Luscious sounds of rumbling thunder and rain tapping on skylights.  Still dark at 6:30.

After preparing a solo dinner last night with rappacini from the farmers market and a glass of wine, I lay down on the bed for a nap, which lasted until this morning. Tensing with the pains in my back and joints all day left me exhausted.  Settling under the old feather comforter felt wonderful, as if I had been up all night or spent hours at hard labor in the cold, even though it hadnt been a strenuous day, especially by comparison to Jan’s, who was at a Council meeting that would probably go till midnight.  I’d accompanied Lucas and Claire to the dentist in Arroyo Grande, driven home for lunch, driven back to A.G. at Dennis’ request to take Ian out of school and get his cast removed, gone with him to the beach to look at  storm waves and topple little sand cliffs, and then stopped at the nursing home to see Ruth.  It was a shock to find her no longer dressed in her wheelchair, but sprawled in bed in a flimsy hospital gown without glasses or hearing aids or false teeth, her mouth shriveled and gaping, her hair lusterless, her skin gray, her brow  furrowed.  I announced my presence and took her hand.  She squeezed it once, then pushed it away,  shuffled on the mattress, and resumed fingering the edge of her gown. One word escaped her: “help.”  Then she quieted, apparently off to morphine-induced sleep, though her brow never relaxed.

The night before, Jan prepared an elegant dinner for Patricia whom we hadn’t seen in two years, since before her cancer diagnosis, radiation, chemo, and surgery.  She was as vital, busy and considerate as ever, full of lighthearted stories of her ordeal and triumph, of recollections of experiences we’ve shared, of questions about us and the family, and of her own burgeoning plans for this year”directing six productions at PCPA while teaching full time.

On the topic of feeling pain during her new exercise-physical therapy routine I was especially engaged”trying to distinguish between the benefits of pushing limits of  endurance and recognizing signals to pull back, use drugs, seek medical help.  The knee surgeon had told me two weeks ago to take four Aleve per day to see if that reduced swelling, but after reading of the long-term side effects of such regular use, I was experimenting with doing without it and working in the yard.  The results were not encouraging.

All this wintry local experience takes place within the darker framework painted by the news flooding in on radio, internet, and newspaper.  The failure of Obama’s promise, confirmed by the fizzling of the Copenhagen talks on climate change,  the widening of war in Afganistan,  the increase of debt and reduction of government services, and by yesterday’s Republican victory in Massachusetts.  And behind this political gloom lurks the metaphysical horror of the earthquake in Haiti.

I’m in the habit of preceding my morning meditation with prayers to a god whose existence I don’t believe in. I make three silent utterances beginning, “Thank you,” “Please,” and “I’m sorry.”  The Please is most often for cure of disease or alleviation of suffering by friends and family members: “let the chemo work for T¦, let the tumor  be benign for P, let R rest in peace.”  These requests affirm my concerns, discharge obligations and create the illusion of sending  positive influence their way through my obeisance to a higher power.  But when I think of the suffering in Haiti, the Please bounces back at me.  Even suspending disbelief and regressing to the innocence of the first graders in Ian’s  school who a dozen times a day hear of God’s benevolent intentions, I cant imagine a personality who would unrelentingly torment so many people while allowing me to listen to their story on the radio as I cook myself supper.

This website is the beginning of my endgame.

My aim is to do this kind of sifting of grain from chaff with the motley collection of journals and letters that fill my file cabinet. I’m content with the belief that this life is all I get. Rather than a mess to clean up, I’d like to leave behind an ordered recollection of what I’ve learned and enjoyed.

I wrote that three years ago on the  “about” page  of this weblog.

I knew then I was starting a big project.  The more I work on it, the larger it gets. Not really then an endgame.

Next week mother-in-law Ruth will be 93. This morning I visited her in Sydney Creek, the Dementia Facility.  As usual when I arrive, she is asleep in her chair, but she perks up immediately, light streaming from her almost blind eyes, her voice clear and joyful.  She tells me her dreams and hallucinations and memories.  She picks up our last conversation where it left off.  I report on Claire and the two great-grandkids, she listens and laughs and says, “I remember those playground toys you built for her in your backyard in Claremont.”

