At the Edge of the World

 

At the Edge of the World

By Wil Bosbyshell

Standing at the edge of the world, it's giving me the chills.

-      Green Day

 

It looked like a cartoon; one I watched as a kid on Saturday mornings. A big, round, pitch black hole in the side of a cliff with very large tracks going in and out: this was a bear cave.

Not just any bear cave; it was a grizzly bear cave in the middle of nowhere, Alaska. Except, this wasn't a cartoon, it was a real bear cave, only 25 yards away from me. I was standing at the edge of the world in front of a bear cave, and it was giving me chills, both literal and metaphorical.

“Sergeant Major Roberts is there a reason we stopped here,” I casually inquired. We were looking out of the top two hatches of our Army Arctic Snowcat. “Besides observing a bear cave, well… no,” he said laughing. I tried not to sound scared, which I was. Actually I was really scared. This was a grizzly bear cave, and it was a warm day for February in Delta Junction, Alaska at 10°F above zero. “It’s so warm, they might wake up from hibernating,” I ventured as an important theory. “Look at those prints, they are enormous,” the Sergeant Major added gleefully. He was a British Army combat veteran of the Falkland Island war. He had no fear, or at least far less fear than I had.

“We've seen it …. let's move along,” I said trying to sound tough.

It was going to be quite a day. I was the 2^nd Lieutenant test officer for the Army's new 105 mm light Howitzer at Fort Greely, Alaska (The Army’s Northern Warfare Test Center). It was February 1985 and we were testing the Howitzer’s performance on skis. Using a SUS-V Arctic Snowcat, a vehicle with two articulated sections equipped with rubber tracks so it could ‘float’ on top of the snow, which towed the Howitzer on skis. We were documenting the skis durability and what depth of snow, if any, they would get stuck in.

As part of the test, we were on a two-day trek through the northern warfare school property on Ft. Greely Alaska, which was thousands of acres of untouched wilderness. Earlier that morning we had driven to the top of a very large snowbank. We stopped, literally floating on the snow due to the snow cat’s rubber treads. I was navigator and opened my side door to check the snow depth. Looking down, it didn’t look that deep to me. Standard procedure dictated I put on my bear claw, or small, snowshoes to jump down into snow of unknown depth. Disregarding this standard procedure, I jumped into the snow certain that the ground was not too far below. I knew something was wrong when my head passed the tractor treads on the way down.

Fortunately, I grabbed the bottom snow cat track as I fell past it on the way to certain death by snow suffocation. I was hanging, feet dangling and arms outstretched, in the snow below the snow cat. Staff Sergeant Smith pulled me back in as I yelled, “no one else jump out.” “Lieutenant, that wasn’t the easy way to exit the vehicle. It wasn’t even the hard way. That was the ‘cowboy’ way!” Sergeant Major Roberts said, “Are you Americans normally this daft, or did you take pills today?” He had a point.

We never found the ground. We tried to measure the snow depth with a weighted string and never found the bottom. Ten in the morning and already a brush with death, a common occurrence in Alaska. It seems there was no amount of snow that would cause these skis to get stuck. I thought, test mission accomplished!

We traveled onto the unmanned remote weather station, Observation Post 35, that was the midpoint of our trek. On top of a lookout tower, the air was so clear with zero humidity that we could see Mt. Denali 200 miles away. I thought that we had successfully determined the Howitzer equipped with skis was able to trail the snow cat through any depth of snow. However, the Sergeant Major felt differently; he felt we needed to try the terrain in snowy ravines. Presently, we were traveling in a deep snowy canyon when we came across the bear cave.

The ravine walls towered 50 feet over the top of the snow cat. We could only drive forward, there was no room to turn around. There was no place to go should a pissed off grizzly bear charge out of the cave, which I was certain was imminent.

