Alaska! Up North and to the Left

by Steven Swaks

  Lydia saw avocados.

  “How are they?” I asked.

  She palpated them. “Hard. But we could wait a few days and they would be softer.”

  “Hum.” I grumbled.

  Deborah approached us. “They have clothing and stationery upstairs.” She called looking towards a large mezzanine overlooking the entire store. We politely nodded and glanced back at the vegetables.

  We browsed through the aisles for a while. There was nothing peculiar about the store, the bag of Cheetos was the same in Bethel as it was in Los Angeles, or at least I thought so. I looked closer. Seven dollars. Seven Dollars for a bag of Cheetos? I thought troubled.

  I approached Lydia. “Lydia? How much for a bag of Cheetos at home?”

  “I don’t know. Two, three dollars, I guess.” There was an obvious question mark on her face. “Why?”

  “Check this out, seven bucks.”

  “Yikes.”

  “They better pay you well if we stay in this place. Let’s see the soy milk.”

  “Soy milk? Here? You kidding? It’s going to be outrageous!” Lydia laughed. “This is Alaska; they are into caribou for breakfast. I really don’t think they care about soy milk.”

  “I would like to see the ratio of vegetarian and vegans in the area,” I said. Lo and behold, I found the soy milk and looked at the price. “How much for a quart in L.A.?”

  “If you go to Costco, it is probably around a dollar.”

  “Five bucks here.”

  She chugged, “I’m not surprised.”

  I turned towards Debby who was buying a few items for herself. “Why are the prices so high? Is it because of transportation?”

  “All the produce comes by air, that’s why it is so expensive. During the summer, the heavy loads like gasoline, gravel, or lumber, come by barge. I think the last one is around September. After that, the river is frozen during the entire winter. The first barge to come back is usually around late May or early June. Some people prefer to go shop in Anchorage and bring back totes with them. The other day a friend of mine went through airport security with a turkey!” Deborah chuckled.

  “Live?” Lydia asked.

  “No, you can’t do that! Or maybe you can, I don’t know. Anyway, that one was dead.”

  We continued strolling through the store. I cannot say I was disappointed, but I was expecting something else. I was hoping for something more exotic, I didn’t know, more Alaskan. A small booth with a short wooden countertop was nudged under the large mezzanine, almost below the staircase leading upstairs. I approached it to get a better look. A native woman was selling scratch cards and lottery games. I had never seen a counter dedicated to games before, at least not in a supermarket. The woman looked at me. I smiled; she quickly waved with a friendly grin.

  “Hi! Do you want one?” She said with a welcoming and genuine voice.

  “Oh, no, thank you… I was just looking.” I pressed on and looked behind me; Lydia and Deborah were out of sight. Another few steps and a wide area opened up beneath the mezzanine with several snowmobiles nicely lined up in increasing size. The first one was a tiny model for children; the largest was a touring model with a price tag soaring well above $12,000. I looked, intrigued, but arctic mechanics was as foreign to me as squid shopping in a Hong Kong market. I stared uneducated in the matter. I admired the flashy red paint job, the comfortable two adult seats, and the track, long lost offspring of a Sherman tank, at least in my World War II aficionado’s mind. It would be wonderful to ride on a snowmobile, but I knew it would probably never happen anyway. I admired the five machines for a while and ventured by a nearby wall dressed with an endless array of survival gear and tools, flashlights, hand warmers, matches, knives, fishing hooks, and all sorts of gadgets supposed to save your life, or prolong it, in case of trouble in the wild.

  A delightful smell floating in the air invaded my idling nostrils. Fried food? I was at this point in life where junk food was not forbidden but it was time to start paying attention to what I was eating. The teenager was long gone and my arteries, along with Lydia, reminded me that I had to start being careful with my food intake. My taste buds were on the other side of the coin and could not comprehend why it was so critical to eat healthy. Why was there such a need for restraint when the world was filled with endless culinary possibilities? Mainly led by my olfactory sense, I sniffed my way to the deli section in a delightful surrender. Fried anything lay in heated glass cases, potatoes, cheese sticks, corn dogs, chicken drum sticks, chicken nuggets, and even burritos avoided the fryer but only participated in the temptation.

