Pilgrimage to Goose Camp,  Yukon Territory

Canada, September, 2013

Kennith at Goose Camp 1974

Goose Camp 1966

Kennith Nukon was a remarkable man,  a Van Tat Gwitch'in from Old Crow, Yukon Territory, Canada.  When I first met him in 1966 I was near the end of my first long kayak trip in the north.   I hadn't seen anyone for days when I met Kennith.  He called the place Goose Camp, 20 miles upstream from Old Crow on the Porcupine River.  At that time he got there by poling his canoe upstream from the village.  Quite a feat considering he had lost the use of one arm to polio at birth.  And yet he managed to hunt, trap and live off the land which even with two good arms can be challenging.  He preferred being in Goose Camp to town life he told me.  There were other setbacks in his life, the loss of his wife Annie  and a son, Peter, to drowning.  And yet with all this his sunny disposition and sense of humor prevailed through the years I knew him. 

By the time I met him most of his people, The People of the Lakes, belonging to a larger grouping of Athapascan indigenous people, were living permanently in Old Crow.   He was one of the last still living a traditional subsistence life style from a bush camp with infrequent trips to town.   I remember him telling me he had a cabin in Old Crow.  He told me "you want it, you take it," and he burst out laughing in that infectious way of his.  He would have given it away if I'd said yes, just like the caribou skin parka he also offered me. 

Kennith and Johnny Ross right rafting firewood from Goose Camp  1966

Kennith at Cache Goose Camp 1966

Kennith with sheefish GC 1966

Over the years more river travelers came, some over the Rat River portage, a historic route followed by gold seekers heading to the Klondike gold fields.   Later more came via Eagle River after the Dempster Highway from Dawson was completed in 1978.  Like me many stopped to visit and help Kennith, some staying for months at a time.  He was good company, invariably cheerful, with lots of stories about the goings on in Old Crow.  To these he would often exclaim at the end "my goodness me!"  I never knew him to say an unkind word about anyone even when he was taken advantage of.   Sometimes he would end these stories with a sigh and a long "jeeeeze."

In later years I returned to visit Kennith by river boat from Alaska or by airplane when I was in the flying business.  On one of these visits I introduced my now long time river and hunting partner Fran Mauer to Kennith.  We were returning to Old Crow again after an absence of six years.                                                                                            

Kennith and new cabin at Goose Camp 1974

Kennith and Fukuko Ross at fish drying racks 1974

Fran had come to know Old Crow
and developed friendships there apart from our visits together.  As a biologist on the staff of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge he had for many years documented the recovery of peregrine falcons and banded fledglings on the Porcupine River downstream from Old Crow.  Some of the early survey work began in Old Crow using an inflatable boat flown in by Roger Kaye a Refuge staff pilot.   Later the surveys began further downstream on the Alaska side of the border. 

Our goal upon leaving Circle, AK in early September 2013 was ambitious.  We hoped to again reach the headwaters of the Porcupine River as we had done 10 years earlier.  But this time we were traveling not by riverboat but in my 22 1/2 foot "dug out" canoe as another friend calls it.  It is a homemade skin on aluminum frame canoe that is light weight, only 120 pounds empty, that pushes easily with a s 10 hp Honda four stroke.  It is no speed demon with this modest power plant.  We had piggybacked it atop Fran's 30 foot riverboat on the earlier trip and used it only in the headwaters.  Now it was our sole means of ascending the Porcupine.  And it was slow going but we weren't in a hurry either..  It was spending time in  the country again that really mattered.   It also became increasingly apparent with the passing days that our two week window of opportunity for the trip would not be enough to reach the headwaters again. 

Sometimes goals need to be modified in light of existing circumstances.  We were not hunting on this trip, a first for both of us on a fall river trip during the hunting season. We had friends on the river we wanted to visit as well as those in Old Crow..  For a time we wondered if we could even make the round trip to Old Crow.  But when that became more of a certainty we decided to include a return to Kennith Nukon's old Goose Camp to see what had happened to it in the 10 years since our last visit.

We arrived in Old Crow on Sunday, September 8, 2013.  As it happened our return was 21 years to the day when Kennity Nukon passed in 1992 at the age of 71.  I had flown into Old Crow shortly thereafter for his memorial service.  The intervening years and fog of memory had left me uncertain of the exact year.  It was only after we visited the cemetery on the edge of town to pay our respects and refresh our memory that the convergence of time and place on this trip emerged.  There are no coincidences I have come to appreciate.

Kennith and Fran at Goose Camp 1988

We left for Goose camp the following afternoon to clearing skies and very little wind in the wake of a fast moving cold front.  Porcupine herd caribou were crossing between Old Crow and Goose camp.  We passed several groups of successful hunters laying in a supply of meat for the winter.  We didn't stop to visit.  We looked for Esau Nukon, one of Kennith's sons, we were told was upriver at his camp.  He wasn't as it turned out but we could have passed him downriver.

As we closed in on Goose Camp I noticed an unnatural splotch of white on the edge of a high cut bank.  It was near where I thought Kennith's old tend camp was located when I first met him.  In later years he lived in a cabin a short way upstream.  We stopped to have a closer look.  The white splotch turned out to be a chunk of fiberglass insulation.  It may have been insulation under a tent platform he used here.  There was no sign of the platform.  Caribou hunters had killed a caribou nearby judging from signs on the gravel bar. 

Kennith (white shirt) on bank at Goose Camp 1974

We continued upstream looking for Kennith's old cabin.  At one point I thought I saw caribou on the south bank ahead but I wasn't sure and didn't say anything to Fran.  But it wasn't long thereafter that Fran said he saw caribou crossing up ahead.  They are fast swimmers, propelled by their cupped, splayed hooves.  They are high floaters as well,  buoyed by the hollow hairs of their superinsulated coats.  We sped up which wasn't much with only a 10 hp kicker.  Still, we did manage to catch a group of eight young bulls just as they emerged from the water onto a more expansive gravel bar at this point in the river.  They weren't unduly alarmed by our presence and put on quite a show doing the shiver shakes to rid their fur of water..  That done they trotted up the gravel bar putting some distance between them and us before finding an exit up the cut bank and disappearing.

