Fleeting Wor(l)ds

I knew this head wound was meaningful, it was telling me a story about my future. It took me so long to book my flight ticket for Ruby, I didn’t feel “called”, but in the end, deciding any choice would always be good for me, I am flying to this Indian* village on Yukon shores… Nothing seems to work though! The hazy morning delays my little nine seats plane, the hazy morning magnificently diverts me through Galena and Hushia, the hazy morning would almost makes us come back to Fairbanks without a glimpse of Ruby. As the pilot is wilding her spyglass to find the tiny landing strip and as I am prying for the village to stay lost in the fog, I understand my adventurous heart didn’t listen, my comfy heart wanted to stay in Healy’s warmth… Too late, the skilled pilot lands on the tarmac and I am about to live the quickest, most expensive and most beautifully disappointing adventure of my travels.

It would have been nice somebody told me the airport was only one landing stripe, one outhouse and, no, that’s it! A landing stripe and an outhouse. Cars are getting in line to pick up their passengers, however nobody is here to greet me. I’ve been told I only had to ask any Wright Airlines agent where Edward lived, everybody knew him. It would be easier if I knew who the bloody agent was! After a few brightly awkward minutes, I am in Pat’s car (the one and only village agent) who roughly drives me to Edward’s… Where I am greeted by Evelyn who doesn’t understand why her grandson didn’t pick me up and immediately pour me some tea in order to better tell me everything about all her tragic life’s troubles, digging a bigger discomfort in my guts. Thus, dreamy workaway don’t work every time, I am trapped into a farm that had forgotten to wash its hands, feet, head and each toe to the bed supposed to welcome my dreaming travels.

Abandoned to my new solitude in between those four dirty walls, I feel like going through a very similar Irish situation from the past*. The frame is exactly the same: meaningful encounter – love the first time, friendship the second –, sleepless night, stubbornness to fit my initial plan, transport complexity, awkward place, flight. Indeed, I don’t have to think twice to escape. Because like in Donegal three years ago, I am lost in the middle of nowhere, only reachable by plane, only one flight a day of course; in a word, almost off the grid on the Yukon River banks. I am definitely in trouble and have to spend the night in a filthy bed. Worse, the two next flights are full, I will only leave in three days.
However, like in Donegal three years ago, I live a unique and beautiful adventure. My walk in Bluestack Mountains’ heart was wonderful, my foggy morning flight in a nine seats plane is extraordinary. Once the nervous engine had left Fairbanks, I went through the hazzy sky border to lie in the sunny God’s landscapes. Some evergreened or almost always white hills drew new lines throughout cloudy rivers ran. Then, I fell asleep in the fog. I passed invisible Ruby without knowing and I saw the Yukon River for the first time. Passing by Galena, I flew over rusted lands where multiple lakes blended into iron soils; I then stopped by Hushia, lost in the Northern tundra, almost on the Arctic Circle. Suddenly, the Earth was so flat for me who only experienced high Alaskan ranges. Counting down my motorized bird’s journey, new landscapes were revealed, it sometimes snowed, melting before sticking to the trees, and I got a glimpse of Ruby, not utterly ready to live my new adventure.

Thus, I leave, tomorrow or after tomorrow or Saturday. Earlier is better. I don’t know where I belong in this unknown place. Here, I am definitely the alien and I don’t know if my host is the rule or the exception. This stop was necessary anyway, so I wouldn’t have any regret. Since I have as much time as I thought here, I decide to make the best of it in this other Alaskan tradition. No matter the grey drizzle, I walk the grey Yukon beach and enjoy the surroundings’ regular flatness.

