By Matthew Knoblauch
I was having a casual conversation with my dad the other day when I decided to show him a photograph of a place I had come to know over the last several years.
Pictured was an old railroad bed, a narrow cut of land between towering spruce and pine. Heavy lake-effect snow had recently fallen, covering everything in a blanket of white.
The boughs of the trees were sagging from the snow, and the November sky was cold and awash in gray. It wasn’t all a day or two before that the ground was bare of snow.
I felt the dreariness and melancholy that a sudden snap of winter brought. The photograph looked lost and lonely, a silent scene plucked from a moment in time.
My dad commented on the picture when I showed it to him, “Looks like Alaska.’’
I looked at it again myself without saying anything for a moment. After my
thoughtful pause, “Wish it was,’’ I said wistfully.
My dad replied, “No, you don’t.’’
I sat there silent in thought again. “Yes, I do.’’ And I proceeded, “I wish I was hunting Ptarmigan on some far-off snow-covered range. There would be a light snow falling from the frozen sky and a warm camp just over the hills with a little wood stove waiting for me and the dogs to turn in.’’
He responded to my fantasy thoughts. “That does sound nice. Boy, we’d have to take a few of those birds; they’re small, and I probably couldn’t see them against the snow.’’
“Not to worry, dad. The freezer back at camp is full of the finest elk meat. And as for the Ptarmigan, we will hunt them with the dog, and we will shoot them on the wing when they flush out ahead of us.’’
“Matt,’’ he said. He replied as if we were talking while traversing the wild Alaskan countryside.
I noticed a sudden change in the situation from my dad telling me that I didn’t wish to be in Alaska to him including himself in my dreamy thoughts of such a place.
It was okay because I wanted us both to be there. I wished to be there, perhaps portaging by canoe on soft and glassy waters hidden in the mountains absent from people.
Moose would be seen off on a distant shore basking in an evening sun, easily spotted against the blanket of snow before us.
I wish to catch the grizzly on his walk up the mountainside to pick what’s left of autumn food before her long hibernation commences somewhere in a hidden cave.
A cave that might not be so lonely come spring when she awakes to the surprise of a few cubs nestled with her.
As a matter of fact, I’d like for us to row the canoe over to the near shore, tie it off on an old Sitka spruce, and spend a short while hiking up the side of the mountain to a bench where we can watch secretly the happenings of our grizzly bear friend.
We will lose track of time in our simple but pleasant observations, and night will proceed us rather quickly. We will hurry down to the gravel shore where our canoe waits and be guided back to camp by the Alaskan moonlight hanging in a tinted purple sky.
Our camp will hide behind the evergreens on the other end of an unnamed lake. A cozy log cabin suitable for just a few people. ...