Arctic Daughter. Jean Aspen

sun diamonds, we discovered that we were not yet across the river. In fact, with the kaleidoscope of wandering channels, big islands, merging backwaters, and sloughs, being “on shore” was a matter of definition. From the air, this area of the Yukon Flats resembles a plate of spaghetti, but we were comfortably ignorant of this for the map that might have helped had somehow been forgotten in the truck, a mistake that could well have proved fatal. God looks after fools, they say. But not always, I have come to find out.

      As we slowly motored, we searched for that elusive other shore and our next landmark, the small town of Fort Yukon, some days travel away. When we stopped the engine far from land and drifted, we found ourselves on a smooth lake of sunlit water melting into flat, blue sky where magic islands seemed to float. Only the uneasy boils on the smooth surface and hypnotic hiss of silt against the hull told of our travel.

      Night had already settled upon the lands to the south while our tireless sun circled the sky, dipping northward as evening descended. From shore came the first sigh of cool dampness as the earth awoke from its afternoon doze. We spun past high cutbanks anchored in shadow and guarded by fallen trees, “sweepers” thrashing in the current. It was no place to practice our beaching techniques. Here, close to land, we were suddenly reminded of the speed and power of the water. The dark shore seemed ominous after the innocent dazzle of the river. I squinted and rubbed my salt-crusted eyes, searching the shadows where soon we must land. I ought to have a hat, I thought irritably. Uncertainly, I chewed my lower lip where the skin was already peeling. A few more days of this and I’ll be fried. I had forgotten the Arctic could be so hot.

      A riffle broke the surface ahead and the cutbank suddenly dropped to meet it. A cutbank is where the river is eating into the shore, leaving a raw drop. “There!” I called, pointing.

      Phil turned the canoe sharply upstream before nosing in to shore. Our motor conked out in the thick silt and in slow motion we slid to a stop in shallow water. It was the end of the day and we both had dry feet. We glanced at one another and shrugged.

      The medium through which our canoe would not pass was far from solid. I climbed stiffly overboard and felt the penetrating stab of boots filling with cold water. Last bubbles of air hiccuped free as together we dragged our load further aground.

      “Bugs!” I had forgotten them.

      “I can unpack. You start a smudge fire,” Phil urged, then choked on a mosquito.

      Waving my arms futilely, I snapped off twigs from the lower trunks of spruce trees for a fire. The bank was a snarl of dense trees, matted with the wreckage of spring breakup and still slippery with mud. Yet already plants were shooting up, pushing aside their dead in the wild summer urge to grow. I cleared a space in the underbrush and soon had a fire billowing smoke from a pile of waterlogged wood. The mosquitoes were thinning when I skidded down the short cutbank to help Phil.

      “Empty the cooking things out by the fire and fetch a bucket of water,” he called back as he lugged duffel up the bank, churning through dark mud. “I’ll get the rest.”

      I noticed he had secured the canoe in three separate places, apprehensive that it might get away during the night.

      “Think I’ll try to find us a rabbit while you start supper,” Phil said. I was staking down the tent floor in a thicket of wild roses. He joined me on his knees, pulling his pliers from their holster to nip off the thorny bushes. I could see that he was eager to be off.

      “Yes, you go ahead. I can finish pitching camp.” I felt somehow disappointed to be left with the camp chores while he went off hunting. I didn’t plan this trip to be left out, I thought resentfully.

      I watched him pick up my old .22 rifle, holding it comfortably in one hand. It was the same gun that my mother, little sister, and I had carried to the Arctic Ocean in our canoe.

      “Phil, please don’t lose sight of the river. A person could really get lost in this jungle. There just aren’t any landmarks.” The dank forest crowded thickly to the water’s edge.

      “Doesn’t look much like rabbit country either, does it?” He squatted by the fire to dig through the journal box and paused to hold up his compass. Then he repacked the box and levered the lid shut. In a moment he had disappeared.

      Soon I finished pitching camp. I stirred dinner, a horse chip-and-rice dish, before moving it onto coals away from the main fire. Then I got out the tackle box. It would be fun, I thought as I rigged my pole, if I caught a fish while he was gone.

      Away from the smoke, I was again immersed in a sea of mosquitoes. Carefully, I traversed the broken bank seeking a spot to fish. None seemed promising. My first cast sank through shallow, muddy water and hooked into a submerged log. I wallowed out to retrieve my lure. After a few tries I retreated to the fire.

      Time dragged. I glanced at my watch. Where was Phil? I wondered, awash with irritation and concern. Positioning another log on the blaze, I wagged to keep my body in the smoke and face free as I sifted the forest noises. Evening cool was definitely upon us now, and a damp breeze from the darkening woods crept out over the gold expanse of moving water. I watched the current, caught in its timeless song. Rivers are important to me. At night I often dream of drifting down rivers, the adventure of each bend unfolding before me. I have since childhood. They are the living blood of the earth. More than just moving water, there is something grand in their presence.

      I sniffed the night, listening uneasily for Phil. Surely he had sense enough to stay near the water . . . ?

      My mind wandered to my fourteenth summer and canoeing the Slave River in Canada. Or was it the Mackenzie the following year? I know it wasn’t the Peace. The country had this same wild look—a summertime rain forest, flooded in breakup, strangled in vegetation. The sky had been rich blue that day, piled with cotton clouds. I had wanted to hunt rabbits (I never got one that year, but I looked) and I recall my mother saying:

      “Jean,” (she always called me that) “don’t lose sight of the river or you may never find it again.”

      “Okay, sure,” I had answered, impatient to be gone.

      “I mean it now,” she insisted, peering wisely over her reading glasses and laying aside her journal and pen. “You don’t know everything yet.” She remained sitting cross-legged in the moss by the smudge fire looking up at me—a plump, middle-aged woman with red hair. It is curious how our relationship reversed that summer, my aging mother suddenly depending on my strength and judgment.

      Shooting her a look of annoyance I had taken that .22 (old even then) and started downstream. Over the river, thunderheads were building. The going was rough along the high cutbank and soon I met massive driftwood barricades, which forced me inland.

      The forest had been gloomy in the hush of oppressively wet air. I followed the debris until I discovered a place to crawl over it. Here I turned back toward the river only to be checked once more. I found myself bashing through ever denser thickets. Finally I decided I would have to turn around.

      Still I didn’t emerge on shore. A gnawing fear whispered inside me, growing with the wind that rocked the spruce tops way above my head. I was suddenly aware of the rapidly changing sky. Lightning flashed and the first big drops splattered between the trees. Could I be mixed up? I glanced about, really frightened for the first time, listening for the river. Now the wind spoke and every tree complained darkly under the burden of it. The mosquitoes had vanished. Nearby something cracked explosively before the singing air. Tears streaked my scratched cheeks as confusion gave way to terror. Slowly I rotated and each direction looked identical.

      I don’t recall how long I wandered or if I prayed. Time means very little in such moments. I only remember my first glint of open sky. Heedless of the grasping branches I scrambled forward and burst into the face of the storm. The river! Despite my backtracking, I felt certain that I was still below camp. I scurried upstream along the bank, pelted by hail and spray. But no camp came into view.

      “Mother!” I bawled into the wind, pivoting in frightened indecision. “Moth . . . ther!”

      As if in answer, I heard the tiny “Pop!” of a rifle out