailand, so you pay for elephant rides and trek to hill villages and photograph temples, like everyone else that has just three weeks to try and grasp the essence of a place. Or you meet someone as intent on intimacy as you. You get too close, too fast. We crave intimacy, but we're afraid of the investment, loathe to take the time to develop a true connection. We desire to go everywhere and try everything, and in that pursuit accept surface knowledge and shallow relationships. They're not the real deal. 

My relationship with St. Paul, a month into its second season, is beginning to become intimate. There is still much to learn, but I know that the lousewort will follow the lupines; that the Rock Sandpipers will have chicks within the week; that now is the time to join the kittiwake gathering. 

Tsmanna 

Tsmanna

The white shimmer on Tsmanna pond slowly comes into focus. Hundreds of kittiwakes dancing on, flapping over, extracting the mud that will house their eggs and young. I get a little too close, and the whole flock lifts, distrusting. I guess I'm not intimate with the kittwakes yet. Though I know a good deal about them, they can't say the same for me. Intimacy is a two-way street. 

Mud-gathering 

Mud-gathering

Black and Red-legged Kittiwakes

I apologize for the interruption and start the trek back to the van. The kittiwakes, still uncomfortable, adjust their trajectory so they don't have to fly directly above me. It's almost midnight, but the kittiwakes continue their cycle between cliffs and mud; longspurs tinkle above the tundra; back in town, they're still working on the harbor. So it goes where days are long but summer is short. 

St. Paul Harbor, midnight, June 2016. 

Rubythwart

Sometimes, the birds win. We don't like losing, rarely do it gracefully. Sometimes though, you've got to hand it to them.

Last night after dinner, we went up to Hutch for the wheatear and the rubythroat, but mostly the rubythroat. My stress level was solidly in the red zone, for my experience with rubythroats out here is basically uniform across the board: they're bitch birds. We'd found out right before dinner--the worst possible timing so, consequently, the slot when most birds are found.

I'd eaten at Trident with the group to maximize efficiency. Turns out I didn't even have to pay the $20 because we had a sulker that stayed in the van. He'd wanted to skip dinner and go straight to the bird, but in a group majority rules and he'd been outnumbered. I ate his dinner for him. Didn't even enjoy the halibut though, thanks to anxiety and the fact that I more or less swallowed it (and the scalloped potatoes and the recently-frozen brussel sprouts) whole. I'd bypassed the crab linguine--every move was being made in the name of efficiency.

And now we were at Hutch, cresting the hill. I'd tried to scheme a plan, as always, there were a plethora of factors: wind direction; the habits of the bird; the mobility of the group. Rarity-oriented guiding is a much different game than the Kirtland's tours I used to lead: higher stakes and high-complexity strategies. In a strong south wind, the bird would be hunkered on the north side, probably low and in the rock gardens and celery at the base of the hill.

I was wrong.

Our heads were still in the wind when a small brown bird shot out to my left, dropped into some rocks in front of me.

"BIRD! RUBYTHROAT!"

A few of us saw it, but most of us did not. Someone saw it in front of where it'd gone in, running on the ground. Frantic directions ensued.

"It's in front of the rock..."
...we were in a rock garden...
"...with the orange lichen on it."
...like all of the other rocks in the garden.

I thought of two things that we could do. We could push forward fast, flush it again--maybe it would fly up and be gone forever. Or we could wait and hope it popped out again. We tried the latter.

It didn't work.

So we edged forward. Into view, at, past where we'd last seen the rubythroat. Fucker had slithered low through the rocks away from us, fitting for a bird that's more or less Satan's spawn when they show up out here. Those bitch rubythroats.

We hatched a few plans and acted on most. We swept and scoured and squinted through the bright green terraces that will soon be covered by seals. In the process we found the wheatear, a few Wood Sandpipers, Pacific Golden-Plovers and Ruddy Turnstones, and an Eastern Yellow Wagtail. Not the rubythroat.

Some of us wanted to stay, some of us wanted to go, and the hill needed us to go. I spoke on behalf of Hutch--
"We've combed it over. It needs a breather. We can sit and watch, but we're not walking it any more tonight."

There was dissent, which I'd expected and affirmation, which I hadn't, but none of that matters, because in the end it was my call. And my call was to let the bird win because sometimes, that's what you've got to do.

Postlude: The next day, we went back, and more of us won. Twice. Because I'll lose a hand but not the game.

