Crossworlds

I hit the road from Anchorage to reach the North – or more exactly the Interior – of Alaska. On my hitchhiking way, I gaze at burnt summer trees, at redish fall trees, running frozen in my car window. Forest fires still stand against first rains, it doesn’t smell like smoke but there is a thin veil on clouds. Sun wins through some portions of cool wind though. I feel like I am crossing the border in between two worlds, or at least two seasons… Fire weeds, once pink, that got red from their roots towards the sky, are white now ; blueberries bushes are ardently blushing in the Norse plains, sometimes sharpened with an evergreen, often softened with a fragile yellow tree. It is already fall time here while Seward has kept its summer blue all over the peninsula. In a few weeks, winter will already be here and the first snows will blossom but not stick…
After I crossed an almost flat landscape for a few miles, some new Alaskan heights rise, the ones that run towards Mount Denali, defaced by my traveling runway. Each mountain is getting too high in the clouds, so high I can’t see their colors. However, one of them reveals its secret black or brown bear eating his last provision before his long winter nap.
This journey wouldn’t have been possible without Stacey and Diane’s generosity, that welcame me in their yellow Volkswagen van from Anchorage with their kind and scared dog Wedge. And Fred’s who wanted to get lost between Petersville and Talkeetna but chose to hear my stories and drop me safe and sound at Parks Highway Milepost 261.

Thus, I reach the blue roof house on the ridge, the house under the birch and pin forest, the house of my next adventure, the house I immediately fall in love with. Another kind of work awaits for me her: fresh air, getting the homestead ready for winter and animals to take care of. And a new family to meet, softly led by Hannah. And an enchanted and mesmerizing view above the valley, daily disturbed by the peculiar American trains’ sound, with the Alaskan Range in the background.
I sink without for play into the chores I have to do, they give me such a peaceful strength. I forget to think when I am carrying summer branches, winter wood. I carry on and on and my tired body only focuses on its action, gets amazed by the wind blowing yellow and orange in the falling trees towards the gigantic glen.

Alaskan nights sing the same foly as Autan wind in the new moon wolves’ tears. Alaskan nights are not sleepless anymore, they get darker, they open worlds throughout the mesmerizing Northern Lights’ glowing green, that my frozen eyes discovered for the first time the night I arrive. The green aurora with some strange pink shades is dancing in the moonless night, it spins with the colors of the wind. My cheeks blush of cold and joy it unusually sparkles out of its green or blue range. Northern Lights shine like an unreal fire, they waltz with my amazed soul, they endlessly grow towards the top of my head, towards the Alaskan flag constellation; building mountains in the dark valley, drawing people in the night ethereal air, opening green gates for polar bears and a shooting star. And in front of this beautiful phenomenon, I can only think the world is magic.

Despite my departure from Seward, some melancholia remains for a few days… I feel everything and nothing. Irrevocably linked to my travelling present but completely lost in my past. Full of outside laughs but an endless sadness inside. Peaceful but unalterably angry. I feel like smoke is coming out of my ears so much I overthink over and over the same things, I lose my minds and my roots and get impatient. I am everything and nothing. However, day after day, I start to accept better the pause in my soul, to not know anything about tomorrow. Maybe there will be no epiphany, only countless tiny ideas which, put together and when the last one appears, will reveal my deeper will. Therefore, for now, my soul is not ready for blazing and giant wishes, I only have small and simple desires. Patiently awaiting for my travel’s revelations, I agree with my own slow motion.
I follow the same indolent and carefree path than my new ephemeral travel companions, that replaced my international encounters, both taking care of them and me when I cuddle them. I enjoy my daily and loud walk with the geese, led by Boris like Balto’s friend, following every of my steps hoping for a treat. Their clumsy move always goes with The Aristocats Amelia and Abigail’s rythme in my head, and I will miss them when we will find them a proper pen. I play with the dogs, those ones don’t scare me ; Darla would almost jump into my arms, Odin can be inflexible and rough when it comes to be pet, Kody imposes herself clumsy and demanding; but my favorite one is Summit, sweet and quiet, invisibly following my chores and waiting for me in the sun.

