Surviving Bear Island (2 page)

“Da-a-d,” I tried to yell. “Da-a-d.” My voice sounded strange. It was stretched out and slow, like a sheep baaaing. I rubbed my face with my hands, then cupped them over my mouth and breathed, and kept working on my cheeks until they could move on their own.

“Dad!”

Dad!

Dad!

Dad!

But all I heard was the boom of the waves as they broke on the beach, and a hiss as they were sucked back into the sea. And the wind flapping my hood.

I ran north along the rocky beach, my feet sloshing in my boots, my kneecaps stinging with every step. I kept ducking into the forest, hoping Dad had washed up and crawled under the trees like I had.

I called out again and again, and kept calling until my voice gave out. At the base of a rocky point where a small stream carved its way toward the sea, I dropped to my knees and pounded the beach with my fists. I rolled onto my side, then curled into a ball.

Where was he?

Dad. Dad. Dad, my mind screamed.

The rain pounded my exposed side—big, fat drops making dull thuds on my raingear, like the clouds were dropping marbles on me. I knew if I just lay here, I'd be dead soon. But I didn't want to move. Didn't want to face whatever there was to face, alone.

I rolled onto my stomach, pushed with my arms and stood up. I scanned the water again.

Monstrous green waves, topped with white froth, ran to the horizon.

My head fell forward and my chin pressed into my life vest.

This was my fault. All my fault. My mistake. My stupid mistake. I kicked the beach and sent small stones tumbling toward the surf.

A massive shiver took control of my body and for several seconds wouldn't let go. The wind was gonna freeze me solid if I didn't take shelter.

My hand brushed my side and I felt the bump in my jacket pocket, the survival kit Dad insisted I carry. I hadn't touched it since I stuffed it into my pocket at the start of the trip—August first—almost three weeks ago.

I turned my back on the water, and the wind pushed me into the forest. On the back side of a massive spruce as wide as a dump truck, I worked the kit out of my pocket.

Tom. Tom. Listen.

“Dad,” I said. “Dad?”

I walked all the way around the tree but saw nothing.

You never know, son, but in case something happens and you get into a pinch, it doesn't hurt to be prepared. It's unlikely, but in case we find ourselves separated from each other or from our gear, at least you'll have something.

I turned in a circle, searching. “Dad?” I called again. “Dad?” But saw nothing but green. Wet green.

But his voice, I'd heard it. And, he'd said those exact words when he'd handed me the kit.

Dad had made it himself, double-bagged in one-gallon Ziploc baggies. The kit was bulky, always causing my pocket to catch on the combing of the cockpit when I got in and out of the kayak. I hated it. I wanted to put it somewhere else, but Dad had said, “No. Absolutely not.”

“Whatever,” I'd said, as I stuffed the monster into my pocket. “Like I'm really gonna need it.”

“I hope you don't. But if you do, you'll have it.”

And now, holding it in my hands, the kit felt small. Incredibly small. I knelt gently on the back side of the tree, and checked it out:

1 emergency blanket

1 lighter

1 small box waterproof matches

2 pixie fishing lures with treble hooks 1 bunch of fishing line

1 pocket knife about four inches long

2 Meal Pack bars

6 small pieces of rope

1 small piece of flint

4 two-inch-long fire starter sticks

I leaned forward. Moisture from my nose dripped onto the knife.

My teeth knocked together like one of those wind-up chattering-teeth toys. I stood, and jumped up and down, rubbed my hands together, then stuffed everything back into the bags to keep it all dry.

Without a fire, I was as good as dead.

Look for dead tree branches that are attached to big trees. They stay the driest during the rain.

Where was he? Just in my head? Those words, his words, his voice,
echoed in my mind. It sounded like he was right next to me. I glanced around again, but saw nothing.

I worked in a fury, snapping dead branches from big trees, and then piled them on the backside of the spruce. I knelt, and scraped away a layer of wet needles. With the lighter, I lit a fire starter stick, fed it dry twigs, and got a small fire going.

I held my hands—white and wrinkled—over the pocket-sized flames, hungry for the heat.