  Lydia found me before dragging my frustrated self to the cashier. “Don’t even think about it! We have to go. Debby’s waiting for us. I need to get some postcards first!” She walked up to one of the cashiers. “Good morning, I’m looking for your postcards.”

  “Postcards?” The young native girl said incredulously. “Postcards of… of what?” She shook her head in disbelief.

  “Bethel,” Lydia said as if it was the most natural request.

  “Why?” The cashier chuckled. “Um, no… we don’t have any. We have some generic ones of Alaska if you want.”

  “It’s ok, I was just looking for Bethel, thank you.” Lydia walked towards the exit where we were waiting for her.

  We stepped out of the store. It was still very dark. What time was it? 9:30? 9:40? There was only a very faint orange glow towards the East. The rest of the town was still engulfed in utter darkness. A few cars drove by the highway breaking the deep sense of isolation. The silence, the arctic cold, the light wind numbing our faces were other touches to the grim picture, I could not live here. How could it be so dark so late?

  “Debby? When is it daylight here?”

  “At this time of the year… the sunrise should be around 10:00.”

  “And sunset?”

  “Should be around 5:00, 5:30.”

  “That’s what, seven hours of daylight?” I cringed and looked at Lydia.

  “It’s ok. We have special lamps. They’re supposed to imitate the sunlight. They really help!” She laughed.

  “That makes me feel much better. Thanks Debby.” I grinned.

  “What about the summer?” Lydia asked.

  “The sun sets very late. We even get two weeks in June without sunset. I love it! We go fishing by the river at one in the morning! You should do it! It’s so much fun!”

  “That’s if we stay…” I muttered to Lydia.

  Health Corp.

  January

  The health corporation was next on the list. We boarded Deborah’s car for the five minute drive to the headquarters. We followed the main highway for the same spectacle we had seen the previous evening with a faint sunrise hardly backing up the dim street lighting. A small city police station followed a DMV office, a small sign showed the direction to a court house and the University of Alaska-Fairbanks Kuskokwim Campus. The highway slightly rose and curved to the right, passing by a cultural center with large white birds painted on the façade. There were no more buildings for a while and I could not see much in the darkness other than snow covered tundra and frozen ponds. A narrow boardwalk travelled well above the ground with a wide silver pipe beneath it.

  “Debby? What’s that large pipe underneath the boardwalk?” I asked. “I’ve been seeing it all over town.”

  “It’s the water piping. The ground is frozen so the pipes have to stay above it. Half of Bethel has city water.”

  I frowned, “What about the other half?”

  “It’s delivered by truck. You’ll see them around town. There’s a clean water truck and sewer one to come pick up the waste water. It works out well.”

  Debby pulled into a parking lot and parked by a large three-story building across the street from the main hospital. We were scheduled to meet some of the administrative staff and visit the clinic. From a self-centered point of view, the next two or three hours would be as arousing as a dentist lecture about gum abscesses, but i
t was a necessary and critical stop for Lydia, so I prepared myself to weather out the boredom. We entered the building hall, walked upstairs and entered an empty conference room facing east. Deborah walked out for an instant. I peeked outside. The sun was finally rising above the horizon and was uncovering Alaska for the first time. The wild tundra was the first one to come out and show its beauty. It was simple. There were no majestic Northwood or tall spruce trees. It was only snow covered tundra and small bushes, but something was mesmerizing about it. The snow was glistening in the early morning hours. I wanted to see more. I squinted towards the horizon. There were a few shadows, an indentation, something breaking what should have been a smooth horizon line. It defined itself and drew a clear serrated shape. It was a low mountain range. There was a passive strength about the scenery. It was quiet. Nothing was moving, but I could feel the wilderness right outside the building. It was the Alaska I had hoped for.

  “Steven!” Deborah barged into the room. “The paramedics are here! They have a call to a village. Do you want to go?”