That was 1983.  I tell her that just this summer the cable and hardware for that tree trolley, which I’d stowed  in an old carpenter’s chest salvaged from the farm, returned to Canada, where Joe rigged it up at Knoll House for the use of his kids, their friends, parents and grandparents.

Back home I dig old pictures out of a huge lateral file drawer  and scan a few to match with this summer’s.

The galvanized steel of the cables and eyebolts and the polyethelyne of the rope are more durable than other artifacts I’ve been excavating.  Week before last I spent many hours in the Cal Poly Art Resource Library using its expensive equipment to scan 250 35mm slides that had been boxed in cassette trays in my garage. They record moments from our wedding, from early days on the farm, from our family trips to Europe in 1978, to Hawaii in 1984, from our time in Claremont and Palo Alto. The slides were covered with dust and grease and their colors were faded and distorted. The scanner software and adjustments in Photoshop brought them back to life, some almost as good as new, many better.  I gasped as our images of thirty years ago revived on the monitor.

I  spent much of the previous week in the CLA computer lab converting old VHS videotapes of English 510 Players productions of Twelfth Night (1990) and The Winter’s Tale (1994) to binary files.  Like the slides, they needed to be restored to a more accessible and permanent medium.  I’d discovered that the dozens of short segments I’d digitized nine years ago and placed on the University Media Server to provide material for my Triangulating Shakespeare website had decomposed over time into a kind of pixel jelly. Now I could replace them in larger, clearer format and at full length.  But the new digital files will probably be no less fragile than the previous ones I’d assumed would last forever.  The problem is called “bit-rot.” See the entry called “Data decay: even computers forget” on the Australian blog,  Time, etc.; Humans in the big scheme of things.

This echoes the title of the work that Shakespeare rewrote as The Winters Tale, Thomas Greene’s The Triumph of Time. As I played and rewound and spliced the recitation of the character named “TIME”  in Act 4, Scene 1 (performed fifteen years ago by the daughter of my wife’s best friend in elementary school) I slipped into the allegorical role myself:

I, that please some, try all, both joy and terror
Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds error,
Now take upon me, in the name of Time,
To use my wings. Impute it not a crime
To me or my swift passage, that I slide
O’er sixteen years and leave the growth untried
Of that wide gap, since it is in my power
To o’erthrow law and in one self-born hour
To plant and o’erwhelm custom. Let me pass
The same I am, ere ancient’st order was
Or what is now received: I witness to
The times that brought them in; so shall I do
To the freshest things now reigning and make stale
The glistering of this present, as my tale
Now seems to it.

When I watched the final scene, where a memorial statue comes to life after its subject was thought to have been dead for sixteen years scripted  as a theatrical resurrection in a chapel, I felt that moment  of performance on the altar of San Luis Obispo’s  1762 Mission Church quickening again, wrinkled now but still warm.

POSTSCRIPTS:

January 20 2010: Wow! Just watched the old Measure for Measure video. Really amazing that you managed to get such solid performance out of non-acting students. I found the play charming and — most importantly — the language really came alive. You should do some directing for community theater. — Elizabeth

November 30 2009: It was wonderful to hear from you. I just got started on Facebook. Wishing you happy holidays, Don

November 28 2009: How wonderful to hear from you! Unfortunately I can’t seem to open this link – which might be a good thing as I think I was a pretty shockingly bad actress–Ann

November 24 2009: Thanks Steven–it’s amazing!  Tom

November 24 2009: Hi Steven! Wow. Thanks for this treasure trove! I remember lending my VHS copy of”Twelfth Night” to a friend soon after I received it. Never got it back. Almost twenty years later, my kids are saying “Daddy, you look weird. And why are talking so funny?” Congrats on leaving lasting wonderful impressions on your old students!–Greg

November 23 2009: What fun! Good to hear from you. Patty

November 23 2009: Participating in the English 510 Players Production of “Measure for Measure” was one of the highlights from my Cal Poly years. I’m sure I’ll cringe as I watch my performance but what an awesome experience it was. Thank you, Dr. Marx! –Candice

November 21 2009: This is great! Thanks for doing this Steven.  We’ll give you a call for lunch next time we’re down–we had a really good time with you guys last time. Take care. –Craig