And little by little, for the first time in a while, I think about immobile plans… I dream of settling somewhere, the place is uncertain but I feel like I want to start over, I realize what a “waste” it is, even a beautiful one since I am traveling, but I might as well sweetly travel without that weight on my chest, that I only travel because I don’t feel able to start over. I have this desire, even alone, even far, even if I don’t know how and where, I want it. Maybe because I feel so good here, far from anything I know.
I follow this country and repeating life, far from my reality and I smile. I clean llamas’ poops, I look at Toulouse Geese washing themselves in a bassin while I wash poop buckets. I clean my soul with this hard work, I wash my previous lives of yesterday or millions of years ago. My bruised body speaks for it everyday, not used to this kind of life, clumsy like a devotion.

Sun finishes to brown the ridge into my eyes, the wind inconsistently simmers down its zeal, mountains are blurry in the far, but every morning in the first hours, I run towards this same still landscape to fleetingly catch its daily essence, giving me a new emotion, a new look.
By a windy sun, I get for the first time into Denali National Park trees with Hannah, her mum Agnes and her son Charlie. I therefore countdown the road I rode the previous weekend discovering new wonders the way in kept for itself. I am breath-taken, bulging eyes, racing heart, on the hanging bridge in between Bison Gulch and Dragonfly Creek, on the flying bridge above Nenana River. All the colors. The sudden depth of the view. Improbable. Pure. Simply stunning. No matters how many times I will cross this bridge, even when the landscape will have faded, my heart will skip a beat every time. When we finally got to the Denali preserved wilderness, every piece of landscape attracts my eye, eager to guess every shade of fall. Each season gets its own wonder, it is so amazing to think about the low mesmerizing deterioration of a scenery’s colors, endless and shinning, in autumn. We reach Savage River, the last accessible piece, and walk more quickly than I would like a sample of the rocky landscape as the river in running towards the naked valley in our back. No matter the brevity, I enjoy this blue sky sunny walk, even a bit too much overcrowded for my taste.

Then, days fly and look alike. Then, days follow and look different. A few days after this express walk, a new peaceful farming morning grows, the wind is crazy though. Preventing me from the hike I wanted and offering me instead a nice lazy afternoon in town with Hannah. When we come home, the atmosphere is electric, the crazy wind has blown all day long domestic animals’ smell to the valley where coyotes and wolves are hungry. Wind always gives me that feeling of an end of the world, something weird is always in wait in my heart. That day, one second is enough to rock our world. Bob’s alarm call, blood of Kody’s fur, bites on Summit’s face are enough to break the silence. All of sudden, we can smell the danger and three next hours are only made of rushed and thorough actions to keep everyone safe. Hannah walks like a warrior around the house to shoot if needed. Hannah heals dog’s wounds while I try to ease them. We move stubborn llamas from the pen to the unfinished barn. Hannah is at war with Izkue while I am using Gretchen, her baby, as a bait. They whine, clueless, and my heart feels pity for them. We don’t have time for sentimentality though, the priority is to protect them. Even if the llamas pack don’t understand and worry. Their temporary anxiety is better than death. We finish our mission when twilight turns to night. Only a glass of wine and an ice cream will end this unusual evening.

I wake up with sore arms and to match them, I get to tire a bit my legs. I start my first “real” hike here in a less crazy wind, glad that I got a new woolen headband to keep my ear warm. I go up right away to the unknown summit. Cars’ noise yet so close is almost invisible so loud the wind is. I can sometimes hear the torrent’s sound though. The already fading and shy green completely disappear into the bumpy trail, shinning like silver in the sun. Mica, this lying gold, gets copper or silver shades depending on the red or the grey stone it is sparkling on, and I wonder if it is some silver powder. After all, some found tiny gold nuggets in mountain stones. This golden trail is bright and autumnal above the giant untouched wilderness around me. My legs hurt, I can’t breathe, it never stops going up on this round ridge falling into a dry cliff on one side, running almost tenderly in the other side; both hiding some ground squirrels’ fleeting songs all the way up. I finally reach the first tiny top, one of this multitude, sharp like a teeth to reveal some new passages drawn by the clouds. Every time a new landscape shows up, it is a new magic wand in my eyes, a wonderful race in my heart. I feel like a drug-addict irresistibly waiting for her next shot.