But I needed more wood. It was gonna get dark. And I'd be alone. With the bears. I tried to swallow the lump of fear in my throat, but it kept coming back up.

Bears. Hungry bears. I wouldn't want to come face to face with one. Where we lived outside of Fairbanks, we'd seen bears on our road a couple of times, once in our driveway, and lots of tracks on the trails my dad made behind our house. When I was little I wasn't allowed to play outside alone. Mom said if we'd lived closer to town it'd be different, but we lived on the edge of wild country, and you never knew what might wander through.

I loaded a few sticks onto the fire, then searched the forest and the top of the beach for more fuel. And I kept running to the shore, scanning the crashing waves, hoping to see the orange of my dad's life preserver bobbing toward shore. Or to see my dad standing, to hear his voice calling to me.

I was on a tiny flat spot of forest. Behind me the land turned steep. It was still forested, but I knew what was above that forest. I'd seen it from the kayak. The granite-capped mountains of Bear Island. And they were steep, like you'd need a rope to climb them.

I crisscrossed some branches onto the fire. I wanted it big.

Dad, I thought. He'd know what to do. Wild country was one of his two loves. My mom was the other.

My dad was kind of a loner. But I didn't realize how much of a loner he was until after Mom died three years ago. I mean, they used to have friends, but really they were her friends. “Your mother had a lot of friends,” he would say, “and I had your mother.” He felt more at home in the woods than anywhere. That's why my dad moved to Alaska in the first place. That's why we lived ten miles out of town on a big piece of land.

He liked the quiet. Every winter he'd pick a spot farther away from the house down one of the trails he'd cut by hand, and he'd set up a canvas wall tent with a small woodstove. When I was little he'd put me in a sled and pull me out there. “Going for a sled ride, Tom.” I loved those rides. Then later, I got my own snowshoes and I'd walk out with him. I'd help him cut firewood, and we'd have hot chocolate, and we'd explore from there, examining tracks, and animal scat, and places where moose rubbed the bark off the aspen trees with their antlers. We were a team. A happy team.

Mom would usually ski out. Sometimes she'd bring part of a story she was writing and would read it to us, or a song she was working on. But after Mom died that wall tent sat folded up in the shed. It's still there. And my dad pretty much sat folded up in the house. But on the drive down to Whittier to start the kayak trip, he said it was time to pull the wall tent back out this winter. That I was gonna have my old dad back. We were gonna be a team again.

I ran back to the shore, searching for him, calling, calling, calling. The gray waves rolled up the beach, matching the color of the darkening sky. He's out there somewhere. Alone. All because of me. My head felt heavy, like it was being weighed down by a big bag of sand and it was taking all my strength to keep it attached to my neck.

I glanced up the beach toward the rocky point. Maybe he'd washed up on the other side of that point.

He had a survival kit, too. Tomorrow I'd get over that point and look for him, but right now I needed to take care of myself 'cause if I didn't I wouldn't even see tomorrow.

I walked back to my fire and loaded more sticks onto it. Then I pulled my spray skirt off and let it drop to the ground. Because I was on shore it hung down to my knees, but in the kayak it stretched around the combing of the cockpit, sealing you in. It was supposed to keep out any water that splashed over the top.

I unzipped my life vest and let it drop on top of the spray skirt. Peeled off my raincoat and rain pants, draped them over a tree branch. Took my pile jacket off, wrung it out and hung it on a branch, then huddled near the fire, thankful that the rain had let up some.

I rotated my body, trying to dry off all over. Steam rose from my drenched long underwear tops and bottoms. I pulled my rubber boots off,
dumped the water out of them, took my wool socks off, squeezed what water I could out of them, then put them back on, followed by my boots.

Staying dry is one way to stay warm. Moving around is another way to stay warm. You lose a lot of body heat through your head.

Hat and gloves. I got them out of the other pocket of my raincoat, and put them on.

That image. The last glimpse I had of my dad bobbing in the waves kept replaying in my mind. His wet, hatless head and matted beard. My stomach clenched. It started to burn. I took a breath but it kept on burning.