  Did I want to go? What a question! Let me reflect, ponder… take a deep breath, regroup, “sure, I’d love to.” I said with an over-cool voice.

  A few minutes later, I was on my way to the airport in the front of an old pickup truck squished between Lance and Chris, two medevac paramedics. We parked in front of a large aviation hangar and entered the building. While they gathered their gear, I walked to the medevac plane, a Cessna Caravan operated by Coastal Aviation, an Alaskan regional airline based in Anchorage with a large hub in Bethel. Someone activated an electric motor and a large hangar bifold door rose in a dull winding sound.

  “Can I help you?” A man, lean but muscular with short brown hair and a blue flight suit, presumably a pilot, asked walking towards me with a decisive stride.

  “I’m Steven Swaks; I’m supposed to go on this flight,” I answered startled.

  “Sorry Tom. This is Steven. His wife might work with the health corporation. He’s from L.A. Do you mind if he rides with us?” Lance asked.

  “Sure, I’m Tom Bailey; you can go in the copilot seat. I’ll get you a headset.”

  “I appreciate it, thanks.” I shook his hand.

  I stepped aside to ease the departure process. Bailey drove a small blue tug and anchored the nose wheel to a large tow bar. He then sat back on the tug and backed up with great caution.

  “How’s the right wing?” He hollered to Chris.

  “You’re good!”

  Bailey’s head was going back and forth from the tip of the left wing to the right, back to the left like a pendulum. The plane was rolling out gently.

  “I can’t hit anything… if I mess it up, the patient can’t go to the hospital and my boss is going to kill me…” Tom said without looking at me. I could see the acute concentration on the maneuver. I did not answer. Tom had shared out loud his personal thoughts. It was no time for chatter. The wings came out without trouble.

  “Good job,” I said after the tension dropped.

  “Not done yet, look at the tail.” I looked up. The red beacon light on the very top of the tail was grazing the bottom of the hangar door. “You just need somebody impatient who does not raise the door all the way up and that’s it. It wouldn’t take much, three or four inches…” Again, I stayed quiet. The tail cleared the door. “All right, get in, buckle up, and hook up your headset. I’ll meet you in there in a minute.”

  Tom unhooked the plane and drove the tug back inside before lowering the hangar door. He walked back to the aircraft and sat in the captain’s chair. He was upbeat and cheerful. It was a trend in this place. Many people looked happy to be there, I could not fathom why. The cold, the isolation, the darkness, it was all too much for me. Tom started the turbine* engine in a loud winding sound. After a few minutes, we taxied out, stopped for an instant, then lined up with the runway before taking off towards the Northwest. The delta was endless. The tundra went on and on as far as I could see. There were the mountains behind us, perhaps thirty or forty miles away, other than that, there was nothing but hundreds of lakes in different shapes and sizes.

  “City boy, huh?” Tom asked.

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “L.A. on top of that. Smog, traffic, heat, yuk. I don’t know how you can do it.”

  “It’s like anywhere else, you’ve pros and cons.”

  “If you decide to come here, you’ll need a better jacket.” Tom pointed at my sheepskin bomber jacket.

  “This one is pretty good.”

  “That’s for the city. Guarantee it’s not gonna cut it up here. You need something stronger, something waterproof that goes lower. This one is too short. Trust me on that one. You should go to Anchorage to buy one.”

  I nodded, I was not there yet. “Where are we going?” I asked in the headset.

  “We’re going to Emmonak. It’s a village on the coast.” Tom said with the engine humming in the background. “You know, they don’t have paramedics down there. They might have a physician assistant or a nurse practitioner in the big villages, but most of the time, they only have health aides.” Tom told me through the crackly intercom.

  “Health aides? What’s that? Who are they?”

  “I’m not really sure. They have different levels; I think it’s like some kind of first responder at the clinic. They can assess the patients and somewhat stabilize them. Man, I would hate their job.” Tom said shaking his head.

  “Why is it so bad?”

  “Cause sometimes if we can’t fly because of a bad winter storm, they can be stuck with the patients for hours or days without backup. Some people have died like that. On top of that they know most of the patients. They are family members or neighbors, either way they probably grew up knowing them. It’s really stressful.”

