Wednesday August 17th, 2022.
I wake up at the rest stop outside of Whitehorse, YT, from a dream swirled with anxiety I don't care to process. A girlfriend. A party. Someone gets sick. It's Covid. Everything is canceled. I jot what I remember in my journal.
I slept well, in spite of the dream. I shit well, too, in the wood-paneled pit toilets.
It's still raining.
We're a quarter km outside of Whitehorse. Our second time here on this trip. I stop for supplies. Eggs, produce, soda water, ice, fresh water, snacks. I fuss with the cooler a bit. Drain meltwater, repack supplies. Pilot watches me from the bed.
Everything in the cooler is in ziplock bags, but the food still gets wet when the ice melts. To minimize the waterlogging I put the bagged items in other bags. Bags in bags, bags of water, bags of ice, bags everywhere. I hear critical voices in my head. Bag lady. Cooler full of trash. They're memories, really. Ex boyfriends' voices. Control. Manipulation. Abuse I was conditioned to expect, to endure, from a very young age. I'm overwhelmed with irritation. What are these voices doing all the way out here in the Yukon with me? I want to yell at them to shut up. To leave me alone. I wonder if this is how schizophrenia begins.
I finish reorganizing the cooler. Bags in bags. Everything neat and tidy. Dry. So there, I think to myself. I slam down the lid of the cooler and take Pilot for a walk.
Whitehorse is a sweet town. A city, really, the capitol of the Yukon Territory, but it's even smaller than my little Portland. It reminds me of Portland. Eclectic, artistic, whisimcal. Open-hearted. I am moved by the apologetic recognition of the atrocities committed by the founding forefathers upon the native peoples and their families.
Were my Portland to suddenly disappear, I would live here, in Whitehorse.
If they would have me.
We have a long day of driving ahead of us, though. It's time to hit the road.
I drive us north on 2. The sun starts to peek out. I look over at Pilot. He looks at me with pleading eyes. We get out at the next rest area and wander around in a sunlit mist.
The sunshine is fleeting, though. The mist turns into a thick drizzle and we pile back into the car.
It's not long before I see him. The duck. A young drake mallard, I think, though I don't know my anatidae very well. He's in the middle of the lane in the oncoming traffic. Just sitting there. He must have been struck by a car.
There are no shoulders on this highway. The road is elevated, dropping off into ditches on either side, presumably so that there is a place for the snow to go when plowed in the winter. I drive at least half a mile before I find a place to turn around. Fortunately, this is not a busy road, and all drivers who have passed by the duck thus far have gone around. I slow the car to a stop and put on my hazards. A couple thousand feet back a semi truck is approaching. I feel mildly silly as I wave the vehicle past.
I can't gather the duck up to take him anywhere. I don't have the means to contain him, and there's no internet out here for me to track down the closest wildlife rescue. I do know, though, that if the duck has any chance of surviving whatever has gotten him into this state it will be vastly increased if he is not sitting, dumbfounded, in the middle of a highway. As I approach him he stands up, wobbles a little to get away. I speak softly to him. He is disoriented. He sits down again. I nudge him with my shoe. I can feel his feathery weight against my foot, heavy and unsteady. He stands up, takes a few steps, sits down. I push him again and again until he is off the road. He settles in the grasses on the embankment of the ditch.
We make eye contact as I tell him to stay off the highway, to stay where he is now until he feels better. It's the best I can do for him, I explain, and I am sorry I cannot do more.
I will never forget the look on the duck's face, the expression in his eyes as he takes in this interaction between us. It reminds me of the way my cat looked at me years ago. Weak and unable to walk as his body was ravaged by a rapid-onset cancer, he was limp in my arms as I carried him outside on a sunlit morning and laid him down in the lawn. Amidst butterflies and chirping birds I played with him, his paws feebly swatting at a leaf of grass. Suddenly he looked into my eyes, and with his gaze conveyed the most unmistakable sentiment. I see that now, in the duck's eyes. He does not know my words, but there is understanding, nonetheless. Gratitude. A recognition of the concept of kindness. Of love.
We leave the duck behind and continue our journey north.
Another hour on the road finds us in Carmacks, and back in the sun in a more arid climate. There is a river walk in the town. I think about taking an hour to stroll around in the sunshine, but it's a long way to our destination. I get gas and keep driving. A little silver car passes me, and I nod at the driver. Two minutes later I pass her, stopped on the opposite side of the road. I know why, too. The driver looks at me.
"So beautiful," she mouths.
It's just a glimpse through the trees. Breathtaking. Ahead there is a rest area. Five Finger Rapids. I pull into the turnout and PIlot and I get out to take in the view.
If or when I fall in love again, I think to myself, I bring that person here.
I imagine what it looks like it winter. The river frozen solid, glowing with snow under the northern lights. I wonder if that is something I will see in my lifetime.
A set of stairs leads down towards the forested waters edge. I want to take them, but we really do have to keep going. We're coming back this way in a week. I make a promise to me and Pilot to see where those stairs lead.
Six more hours of driving, at least. Four to get to Dawson City and fill the gas tank, and at least two more on the ominous Dempster Highway to get to our campground.
I check the weather in Dawson City, hoping for sun. I see instead an alert for severe thunderstorms in the region.
It's nothing I can't handle, I think to myself, and we head back into the rain. I'm right. It is nothing I can't handle. But it's a hell of a lot to handle. Much more than a few thunderclaps. It's a downpour along a seemingly endless stretch of silty dirt roads under construction.
The construction workers are gone for the day. The roads are mud, at times more like quicksand. I weave through cones and signs, fishtailing and splashing my way into infinity. I don't know when it will end, these conditions. There's no pulling over. Visibility is terrible, and I don't want to risk pulling off into a ditch or getting stuck in a flood. We trek on, Pilot staring dead ahead from his belted car seat, me blasting Phish: Live in Utica on the stereo because I could use a good time right about now. Lightning flashes around us. I try not to think about the spare tire on the roof with its mount sticking straight into the air like a lightning rod.
And then, finally (or suddenly, or eventually--time has ceased to matter), we are here. The dreaded but terribly exciting Dempster Highway that will take us all the way to the Arctic Ocean.
I get gas in Dawson City. It's after 9pm. Still light. It will be light for several more hours, but part of me wants to park the car here and go to sleep. I don't, though. I take us onto the 458 mile dirt highway, where we bump and crawl over potholes in the eternal twilight towards Tombstone Mountain Campground.
We get there eventually. We always do.
We can do anything.
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