The view from Hutch

Arrival

Bar-tailed Godwits, Salt Lagoon

"Welcome to St. Paul. If this isn't your stop, feel free to get off the plane, but you can leave your bags," the PenAir flight attendant announces over whining props.
I know it isn't St. Paul because there are trees, a lot of them. Unless the island's undergone dramatic change since I left 6 months ago, we don't have those here.

"This is DILLINGHAM," someone at the back of the plane pipes up, quickly following with "Didn't mean to put you on the spot, Savannah."

That's one of the pluses of PenAir--most everyone's on a first-name basis with the crew. The drawbacks of PenAir, though...they're numerous. In light of this, the first thing I did yesterday morning was pack defensively: bins on, boots on, sourdough starter & Bailey's in my carryon (that's right, there's no security). Turns out this was oversight. At the gate, the only unhappy people were those bound for Dutch Harbor, socked in with fog. I felt their pain. It was rumored the St. George leg of our flight might not happen either--too windy.
"Well if they cancel George, at least our bags will have a better chance of coming out with us," Scott mused.
Because of the perils associated with flying a small plane over the temperamental Bering Sea, PenAir has strict weight restrictions and sometimes, your body ends up on the island well before your bags do.

We take off from Dillingham and cut out over the water. I'm here on the plane with a bunch of seasonals and St. Paul residents. In front of me is Claudia, another guide. She's going over peep identification and has a tab open that reads "Thai Cashew". I smile, for I'm doing the same thing: looking at Rare Birds of North America and furrowing my brow over a shopping list I'll be taking to a store that never has what I really want.

Across the aisle is Caitlin, who's about my age, a newly sworn police officer and St. Paul resident. We could be friends. There are also two female techs sitting somewhere behind me. We could be friends, too.

This is my second season out here, and I love St. Paul the island. The people who call it home love it too. I don't want to love it separately from them. I want to love it with them, together. For me, it's been a hard community to break into and that is one of my biggest regrets from last year: I used the island for its birds without investing in St. Paul the community.

The Saab Turboprop's landing gear locks into place as the Bering Sea comes closer and closer. I look out my window, it looks windy down there. The island comes into view, and I can see dust trails from cars heading to the airport. Flights are kind of a big deal out here.

"I'll do better this time," I silently promise St. Paul. We're on the ground and stepping off the plane; I almost get blown backwards by the stiff north wind. Yep, feels like home.

Inside the hangar, I see familiar faces. Dennis gives me shit for getting stuck so many times.
"This year, we got a special tow truck just for you. Says Alison on it!"
"TDX needs to make a special position then, too--just to pull me out."
That's something else I can do better at this year.

Paul smiles, Barbara gives me a hug, Z says,
"Beer-thirty this Friday!"
"I'll be there!" I grin.
And I will. I promised to do better.

We make our way into town: Gray-crowned Rosy Finches, Rock Sandpipers and a Bar-tailed Godwit on Salt Lagoon. I'm cautiously evaluating the status of the Sequoia. Engine's not knocking, windows are okay--and good, the brakes seem to work too.

At A-dorm, we spend just enough time to deposit our stuff, gear up, and deduce the fridge has had a rough winter. Now, it doesn't just howl intermittently: it's added Willow Ptarmigan and Barred Owl sounds to its repertoire.

We're all excited to get out and see what birds are waiting to be discovered. Our first stop on Salt Lagoon reveals a flock of Bar-tailed Godwits and a sharp adult Black-headed Gull. We visit Pumphouse, Antone Lake, and Weather Bureau. At Tonki when we get out into the wind to scan the ocean, it starts to spit rain. Oh we're definitely on St. Paul.

In Anchorage everything was warm, pleasant; there was actually a dawn chorus. Now it's like we've gone back into winter. Rotting snow, brown tundra, that unceasing north wind. No more tap beer, trees, dogs, mosquitoes, or phone service.

We swing by Charles' house to eat reindeer steak and warm up. We talk about the dearth of produce and Biff's rent-a-wreck (going rate $1500/month) and the time I wore the skirt to the bar here. The meal is delicious, the friendship nourishing. It's so good to be back, even though knowing what to expect out here doesn't necessarily make what I do easier.

After dinner we drive out Northeast. Last year when I came out, these places were just names, names I often couldn't remember. Now, they have memories attached to them: Polovina Hill, where Brandon finally got his Willow Warbler. Hutch Cut, which still has yet to impress me. Nova Stoshna, where we saw a Bristle-thighed Curlew last year...and, as a burly shorebird flashes in front of me and shows its buffy rump, it's where we saw a Bristle-thighed Curlew this year, too.

St. Paul, we're going to be friends this year.

Bristle-thighed Curlew, Nova Stoshna