Bull caribou crossing Porcupine R. near Goose Camp 2013

The cabin was disappearing behind the willows as often happens as the years slip away and the brush grows taller.   Erosion had also eliminated a stair step notch in the bank that made it easier to get to the cabin.  From where we tied up you couldn't see over the high bank.  We found a toppled root wad with a young tree to grab onto to climb up and have a look around.  Sadly, we discovered the sod roof on Kennith's old cabin had collapsed taking the walls with it.  Gone too from sight we also knew were the names and dates of many river travelers who had written on the walls and ceiling to record their visit with Kennith on their downriver journey.  

We pitched my Kifaru, 4 man teepee tent near the bank in front of the cabin remains.   Overnight there was a hard frost.  In the morning it was crystal clear and dead calm.  We lingered - enjoying the warmth of a morning fire at river side until the rising sun took some of the chill off the air.  We took the opportunity of a leisurely morning to heat water and take a towel bath, a welcome relief after days on the river without a break or bath.

Fran and Don at Goose Camp September 10,2013

I unrolled the Love is the Way banner and we photographed it in front of the cut bank and from atop the cabin   Curiously, just as we finished I looked out toward the river and asked Fran to stop just as he was passing in front of me.  Just behind him I noticed two intersecting poles forming a cross, probably from  Kennith's old fish rack.  I could see it but Fran couldn't.

Fran Mauer holding banner atop Kennith's old cabin September 10, 2013

I have learned to pay attention to the symbolic meaning of seemingly random events.  The Universe is always trying to communicate with is if we're paying attention.  We had just been photographing a banner that says Love is the Way when there appears before us that penultimate symbol of a cross and a reminder of the sacrificial nature of Love exemplified by the death of Jesus on a Roman cross.  Kennith's life embodied the words.  I could almost hear Kennith exclaiming "my goodness me," and burst out laughing at all this.
It came to both of us about the same time commiserating around the fire later.  Returning to Goose Camp had been a pilgrimage to a sacred place.   With it came more treasured memories of a special person and place given all that had happened.

Fran and amazing grace at Goose Camp 2013

Back in Old Crow Martha Benjamin, Steven Frost's sister graciously put us up for the night.  In her younger years she was an Olympic caliber cross country skier coached by Father Mouchet the French Oblate priest in Old Crow at that time.  He just recently past.  There are not many of these old timers left. 

That evening while Martha ran an errand and Fran went to a community meeting, I walked along the river and found a bench to sit on just past the store.  It turned out to be behind Dick Nukon's house.  He came out and sat down beside me as the sun dropped lower.  I remembered his sense of humor. He was also something of a practical joker.  One of his favorite stories was to caution river travelers to watch out for the waterfalls downstream from Old Crow.   Of course, there was none.  Then there was the time he said he poured a little water in someones bed while they were sleeping.  When this unsuspecting soul awoke in the morning they thought they had peed the bed.  They didn't say much in embarrassment.   At this point he burst out laughing reminding me also of Kennith.  Treasured memories.  These days his mind wanders.   It was good to be with him again.  

Marion had just left for Whitehorse the day before and Dick stayed behind by choice.  At the last minute he wanted to go with her but couldn't.  There was no longer a bed for him at the place arranged for them to stay.  I wondered how this would all turn out for both of them?

As we approached the store walking along the river the next morning a man shouted "Fran Mauer."  Turns out it was Dennis Frost, Steven's son who had spotted a familiar face.  We had hoped to see Steven before leaving town and asked after him.  To this Dennis replied that Steven had just returned an hour ago by helicopter.  Dennis, is quite a hunter and said he had passed us on his way back into town yesterday evening within sight of Old Crow.  

We caught up with Steven at his house.  He was clearly tired and looking forward to a shower.  But he told us he had caught a ride with a Water Survey helicopter at Eagle Plains Lodge.  He was  headed to Inuvik to catch a flight to Old Crow.  He was turned back by a washout on the  Dempster Highway and ended up at the Lodge at the same time as the helicopter.  Steven is quite well know in these parts.  When he asked the helicopter pilot for a ride he was told "for you we'll make room."  It was great to see him again.  I marvelled at the convergence of circumstance that made it possible just before we headed back downriver.

The Porcupine was on the rise from recent rain when we departed shortly thereafter.  It had also begun to cloud over with rain beginning in late afternoon as forecast.   We put some miles behind us sped stopping occasionally to walk or jog on a passing gravel bar to warm up.  We entered the upper canyon some miles before crossing the border into Alaska.  In places the current was quite swift at the higher water level.  On this leg we had a distant look at a black bear, another of an osprey and peregrine falcon.

A long day got us into Paul Jago's trap line camp just before dark where we over nighted.  Paul graciously offered us the use of a small wall tent with stove he'd already set up.  This was most welcome saving us from having to put up our tent in the rain.  His wife and son Charley were there.  They had joined him shortly after we stopped on our way upriver.  Charley got a fire going in the tent for us to warm up in.   Seemingly small things like this make a huge difference after sitting idle and cold most of the day.  We were grateful.  

 Paul lives in a "Beaver Lodge," as some of the locals call it.  It is a mounded earth shelter, looking like a Beaver Lodge, or Hobbet House from the outside with much of it below grade.  It's a practical shelter, easy to heat but definitely non-traditional.  Paul said he never had trouble with bears getting inside when he was away.  He thought bears were leery of entering the dark, narrow tunnel like entryway to the "Lodge" with all its strange smells.  He said he had few problems with bears generally but one he had to kill ran over the top of the mound while he was there.  .