“Hibernating bears definitely get up and walk around on occasion…. you know, to maybe shit in the woods,” I tried a joke. “Is the cave scaring you Lieutenant?” the Sergeant Major asked. “Hell yes, it is,” I replied. The prints in and out of the cave were massive and many. We had only three live rounds in a shot gun to scare off wildlife. The Sergeant Major loved to pick on Lieutenants and especially this Lieutenant. I was used to it, everyone in the Army hated lieutenants. I could tell that SGT Vereen and the two 18-year-old privates with us were not too excited by the bear cave either. No one volunteered to get out or even suggested it. No dares were issued. A shot gun was not going to stop any bear that made the tracks we were looking at.

Fortunately for us, the bears were sleeping soundly. We slowly crept away; it was a little too warm that day to tarry in front of a grizzly bear cave.

We stopped for the night about five miles away and out of the ravine. We pitched the 5-man tent, small and hexagonal, for our camp. We laid out the canvas floor and lit the Yukon stove. No cots. A cot was too cold in Alaska; cold air circulating under you was a bad thing. It had been a warm day at 1:00 o'clock when the sun rose above the horizon for two hours. By 5:00 o'clock it was pitch black as usual, -10°F and dropping. Minus 10°F in Alaska was not too dangerous if you were trained for it and had the proper clothing. Not deadly like -55°F.

I lived off hot tea while I was in the Army in Alaska. Tea bags were weightless and many could be compressed into a very small space. Perfect for heavy backpacks. To warm myself, in the now minus 10-degree temperature, I drank too much hot tea for dinner. We heated and ate our MREs, chatted, told jokes, and the new Grenada combat vets told stories.

Sometime in the night, I had to pee because of all the tea I drank. I tried to hold it in but decided it was too long until morning. Going out into the Alaska night, I walked away from the tent into the dense, dark forest around our tent. The moon was bright on the snow and this close to the Arctic Circle the trees were very short. I started doing my business, sleepy, drowsy not paying attention to my surroundings. I was looking up at the amazingly clear, starry sky when I heard the slightest of slight noises in front of me. It's quiet in the middle of the Arctic tundra at night…. very quiet. I looked down and realized I had a new friend. In front of me, less than 20 feet away, was a very large, black wolf.

Alaska wolves can be five to seven feet nose to tail. I am unsure exactly how big this wolf was. I once encountered a mastiff hound in the Italian Alps; this wolf was larger. He was looking right at me. My eyes adjusted to the dark, I didn't need a flashlight to see the wolf’s face and eyes. I didn’t move a muscle. Two more wolves flanked the first wolf. They were big also. I didn't turn my head to see the other wolves in the pack, which I was certain were right and left out of my peripheral vision. They looked at me; I looked at them. No malice, no menance, just curiosity. 

I tried to remember the briefing from my dangerous wildlife training: was I to look the wolf in the eye or down and away? Which was it, shit? Brain freeze, literally. It didn't matter. I blinked and the wolves were gone. No sound. No sound at all. Just vanished into the night. I stood still, for a time, until I started getting cold. The next morning the tent and the snow cat were circled by wolf tracks … a lot of wolf tracks. Fortunately, wolves appeared to be well fed in these parts!

At the edge of the world wolves and bears were the masters, not man. I had spent two days travelling through the middle of nowhere, to the edge of the world, and lived.

Open Studio - Sun Series

 

Dual Open Studios - Sun Series

Wil & Maura Bosbyshell

Hart-Witzen Gallery & Studios, 2422 N Tryon St, Charlotte, NC 28206 (Tryon and 28th St.)

Saturday, October 25, 6 to 9 PM

My Sun Series of silk screens and block prints will be on display. These are my attempts at capturing the magic of the Alaska Sun during the Summer Solstice. On the day, the sun never sets, it just grazes the horizon. 

All the suns are priced at $340. Size: 10 x 10 square and 10 x 8. 

Midnight Sun Series - Part 5

These silk screen mono-prints I completed a while ago, and many of them are already in private collections. 