  The rest of the flight continued with superficial chatter and amazing scenery. We flew over the whitened treeless tundra and frozen lakes marked with an occasional snow machine trail. We skimmed by the iced up Yukon River and marveled at snow covered low mountains. The experience was surreal. The flight had been an hour of beatitude staring outside and enjoying the ride.

  Tom landed on a gravel runway and taxied onto an icy apron. There was hardly anything, two or three older aviation hangars, a fuel pump housed in a wooden shed, piles of pallets, and a Cessna awaiting a flight. A twin engine plane, a Piper Navajo*, was parked with a collapsed nose wheel.

  “What happened to that plane?” I asked.

  “That was yesterday. The pilot hit a snow drift. He didn’t even see it. But it’s all right, he’s ok.” Tom paused. “You know, the flying here can be brutal.” It felt like a confession, an inside look of a possible job to come.

  Tom shut down the plane, and we stepped out to drive to the clinic. I was wondering where the ambulance was. Two snowmobiles were rushing towards us.

  “Lance, where’s the clinic?” I asked.

  “It’s in town.”

  “How do we get there? With snowmobiles?”

  Lance chuckled. “Nobody says snowmobiles here. It’s snow-go or snow machine. And yes we’re going to ride to the clinic.”

  I sat on the snow machine and hung onto my driver, an Eskimo bundled up under layers of thick clothing. He looked at me, nodded without a word, and proceeded towards the village. Then, it dawned on me, I was in arctic country riding on a snow machine! The experience was exhilarating. My skilled driver rode through the village at a disconcerting speed. He was used to it. For him, it was just one more ride, one more trip from A to B. I was a novice; a newcomer mostly remaining hidden behind his back. Once in a while, I peered out and watched old wooden cabins going by in a midst of falling snow and light fog. The wind only exacerbated the intense cold and drove me back down behind my rider. I repeated the cycle a few times until we reached the clinic.

  We entered a small building and met the patient, an older lady sitting on an examination table. Lance and Chris assessed her and began a mild breathing treatment under her family�
��s watchful eyes. I helped with minute tasks; after all, I was an EMT but I was not licensed in Alaska. The patient was stabilized, wrapped in a flexible protective shell, and covered with waterproof arctic blankets. She was then placed in a sled and a snow machine dragged her to the airport. Two men from the village assisted us to load her into the plane. Lance and Chris climbed onboard, closed the door behind them, and continued assisting their patient. Tom walked to the cockpit. I followed. We took off and headed back to Bethel. The return trip was quieter. The two medics were doing their job and the novelty of a flight with Tom had faded. I was enjoying myself, but there was no need for unnecessary talk. Tom was flying, I was taking it all in. We landed back in Bethel and transferred the older lady into an ambulance parked by the hangar; we then drove to the hospital. It was routine, it did not matter if it was a call in L.A. or in Bethel. The patient lay on the gurney and anxiously waited for what was next. The paramedic reassured her with kind words and monitored her, nothing I hadn’t done a thousand times. We dropped her off in the emergency room. It was strange, but I have had the preconceived idea that an E.R. in the bush would be below standard. It was not. The same professionalism as any other E.R. inhabited the facility for the same care short of a trauma which would be flown to Anchorage for a higher level of care.

  Lance and Chris took me to the health corporation’s headquarters across the street. I know it might sound silly, but the ride was truly appreciated in 15°F below! I exited the ambulance and said good bye with a final wave of the hand. After a brief search, I found Lydia roaming in one of the corridors. My morning had been wonderful. Hers had been dull and punctuated with visits, meetings, and a potential contract.

  “Hi!” I was wearing a large grin of satisfaction.

  “I take it the flight went well,” Deborah said with a twinkle in her eyes.

  “The flight was great! It was fun! I even had a chance to ride on a snowmob… a snow-go.”

  Deborah laughed. “I see you’re already getting used to the area! Where did you go?

  “We went to Emmonak.”