My legs forget they are going up hill for a while, time to cross the sunny and windy ridge, they want more looks of drying mountains. My vertiginous soul wants to fly above sculpted rocks. Thus, I rise and look the further I can. I struggle with crumbly grounds that brings me to the top but never to the end. I would like to see the view over Nenana River and the bridge, that moved me so much three days ago, but my geography got lost once more. I keep going closer to the clouds to see the next cliff, the next endless and uncommon view. Translucent water shinning down to Hannah’s. Basalt pink playing with the clouds. Ridges that could lead me to Alaska heart if I wanted and was not frozen. Then, I happily go back, never bored of this changing landscape, because I am looking the other way now and the wind finally stopped blowing clouds more quickly than my breath. It took me more than four hours to get to the top and I go down like a flashlight, lighter despite my knobby knees, despite my thirsty throat.

My Monday body is so sore, trying to rest for my Tuesday getting closer to the center of the Earth, to Alaska’s heart.
That day, sky plays hide and seek with clouds, I can tell sun is not far, it beautifully browns this golden fall morning. But clouds get stuck in highest tops and as I sink into Denali Park, the sky is only grey. Mountains around got browner for the last days, they already finished their falling cycle.
When I get my first glimpse on what lays beyond Savage River, I recognize the drawings I saw from the sky a month ago. Except the green was greener. Except it smelled like forest fires. And I cross thousands more rivers, they all look alike as they dig into mountains, but they possess their own unique wonder. And without a blink, I pass from the flat slow grey river to the giant polychrome heights speaking with God. But I am one week late to see yellows and oranges. Each millennium curvy summits nonetheless colors my imagination.
I am driven stunned, windy and a bit insensitive. I am full of admiration and yet, I feel like a habit. Everything moves me but not as much as my once enamored heart. Every time I fall in love with an Alaskan landscape, I can’t help thinking about the Columbia River, transcended by my young heart love… And nothing can match this feeling today.

Landscape is therefore running, stunning, more and more blind, to Wonder Lake as grey as the sky, whereas Mount Denali stays invisible. There is a clouds veil on the sky, sun gets softer as the afternoon goes by but a part of the scenery is forgotten. I walk the only trail nearby, I get lost into the tundra where pin and birch intertwine. Everything is flat in between the trees, sky is reflected in multiple red ponds. There is nothing more peaceful than this tectonic field silence. And my peaceful thought breaks and builds, reversed of my steps.
I realize again my problem is not that I don’t know what to do with my desires, my problem is that I am not ready to start over and build a new life. Since I arrived in Healy, I feel better because I am out of the world, better to think that I could start all over again, but today, even from far and partially, I get in touch with new people and faced my limit. I am not ready to go back into the world because my dream got broken one day.

Trees finally break through, I jump into McKinley River banks, I land in the valley running along the Alaskan Range, and those river valleys keeps stunning me! It is only a valley you would say, but it is giant ! It is endless. It is at least 30 miles wide, and it lies for hundreds of miles in between mountains in my back and Wonder Lake in my eyes, or even further, invisible.
As I listen to a Ranger talking about earthquakes and our planet’s cracks in the cooling night, wild geese fly above our heads, migrating to the South going North; they are freaking loud. And as I follow their flight, Mount Denali starts to show up in the cold evening sky, in its clouds blanket, powdered with new snows; my eyes are getting impatient to see more. It looks suddenly so close when the cloudy fog gave me the idea of a flat horizon all day long. It is already dark though, my impatience will wait tomorrow. My paper adventures as well.

Rain hits my tent all night long. My several alarms tried to frame my sleep because I wanted to see Northern Lights, I wanted clouds to stop surrounding Mount Denali. But my sore and bruised body only thought about its dark night dreams, it only heard rain, bad sign for a clear landscape. Mountains are playful though, they are unpredictable. Thus, shinning and newly snowed Alaskan Range rises when I open my canvas house’s door. Indeed, autumn is already gone and some new powder cover fleetingly virgin summits. Mountains are in front of my heart, my eyes look for them in between spread and big trees around my campsite. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, but is it really true since I already thought this yesterday. And the day before. And every time a new country, a new landscape, rises in front of my heart.
My hungry eyes are getting impatient once more, my body shall follow, I want to enjoy those summits to their last drop. It is only mountains you would say once more. Yes, but it is giant. And mountains speak of another time, another season, as they rise in such a flat land. I quickly fold my tent, eat a muffin and run into this September humid morning. I blend into Wonder Lake brown colors and look for my reflection and Denali’s in Reflection Pond. Crystal clear. Still. Perfect Denali’s soul. Mine doesn’t know anymore. Really.