Paul had caught nearly all the chum or dog salmon he needed for his 18 dogs by the time we showed up again.  He was still short by 160 or so fish from a total of about 360 for the season.  He wasn't planning on staying past January.  He had devised a clever, work saving way of hauling salmon from the river to drying racks higher up on the bank.  He was using a 55 gallon barrels laid horizontally with wheels under it.  There was a top loading hatch for stuffing fish inside.  When it was full, I didn't ask how many salmon it took, he would fire up his chain saw cable winch attached to the barrel and pull it up the bank to the fish rack.  It helped there was no cut bank at this spot on the river.

When we arrived the winch was out of commission, the cable had jumped from the spool and jammed between the spool and housing.  He said if he couldn't get it unstuck he and Charley would use a manual come-a-long winch to pull the barrel.  It would be slower and more labor intensive but easier than packing them in a backpack.  That I knew from experience could be backbreaking having done it with red salmon and these dog salmon at roughly 5 to 8 pounds apiece were heavier.  Charley was an eager and willing helper with the energy of a 15 year old in his favor. 

You have to enjoy the bush life style with its many challenges.  There's not a lot of money in it and it's hard work, the reason most have stopped using dogs and switched to the "irondog" or snowmachine or simply quit altogether.  The result is there are very few full time trappers, native or white anymore.

Another long day and we reached Joe and Helen Matese's cabin at the mouth of the Colleen River.  The Porcupine had risen dramatically since our upriver stop.  The wide shallow delta of the Colleen River which was impossible to ascend by boat then was now underwater and passable. And the river was still on the rise.

It was nearly dark when Andrew Firmin and "J. Bob" Carroll pulled in after us.  They said they had shot a moose a couple of bends downriver and asked Joe if he wanted some moose meat.  Sure, definitely, was Joe's reply.  He hadn't killed a moose or anything else.  What followed was a scramble by Me, Fran and Joe to gather up gear and head downriver in Joe's  boat with scant light remaining.  Andrew and J. Bob went ahead and we lost sight of them.  Fran and I were mostly excess baggage.  We did help cut some willows to lay in the boats for the meat to lay on.  Carving up a big animal like a moose is a lot of work that takes time even with help.  The cutters got two quarters separated and the body opened enough to cool off overnight leaving the rest for the morning.  We headed back upriver in the dark.  The river is wide but still we ran aground in one shallow spot.  After that I shined my head light on the river bank and we made it the rest of the way without incident.

The next morning we finished  with the moose and returned to Joe and Helen's cabin.   Andrew and J. Bob took off for the "Fort" and home later in the day.  We heard later they made it about 10:00 PM after dark, of course. They know the river.  Fran and I stayed on and left the next morning enjoying Helen's fine cooking.

Four days later, just as it began to snow we pulled into Circle after a slow grind up the Yukon River that took one full day and parts of two others.   It was good to get off the river with colder temperatures settling in.    Luckily, the last day we only had a half dozen miles or so to go to make it into Circle.  The previous day we put in 10 hours on the river but couldn't quite make it before dark.

Treasured memories, the more so for time spent with friends old and new friends along the river and in Old Crow.  We would not soon  forget caribou crossing the Porcupine near Goose Camp just as we showed up to Martha Benjamin's storytelling before we turned in, to northern lights ablaze across the northern sky  and boreal owls who, who, whoing by camp.  All of it casting a magical spell as no other could on this pilgrimage to a sacred place.



Happy Solstice, Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to you and yours,

Peace Rider 12/21/2013

Love is the Way Across Alaska

At the Relay for Life June 9, 2013, a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society in Fairbanks, AK.  I could not have found a more fitting place for this banner and message than behind a cluster of torches and plaques set in the ground in remembrance of loved ones who have passed. 

Peace Rider with Eagle River Boy Scouts unloading in Whittier, AK after a mid-June  kayak trip in Prince William Sound.

Cari and PR abeam Cascade Glacier, Harriman Fjord, Prince William Sound

In Surprise Inlet, Harriman Fyord

Same characters with the addition of a Hoary Marmot hamming it up on a rock above and slightly right of the Space Shuttle.  All this fun on the shore side of Barry Glacier, Cascade Glacier to the left in Harriman Fyord

One of the many art work images that now grace the back of the banner.   This one added in Talkeetna at the end of a my bike ride from Homer to Talkeetna,  AK ending there June 5th, 2013.

Dariene, Bremner, Dirk Nickesh, Danielle Tyrell and Hobbs with a friend enjoying a family canoe trip on the North Fork of the Chandalar River in mid-July.  This was a rare mid-summer outing and break from their Coyote Air Service flying business based in Coldfoot, AK.  They put-in at Chandalar Shelf on the Dalton Highway and took out at Chandalar Lake.  Peace Rider wasn't along on this one.  Faith who helps them out during the summer took the photo.

"Heathen Week on the Anaktuvuk River with Coyote Air"

Danielle Tirrell, Carrie, Don, Deriene, James, Hailey, Bremner and Remy with mosquitoes in Gates of the Arctic Park. July 30, 2013 at the end of a hike from Itkillik River to the Anaktuvuk River. 

Picked up by Dirk Nickisch, owner/pilot for Coyote Air, husband of Danielle, in Coldfoot, at the end of a hike with family and friends.

Peregrination of Love is the Way banner 6/5/13 - 8/7/13

Dear Friends,

Apologies to all who follow this blog for the long absence of anything substantive from me.  Summers in the north,  as some of you know get to be pretty busy with winter just around the corner and this one is no exception.  Yeah, a lame excuse!

Coming, with any luck next week, more photos departing Talkeetna by train in early June, a kayak trip in Prince William Sound, and a few photos from a recent hike in Gates of the Arctic Park with hopefully more to follow on that.