Day 8

Cameron and the Brits headed downstream while we washed the canoes and obeyed Steve’s strict instructions for cleaning up the campground.  He struck it rich by finding a pair of provocative ladies’ panties.  Horst showed up with the trailer.  He came here 40 years ago from Germany to hunt moose and never went back.  On the road to Whitehorse we got out to look at a roadkilled porcupine, slight compensation for the absence of bear, wolf and moose along the river. We stopped in Braeburn, a coffee shop on the Alaska highway to share some impressive Cinnamon Rolls and arrived in Whitehorse, where we found the previous day’s newspaper’s official version of Russell’s story.

We were joined at dinner in the Hotel Restaurant by Andy’s friends and associates–Chad, an environmental consultant and Mary Ann, professor and researcher in paleolimnology, the study of lake bottom sediments and fossils that encode the north’s environmental history.  Jonah and Monica also returned to hear about our adventures and share more of theirs.  Some of the men stayed in the bar till closing learning local lore from a reliable informant with some regrets in the morning.  Others retired early to enjoy clean sheets, good books and prospects of returning home.

Day 7

The fog was thick during breakfast at the Little Salmon campsite. The roar of trucks on the Campbell Highway that converged here with opposite bank of the river gave notice of our excursion’s approaching end. Our original plan to spend one more night in the wild was abandoned in favor of staying over at the Coal Mine Campground in Carmacks, our planned pickup point the next day. We couldn’t travel the river in fog and it was lifting later today than yesterday. It could strand us tomorrow.

A second shot of Murray’s coffee and his pome cleared the air for the last lazy cruise.  The aspens were turning from yellow to gold.  Fish were biting.  On a gravel bar at lunch, the men aimed rocks at a figurine erected by Steve. Early arrivals at the Coal Mine campground got to clean up and ride into town for beer to bring back, and heard the news that Russell’s associate had been found dead in the bush after an extensive search involving boats, land parties and helicopters.  Andy and Murray brought more fish caught in eddies and at beaverdams.  Cameron and the two Brits showed up and joined our campfire for more Robert Service readings.  Ian presented them with the collection he’d bought second hand.

Day 8

To view a complete set of photos for this trip go here.
To view a slideshow of these photos go here.

Day 6

A quarter moon and Venus lit the dawn, which arrived 45 minutes later this morning than the day we started. Allan, a.k.a. “Soaring Eagle,” was the day’s leader. We crawled out of the tents greeted by a heavy frost, another sign that the northern winter was on its way. A ribbon of fog spread from the cold river over the warming land and then burned off revealing a cloudless sky. The powers above were smiling on our soon-to-be-terminated voyage. The current had reached a steady 10 km/hr making paddling optional, except where multiple channels around gravel bars and islands required selection and vigorous effort.  Reflecting on the ability of the river to move us as it wanted while we struggled to find the right direction and on yesterday’s experience of choice and circumstance, Steve and I debated determinism and free will. In other canoes Andy theorized about neurological analogies between gambling and angling addictions while John and Murray caught more fish.

On the lookout for a suitable spot to stop for lunch, we rounded a turn and spotted a curious sight on a distant low island: what looked like an old-fashioned wall tent standing off kilter on the shore and people at a campfire.  Steve said, “Looks like hunters, lets not go there,” but then we saw Allan and John’s canoes pulled up on the beach.  As soon as we landed, our old friend Cameron came over and introduced a young fellow with long curly hair and a leather hat as “a film maker.”  We walked with them toward the fire and discovered that the tent was pitched on fresh cut spruce poles and mounted on a large raft also completely constructed of poles. Alan and Rob were conversing with a striking young woman wearing dreadlocks gathered in a loose bun who offered us tea and muffins with a radiant smile.  I could only smile back and stare goggle-eyed as she explained that she was with a group who had built the raft several days before out of 130 poles they cut at the northern end of Lake LaBarge where they too were delayed by the storm. Afterward they’d floated it down the river, having spent a whole night on the water trying to find a place to land where they could maneuver out of the current.

