A Step Toward the Light

“Daniel, have you knocked snow off the tents yet?”

Aunt Kristie was busying herself in the kitchen. Making desserts was a popular pastime of hers, and everyone at tomorrow night’s church gathering would be expecting them. She could have looked out the arctic entry window to see the tents herself, but I knew better than to suggest she walk away from her mixing bowls.

“Yes ma’am, all cleared off,” I said casually as I tried to sneak a little spoon into a bowl of batter before she could notice.

“You ready to go trapping with your uncle?”

“Yes ma’am, just gotta go load the truck when he’s back from the store.”

“You could go ahead and put everything in the arctic entry. It’s going to be a long ride and he’ll want to get going as soon as he gets back.”

“Already ready.” My dedication had paid off. I was preoccupied with licking a spoonful of fudgy goodness.

“Everything? The snowshoes? What about headgear?”

“Yes ma’am, I got everything,” I sighed.

“Are you going to be warm enough?”

“Nope.”

“Daniel, don’t get smart with me. You know what I mean.”

I really shouldn’t be mean to Aunt Kristie. It wasn’t her fault her brother, my father, had enforced this trapping trip.

“I’m sure I’ll be fine, Aunt Kristie. I have long johns on.”

My uncle would be taking me into the Chugach Mountains to lay some wolf traps tonight. It would be snowing softly in our intended part of the mountains all day. By nightfall, the snowing was predicted to cease, and we should have a whole network of tracks. I enjoyed trapping sure enough, but I also knew the real reason why my father wanted me to spend time with my uncle. My uncle was what you’d call a modern mountain man, a king of Alaskan living, and most importantly, a very persuasive man. I, on the other hand, was desperately trying to convince my father to let me attend Kenai Peninsula College in the upcoming academic year. I’d graduated high school at sixteen, summa cum laude, the May before and been accepted into the University of Alaska Anchorage’s four-year anthropology program on a gracious state scholarship. Kenai Peninsula College was a local satellite extension of the main campus in Anchorage, and it was within driving distance of my parent’s cabin. They offered all of the general education requirements and a plethora of anthropology courses, many of them concentrated in my greatest passion: indigenous cultures. My Mom had called the opportunity “divine providence.” The only thing holding me back now was my old man.

/||\

Being in Alaskan mountains at night, during the winter, is not a tourist activity. While one of the greatest dangers was out of sight and out of mind, cozied up into their food comas deep in their dens, the wilderness provided plenty of new traps to cover for the loss of bears during winter months. But the Aurora Borealis was touching the ground tonight, and so I strapped on my snowshoes with so much naïve glee that I nearly tripped and fell.

“Awe Christ, look at her,” Uncle Marcus mused while warming his hands with a toasty pack. “She’s magnificent.”

“Pure magic.” Uncle Marcus and I did agree on one thing: Alaska.

“Yes, she is. A man would be a fool to ever leave this behind.”

I gulped, flung my backpack over my shoulder, then took another hard look at the scene laid out before me. I couldn’t help but think about how many people hadn’t seen what I was witnessing, right there in front of me. Was it impressive or selfish to be one of the only ones? Either way, I knew this was where I belonged, college or no college.

We walked for a couple hours until we came to a valley. A lake spanned from the south end of the valley to the northernmost side, and scraggly dark figures loomed around its far border. The dark figures dissipated into a field of blackness that seemed to be clinging for dear life onto the northernmost mountain. Its timberline was fantastic, a jagged line separating the lower darkness from majestic peaks of navy blue and vibrant white that reminded me of the yin and yang.

My uncle had been mostly quiet so far, rambling every now and then about how only fools leave Alaska and how true sourdoughs never leave. He hadn’t made it personal, not yet, but the sooner we could lay traps, the sooner we could go home.

“Uncle Marcus?”

“Mhmm?”

“How about over by that side of the lake?”

Uncle Marcus stopped and scanned the far north side, bit his lip for a second, then sighed.

“Can we just go check it out?” Strategically, it did make for a good place to lay traps, but my interest was sparked regardless, and I was desperate to get closer.