One or two more outings with the banner look like possibilities before winter closes in.  Hopefully one of those will be a canoe journey up the Porcupine River by Ft. Yukon in early September.  Will see how it all shake out.

Until next a quote (German in origin?) shared by a friend "Heaven and heart give a place for the foot."

Don - Peace Rider

Banner On the Go from Talkeetna to Fairbanks

Love is never on the fence but this time it was thanks to Mary Burke and Relay for Life, a Fairbanks fundraiser for the American Cancer Society.

Evolving artwork on the back side of the banner began with these children and adult hand prints from the Children's garden in the Homer Farmers Market.  This photo taken at the Relay for Life, a fund raiser in Fairbanks for the American Cancer Society. 

Art work by Dave Johnston a college friend from Talkeetna drawn at his home there.  Thanks for the lovely time in your log palace on the bluff and the awesome mountain vistas.

Photo from the Talkeetna Depot of Bill Herman's art work.

Thank you Tina for your Light.

Thank you John Lennon and Cari for Imagining a different world we can all create. 

Thank you Sarah for your lovely spirit and all the great photos from the Talkeetna depot.

It all started with Kayla and me at the Children's Garden on the opening day of the Farmers Market in Homer.  Thank you Kayla for your liberating spirit.

Send off from Talkeetna - 5 June 2013

Daniel and Don hauling trailer in a bag to the train depot in Talkeetna.

Cari, Don, and Dave waiting for the Anchorage
 train to arrive at the Talkeetna Depot.

LOVE IS THE WAY  do no more harm. 'Crew' in absentia waiting
for the train to arrive.

Daniel, Don, & Sara holding the banner with Cari and Dave.
Talkeetna friends with banner waiting to send Don off on the train.

Don, Dave, Sara, Daniel, and Buddy with bicycle in a container,
ready to load the train to Fairbanks.

Don and Dave with the banner in front of the Fairbanks bound  train.
Note - Don is color coordinated with train.

Bike in a box, before loading it on the train.

We'd like to get the core message of the banner in circulation. Please like my Facebook page.

Peace Rider on the Road Talkeetna to Fairbanks 6/7/2013

Dear Friends,

The Love Is the Way banner project is launched.  The goal now  is to give it long legs and wings.  Ultimately it is about engaging all of us in a deeper conversation about what is really meaningful and what works.

It is clear the world we've created is in trouble.  It is well past time when we need to take a detour and do and be something different.  The Earth, our Mother, the Pachamama of indigenous peoples is sending us a clear message that things are awry.  They need to be returned to balance or we and our children will suffer the consequences.  We live in a cause and effect world.  A world at peace and in balance is ours yet to create.  The time to begin is now. 

An incoming tide lifts all boats if they are ready and seaworthy to take on the many challenges that lie before us.  We need each other with our varied gifts and talents to create a happening.

It remains for us to conquer our fears.  We can create anew to impel a "Great Turning."  Love Is, and it Is the Way.  Peace is possible.

I am back in Fairbanks after a wonderful but unexpected train ride from Talkeetna to Fairbanks.  Many thanks to my Talkeetna friends Sarah, Dave, Cari, Daniel and Sam (a fur ball of lovable gold ) for taking care of me and helping give the project legs.  Thanks again also to all for the many kindnesses shown me during my ride that began in Homer and ended for now in Fairbanks.

It is a good beginning.  Will keep you abreast of other banner happenings.

Love and light,

Peace Rider - Don

PS  The banner travels to Bohemian nights tonight here.   Photos of the banner and the awesome Talkeetna train depot sendoff can be seen on the FB link.   Will try to get some of them over to the blog as well.



 

Peace Rider on the Road from Wasilla 5/2/2013

Dear Friends,

Thanks to my friend Bill I was ably guided through the maze of trails in Chester Park and made it out onto the bike trail along the Glen Highway to Wasilla.  New pavement on parts helped.  But the trail ended at Chugiak and it was out onto the shoulder of a busy and noisy highway, earplugs help.

Near Eagle River stopped to ask another cyclist if he needed help with his bike but he was okay he said.  In the course of that conversation and asking for directions he said there was a German man on a cycle in Eagle River.  Didn't think any more about it but a few miles short of Wasilla saw him slightly behind me on the main road while I was on a frontage road.  Long story short, he was looking for a hostel to stay in in Wasilla but there were none.  Thanks to the grasciousness of my friends Anesia and John we ended up "camping" at their home with a chance to visit and catch up.  And as it turned out, out of the forecast rain that began overnight.  Michael was concerned about that.  John spoke a little German picked up in younger years as it happened.   Michael, a new friend from the road, is a retired Luffthansa Captain as it happens.   A couple of old farts that have traded in their wings for wheels.  

  

So this AM in a few minutes John will drive Michael and Yo with two bikes and gear to where we left the road at the McDonald's in Wasilla and out on the road again.  Talkeenta or some place in the near vicinity will at least be my goal for a destination this day.  

Catch you down the road.

Peace Rider

Peace Rider on the Road in Anchorage, AK 5/31/13

Dear Friends,

Alley oop, up and over Resurrection Pass and along Turnagan Arm into Anchorage yesterday with a sore bum and legs turning to jello after three days on the road.  But hey, the weather was drop dead gorgeous and a scorcher for here with temps in the seventies during the day, clear skies and no rain.  Turnagain Arm so called because it was where Captain Cook turned around when he realized this wasn't the northwest passage he sought.  

It's early for the salmon to show up so the hordes of tourists haven't descended onto the salmon rich waters of the Kenai Penn. just yet.  But the hooligan or candle fish as they are also called are running in the Kenai River and elsewhere.   My friend Chris smoked his catch.  I tried some bones and all and they were good.  They're oily and not to everyone's liking but I liked them, just what I needed - grease.    So oily in fact are they I learned, that it was possible to light the oil dripping off their tails like a candle, when dried I presume.  