 

Midnight Sun Series - Part 4

 

I decided to focus on a few detailed areas of the sky on each of these fine art mono-prints. The above print has a sky full of stars. The white halo around the sun is larger than pervious images. 

The above scene has a very dark red in the sun and I added a lot of color pencil strokes to the sky. No stars. 

For this mono-print I was trying to show the aurora borealis with stars in the sky. This is a single layer print. This print is on rice paper. 

Midnight Sun Series - Part 3

These fine art mono-prints were created using the silk screen technique. After the ink dried, I used color pencil to add a little fine detail. 

 

Midnight Sun Series - Part 2

These fine art prints are from one linoleum block that I modified only slightly by carving. The above 1st block is three layers of color: yellow, green and red. 

The above print has the 1st three layers the same, but I added layers light and dark blue. 

This final print I added more blue areas, stars and more red. 

 

Midnight Sun Series - Part 1

I have spent a long time on my tree series of drawings in the past few years. That is still my primary focus. But, its summer! So I am working on my Midnight Sun series of fine art prints. These fine art prints are created using the linocut method of printing. Each is a mono-print, but from a single linoleum block that was modified as I printed. 

I completed these during a three week stay in Provence France. I took a workshop with Jeff Hirst in the town of St. Raphael on the Mediterranean coast. 

I used color and line to show the motion of the sun as it misses the horizon during the Alaskan Summer. 

 

Alaska Christmas White-out

by Wil Bosbyshell

Allow me to state the obvious, it snows a lot in Alaska. 

My first winter in Fairbanks, Alaska it snowed five feet in five hours; an unbelievable foot per hour. It was amazing to anyone, but to a native Floridian it was magical. During that blizzard it eventually snowed 72 inches in 72 hours with snowflakes three inches in diameter as they fell blanketing Fairbanks. It looked like I was in a magical animated movie!

That same year in Anchorage it snowed so much that even the local wolf packs were impressed. The wolves who lived in the mountains north of Anchorage could not hunt their normal prey due to the snow depth, so packs of wolves snuck through Anchorage eating every dog they came across. Needless to say, many pet owners were unhappy. On the upside – less annoying barking …just saying. 

When I skied at Alyeska Ski Resort that year, over 80 feet of snow accumulated. By March the two-story chairlifts snaked through canyons of snow with the skiing surface above the top of the lifts. It’s hard to picture this: the ski slope was above the top of the two-story lift towers! 

For my second winter in Alaska, I invited my sister Mary Helen to visit. She would see more snow than she could imagine. 

To my great disappointment, a week before Mary Helen's arrival in Anchorage the temperature soared above freezing; over the course of four days all the snow vanished. I was heartbroken. This never happens in Alaska!

I devised Plan B. It may have been a balmy 40 degrees in Anchorage, but it was a pleasant 20 degrees in Fairbanks with lots of snow; we would go north for Christmas! 

On her way up to the un-frozen north, the man sitting next to my sister on the plane proposed marriage. The ratio of men to women is so skewed in Alaska that it was customary practice for a man to propose marriage to a woman on first meeting her. It may be your last chance, after all. My sister turned him down, she was already engaged and was even wearing the engagement ring. 

My sister arrived a few days before Christmas. We toured around Anchorage, and then drove into real winter toward Fairbanks.

My Alaska mode of land transportation was a 1979 Ford Mustang. Not the quintessential Alaska vehicle, but it was fully equipped: roller-ball snow tires with inch and a half metal studs, battery blanket, engine block heater, and extra interior heater. 

Fairbanks was a six-hour drive from Anchorage on the only paved road in Alaska’s interior. You couldn't make a wrong turn or get lost, as there were no roads to turn off onto. We reached the only gas station at the midpoint or point of no return. We got out and took photos in front of the abandoned three-story igloo hotel. The igloo hotel is still there and still abandoned. In the middle of our photo session, it began to snow. 

