OWNERSTORY - ALASKA
86
Of course, they went to Pelican. “We sailed Sänna there from
Hoonah as soon as we could. We traversed the Inian Pass Narrows
and timed our transit of the rapids for slack-tide the way the
fishermen in Hoonah said we should. It is a wild place. It’s also a
beautiful place, there is every example of humankind you could
find anywhere just like the wild-whispers say. In truth, if discovered
by unsuspecting tourist the magic would surely be lost. Stories
of naked races down the frozen boardwalk in the late-hours of
the night are true. Tales of raw bluegrass fiddles played in their
own inimitable style and of bare-chested dancing on the tables
in Rose’s Bar are not lies, nor are the thousand-dollar-rounds-ofdrinks
for-everyone when drunken fishermen not long back from
the wild Pacific ring the great-bell on the bar and fall backwards
to be caught by the laughing crowd… and all of this on a Tuesday
night. There is a live grizzly bear that sits in the warmth of the
outside toilet pit – he watches you take a piss whilst you try and
refocus your world through unfocused eyes. The girls, well the girls
are friendly enough, you will marry the girl of your dreams if you
stay around long enough. The priest and the medicine man, they
are exceptionally good friends. Old whisky drinking buddies who
constantly argue about the other man’s God.”
“Elfin Cove is, again, reachable only by boat, by braving those
same rapids inside the Inian Pass that take you to Pelican. In fact,
Elfin Cove is a good half-way stop-off if trying to get yourself to
Pelican from Hoonah. But there is a danger that, if you stay long
enough in Elfin Cove, you will turn native. That’s what they’re trying
to tell you in Hoonah when they say Elfin Cove is full of hippies.
What they really mean is they’ve gone funny in the head, but when
we sailed Sänna there we didn’t see that. Sure, the folk in Elfin
Cove are different but they’ve ‘turned native’ in a respectful way,