The salty scent of Spam and beans, simmering in goose stock
made from river water, on the stove provides the perfect warm and dry backdrop
for me to reflect on the water that sustains all life and the wind that mimics
water in its purpose and value.
The fresh water of the Unalakleet River runs some 90 miles
from the Kaltag Mountains to the Bering Sea, where it stirs into the icy arctic
salt water in swirls and waves. Sitting in a boat, some ten miles upriver,
anchor holding us securely in place, the current tinkles past as it hits the
aluminum hull, sounding not unlike wind chimes fluttering in the breeze. It
makes me pause to reflect on the similarities of wind and water and my love for
both, my need for both.
Just then, a gust rustles through a nearby Aspen, rising
head and shoulders around the surrounding willows on the bank. The quivering
silver and green leaves sound like rushing water, a waterfall. Closing my eyes,
I can see the waterfall, clear and fast, bubbling over the rocks, here and
there moss-covered. I open my eyes to a calm slough with tundra cotton gently
sailing through the air and landing on its surface, giving it the look of
quarter-size snowflakes landing on black ice. The gust settles and the
glittering silver leaves settle into the still green of summer. I’m pulled back
to the task at hand.
The spin of a reel. The plop of the spoon lure. The gentle, rhythmic reeling in of the line.
Fish on! Suddenly, the line whines like a loose zipper as the salmon takes off
with the hook, leaping out of the water with a flip of its tail. Leaning back,
the pole strains into a perfect, upside-down “U” in my grip. The fish swims
against the line in the shape of the infinity symbol, over and over. There is a
message here. A connection. Man and fish. Wind and water. Sometimes the man
wins and the fish ends up in the frying pan. Often, the fish wins, wriggling
its way off the line before it can be coaxed into the finality of the boat.
The wind blows and the river rises, summer and winter. At
times, the wind can be heard a long way off, heading toward me like a hundred
thousand buffalo hooves in the deep snow, but it is summer. As it gets closer,
the sound changes to a rush of water. I look upriver from the porch, as the
wind is usually coming from that way, the east, half expecting to see a tsunami
rolling toward me. Instead, I see the distant trees bending my way and in the
next instant, the wind is in my hair, cool and fresh, blowing the mosquitoes
back into the tall grass and offering a cool respite from the late August smell
of decaying Humpies along the shore of the river.
My memory goes back. I grew up on and in the cool lake
waters of northern Wisconsin, spending hours alone fishing from a canoe and
getting temporarily stranded more than once on a nearby island in a windy rain
that made it impossible to paddle home for several hours. I was never afraid. I
could see our dock from where I sat, huddled under a giant pine. The storm
wouldn’t last forever, but this cycle of wind and rain, on and off, now and
again, would. Somehow, that was settling, comforting. The calm would come
again, eventually. While I waited, it gave me time to quietly listen to the
wind and the rain, as it drowned out all sounds of wildlife. The only sounds
were those of wind and water. A stormy home life lay just beyond that dock.
That pause in my day filled my head with thoughts of simply paddling the other
way, forever. But, alas, after the surge abated, some sort of inner compass led
me home. The same compass that led me to this very porch on which I now stand,
overlooking the river and the distant Whaleback Mountains, contemplating the
life and sounds around me.
Unalakleet is a water village, surrounded on three sides by
water, both fresh and salt. Its name means, “Where the east wind blows.” It is
no coincidence that the wind and the water are an infinite life force here. It
is divine providence.
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