Two other men stood at the fire drinking tea, neither looking much like a voyageur, and when they spoke, out came the broadest Cockney accents I’ve heard since watching a Mike Leigh movie.  They had seen a story about going down this river in a book about 20 Great Things To Do Before You Die and had taken a couple of weeks off from their business in London ferrying drunk teenagers from pub to pub in a minibus.  They’d never canoed or kayaked before and were having the time of their lives.

It was hard for me to take my eyes off the woman with the tea, but my attention was drawn by the sound of Ian flopping in the water off the gangplank leading to the raft.  I wandered over and went aboard to overhear a man who looked like a model exquisitely garbed in wool and corduroy explaining to John with a thick French accent that he and his partner, professional guides, were making a promotional film about a new sport of recreating the old prospector’s experience of building rafts and floating them down the river, the project financed by a Swiss bank. They had rented two canoes from “Up North Adventures,” carried their baggage and towed two large logs and six plastic barrels up the lake, and then used hand tools to build the raft.

Against the pile of baggage on the large deck leaned expensive cases for a rifle and a guitar. Too shy to address questions in the presence of all this competence, youth and beauty, I asked John how the girl got here and he said the guides had put an invitation in the Whitehorse newspaper classifieds and that she responded. Her name was Victoria.  She’d left New Zealand on her post-highschool travel sabbatical twelve years ago and was still on the road.

Back at the fire, Victoria was joined by another lovely woman from the south of France.  She was talking to Lionel and Allan about having encountered Russell a couple of days before and not knowing what to make of him. We shared our story and I flashed on my adventure in the south of France 47 years ago, centered in a tiny village called Grimaud.  She said she knew the place.

Our group reassembled at our landing spot for lunch as the last canoe arrived with Murray and Andy, triumphant about having caught four grayling and also puzzled by the spectacle on the beach.  I urged Murray to give the ladies an offering of fish, but hearing our giggles at his approach, he returned too embarrassed to proceed and instead targeted me with a Monte Python fish slap.

After lunch Murray, Andy and I went skinny dipping in the cold Yukon river a discrete enough distance from the young folk to limit our exposure and still show off. Once we were dressed again and about to get  back into our canoes, the two women wished us farewell as they walked down the beach carrying machetes, presumably to cut more poles in the bush.

Our intended campsite for the night was already occupied by a couple with a dog so we decided to spare them our company and take the next one downstream indicated in the guide, but it couldnt be found. While Murray and Andy stayed behind to catch more fish, the rest decided to carve out a new campsite on a small muddy spit at the end of an island since night was approaching. When the fishermen arrived and saw it, they convinced us to keep going another hour to the Little Salmon River where we found an established spot that all agreed was a better choice. Three speedboats passed close to the canoes just before dusk–other than the RCMP’s the first motors we heard in a week. “Don’t F—With Me” Steve was appointed next day’s leader.

Day 7

To view a complete set of photos for this trip go here.

To view a slideshow of these photos go here.

Day 4

Lord Robert, the day’s captain, saw to it that we were back in the boats at 9 AM on a bright promising morning. The only use of the word “spectacular” in our otherwise low-key guide occurred to describe the section of the river we approached soon after departure, dramatically illuminated in the morning sunshine.  Two high cutbanks converged to create what seemed like an endless maze, probably the outcome of past shifts of the river’s course.  We all stopped paddling and let the current slowly wind us along, dazzled by the luminous cliff faces and hushed by those in shadow, dwarfed by their scale, thrilled by the brilliance of sky and foliage on the opposite bank.

Lunch was scheduled for Mason’s Landing, a historical landmark 136 kilometers from our starting point.   Among the ruins of crude log cabins, we ate, rested and Murray chronicled and composed.  According Mike Rourke’s guide, the Teslin river itself didn’t yield much gold, but it was the route from the South to Dawson City and the Klondike a hundred miles north, and to nearby big strikes on Livingstone Creek in 1894.  First a pack trail and then a wagon road was constructed to lead there from this trading post, along with a telegraph line from the Hootalinqua junction downstream, our destination for the night’s camp.

Andy’s GPS told him that the current was increasing so we could slow down whenever we wanted to enjoy the scenery, the fishing and the feel of the river flowing fast over the bottom visible in the shallows along the shore and slow through the eddies and whirlpools on its surface in the middle.

