I. We ***** our tents on the hardpack of the town’s airport, rows of stakes and guidelines like a fishing wharf in the tundra; the mail plane comes at one, an overfull vulture circling above before looping North towards the Gates of the Arctic for the approach run. The landing is a front row rock concert where the bassist only knows one chord and the drummer is still setting up: the tone resonates in the ooze of our marrow; that is to say, the landing is simple, drifting over alpine fir and spruce tops with ballet grace before cutting power and slamming wheels to gravel.
II. Yesterday’s rain feeds the Yukon today. Its hands reach for a hard cloud ceiling and its lows, its troughs call my name, call my name, call my name, endless waves in the river’s center, arcing with storm energy and grip strength.
III. Other planes come, and leave, and helicopters set down near us. We play cards in their wind, drink camp coffee that strains through the teeth and plugs the gaps; we watch and we wait for seats that never come, waiting to leave this airport runway, waiting to fight the big fires.
IV. We hear the boats before we see them, curving around the clay banks and we line our packs along their aluminum walls. We sit in plastic bags to keep dry of river spray, I hear my name again, and another mail plane takes off. The hardpack vibrates under the wheels, the engines scream their one note show, and the DC-3 sinks off the runway towards the Yukon – and us – before catching itself, then slowly, so slowly we can almost touch the silver belly, it growls to the North and loops South towards Fairbanks.