The Grand Interpreter

Kluane National Park Interpretive Center

Yukon, August 2021

For Kim Henkel

The reason you’re in my office has got nothing to do with the fact that you and your friends are camped in the bush at the edge of the parking lot and using the washrooms. Or with the herd of donkeys grazing on the lawn.

Admittedly the RCMP was nosing around about the shifty-eyed guy that came in to pay your park fees and chatted up the interpreter at the front desk. Evidently, he, if that’s his preferred pronoun, which maybe it isn’t because your friends are all guys, was selling donkey rides to the motorhome crowd, and turned up at the pit-stop café across the highway trying to trade a basket of what he called “surplus fish” for a hamburger.

The fact is, Haines Junction has seen Jesus freaks before, though never this many at once. Just last year a guy came through who looked a lot like you and your friends: long, straggly hair, a coarsely-woven, unbleached, ankle-length gown, and sandals. He was a dragging big cross with a sign around his neck saying “Fargo to Fairbanks.” He parked the cross by our entrance and spent a couple of days collecting what he referred to as “alms” to finance his quest.

Most of us anted up just to get rid of him. The cross was made of styrofoam and had wheels on it. That looked like cheating.  And no crown of thorns. You and your people are more kosher, and everyone but the gardener loves the donkeys. Also, we heard about the freak with the cross weeks before he got here, while you and your gang appeared out of nowhere.

The problem is your application to hike into the Donjek Glacier, and some of the answers you gave to the interpreter when she asked for more information. But know this: we’re not here to take away your God-given right, as a Canadian, to enjoy a mind-altering wilderness experience in Canada’s greatest park. Our only concern is your safety.

The forty-day stay in the Park — that really raised eyebrows. I figured it out while I was looking out my window, watching a donkey chow down on some daffodils. That’s exactly how long it will take you to ride your donkey up north, do the hike, and ride back here to check out of the park. Good planning on your part, but actually you’re not in the park when you’re on the highway, and therefore not our responsibility, so we’ll have to change that.

We’re fussy about it because, if you don’t turn up, we have to go looking for you. You’ll be in the park for the duration of your hike, which is about eight days. We’ll make it ten to give you time to get to a phone in Burwash Landing. Our number is on your permit.

Next thing we have to deal with is some confusion about whether you plan on taking a donkey on the hike. He’d be good company, since your friends don’t seem to be going with you. He could carry the 50 pounds of camping supplies you’re going to need and, frankly, you don’t look like you’re capable of taking that much weight. And he could handle the terrain better than you, especially if you’re going to be wearing those sandals.

But only licenced outfitters are allowed to use pack animals. The reason is that Kluane has the highest concentration of grizzlies in the world. Generally, they’re a happy bunch, judging by our scat surveys, and right now they’re down low vacuuming up fireweed and soap berries. But very soon that big space between those furry ears is going to be filled with one thing, and that is a desire for protein before heading back into the mountains.

Usually they get sheep, but if they see someone on a donkey, they’re seeing an appetizer and a main course at one serving. Use pepper spray on him, and that’ll just add seasoning.

I figure that was the fate of last year’s freak. Around the end of September, a few kilometers north of Destruction Bay, the RCMP noticed his cross and sign on the side of the road. Most of the locals think he gave up and hitchhiked to Fairbanks, but I ‘m not that cynical. Having handed him a 10-dollar bill and wished him Godspeed, I like to think he finished his quest successfully and is happily in heaven, God appreciating his sacrifice and using a bear instead of some Romans to administer that all-important, final test of character.

Which leads to the next problem. You declined the mandatory bear-proof food container because you’ll be fasting. That’s not an option. I do know where you’re coming from, though. Long ago, as a student at Berkeley, I myself was dedicated to seeking revelation. I wasn’t into suffering, like you, so I tried the more common approaches: meditation, free love and drugs.

It was when my girlfriend Bunny and I dropped out and went to Antigua that I discovered the path that would be mine. We’d heard about a course in mime as meditation, promising a trade and transcendence in one short month. When our guru, Sigfrido, found out I couldn’t stand still or shut up for more than a second, and lacked what he called “the outward gaze,” he kicked me out of the course, gave me some peyote as a refund on my tuition, and wished me luck.

The peyote led me to God. I decided to stay where it was legal, and immediately set out for Tierra del Fuego, in search of the ultimate ceremonial high.

I also found out that free love was definitely not my path. Bunny stayed on with Sigfrido.

Look at it this way. By the time you get across the Burwash Uplands and over Hoge pass, you’ll be seeing cappuccino kiosks, delis, bakeries and hamburger joints in the bush along the side of the creek, and boulders that look like loaves of bread. You’re going to start thinking you can jump off cliffs.

So I’m loaning you my personal bear-proof canister. Inside, there’s a package of granola bars and a couple of fat doobies I rolled from the stash I keep in my desk for emergencies. I recommend that you fill the canister with dehydrated food, Kraft Dinner being my preference, and smoke the doobies when you find a place that God might regard as a high point in His creation.

For me, that would be the sand flats at the toe of the glacier. It’s apocalyptic, and God seems to like that sort of thing. The sound of ice shifting and crashing, like trains shunting in a rail yard. A stiff, cold wind coming off the icefield around Mount Logan and whistling down over the crevasses. Chunks of ice breaking off, crashing into the river, and clunking their way out to the Arctic Ocean.

