Before I was ten I’d had it up to here with breaking trail while carrying a full pack while wading through swamps while slapping at mosquitoes while yelling to scare off bears.
I’M AN UNHAPPY CAMPER. Where I grew up, when you didn’t get your moose, you didn’t eat meat that winter. If you wanted meat to eat, you went hunting in Kamishak Bay. If you went hunting in Kamishak Bay, back before statehood, when Alaska was one gigantic national unPark, perforce, you went camping. In tents.
Before I was ten I’d had it up to here with breaking trail while carrying a full pack while wading through swamps while slapping at mosquitoes while yelling to scare off bears. I told my mom when she got a real job on shore that paid enough so we could buy our meat from Bayview Mercantile that I had pitched my last tent.
Which was why, a few years ago when my friend Linda Longstaff suggested hiking the Resurrection Trail, I responded, well, shall we say, in the negative. “Not only no,” I believe I said, “but hell no,” and I trotted out my standard disclaimer. “I don’t do tents.”
Thinking that was that.
It wasn’t.
Alaska Traveler Chatter alaska Chilkoot Trail Resurrection Trail
Oh come on, don’t leave us hanging!
It is one of the columns collected in Alaska Traveler. Buy link beneath the cover art above. She said demurely.