I had a big grin on my face after passing a sign in Stirling about 10 miles north of Kenai, "It's spring, we're so excited we wet our plants," and a few doors by contrast "Furs and skulls."

Back at sea level I had a mostly flat run into Anchorage.  Along the north shore south of Girdweed as my friend Dave called it, traffic signs slowed cars to 45mph as a safety precaution for the shoulder parked dip netters after hooligan.    I stopped and watched.  The trick seemed to be have a good spot and sweep your small fine meshed net near the bottom.   It was an outgoing tide and the hooligan were running and being caught.  It wasn't like drop your net in the water and you'd have a dozen candle fish, more like one or two with a lot of empty sweeps in-between, at least for the time I was there.

From near Girdwood where I camped by the bike path it was 38 miles into Anchorage.  The old road bed now turned into a bike path is just a wonderful ride, worth the effort even with a BOB trailer in tow.   It climbs up onto the mountain side with grand views of the Arm.  Informative signs along the way tell of the history and ecology of the area.   It ends at Indian about 15 miles west then back onto the main highway and traffic.  Melting snow cascading off the mountain side had the trail flooded in one place and in others a stream flowed along the edge or across it.  

Today rest with my gracious hosts and friends the Hermans then tomorrow leave for Wasilla and Talkeetna.  Made some contacts here and see what develops.  Short notice but I need to boogie.  My wife called today and a valve stuck on our well and she's without water.  I just made reservations to leave from Talkeetna for Fairbanks on the Alaska RR next Wednesday,  a little sooner than I expected.  Good bike trails will take me past Eagle River north of there tomorrow.  Life is what happen while you're making other plans.

It has been a good beginning with the Love is the Way banner.  Like a pebble dropped into a pond the ripples will continue until some distant unseen shore is reached.

It's not over yet.  Catch you down the road.

Love and light to you all,

Peace Rider

On the Road from Kenai, Alaska 5/28/2013

Dear Friends,

Just a note to let you all know I'm hitting the road again from my friends Chris and Jane's place near Kenai, Alaska.  Summer seems to have arrived.  Clamers were out on the minus tides yesterday. The mosquitoes have launched themselves anew to our feathered friends delight no doubt. 

Have about a dozen miles to pedal to reach the Sterling Highway and should be somewhere in the vicinity of Cooper Landing by nightfall.  With roughly 50 miles a day should be in Anchorage in about three days. 

A lovely barbecue yesterday with new friends near Soldatna.  A wonderful way to spend Memorial Day honoring those who have gone to war and given up their lives in service for the good of others.  Would that we can one day soon end this madness we continue to inflict on ourselves.

Time to hit the road. 

Peace Rider - Don

On the road from Homer, AK 5/27/2013

Dear Friends,

I had a wonderful final day (Saturday) in Homer.  I joined Kayla in the children's garden on the opening day of the local Farmers Market.  We hung the Love is the Way banner up.  Later took it down and let any of the children who wanted to put their painted paw prints on the back with their names.  I also took to having other friends involved with this project sign the back.  The result is another free form work of art on the reverse side.

From there I rode out onto the Spit and joined my new friends with the Center for Alaska Coastal  Studies (CACS) there for a beach bonfire.  There were lots of Memorial Weekend visitors but only the CACS folks showed for my send off.  It made for a quite relaxed and enjoyable gathering on a windy but gloriously clear day.  Photos were taken and a short video made which can be seen soon on the CACS site and Facebook page. 

I said my goodbyes to Pat, at his Free Spirit Wear shop near the Farmers Market.  He helped me greatly when I first set out on these long distance bike rides with very little experience of the gear I would need.  He sent me off this time with a bandana with the same color coordinated motif as my jacket making me now the well "appointed" and rather colorful biker.

I joined my friends Tom, Jeanie, and their friend Phil for a memorable last dinner of moose steak and conversation before heading back up the hill to Peggy and Rich's place for the night.  They too signed the banner along with a new young friend Tina who wished me a warm and heartfelt "Infinite quantity of love and light" on my journey.  It gives me a lot of hope that many young people are far along in their understandings of who and what they are and desire to be of service to others. 

By returning to the top of the hill out of Homer for the evening I saved some energy for the long day ahead.  Sunday I was on the road by 9:00AM.  Eight hours later I was at Chris and Jane's place on a bluff overlooking Cook Inlet a few miles south of the city of Kenai.  It was overcast most of the day.  A light rain began before I pulled into their drive but not heavy enough to compel a change into rain gear. 

A little later this morning we'll head into Kenai with the banner we hope to hang in a local park as part of Memorial Day ceremonies honoring veterans.  Appropriate for me to be there as a veteran honoring others who have served.

A word or two on why I chose "Love is the Way" for the banner.  There are iconic images of the Challenger and Columbia crews who passed when their shuttles broke apart.  It was my sense that this might be what they would be saying to all of us from their different vantage point.  But why Love.  Love is one, if not the most powerful energy in our Universe.  It is a coherent energy or vibration with the power to unify and transform as well as drive out incoherent energy of lesser vibration anger, hate, envy and the like.  It is the only thing that can.  In these chaotic days hold Love, Joy and hope in your heart as the common work all of us can do to cause the necessary changes to ring in a New Heaven and New Earth.  We are all connected energetically.  Cling to what you know works.  Love and joy work for the betterment of all.  It is the energy the heals and unites as no other can.

I leave tomorrow for points north.  The front passed and today we can see across the inlet, only a light breeze stiring the water.  An immature eagle just flew by at eye level.

Catch you all down the road, love and light to you all!