At Hootalinqua, the Teslin terminated, absorbed by the Yukon river flowing into it from Lake Labarge. The Google map suggested this would be a sensational location, but the convergence was hidden by treed islands. Nevertheless one could suddenly feel a surge of new current and see that the color of the water had changed from a transparent brown to an opaque green.  We paddled hard to get across the channel  and arrived in a calm bay, at the end of which floated a pair of swans in placid dignity beside an artfully shaped boulder protruding from the water.  As we approached them quietly, they took off in formation and circled the large bay trumpeting as they flew over us and then returning to alight where they started.

Another reception was provided by a man standing on shore staring at us intently, dressed not like a canoeist or kayaker, but in torn jeans, jean jacket, gumboots and wide hat, long-haired, bearded, bespectacled and dark in complexion.  There was no sign of a boat along the shore and we knew there was no road to this place. As we pulled up on the sand beach, eager to explore this interesting location and make use of the well built outhouses, he asked if we had any tobacco, he hadn’t had a cigarette in days, since he’d had a fight with his uncle, got out of the boat here, and waited around hoping for a way to get home.

As we unloaded our canoes a tiny figure came shooting across the widened river from behind the island paddling a tiny collapsible kayak.   Cameron, a young man from Victoria had borrowed it from someone he knew who had got it from someone else for a hundred dollars. He’d started at Whitehorse on the Yukon river, and gotten delayed by a two day storm that kept him from crossing Lake LaBarge.  He had neither sleeping bag nor waterproof clothing nor job nor kayaking experience, but a spirit of adventure that was taking him through the five finger rapids all the way down river to Dawson City.

The marooned man, named Russell, also asked Cameron for a smoke.  His strange story and mix of reticence and talkativeness made everyone uneasy.  In reply to whether or not he had food, he said “up in a tree,” explained later by his saying he’d almost hit a grouse with a rock and that he could kill the two swans with one shot.  Steve urged that we offer him a ride out, but Andy suggested that we bring up all the paddles from the shore and keep them in our tents.

Russell disappeared while we ate a somber dinner.  Andy called Steve Mother Teresa and said that Russell refused his offer to call for help with the Satellite phone. Steve said that only “Westerners” would be hesitant to help a person like this in distress.  The rest of our group seemed reluctant to desert Russell but wary of taking on a passenger we distrusted for the rest of the trip, especially since his family and friends knew of his being here. After the meal to which he was not invited, Russell returned and asked for coffee”but not alcohol.  Steve gave him hot chocolate and John and he engaged Russell in conversation.  He had come up river, he said, with his uncle and two friends, one of who had “gone crazy” and run off into the bush up near Teslin Crossing, a spot between Mason Landing and the Spectacular Cut Bank.  The uncle insisted on returning to Carmacs down the river for a doctor’s appointment, but Russell wanted to stay and search. That was the reason for the fight. Wariness diminished somewhat as we all sat around the fire in the chill evening drizzle, despite Russell’s repeated mention of the “thirty aught six” that he had stashed in his camp. He also indicated that he had a son in England, that he was a volunteer firefighter, that he was planning to go to a First Nations shindig upriver, that he was a Boston Bruins fan and that he was familiar with Leonard Cohen.

Day 5

To view a complete set of photos for this trip go here. To view a slideshow of these photos go here.

Day 3

Jobwaddhi made two sensible proclamations at breakfast: we would switch paddling partners and we would begin the day with stretches, a morning ritual that had been observed for at least the last two years’ trips and that would have helped get us through yesterday had it not been abandoned.

As we packed the gear, a large raven with a fat double chin perching on a snag in the middle of the campsite clicked and croaked with impatience to pick at our leavings   Daylight revealed fresh tracks of bear, wolf and moose in the mud, but we were disappointed that no large non-human mammals were sighted any time on the trip. Bald eagles, both mature and juveniles were in plentiful supply, along with the occasional dead salmon lying on the shore or floating in the water, after migrating up from the Bering Sea into which the river emptied 1900 miles downstream near Nome Alaska.