“That might actually be a good place,” Uncle Marcus concluded. “I was eyeing it earlier.” He was always good at making your ideas his ideas.

Tonight I didn’t care. I took off running as fast as I could toward the north side of the lake and didn’t look back.

/||\

“I knew this was a good spot,” Uncle Marcus chuckled as he laid the last trap.

“What do you think we’ll get?”

“Oh, possibly some hares. Maybe if we’re lucky, a wolf or two.”

“There’re a lotta wolf tracks through here,” I nodded in agreement.

“Mhmm.”

An uncomfortable silence settled around Uncle Marcus and me. This must be it. Time for the big conversation.

“Your Dad tells me you’re thinking about becoming a liberal?”

A weight the size of a grizz lifted off my chest as I processed what my uncle was asking. I nearly let out a laugh but managed to contain myself. “No, Uncle Marcus, I’m an independent.”

“Well we’ll talk about that later. But I mean, what’s all this I heard about you wanting to go join some college or something?”

“Yeah, I got into UAA on a full-ride scholarship.”

“Now that’s what I mean by liberal. That’s a liberal college, Danny. They teach you a bunch of liberal shit you don’t need to know, no man needs to know, because they’re lies. They bend the truth, you know?”

“What subjects are they bending the truth in?”

Uncle Marcus shot me a surprised look but continued, “All sorts of things! Politics, history, uh, probably other things too but we don’t know about ‘em. They’re sneaky. Biology, probably.”

“Biology?” My uncle may have outranked me in outdoor survival, but I was a great debater. My parents and friends had begrudgingly informed me of such my whole life. “How are the professors at UAA bending the truth in a hard science?”

“You just said it yourself, didn’t you, Danny? It’s a hard science so they can confuse people.”

“So you don’t actually have proof that the biology professors at UAA are, in your words, ‘bending the truth’ to their students?”

“Son, don’t start that arguing crap with me. They’re a liberal school. Go Google it if you don’t believe me.”

“Sorry! I’m sorry. I’m just trying to figure out why going to college would ruin my life.”

Uncle Marcus reached down and gathered a bundle of unused traps and threw them over his shoulder. “Because, it’ll take you away from your family. From what matters. From all this,” he gestured longingly toward the rugged beauty around us. “You can take up your father’s business. Flying ain’t never going to go out of style up here. People are always going to need to get places by flying. People ain’t gonna need your smart mouth.”

Stung by his comment, I turned away to pick up my backpack and wipe a tear before it could freeze. But before I could retort, a horrid cracking sound split the air and immediately directed both my uncle’s and my attention toward the lake.

A bull moose had fallen into the icy waters after having trotted about midway across the lake. At first it was thrashing like a madman, but its energy was diminishing quickly in the sub-zero temperatures. If he couldn’t manage to climb out of the hole within the next half minute or so, it would be too late already.

“We gotta help him! How can we help him?” Pleading with my uncle, I had already started pulling out rope from my backpack.

“I’m sorry, son. We-we can’t do anything.” I could tell Uncle Marcus was also upset. “It’s just too big. It’s too risky.”

Now the tears came freely. I was no stranger to animals dying, but this was different. We weren’t going to use all of the parts, heck, not any of the parts – this bull was going to freeze to death and fall to the bottom of a lake. No fishes were going to eat him, no carnivores would get to him. An impenetrable permafrost would be his new home. His carcass would sit there for eternity, frozen, alone, encased in total darkness.

I fought back a dry heave as we watched the great beast slip down deeper into the watery black, until finally nothing but its head remained above the ice. The bull wasn’t moving anymore, and for a moment, I wondered with horror if it had died with its head still above water. I jumped to hear a piercing cry of such hopelessness. It rattled my ribcage and sent pangs of ice through my heart. Then the bull’s head disappeared, and all was quiet.

Uncle Marcus remained quiet for a couple minutes before breaking the silence.

“Come on, Danny,” he said grasping my shoulder and gently giving me a reassuring shake, “You’re a good kid. One of the best I know, probably thee best. You got a good heart. Your family needs that.”

Still shaking, I was surprised to hear myself say with great conviction, “I want to do better, Uncle Marcus.”

“You will. Let’s go home.”