Peace Rider - Don

PS a photo of the banner taken in front of the Northern Environmental Center can be seen by clicking on the FB link on my blog <ridefortheplanet.blogspot.com>

Peace Rider on the Road in Homer, AK 5/22/2013

Dear Friends,

Things have come together nicely over my time here in Homer. 

I met Kayla at Many Rivers, a local yoga center, when I stopped to asked for a schedule of classes last week.  I showed her the banner I created and we agreed to collaborate on children's program this Saturday at the local Farmer's Market.  This is the  opening day for the Market.   She hopes to create a community/children's garden there also.   Children will the the opportunity to put their "paw" prints on the back of the banner.  Should be fun!  This will run from 11 to 2PM.

Afterward at Yurt on the Spit,  the Center for Alaskan Coastal  Studies will have a season opening party and send-off for Peace Rider Don, yo mismo (me).  The flyer they created for the event says "Alaskan cyclist Don Ross continues to ride to raise awareness about our environment.  He's heading out on the road from Homer to Fairbanks (leave Sunday morning).  Come wish him well and share what you love about our Earth at a Beach Bonfire."  This will run from 2:30 to 4PM

Tomorrow I will take a boat ride across Kachemak Bay with locals and Alaska Studies folks to see the work they are doing in the marine environment. 

If you know of anyone else who might be interested in hosting a Where is Peace Rider Don event with his Love is the Way banner on the way to Fairbanks, please contact Lori with NAEC, at 907 452 5021.

Peace Rider - Don

Peace Rider in Homer 17 May 2013

Dear Friends

A brief update to let you know I made it to Homer safely and awaiting developments.  Guess you are still having cold visit you in Fairbanks.   It is much the same here with snow overnight then rain but sunny now in the early afternoon.

I had a good day yesterday visiting different folks to see what I might be able to organize as an event.  The most promising conversation was with the Center for Coastal Studies.  I talked to Beth the director and she said  she would put my proposal before her Board of Directors to see if they would be willing to help organized an event around me and the banner.  I should know later today if that is a possibility.  If so I will be staying here through next week.  She indicated they could not do anything before next weekend which is early for Memorial Day.  That could work out well since they will have a yurt out on the Spit and hopefully some more moderated weather.

It would also give me time to put an ad in the local newspapers and a spot on the local radio station.  I talked to Dave the Manager yesterday and he said having a local non-profit as part of the project would be helpful. 

Also ran into the Chase, the Vice-President of the local biking club and may attend their annual meeting tonight.  So I'm in circulation and meeting folks.  Also reconnected with old friends living here as well. 

So will see on all this and let you know.  Think the message on the banner has a universal appeal and resonates with many folks on different levels.  Hopefully, can create a fun event for folks of all ages.  You can see a part of it on Facebook which truncated the ends.  May be able to get it posted in full here.  Will see on that. 

Will head out of here on some date as yet to be decided headed for Fairbanks about 600 miles north of here with a few hills to climb in between.

More to come from on the road,

Peace Rider - Don

Love and Fear a Letter to the Editor from Peace Rider 4/26/2013

Dear Friends,

                                                                    Love and Fear

It has been said at the ultimate root of all human interactions is either love or fear.  Love motivates to selfless service and sacrifice.  We saw this played out most recently, in the aftermath of the tragic Boston bombings.  Love impels, it does not compel.  It asks nothing for itself. It is coherent energy flowing from the heart.  By its very nature it unifies and heals. This too we have seen in recent days and in the aftermath of other tragedies.   Only love has the power to drive out or transform energies of lower frequency or vibration -  fear, hate, anger and the like.

Fear is incoherent energy.  It separates, alienates and can paralyze.  Fear is energy of the mind, and ego driven consciousness - without heart.  It manifests as violence in its many forms.  It virtually shutdown the city of Boston, it imprisons without hope of release, it justifies state sanctioned killing of perceived enemies in the name of "freedom."  It makes war. 

We have become a nation more driven by out fears than by love for one another and ourselves.  Yet in our finest hour,  in the aftermath of tragedy, we unite for a higher good.  In the moment, we move out of our heads and into our hearts.  Love is our true nature, if we allow it. 

What can we do individually and collectively to transform ourselves and nation - LOVE -  fear not?  This we have been told repeatedly. 

Only love has the power of transformation, to heal our ourselves, our nation and the world.  Love or fear, the choice is ours???  On this we will rise or fall. 

Don

"Leadings" and Recent Readings 4/14/2013

Dear Friends,

For those of you still occasionally checking for signs of life from Peace Rider, just know that I'm only on a temporary sabbatical between assignments.  I continue riding my bicycle around town, on studded snow tires, lest the legs become too detuned. 

Spring is late here with snow and cold still lingering.  That didn't deter some of us crazies, actually quite a lot, showing up for the first race of the season called Beat Beethoven.  It's a five ker, not so far but far enough on legs more accustomed to revolving a bicycle crank than pounding over hard pavement.  This is my favorite, I suppose for it's off beat character, so to speak.  The idea is to finish before a playing of Mr. B's 5th Symphony ends, about 32 minutes.  The runner wearing bib number Uno is dressed up as Mr. B complete with top hat.  It was below freezing so wearing a long black coat may not been too uncomfortable.  The symphony begins playing at race start through loud speakers and at several places around the 3 mile or so course. 

I made it over the line before the end of the 5th (of Beethoven) with hundreds of others to receive a free ticket to one of the next U of Fairbanks Symphony concerts, if I'm here to use it. 

Back one weekend I was in Talkeetna, AK, a six hour drive south of here, to attend a Quaker retreat about following "Leadings."  A quote from Bill and Ruthie the facilitators will give you a flavor of the gathering but not of the personal sharing of journeys that went on around the subject,

"Often we sit and get lost in our own minds and lives.  This is understandable, it is part of what we live in. The reality is also that we sometimes loose site of deeper truth.  We carry on as if our minds and lives are actually the center of reality.