I run away like an early bird the next day, before sunrise, before my awkward hosts wake up, in order to escape this growing uncomfortable feeling that I don’t totally understand. I walk heavy in the blue hazy morning towards the airport, I am on stand for today plane and I hope the foggy sun will smile at me at some point. I wait two hours in the blind, cold, humid and desert airport. Fog vanishes, I can hear helix in the sky but nothing shows. I think about Evelyn’s grandson who didn’t pick me up because he couldn’t hear the plane. I think about one paint in Anchorage museum: a big blue grizzly bear surrounded by hanging planes because the artist’s childhood was full of land or airplanes’ sound. The plane never land though; instead the official city car drives towards me and saves my homeless morning. I meet Jennie, smiling and thoughtful, who tells me the missing morning plane might try again in the afternoon. She offers me the city office warmth to cheer up my freezing hart. She is my Ruby angel, shinning in my Ruby’s days.
The afternoon flight is full booked except for one seat. Except they forgot to put me on stand. Thankfully! Jennie and her partner Francis offered me a shelter for the night and I am happy to observe a real self-sufficient homestead, authentic and traditional, in order to sink, even fleetingly, in what Ruby has to offer. I understand why this kind of places doesn’t need a coffee shop or other meeting point, the whole village comes and goes, unannounced, to Jennie’s and Francis’, for a quick talk, for a smoke, to chill out or to share a meal. I gaze at all their Athabascan (and half-Eskimo*** for Jennie) immortally faces telling me their eternal life.
Jennie already told me everything about her polyglot origins during our hared sunny afternoon. A side of her family arrived from Wales in the 1930’s for whales hunting; the other side is divided between Athabascan and Eskimo. Because she is a perfect blend of those two cultures, her and her siblings are always considered as strangers to each side. Today, she doesn’t care about all this, she knows her value, she eats caribou and moose, she dances like an Indian, she sings like an Eskimo. She blossoms on Ruby’s shores she has cheerfuly adopted. In this other hand, Francis was born and raised in Ruby. Trapper, he offers me to taste salmons he fished, meat he hunted and dried. He shows me the furs he sells and that will probably supply Northern communities for winter. He shares his old sled dog races, especially the commemoration of the serum one, led in the old times by Balto (always him! Some childhood memories stick to your life sometimes). He kept training dogs until last year, but he had to stop. Too expensive. Although he and Jennie still hear their whinings sometimes, when the night is dark and the silence is gold.

I eventually gaze at the sleepy Yukon River in the evening light, giving me, escaped from yesterday fog, the view on the surrounded low mountains. The river is still grey, even if it shines a bit pink tonight. And after a good moose goulach, the nice wood stove warmth makes me sleepy and lead me to clean bed. What a day!

As the sun rises towards Fairbanks the next morning, the first flight is not for me. Allowing me to ride the Yukon River on Francis’ boat who, like his fellow citizens, never learned how to swim. I cross this gigantic brown water and reach what they call their camp. Even it hasn’t looked like a tipi for a very long time. He tells me they have another camp further down the river****. Thus, they keep following their ancestors’ semi-nomadic way of life to escape a world that already doesn’t look like ours. Thus, they are nomadic and yet sedentary because their nomadism has borders. Francis doesn’t like to fly, he only loves his boat. It is not in his nature, in his culture?, to go far, Yukon’s shores are already a whole world for him.
The next flight is mine, I have known it for a long time. Because today is Hannah’s birthday and I think I secretly swore to myself to be with her. I look again, relaxed and light this time, the Earth under the sky. The Yukon curves and draws multicolor landscapes, it is one, it is one thousand. It is almost more stunning from the sky. This almost polar North is the kind of flat and endless landscapes you’d rather see from above; stepping on it might not be as giant, might not get all the nuances the scenery gives in the clouds. I therefore would like to grow some wings and flight above North Alaska.

This quick trip to Ruby gave me a precious traveling lesson. After a couple of uncertain hours, I tasted a beautiful comforted certainty throughout a peaceful walk on Yukon shores. And as soon as I had left the disgusting place, I felt so light, hopeful a solution would show up, certain everything will match what I wanted and needed. It was a genuine magic feeling, an open space for opportunities. Thus, my doubts slowly disappears to become faith. I could have avoided this adventure if I had read the signs, but I undoubtedly wanted to live it.

* I know society prefers to talk about Native Americans/Alaskans but Athabascans, Ruby Native community, call themselves Indians; I am therefore faithful to their culture more than a certain idea of political correctness.
** read more in my Irish travel diaries, A lazy summer
*** Once more, I use this term, considered as derogatory, because Jennie calls herself an Eskimo, which means « raw meat eater » in Algonquin, and applies to Inuits (included Alaskan Iñupiat and Yupik). I don’t know which one Jennie exactly belongs to. 
**** Those lands were given to them and other Natives few years ago, to make it up for conquest and colonization. 

Justine T.Annezo – Sept. 25th to 27th 2019, Ruby – GTM-8

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