Excerpts from Northern Lights & Shadows

The following excerpts are from various chapters.

Cabin Bears
Song of the Wolves
Wheels, Skis, and Floats

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Cabin Bears

One cub bounded along the far side of Ravenhead Pond, away from the others. The other bears grumbled their way toward the beaver dam.

I said, “Joan, I’m going to walk down to the dock and watch them cross the dam,” and stepped out the back door. I had barely closed the door behind me when movement to my right caught my attention. About thirty yards away, the errant cub raced directly toward me. When I emerged from the cabin, he tried to stop, but he skidded toward me in the greasy mud from a recent rain. He leaned backward in his attempt to come to a halt, with all four legs stiffly locked. When he stopped sliding, he swapped ends and bolted in the other direction, his feet slipping and churning in the mud as he tried to accelerate. Even though the cub ran away from me, I decided that I didn’t need to watch the bear family cross the dam after all. Those two-year-olds were the size of adult black bears, and I wanted no more to do with them. Chuckling, I entered the cabin and closed the door securely behind me.

“Back so soon?” Joan said, with a twinkle in her eye.

“Yeah. I decided not to leave you alone with bears in the area."

Song of the Wolves

Ten minutes passed, and then the howls of two wolves drifted through the trees. The wild, mournful sound flowed down the ridge and across the open pond, penetrating our cabin walls. Shivers crawled up our spines, and the back of my neck tingled—not from fear, but from delight and awe.

That night I awoke to the sound of wailing sirens. Groggy and half awake, I wondered how somebody could have driven an ambulance to the ridgetop. The ululation penetrated our sleep-numbed brains slowly, the way a dripping faucet eventually screams for attention.

“Joan,” I whispered, “listen to the wolves.”

The wolf pack serenaded us with a group howl. Wolf song—a caterwauling, rising, falling moaning—reached us from across the pond. First one, then a second wolf would howl, their voices not all synchronous, but somehow harmonious. The others, not to be left out, yodeled the chorus of the song, their voices trailing off to a low murmur, then rising in a crescendo that suggested hunger and longing and freedom.

We lay in a warm bed, surrounded by the sounds of wilderness Alaska. Few people ever hear the live song of the wolf, and fewer still listen to that wild music from the comfort of a snug cabin.

The pack serenaded us for perhaps three minutes or so, and then silence returned to the night. I wondered how the howls affected prey species such as moose, caribou, or rabbits. Did a different kind of tingle crawl along their spines?

Wheels, Skis, and Floats

The plane whipped to the left and dropped like an avalanche roaring down a mountain, leaving every loose item in the cockpit and baggage compartment floating in the air. Gravity took over again, and everything behind my seat rushed to join me up front. Scott’s duffel bag crashed against the back of my head, driving me forward against my shoulder harness. My rifle slid under the panel and tangled with my feet on the rudder pedals. A waterproof bag landed in my lap between the yoke and my chest, interfering with my ability to operate that control. In a steep dive, staring at the rushing ground and fighting with wayward baggage, I wondered how to get out of this predicament alive.