This is before The Weather Channel and Doppler radar, so we didn't know that this was the leading edge of a blizzard. We headed north straight into the as yet un-bared teeth of the storm: the snow increased, the wind increased, and the temperature dropped… a lot and fast.

I was getting a little worried - not much. I had been in Alaska a year and a half! I wasn't a cheechako, a person who had not survived an Alaska winter. I had been through plenty of blizzards I reassured myself. I heard an army pilot say that they could hear the universe go ‘click’ when their airplane fuel gage reached the point of no return. I heard that ‘click’ now… and it was not a sound I wanted to hear.

I could still see the orange flags that marked the edge of the road. The paved driving surface was indistinct from the tundra, flat and white to each side of the road as far as you could see through the falling snow. I decided to casually and calmly give my sister a description of my emergency supplies in the car's trunk: vapor barrier boots, sleeping bag, tent, stove, rations, etc. My description only scared her. 

The temperature was dropping to dangerous levels. Sevier cold can cause even small mistakes to become life-threatening situations. 

The road was stark white and the sky above the road was light gray, just enough difference for me to steer by. The snow swirled at the edge of my headlights outside of which the day was pitch black. The blizzard was approaching white out conditions. Not good. No cars were coming south, in the opposite direction, which was a bad sign. I slowed down a little as the car slipped slightly in the building snow. There were no cars behind us, an even worse sign. The flags on the side of the road were showing less and less above the building snow. 

A white-out comes with a warning of sorts. Your visibly decreases as the snow creates a curtain between you and reality. Your vision becomes flat losing perspective. That loss of perspective was happening now. 

My driving safety and staying within the boundary of the road was dependent on my ability to see the line where the earth meets the sky with the forced perspective of the road edge markers converging into the distance. 

All that flattened now. There was no horizon line, no road edge, no falling snow – just the white nothingness.

The line between the road and sky disappeared into one white blur; we were in a white-out. 

We couldn't turn back like I said, having passed the point of no return to Anchorage. The snow was overwhelming my one-and-a-half-inch metal tire studs, no ice, just too much snow. I was a very experienced winter driver by this time in my life, but I didn’t want the car to slide into a deep snowy ditch in the middle of nowhere at minus 10 degrees. I eased my foot off the gas, slowing the car but not stopping.

Just when I was beginning to think about panicking, I saw two lights behind us. Bright, high lights. It was a snow grader – a miracle with six wheels! 

It was the kind with the blade in the middle and the cab on top up high. 

I waived it past me, pulled in behind it and let out a big sigh of relief. I followed the grader all the way to Fairbanks, not even slowing down though Nenana’s one traffic light. We never saw another car or person! No one else was stupid enough to be out in this blizzard. 

We had a great Christmas with my friends and fellow army officers the Reagors. She was a helicopter pilot, and he was an artillery officer. By the next day, Christmas Eve, all the roads were plowed, Fairbanks didn't miss a beat. 

We went to the North Pole, the city of North Pole that is, which is just to the east of Fairbanks to visit Santa’s Workshop. Being Christmas Eve, Santa's Workshop was in full swing. I mailed postcards, to be stamped ‘North Pole AK.’ I submitted several naughty lists for my young cousins. Santa would write letters keeping my young cousins in line for next Christmas. We didn't see Santa; of course, he was flying around the world delivering Christmas presents. We talked to several elves, their job was complete for the year, they were very relaxed. Santa's workshop is still on St. Nicholas Drive in North Pole, AK. It has a website and an 800 number. Santa is real; don't let anyone tell you different. 

We drove north of Fairbanks, stopped to take a photo next to the Alaska pipeline. It was very famous, having been recently completed. We then drove further north to where the paved road ended. At the end of the world, I mean road, the Highway Patrol has a special station. To continue north on the road to Prudhoe Bay you had to sign a waiver. The waiver stated that you were certifiably crazy and knew how dangerous it was. The state of Alaska was not responsible for your death if you were dumb enough to preceded. A classic waiver if there ever was one. Only ice truckers used this road. 

