The First Day

Alaska

April 18^th

I arrived on the dock in Skagway around noon, packing up my things and hitching them to my bike as best I could. I must have looked a sight as I pedaled down the main drag, for the first time, drinking in the trees, the mountains, the old fashioned buildings designed to look like the 1800’s mountain town that it once was while balancing a sixty liter pack, a twenty-five liter pack, a rubber river bag and a small duffel.

On the ferry from Juneau I met a nice girl who is a Haines local. She gave me the rundown on Skagway and its vibe, saying that you can spot the guides from a mile away after asking me if I was going to be guiding. She was back home for the first time in months to see her family and to look for work. Her description of the lifestyle in Skagway sounded surprisingly similar to a college town with a serious outdoor recreation habit. She mentioned raucous bonfires, house parties, camping trips every weekend and above all the relaxed and friendly nature of the residents. She drove the notion home, “Do you have a lock on your bike? People in Skagway don’t really lock anything, their homes, their cars, their bikes, but if you do leave your bike out it will probably be borrowed. Then you won’t be able to find it for a week and all of a sudden you’ll run across it at a bar that you’ve never been in.” I liked it already.

I pedaled down State Street. My only information for my address to this point was an email where my boss wrote “Oh, and if no one told you, your house is on 15^th and State. It’s The Green Haus.” So that’s what I was looking for, a green house.

When I pulled up to the corner and saw a dilapidated rambler with rusted metal scraps in the front, dead grass and a fire pit in the back I figured I was home. Characteristically, the back door was open and I stepped inside, not sure what I would find.

I was greeted by one of the returning guides as he was in the middle of working with the water supply people to get the water turned on for the house, for which he was unsuccessful. After they left, he informed me that there was also no electricity yet. No bother I told him, I’d lived through a winter in Utah without heat, I could go a few days without water and electricity.

The house on the inside reminded me of the house on Paper Street in Fight Club, after the club has been formed and there’s people packed to the rafters and various experiments in communal living being tested. There are seven bedrooms and three bathrooms with a layout that contains no more than a thousand square feet. One very large room has two beds and one small room has two beds as well, the only shared rooms in the house. The room nearest the backdoor already had gear and clothing strewn about and was being claimed by John, who I had not met yet. One small room in the back had also been claimed by Sam, who was hiking with john at the time, which left me to choose a room that I thought wouldn’t be snatched up by the returning guides who get first pick no matter if you’ve setup or not.

The view from the living room looks down a bare street which leads down to the dock, in the distance a monstrous white peak named Mount Harding which climbs 5,249 feet out of the water in a vicious ascent. It’s neighbor to the right is face mountain, called so because it looks like a man’s face staring straight at the sky with a visible chin, nose and eye declivity, standing 5,194 feet. In every direction one is struck by the massive uprising of landscape created by massive upheaval, tectonic plates crushing each other and buckling between the forces.

After throwing my junk in my room, I rode my bike a few blocks down the street to the library to use the internet for a moment, as well as the bathroom which was not an option yet in my home. After the library came the market where I purchased a small jar of peanut butter and strawberry preserves, a loaf of bread, a block of cheddar, a round of ham and some mustard for $27.45. I should lose weight with these prices.

Once I’d revived myself with a thick ham and cheese sandwich and a pb&j, it was time for my first hike. I hopped on my bike and rode to the end of 15^th avenue towards the train tracks and followed those down to a trailhead, not knowing where I was going or what I would find. The trail led to a few spectacular views of the bay and parts of the town, along with the surrounding peaks. After five hundred feet of elevation gain one comes across a man made reservoir. The hydraulic power created by this reservoir was once a major draw for miners in the early years of Skagway, being a remote homestead that had the option of electricity had its draw, even then. On this day the reservoir was just coming out of its icy grip, large blue cracks could be seen along the edge of the shore and the snow in the middle looked tired.

Another few hundred yards and Lower Dewey lake comes into view, stretching south west in a long but narrow expanse between the dense trees.

On my way up the trail I met a few other hikers who were on their way down. Little did I know, a pair of young men who were near my age were actually the two roommates that I hadn’t yet met. We would later discover this coincidence when I rode back to the house on my bicycle and discovered them crowded around the newly working heater in the living room.

That night we bought a twelve pack of beer and walked out to the river bordering the northwestern edge of town to gaze at the stars and listen to the stream’s gurgling song.