Then, I decide to leave the regular road to get lost into the hills, into the back-country like they call it, where a wolf might be waiting for me. All of sudden, every color is meaningful. Shining maroon with dew water means my legs will get wet through branches. Soft green, sometimes yellowish, means my knees will sink into hungry soils. Dry white means rock is close, drawing a path to follow. It sometimes tricks me though, it sometimes forgets me though. High yellow weeds mean marsh in which I will sink and get lost. I have then to turn around and try to find the white moss way again. After a while, my legs get bored and wants to get closer to the mountain valley. I want to see round summits dark and invisible feet that my eyes remember despite the blinding snow.
Thus, my tired feet follow the road along a totally different scenery than yesterday. It is not a cloud wall anymore along uncertain and blind McKinley River. It is a majestic white summit range, sometimes headed with a cumulus. I walk though, mesmerized by this giant landscape, to the bus that will drive me to where I come from. I would like to stop at Eilson Visitor Center for a last hike but bears closed all trails. Instead, I look the invisible view of yesterday, windy in the American flag. It takes my breath away and the universe’s I would think.
I keep going though, or more exactly the bus does, in the dusty smell moved by my green coach’s wheels. I stop at Toklat River but my heart doesn’t follow. I walk in between dry iced cracks, I slowly gaze at the landscape in front of me. But it is always the same, I can’t really enjoy when time is short. I wished I was wilder and had camped in the crazy wilderness. But I always get lost, but I am alone, I therefore accept my fate.
I get back in the bus and slowly leave this “untouched” wilderness, let’s not forget people have been living here since the beginning of time and there is a road in the middle of it. This landscape is beautiful but I can’t really match all the fuss about the untamed people’s wonder. This landscape doesn’t tell me about the beginning of the world, it is not completely pur for me. It tells me another story, crampon explorers’ or people like me who try to understand their roots, meditate, get lost, understand the world…
I go straight home now, only stopping in the same move as the bus to see the grizzly bear gigantically standing up, to gaze at the caribou family crossing the river or to detect the blue moss hidden by his brown environment. I always look back to the shinning Mount Denali, invisible yesterday, breaking through glaciers and iced tops to almost Savage River. I explore reversed sanded mountains that look like Sahara desert, polychrome and sunny heights, and eternal snow in each one heart .

Got to my starting point, I hitchhike to reach my house on the ridge. Alaska is so big but Alaska is so small, the woman who picks me up hiked Bison Gulch last Sunday, we passed each other as she was going up, bright in her white shirt and black sunglasses.
And after a last up hill, I come back to another wonder, llamas and the wind. My first night alone in the house on the ridge. My heart races and scares to find some glowing eyes in the dark, but I courageously work on my fear of the dark.
Hannah is in Valdez and I am the housekeeper. Daily life takes over. I go to the groceries like I belonged. I think about my next step, delayed by moose hunting though. I will fly to Ruby in two weeks, to this tiny place only reachable by plane or snowmobile, or in another times, by dog-sledding. I think about Seward and my uncertain state of mind there. Seward didn’t have roots, it was on the go, as much as me. It was a passageway. Here, I can put down some roots and balance my unbearable lightness of being. It is a place where you stay.

Hannah comes back to her home sweet home as our night star comes to its fullness on the edge of the ridge by a Friday 13th. I can feel something weird in the wind. And events happen like a tiny warning for my unbalanced soul, my instincts are right but I don’t listen to those noises. Impossible to find the right cutter. Reluctant fences. Something doesn’t want to work. And something bigger has followed my steps for a few weeks, I always feel on the edge, as I couldn’t find nor understand my own path. I feel good but there is always a tiny disturbance that I can’t explain. Because I keep not understanding, because my intelligence stays blind, life hits me in the face to bring me back to my sense. I both don’t see it coming and can taste my silliness.
Alaska is a wild land where wolves, bears, lynx, moose and caribous are often uninvited and dangerous guests when the last sunrise drops, threatening domesticated animals’ lives and ours. That day of grave danger, as the wind blows our tasty pulses towards predators’ snouts, I got attacked by A FENCE ! Indeed, my biggest peril appears to be my well-known clumsiness!

