Ranger Cabin, Lower Twin Lake

Omni die renovare debemus propositum nostrum, dicentes:
nunc hodie perfecte incipiamus, quia nihil est quod hactenus fecimus

For whatever reason—perhaps an impish desire to explore the narrative possibilities of this journal, or maybe to create a salve for the rain-induced ennui of cabin fever, or even as an exercise in self-indulgence (he often confuses this with wit)—the author of this entry and the current resident of the Lower Twin Lake Ranger Station has decided to record the day's various events, and his assorted machinations in the third person. The true reason may be that alone in a cabin, one tires of the running soliloquy of one’s inner voice, the endless 'I' and 'me' and 'my'—perhaps he shares Touchstone’s view of the pastoral life: “In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well; but in respect that it is private, it is a very vile life.”

And so he sits at his little table entering his quotidian account. The day has past, the stove is still radiating heat from a long-extinguished fire, and another squall, one of many on this day, is pushing over the hills south of the cabin, displacing the few remaining shards of clear sky that have retreated above the ridge north of the river where the trails and soft, spongy ground have supported the soles of countless feet and renewed the souls of countless men whose journeys have led to Turquoise Lake, Telaquana, and places far north where only fools and heroes dare set their feet.

The day for him began long before he awoke when rain and wind vexed his sleeping ears and slipped under the eaves of his lowered conscience making their sonoluminescent impressions on his reveries. The rain gradually surrendered to sun until the morning amounted to no less than a marvel of the powers of heaven; the firmament open, blazing with the light of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs of mighty Cherubim pouring onto freshly-fallen snow in the high mountain ridges. Among this scene we find our gallant ranger feeding. He looks up from his bowl, a mixed flotsam of mushy oats with blueberries and thinks to himself, “It snowed.” Such are his powers of observation.

Coffee-roused and ready, he makes his way on foot to the camp of hunters who planned to float the river in search of carribou, but who arrived at his doorstep last night smelling of whiskey and expressing a distaste for the constant rain and wind. They are thinking of leaving after one night on the lake without venturing a foot onto the river. As he crosses the moraines whistling a tune (one he thinks he is inventing as he goes, but is really an old Auvergne folk song famously set by Chateaubriand in his Romance à Hélène), he bellows, “Ho Bear,” to alert the tunrda’s denizens that a creature beyond their contention is afoot. The area’s bears hear him and wonder who this Monsieur Hobert is, why he is sought, and, being carrionistically inclined opportunists in their dining habits, (not above enjoying sa petite collation du matin when providence allows) where last he was seen.

The hunters have decided to leave. Their camouflaged rain-gear and tents will resume their folded lives in the recess of a Pennsylvania closet, the guns will revert to their ornamental function and the men will go about their lives remembering Lower Twin Lake as money poorly spent. Listening to their rationalizations, he thinks they should float the river despite the rain. He thinks they should consider the present an investment in memoir—a chance to make their future lives richer—and understands that those discomforts they will encounter in the next week will be disposessed of significance by the solvent of time, fading to oblivion, leaving only the broad stokes: a narrative of prevailing in trying conditions against raw elements in the Alaskan wilderness. The challenge must be worth one more story to tell when the vigor of lusty youth is gone and we are left wistfully watching the adventures of others. “Muscle and pluck forever!”, as Whitman says. Always a great communicator, our ranger expresses these thoughts to the hunters saying, “hmm, that’s too bad.” The hunters look on, admiring his gift of words.

The lake to himself and confident that he has earned his per diem, he retires to the comfort of a book: a collection of essays by E.B. White whose simple style and easy cadence may one day (you, dear reader, must truly hope) influence his own tortured prose. Water and sun continue their quarrel throughout the day as squall follows sunburst leaving bright rainbows to frame the view from lower twin lake.

O Earth, how like to Heav'n, if not preferrd
More justly, Seat worthier of Gods, as built
With second thoughts, reforming what was old!