Three days from our departure point and cut off from other human contact, toughened by yesterday’s ordeal, familiarized with the recurrent features of the landscape, spared from rain though still deprived of sunlight, we had gained our riverlegs.  The current varied from 3 to 6 km/hr with the exception of some faster water on hairpin turns and in reaches where the contour perceptibly dropped.  At times steersmen faced a tricky selection of which channel around an island was least likely to run their canoe aground and threaten to swamp it in the strong flow.  As they approached a junction trying to decide, they would often discover that the current had already chosen for them. On one occasion Steven and Ian found themselves making a 360 degree revolution while negotiating a swift section. On another Murray and John became marooned on a gravel bar off of which they had to walk their canoe, but this was as close to mishap that anyone came. Despite his worsening illness, John remained spirited and productive as ever.

Several hours were spent passing through a burn where this summer’s forest fires rendered the tightly spaced black trunks into a dizzying moire pattern.  The destination selected for the day had the alluring name of O’Brien’s Bar, but rather than an Irish pub it referred to an old settlement on a flat section of bank surrounded by a 270 degree turn of the river.  With a surge of effort to fight a way out of the current, the canoes pulled up with a couple of hours left of daylight. People followed trails through the mossy forest which led to the ruins of a log cabin and heavy chunks of gold mining machinery manufactured in San Francisco, evidence of prospectors’ hopes and a long defunct paddle-wheeler trade. The catch of the day filled two large frying pans allowing each of us a generous portion.

After dinner Ian and Steven did a tandem reading of Robert Service‘s poem, “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” which takes place “on the marge of Lake Labarge” nearby.  Each brought a copy, which wasn’t necessary, since this chestnut seemed to be printed in every tourist information pamphlet and engraved on many plaques on the streets of Whitehorse.

Day 4

To view a complete set of photos for this trip go here.
To view a slideshow of these photos go here.

Day 2

Andy got the fire going before yelling “Rise and shine” at the crack of dawn.  Murray’s clarion call of “Where’s the f…ing coffee,” preceded pouring the brew which he lovingly percolated to supplement Alan’s multigrain porridge.  Grunts and groans issued from several quarters, a result of stiff joints unaccustomed to sleeping on the ground or paddling and lifting. John was coming down with the flu, but insisted he’d tough it out. Murray recited the poem he had crafted about yesterday’s events, recalling forgotten incidents and giving the whole a memorable shape. Banter and storytelling delayed departure till 9:00 AM. The red sky at morning served as warning.

On the river, the landscape grew more varied, at times opening to vistas of distant mountains pocketed with snow and carpeted with scarlet shrubs, at others unfolding high “cutbanks” of sediment carved by its meandering course into alluvial residues of sand and gravel left by receding glaciers. Distinguishing one from another and discovering the appropriate lunchstop and overnight campsite were officially delegated to the day’s navigator who carried the relevant pages of the guidebook in a ziplock bag.  But this thankless office lacked authority and its holder was subject to complaint and disobedience throughout the trip.

Within a couple of hours the temperature dropped close to freezing and it started to rain. Drybags were emptied of layers of waterproofing and insulation.  There was no choice but to paddle hard without pause–both to meet our distance quota and to keep warm–fueled by handfuls from the huge bags of gorp distributed by our food providers. Finally at 1:45, John allowed us to pull over at a small campsite for a lunchbreak. Gobbling rations of salami, cheese and cracker, men shivered around our small fire, and when it sputtered out in the increasing rain retreated under a tree.

Back on the river, the rain lightened but we resigned ourselves to spending the rest of the day in wet clothes.  It was dark by the time we found the night’s campsite, but trolling from his canoe John had caught three arctic grayling trout to contribute to Allan’s piquant dish of riso pasta and curried canned chicken.  Inspired by the cuisine, Ian our leader-elect took on the title of “Jobwaddhi” and offered deep spiritual counsel to his devotees in the accents of a maharishi, occasionally slipping into Scottish brogue.  The dialogue was enriched in dialect mastered by several members of the group who had spent time in India or were in fact students of gurus.  Substantial inroads into the rum ration and a sense of challenge overcome ended the tough day with satisfaction.

Day 3

To view a complete set of photos for this trip go here.
To view a slideshow of these photos go here.