I have to tear down a pen and as I try to cut the wire in the corner, the whole wall collapses, giving me a better access to wires. There is a tree on the way though, I cut wires in between the panel on the ground and the one hanging to the tree, I struggle because I don’t have the right cutter, I fight above the fence without thinking two minutes cutting the wire will release pressure and violently jumps into my face. Then, of course an awful pain, similar to the ones you get when you hit your nose, a big quick pain; until I see the blood… And I instantly think – it really strange what crosses your mind in such a moment – how my blood will attract bears and wolves the next night… Then, I calmly reach the house where Hannah tells me as calmly we absolutely need to go to the ER. And because we are in the middle of nowhere, because it is weekend, we drive for an hour to reach Fairbanks, the closest city, and the first care center (cheaper than the hospital).
A hot doctor stitches me, tells me I need two layers of stitches to heal the muscle (first reaction: “there is a muscle involved?!” – Hannah has really been extremely calm, never showing me how bad it was, and I didn’t dare to look into a mirror -, second reaction: “there is a muscle here?!” – of course, to move your eyebrow!) and makes me dizzy (normal reaction: your body is partly numb but can tell needles are going through your skin, too much mixed information).
Two layers of stitches, a stowed eyebrow muscle and an expensive bill later, I got pretty lucky: I didn’t lose my eye (neither my head), I learned about a new muscle and it could have costed ten times more if I had gone to the ER. I can now brag about my Alaskan warrior scar and knowing how clumsy I am, it is kind of a miracle that after thirty years, three of them traveling, I haven’t cut my head open earlier on!
I am the first surprised of how calm I remained during this whole adventure. First, because I like how this event truly made me experience daily life here. Season is over, Denali clinic is therefore closed; it is weekend, Healy’s as well. So we had to drive a one hour and a half journey in one hour, bleeding head, struggling against nausea and dizziness, knowing any troopers patrol would drive me even faster if they happened to pull us over for speed. Even paying cash for my treatment – price calculated depending on my wound’s depth and wide – instantly makes a country way more real.
Then, for a mysterious reason, I am sure this accident is meaningful. I didn’t want to acknowledge my unbalanced state, I only understand tough love, life therefore beat the lesson into me. I got hit in the head like a necessity to set the record straight and grounding now. Until then, I felt like I was in a cheerful messy journey, I was grounded but some tentacules or leaves were blown by the wind, making me unstable and dizzy. Ironically, this warning makes me more peaceful, I don’t know more about next week or next month, I am absolutely calm. I couldn’t explain why, it feels really nice though. I don’t think that fence utterly changed me, I only got a new look on me and my situation. I understand more my reactions, I understand my being need to find its way throughout my new paradigm and it is normal to sometimes feel on the edge.
In the end, a burning self-confidence and life trust sparkle my whole soul. Everything is and will be alright even if my future is uncertain. Any future is uncertain, you just pretend you know it. This new peace reminds me of what a stranger told me in Denali bus: “I understand one thing, in life, you always have to choose between certainty and freedom.” Even this missing certainty she mentions, the one belonging to my freedom, even if doubt is still my definition, I utterly accept it as a part of me and I try to get rid of it traveling so one day, I can make the best decision for myself. Even in bad days, I live better with it.
And I feel like my work in the farm helps me in this slow revolution. I can feel an unknown satisfaction doing my chores, I have a task with a beginning and a visible end; a clean pen, a yard without leave,.. I tend to get lost in my imagination so easily, to get jeopardized by endless works, it a real change of mind, it is a simple and pure joy at the end of the day.