If you suspect that you might need something stronger than a glacier and a couple of doobies to hoist you into the Presence, head down today at about dusk to the bridge out of town, at the picnic table near the entrance to the trail along the river. Take the shifty-eyed guy along if he’s the one who manages the cash.

I have another option in case you’re stubborn, and fasting is the way it has to be. You said you’ll be meeting up with someone to go climbing, and that he’ll likely be flying in. Bighorn Lake is the only place near your route that’ll host a float plane, and that’s at least day four of your hike. It’s conceivable that you could make it that far without eating, but climbing would definitely not be safe, so we’ll put him down as your food drop and omit any reference to climbing.

Don’t try to get as far as the lake, though. There’s a big, glacier-fed creek in the way that you’ll have to cross early in the morning when the melt is down. By then, you’re going to believe that you can walk on water. Arrange to meet your friend at the toe. Maybe he too wants an audience with the Big Guy.

More importantly, there’s a warden’s cabin at the lake, with a warden in it. If you make it that far, he’ll take one look at you and get you air-lifted out on a stretcher.

Finally, the donkeys. Obviously, they’ll soon wear out their welcome here, and I’m assuming your friends will all be heading up the highway with you. If not, I’ll be accountable when the parking lot and the lawn are covered in shit, the flowers are all gone, and some kid falls off his ride.

So what I’m going to suggest is not another favour to you but something of mutual benefit to us both. There’s a squatter camp between the Silver City ruins and Kluane Lake. Your buddies and the donkeys can hang out there, and you can hitchhike the rest of the way to trailhead.

That’s where I lived when I first got here. I returned to Berkeley only to hear, first, that I’d been rejected for dentistry, second that Bunny was back too, and pregnant, and looking for me, and third and more urgently that the US Army was also looking for me. The draft notice was my second one, after which they surround your house.  I know it’s hard to imagine, looking at me now, but my rating was 1-A, prime beef, so right away I grabbed up my pack and secured some financing from my mom. My father, a veteran, and like most soldiers a psychotic control-freak, was not happy with me. I made for the Interstate, and thumbed my way to Canada.

I got to Silver City in November. The first few months were hell. Average temperature, minus 40, all the way from Christmas into March. Mostly I cut wood, with a collapsible Swede saw and a hatchet. There was an old teepee frame there that I covered with tarps, and a rusted-out barrel heater left over from the Alaska Highway construction that I found in the bush and dragged inside. By March, there wasn’t a piece of dead wood anywhere for a mile around.

Then, a miracle. Two freakettes, if you’ll permit me to use that designation in these politically correct times, rolled off the highway in a school bus leaking coolant. With them they had a bale of devil’s lettuce, a bag of mushrooms, some tabs of LSD, and a bigger axe. I moved into the bus. As you might imagine, happy times ensued. And more kids to add to the twins that Bunny produced, registering me as the father.

That spring, I got work clearing trail in the park. Forty-five years later, here I am. I can hear you asking, forty-five years? Money is the obvious answer: support payments and school fees. The women always left in their own search for enlightenment, using mostly the free-love path, but I kept in touch. “Suffer the little children” is my motto. I went beyond that and suffered the big ones too. See the pictures on the filing cabinet? Notice all the mortarboards? It’s a miracle that none of them dropped out. I suppose society is more materialistic now than it was, excluding you of course.

You’ll recognize the place right away. A rusted school bus with a chimney, two broken down Westphalia campers, and the remains of a collapsed geodesic dome made of poles wired together with coat-hangers. The fact is I own it all. Another reason for the 45 years. Tim Leary told us to turn on, tune in, drop out. I decided to add, “buy in.” And what better investment than land? Anyone asks you what you’re doing there, just mention my name.

There’s not much pasture, but down the road is an outfitter who does horse-tours into the park. He can sell your friends feed for the donkeys. He might even give it to you in exchange for help and company. He’s a typical Yukoner: unwashed, squinty-eyed, big beard, gruff, hyper and lovable. If you drink with him, it’s Two Brewers Single Malt Whiskey. Pick it up at the liquor store down the road and load up one of the donkeys. Better make it two donkeys, because your friends will need some for themselves. He has nothing to do all winter but memorize Robert Service poems.

He has a boat, too. If your friends like fish, one or two lake trout is easily big enough to feed a dozen people. Just make sure they have a license.

So that’s it. I’ll put the word out with staff to look for your climber; he’ll have to register here once he arranges his flight. Don’t worry, we’ll spot him. We get more than a few climbers through here heading for Logan. Big guys, usually, covered with scabs, burnt black from high-altitude exposure, a crazed appearance due to oxygen deprivation taking out their brain cells, a bad limp from early-onset arthritis, and fingers that look like claws.

I can tell by the look on your face that I got him pinned.

If you don’t mind, I’ll advise him to take you along when he flies out. Not that I think you’ll die in there, but if something does happen, they’re going to have a good look at this application. I’ll be frank with you: if that happens, I’ll be up shit creek without a pack-raft.

Give this to the interpreters at the front desk. And say hi to Number One for me.