The deeper truth is that God, or the Divine or whatever we choose to call what connects us and binds us, has given us our lives and souls themselves.  Along with this fundamental gift God also EXPECTS something of us.  This is not a concept or proposition.  This is the deeper truth. It is as true as the reality that we are loved, held and have constantly available to us access to the flow of Divine Light.

"Leadings" are not "maybes," they are ready for us now when we ready ourselves for them." 

It is in the readying process that I am now engaged in and will have more to say about when what comes next solidifies. 

Readings!   Where have I found pages of interest to turn since my return that I have found helpful in different ways?  Falling Upwards, A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Richard Rohr, a Benedictine priest. Twenty Affordable Sailboats to take you Anywhere by Nestor and Twenty Small Sailboats to Take You Anywhere, by Vigor, Awakening the World, A global Dimension to Spiritual Practice by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, a contemporary Sufi mystic,  The Great Shift by Tom Kenyon and others, New Age;  Soulcraft, Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche by Bill Plotkin,  The Golden Spruce, A True Story of Myth Madness and Greed by Vaillant;  the latter a contemporary tale about an exceptionally rare Sitka Spruce with golden needles that grew on the Queen Charlotte islands of British Columbia, sacred to the indigenous Haida. 

More books about sailing and sailboats fueling a life long passion for boats in general.  But one person's passion may be another's bore so just a smattering here.

Peace Rider - Don

Mary Oliver, "Tell me, what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

A Past Life Experience on the Road 9/24/12 - 11/1/12

Dear Friends,

Writing this took a lot longer than I expected.  As a result, in true story fashion, it's longer and will take a bit of time to read through.   


Have you ever had a past life experience or some inkling you may have lived another life time?  I was once with a young Nez Perce woman in San Antonio, Texas helping load a school bus with a variety of donated things bound for Mexico.  While we were doing so she said she had a feeling of deja vu - as if she had been there before.  The remark stuck with me.  Still, it came as a big surprise when I began having a past life experience riding through the Canadian Rockies in late September last year. 

I shared this experience with a friend when I returned to Alaska.  When I asked the same question she shared a past life experience with me.  Perhaps these experiences are a lot more common than people are willing to admit.  It would be considered too "on the fringe" or even preposterous by some.  That too may be changing as the confining walls of our preconceived notions about the nature of reality are challenged and begin to crumble. 


Three is a sacred number descriptive of ourselves as body, mind and spirit;  to Christians, of the Trinity, the three in one God of Father/Mother. Son and Holy Spirit.  This was my third time being drawn to the vicinity of Jasper Park since beginning these peace rides.  Riding into Jasper town site in late September 2012, I was blissfully ignorant of the symbolic significance until later, as often happens. 

I was also undecided whether to ride west, as I had before in the winter of '09, or south over the Icefields Parkway.  This time I was ahead of the snow, I hoped.  It was also drop dead gorgeous with the green gold of fall colors splashed on the surrounding mountainsides.  And the temperatures were downright balmy for the time of year with days on end of clear or partly cloudy skies.  But an end to indian summer weather was in the offing.  A cold front with rain was forecast to move into the area in a couple of days, I learned.  I was prepared for rain.  Not one to pass up an opportunity to see new country the decision was easy.  Go south "young man."

I didn't leave my friend Kim's place until mid-afternoon.  I had waited until Monday the 24th to leave when the weekend crowds would have mostly left and still ahead of the forecast rain.  Athabasca Falls was the first place I came to that beckoned as a possible camp site.  It turned onto the access road and coasted down hill stopping on the bridge over the river.  My first impression was of being in a sacred place.  Here the turquoise water of the Athabasca River cascaded into a narrow, exquisitely beautiful canyon below.  What I also saw was disheartening.  Clearly it had not been treated that way by the "minders" of this place.  There was a second upstream crossing adjacent to the highway bridge and cemented in place viewing overlooks on both sides of the narrow canyon.  All likely seen as quite necessary by Parks Canada to accommodate the visiting "hordes," with some justification.  Still, it's possible to love a place to death.  This seemed to be one of them.  Perhaps in a more enlightened day there will be the sensitivity and humility to regard all of Gaia, Mother Earth, as sacred.  In that day we will assume our proper role as tenders and not despoilers of the "garden."

As I rode on I thought about trees after Kim gifted me with a quote by author Jim Robbins from his new book, The Man Who Planted Trees.  I had frequently camped in the midst of trees, often very old ones.  In some inexplicable way being in their midst touch me deeply.  All living things including ourselves have an energy signature.  Perhaps it was the subtle energy from these ancient ones I was picking up on.  I yearned to know what they might tell me of a place to camp.  Then I seemed to hear look for an old indian trail.  Where?  There was nothing obvious as I rode along. 

The road roughly paralleled the meanders of the Athabasca River coming quite close in places.  There were no out-of-sight, out-of'-mind places I preferred to camp along these stretches.  It wasn't until I saw a sign for Kerkeslin camp ground that a possibility seemed to open.  At this point the river jogged away from the highway.  When I got there however, I had a problem.  The campground was closed for the season with a chain across the entrance. 

I wasn't interested in camping in the camp ground.  I wanted to camp by the river so the reasoning went.  I have never been led to a place to camp where it was posted as closed.  I could easily walk my bicycle and trailer around the chain closure meant to keep out cars but not bicycles.   It was worth checking out. I rode to somewhere near the west end of the campground where I found a camp site with a foot trail leading off in the direction of the river.  Walking  along that I soon found my way blocked by downed trees.  By this time I could hear if not see the river.  With some effort I pushed bike and trailer off the trail through a thick layer of moss to a supporting tree while I went exploring.  It was less effort to find a support, if there was one,  to hold the bike and trailer upright than lay it down and pick it up again.  Not far beyond the trail ended at a wide flat river bar with a few willows growing here and there.  It was a possible camp site but I was in no hurry.  A point of land upriver beckoned with open easy walking along the river's edge.

