What happens after you find yourself mired in a precarious situation you could and should have avoided?
That’s the premise driving “On the Old Denali Road,” a short story by Alaskan author Daryl Farmer in his collection “Where We Land,” published by Brighthouse Books.
Farmer also published an adventurous memoir titled “Bicycling Toward the Divide: Two Journeys into the West.” He teaches in the English Department at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
Reading this tale brought back the tension I felt long ago reading Jack London’s story “To Build a Fire.” Namely, does one man fighting alone stand a chance?
The scene-by-scene story construction is powerful, the narrator’s voice engaging. I chose to review this single story as an essay, rather than skim all 12 stories in the 200-page volume.
“On the Old Denali Road” is a tale of bad choices, miscalculations, ignored forebodings, and – bam – we join the narrator in a crisis of his own making.
We’ve all ignored the primeval voice in our head warning us away from peril. I’m reminded of the time I went hiking alone in Alaska’s Interior in midwinter and crashed 10 feet through loose snow and had to use my snowshoes to gouge steps to free me from a crisis of my own making.
But that’s a story for another column.
Daryl Farmer’s narrator is an education professor. He’s returning to Anchorage in late February from Fairbanks after supervising a student teacher. On his way back, he enjoys a respite in near-empty Denali Park. Here, as he departs a checkpoint, a park ranger warns that a bad storm is likely imminent.
We don’t learn so much at first, but Farmer parcels out the details through flashbacks.
Farmer’s protagonist gets himself in a fix. Instead of continuing to drive on the well-traveled Denali Highway to a night’s lodging in Talkeetna, he takes an unplowed, turn-off road – hence the title.
He drives an old vehicle, two better vehicles back at his house. It lacks even a working cigarette lighter. The Wagoneer is the kind of vehicle that’s always in a repair shop, but to him it’s the sort of vehicle an Alaskan owns.
He listens to a collection of opera songs. Here, I mentally chide the writer for not revealing which foreboding aria was playing. (The rest of the tale is loaded with juicy detail, tension, and revelations that kept me reading long after I should have turned off the light and set my alarm).
Just enough daylight remains to take a few photos with the secondhand Hasselbach 6×7 camera his father-in-law bought at a pawn shop.
He has a Stellar’s Jay on a branch nearby for company. A second ranger waves as he heads on with his dog team.
Bam, after he gets into his rig to retrace his way back to the highway, his snow-covered Jeep collides with a moose.
The Wagoneer lies on its side like a bug. He extricates himself. The Jeep’s finito. He’s broken his arm. He’s gashed his head. Now what?
The reader learns more about him in another flashback. The narrator’s true love is photographing Alaskan wilderness. However, he has failed in a brief gig as a professional. Now he’s but a gifted amateur with prints in local cafes and shops.
The crisis is full-blown. Some bad luck and poor preparation allows no opportunity to call for rescue.
Instead of staying inside the ruined Jeep, he elects to find shelter that may or may not be in hiking distance. If he passes out from his wounds or cannot navigate the snowbound terrain, the professor may die.
He’s brought no facemask, scarf, or emergency supplies. His ski cap lacks fur or insulation. His sheepskin jacket soaks in moisture. He’s left his snowshoes in the abandoned wreck. His heavy boots make each step an effort.
The reader has been forewarned. The story began with an aphorism. “To not get yourself in the situation in the first place: that was the key to winter survival in Alaska.”
The author allows the narrator himself to tick off one character deficiency after another.
One time at the Grand Canyon, his wife Nancy admonished him for playing the daredevil and setting his tripod inches away from yawning nothingness. Ever after, maybe he even previously, he freefalls in his dreams.
“It’s why horses need reins,” Nancy said.
Nonetheless, he’s an appealing character because he’s all too frail and human.
He knows he alone must get himself out of another fine mess he’s gotten himself into. Potential rescue mushers or snowmobilers are at home enjoying a beer like he should have been doing in a Talkeetna bar.
During his trek, the narrator reflects on his life in and out of Alaska. We readers learn he’s an essentially happy man, but he’s restless, a risk taker, and an adventurer locked in a sedentary job.
Farmer writes this: “But even in the most content of men, there is a yearning isn’t there? A deep-seated desire for something wild. A cave to sleep in, an expedition to lead. Not to experience death, but to face it, to stand up to it. We hear the howling of the wolves at night and the hairs on our arms begin to rise.”
As the story goes back and forth from present to past to present, we learn about unintended consequences and sins of omission. For example, the narrator foolishly burnt a fire starter in a prior outing with friends but never replaced it. When he checks his matchbox, he finds two matches left.
Jack London’s hero in “To Build a Fire” possessed 70 matches in a box, but they all exploded into one flash of flames. London’s protagonist shares his last thoughts with us while a puzzled dog wonders why the doomed man doesn’t make a campfire.
The final 16 pages of “On the Old Denali Road” build tension without relief. The protagonist ponders his life and decisions. He thinks of another man, damaged by grief, who dies in a snowdrift with a cabin 40 yards away. Will that be his fate?
We know much about the protagonist’s personality and character at this point while he trudges onward, ever onward, toward a sanctuary that may or may not be in his path.
If he’s fortunate a remote cabin will await him. If not, he will die in a snowdrift. Mea maxima culpa.
But even if he saves his own life, is he too set in his flawed ways to avoid immersing himself in yet another looming crisis? Or will he change for the better? My reading suggests that this story could be expanded into a novel if Farmer were so inclined.
To read the story’s quite satisfying conclusion that I’m withholding here, purchase Darryl Farmer’s “Where We Land.”
If I ever put together the anthology of Alaskan adventure tales I’ve been itching to publish, that story and London’s “To Build a Fire” would be my first choices to include.
Columnist Hank Nuwer is a University of Alaska, Fairbanks adjunct professor. He recently was accepted into the English Department’s MFA program in creative writing. His essay on Alaskan road trips will run in the next issue of Phi Kappa Phi’s Forum Magazine.