Hannah eventually leaves for her moose hunting, and for some unknown reasons, I feel so sad. I don’t like any kind of departure or separation; but I am supposed to see here again… I don’t know. I feel my heart heavy. And I want to write it. Even if I am glad to have a week on my own to write, work in the farm, explore a bit more and taste blossoming Alaskan winter.
I thus spend a contemplative week.
This house on the ridge has a bit of the same taste as my winter stay in front of my beautiful window in Malin Head**. I am still and landscapes move depending on the time, depending on the season. Shoulder seasons of spring or fall are so quick to transform a landscape. Fleeting. It is even faster in this part of the world, you go from 70° to 32° F in two days and three hours. In a few weeks, I went from blossoming fall to winter’s beginning, from night owls days to early birds nights. From golden, landscapes turned brown, then suddenly lost all their colorful leaves to put on their white dress in some places, even if I have only experienced rain for now. Thus, I have been through three seasons since my first Alaskan step; what takes night months to happen in France only transform in a month and a half here. Nights grow quarters everyday as well; last week, I went to bed with the moon, now the moon puts me to sleep. Alaskan people doesn’t call this freezing wind winter yet, but for me, this 0° C blow really looks like mine.
I wake up with the rain song on the roof for a few days, sometimes interrupted by wild geese’s fly, and I truly gaze at the foggy sea above Nenana River, hanging on my ridge. Landscape swings between rain and fog, I can’t see further than the forest. It is so cold. One day though, the humid veil gets thinner, breaking through a powdered scenery. Luminescent. And the pink evening sun, so low in the other side, shines on the other side pink snow. Magic. Beautiful. I think about Nur and what she told me about permanent sunset on mountains during Alaskan winter times. This night sun also reminds me of another red evening on the hill when trees were still yellow a week ago.

Ranch keeper alone in this big forest house, I don’t think I will ever leave this place. I write. I spend a couple of hours with the llamas every day. My head heals, wakes up. My heart as well.

Intertwining my Peninsula thoughts on my screen, I realize my stay in Seward was disturbed by my idea of a quick revolution. Like a part of me wanted to be diverted of my travel desire to settle. As if trying to be open to a shorter adventure if wanted, I needed all my answers right away. One more, my frustration was born with my idea of time. When, in one hand, I absolutely want to travel; and in the other hand, my long travel irretrievably led to slower and deeper change. I won’t wake up a morning completely transformed, I will figure everything out at the end of my journey. Day after day, changes are tiny and crucial. I already know I am different. Thankfully, change are so slow I still recognize myself. I don’t feel like I was transplanted with an alien organ that I would deny. It is only me. Different and the same, since it is only about becoming who I already am. Until now, I trusted life but I was always afraid to make a choice, because I couldn’t apply this trust to myself. Today, I can tell it is shifting, this trust is more internal and comes with a sweet peace. I know whatever I will decide, it will be right for me.

My meditative solitude is suddenly and briefly interrupted by a dinner with the neighbors, Jen and Andrew. Both from Tennessee, they settle in Alaska a few years ago. He works in a power plant, she waltz in between her work in Denali National Park and her sled dogs. Spending the night with them, I realize how lucky I be all alone for week, speaking and having a way too expressive face awake my sore and healing eyebrow… They talk about their life, I share my travels. We meet, on our way home, one of those changing rabbits, Andrew explains they go from brown to white every autumn so they can match the wilderness and survive. Yet, they are sometimes trapped in the wrong color when the first snow melts, they are white on earth and ready to be eaten by any hungry eagle.

Time flies too quickly, it is already the first universal day of fall as cold as my winter. I haven’t seen more Northern Lights, but tonight a beautiful red croissant moon, or almost, shines nearby Alaskan constellation. I have definitely tamed my fear of the dark.
For my last Sunday, the sun finally does break through. Landscapes started to get rid of the clouds the night before and a frozen morning rises in a soft winter light. I therefore drive to Denali, get the epiphany that will change my future travel and enjoy the same scenery I have seen so many times. They look different though, covered by new colors.
The next day, eager to walk but always late on my writings, I finally explore new places. I warm up nearby translucent Horseshoe Lake so quiet compared to stormy Nenana River, and eventually walk a slower and newer path, the three invisible (for me) lakes hike, shortened by the sun’s path. I actually get stunned again for those two walks, I can feel the first nations’ souls. Like I felt on the Olympic Peninsula rain forest’s shores*. The view is beautiful, the landscape pleasant, I linger on the bridge hanging in between two words.

Then, everything rushes. Everything moves so quickly. Hannah comes home so I can fly. I got my stitches removed. We almost drive to Delta but fate changes its opinion. A sleepless night endlessly talking one last time with my new friend. Foggy and freezing wake up. We say goodbye forever. We say farewell for a day.