After Christmas my sister and I headed for Alyeska Ski Resort in Girdwood Alaska. The mountain begins at sea level and goes straight up to 4,000 feet. Resort may be stretching the term a little; the hotel rooms were trailers linked by an inside hallway. Mary Helen really didn't know how to ski; she was from the South after all. Nevertheless, she had skied before. 

Alyeska has a Bunny hill, the run would be a triple black diamond on any southern ski resort. Being the worst brother ever, after two runs on the bunny hill I took my sister, who could barely ski, to the top of the mountain. I wanted to ski in the high bowl area, so I gave her a map and made plans to meet her for lunch. Fortunately, she didn't ski off one of the many 2,000-foot cliffs to her death. She was rescued by a man who got her to the midpoint lodge and asked her to marry him. Of course. She turned him down. 

My sister is still mad at me 30 years later about her almost skiing over the unmarked 2,000-foot cliff. I can't imagine why? She lived! It didn't spoil our trip. Does a life and death experience to get between siblings? Of course not! Mary Helen and I had experienced several of those already! 

That night we were sound asleep having worn ourselves out skiing. I woke suddenly with a start as I flew out of my bed and hit the floor hard. My mind slowly grinded its gears: why was I on the floor? Was I drunk? No. I hadn't drunk that much. 

Then Mary Helen landed on top of me, “Ouch!” My sleepy mind noticed that the floor was shaking, I looked around, everything was shaking. An earthquake! I had never been in one, it had to be an earthquake. The safety brief on earthquakes dictated we run for the door frame. Part of my brain told me to do just that. Naturally I ignored that thought; I was 25 and invincible. In addition to the shaking my ears were filled with sound … a roar. It could only be one thing: an avalanche! I had never been in one of those either. 

So, with no logic or common sense I jumped up and ran for the plate glass door on the ground floor facing the ski slope and the 4,000-foot mountain of snow, throwing open the curtains. It was indeed an avalanche barreling and roaring down the mountain straight for us. My sister joined me at the window of death.

Wow, my brain registered the mistake we had just made. Damn, my mom is going to kill me if my sister gets hurt, I thought. Before we could move or tear our eyes away from the wall of snow… it began to slow, then stopped a football field away. Lucky. “Maybe we shouldn’t tell Mama about this,” I said. 

We skied through New Year's Eve. At midnight hundreds of local kids with flashlights skied down the mountain on every run so the entire mountain was bright with the light of the New Year. Beautiful. 

While the band played Huey Lewis & the News ‘Power of Love’ we danced and drank. Mary Helen and I were at a table in the bar watching the spectacle when I left to go to the restroom. On my return all the chairs at my sister’s table were full of men. 

As I walked up, my sister introduced us, “Joe, Mike, Todd this is Wil…” At this pause in her introduction, the men looked at me their faces turning into unhappy frowns. “Damn,” they all thought. I could read their minds, “She already has a boyfriend or a fiancé.” My sister continued the introductions, “Wil ... my brother.” The men's faces morphed immediately into joyous smiles! A single woman! In Alaska no less! I drank for free all night as the brother of the lone single girl at Mt Alyeska Ski Resort on New Year's Eve. And the fact that she was beautiful only added to the novelty. All three of the men proposed marriage over the next few hours. They were disappointed but not surprised at her rejection. 

My sister mailed me photos from Florida a few weeks later. “All my outdoor photos from the trip were ruined,” she said due to poor photo development. “All the photos are so dark,” she wrote exasperated. I wrote back to her saying nothing was wrong with the photos. She forgot that Alaska had no sun in the winter; the sun had set in October. Her photos were dark because it was nighttime during her entire trip! You just grow accustomed to how dark it is in Alaska in the winter.

It was an exciting visit: warm front, blizzard, white out, earthquake, and avalanche … what more could you want in a fun family holiday trip?