The popping, crackling fire shot sparks. It sizzled as moisture from the branches above dripped. Darkness came. I crawled back into my rain gear and scooted as close to the fire as I could without actually being in it. I wished this was all a bad dream, but knew it was a living nightmare.

THE NEXT
morning my head was pounding. My face was inches from the coals, my mouth dry from inhaling smoke and ash. I tried to swallow, but my tongue stuck on the back of my throat.

I sat up. With a stick, I dug into the black splotch of coals, hoping some were glowing.

No luck.

I stepped out of the forest and scanned the beach for any sign, scraps of the kayak, a piece of gear, the orange of my dad's life vest. I could see for several miles across the water, but the cove I was in, bordered by steep, rocky points, cut off my view of the coast.

I walked north, my clammy rain pants clinging to my long-johns, my kneecaps aching a little less than they did yesterday. My damp socks wrapping my lower legs and feet like soggy moss covering rotten logs. My head pounding with each step.

At the stream, I recognized the wide, bright-green leaves that reached above my waist. Skunk cabbage, I remembered Dad calling it, saying, “Bears eat the roots and deer eat the leaves.” A whole mess of it crowded the small stream as it snaked back into the forest.

I lay on my stomach, put my face to the stream and drank—my cupped hands shoveling cold water into my mouth. Each time I swallowed, pain shot up the back of my head like an electric shock.

I rolled onto my back and covered my eyes. Yesterday's accident flashed into my mind. I squeezed my eyes tighter until the scene turned black.

I stayed like that until the cold ground forced me to sit up. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the survival kit. I unzipped the two Ziploc
bags, grabbed one of the Meal Pack bars, tore the wrapper, and took a bite and almost spit it out.

“Yuck.”

The bar tasted like modeling clay mixed with nuts and raisins. I ate the whole bar, and it seemed to wake up my stomach. It felt emptier now than before I'd eaten it.

I kept walking north, reached the point, and cut back into the forest. My rubber boots slid on the steep slope as I switch-backed my way up, gripping tree branches and brush. Unfortunately Devil's club was one.

“Ouch!” I yelled, as I jerked my hand away from a devil's club stem. Pale green thorns dotted my left hand, just below the thumb. I pulled the thorns out and little red dots grew in their place. Then this stinging sensation crept into my hand. I sucked my palm, then rubbed it, trying to ease the sting but it kept on stinging, like it was on its own schedule. I kept going, pushing through the eye-level, foot-wide palm-shaped leaves, careful not to grab any more stems.

I crested the ridge and worked my way toward the point overlooking the water. In the distance, maybe a quarter mile from shore, lay a series of rock reefs. Waves broke over the jagged rocks, exposing and then covering the spiky formations. In front of the closest reef I saw a head pop up, then another and another. Six sea lions swimming north against the waves. I tasted the Meal Pack bar at the base of my throat and swallowed it down.

The waves. They'd pushed me south of the reef, way south. I mean, where I'd washed up looked four times as far as the straight-line distance to shore, and I'd been swimming straight for shore as hard as I could.

I just wanted my dad to appear on the shore. Maybe a little bruised up, but ready to take charge. To tell me what to do and where to go. And to tell me that everything would be all right. To forgive me for my screw-up. And, if he was hurt, I'd take care of him. Build him a big fire and do whatever it took to help him. My chest tightened and I sucked in a short breath, wanting more air.

He had to be around here somewhere. He was stronger than me, so maybe he'd gotten to shore in more of a straight line while I'd been swept by the waves. He may have been a lost zombie at home after Mom died, but out here he was the expert. He knew his way around the forest and
knew what to do in the cold. Forty below, fifty below, even sixty degrees below zero and he would still go out on his snowshoes.

The coast angled northwest. A series of black cliffs and tan headlands two to three hundred feet high, dotted with off-shore rocks stretched to the horizon.

We'd been planning to round the tip of the island, paddle down the other side partway, and then cross back to the mainland. But it was gonna be a long crossing, like seven miles. The crossing at the southern end of the island, where we'd come from, was only five miles.

Only five miles of frigid water. Like we could swim either one. I'd barely made it to shore. Still couldn't believe that I was actually standing here. But if I'd made it to shore, Dad must've too.