From the point I could see for miles up and down steam.  I called it Driftwood Point for the tangled pile of wood that had lodged there at high water.  Was it my imagination, but there seemed to be a faint trail through the forest beside the river leading to the point?  Around the point there was not doubt of a trail.  In places it was worn deep by the passing of wild things and the feet of people from the long ago to present.  I was aware here especially of being in the flow of a deeper river beneath the surface of things.  It had made the finding of this place easy.  Had I been here before, it had that feel to it?

Near the point I found a level place for a camp back in the trees.  These were some of the oldest white spruce around but still relative youngsters. Better still I was off any obvious game trail that might lead to an unwelcome nighttime visitation.  I liked it.  An aluminum can under a downed tree pulled my head out of the clouds.  A lot of people came here in season. I was blessed to have it to myself.

Camping near the point with my bicycle some ways off in the trees created a bit of a dilemma.  I couldn't get my bicycle and trailer there without a lot of work lifting over dead fall and then pushing, pulling over soft ground.  I had no energy for that.  A workable plan was leave the bicycle where it was and carry just what I needed to camp near the point.  I could cook by the river closer to the bike.  To give some peace of mind I'd tie my food bags in a tree to remove temptation from any after dark foragers.

I wasn't too worried about bruin having seen no sign anywhere.  It seemed likely they had vacated this part of the country.  They're no dummies and likely knew that a closed campground was lean pickings and moved on to a more lucrative berry patch.  Old fears arose after I started fixing dinner by the river.  I realized my bear spray was still at the bicycle.  I got up to retrieve it.  Then it seemed the trees were speaking.  You don't trust us?  If we lead you to a place to camp it will be safe.  Thinking back to all the places I had camped from the very beginning of these journeys this was true.  I hesitated, then returned to the river.

Old habits and fears die hard however, even as we take those first halting steps toward trust in the unseen.  Later I took the bear spray into my tent for the night.  I felt bad about it and apologized to my forest friends for lapsing back into an old way of being.  I wasn't quite there yet.  I had no problems except for rain that began in the night.  I got up and reset my tent stakes.  The taut fabric would shed water better. 

I lay around until mid-morning when the rain eased off then stopped.  It was past noon by the time I had my gear shuttled back to the bicycle and packed up to leave.  I wasn't driven to literally crank out a certain number of miles every day.  I was going with the flow.

Years ago I had learned not to push the weather when I was still flying for a living.  Just wait awhile and it will change.  It was more important to be present and at peace in the moment.  This was a new thing I was learning.  Riding a bicycle in a place of great beauty, free of the usual distractions made it possible.  I was blessed by time and circumstance to venture into the unknown.  There was, of course, a physical dimension to the journey by its very nature. But more importantly it was also a journey of heart and soul. 

The clouds thickened again late in the day.  Light rain began while I was setting up camp on a narrow strip of land between river and highway opposite Mushroom Mountain.  It was windy and more open here.  Eventually I found a more sheltered place in a patch of willows off the river but not too close to the highway and traffic noise.  It wasn't ideal but it would do.  I carried a small tarp and tied it off between nearby trees for an overnight gear and bike shelter.  Before turning in I a gathered up some dry wood for a morning fire and put it under the tarp. 

It was still raining when I got up.  I hunkered down underneath the tarp with a fire going waiting for the rain to stop.  Clouds hung low in the valley.  It hadn't frosted overnight.  It was still cool and remained that way all day.  Warm hands and food on a cold morning got the day off to a good start.  It's the small things that sometimes make the biggest difference.  A wood fire was one of them.  I enjoyed the whole process of gathering wood then sitting around it afterward eating.  As the sun rose the air dried out some and the clouds began to lift.  I packed up and was on the road in clearing sky.  Another gorgeous day in the mountains was in the offing.  That morning a "rocky mountain high," immortalized in song by John Denver, grabbed me and held on. I couldn't have been happier. 

Along the eastern edge of the wide river flats south of camp remnants of the old winding road bed were visible.  The relatively newer highway I was on cut through the rough middle of these open flats.  It was straighter allowing more cars to travel on it at a much higher speed.  There are always trade offs in these sort of things.  More wild land was used up by a newer road as often happens.  Yet something ineffable was also lost as at the Falls to accommodate more and more visitors.   It seemed to me it was that naturalness of place and a sense of intimacy with nature that was diminished. 

Beyond the flats I started climbing a long grade before dropping down again into the river bottom nearing Columbia glacier.  On the way up I stopped at Tangle Creek for a snack break and fill up on water.  A few others had pulled over to take in the view.  Brewster was building a goat viewing platform here.  Kim and other activists from Jasper had protested its construction.  Heretofore, it was a place visitors had the opportunity to see goats without having to pay.  Parks Canada had given the go ahead to Brewster, a private company, to construct this for profit viewing site.  It was a money maker for Brewster.  It was a raw deal for the public not to mention another intrusion in wilderness.

Two young women pulled up in a small red car.  They stopped near me while I was doing a stand up and eat routine.  The passenger side person got out.  Curious, I asked where they were from.  She said Germany.  She also told me she had lived in Vancouver about a year.  They had come from there in a rental car.  She said her name was Sage.*  In the moment it reminded me of another I had known of the same name.  I thought no more about it. 

For late season in mid-week it was busy but not crowded around the lodge and in the parking area opposite the glacier when I pulled in there for a break.  I was glad I'd missed the summer hordes from Calgary, Edmonton and beyond.  It was a good day to be alive in this place with a nearly cloudless sky.  To the west I had a spectacular view of the glacier. 

Brewster buses were plying back and forth taking tourists to and from an overlook atop the lateral moraine along the glacier's southern fringe.  It had shrunk dramatically, like so many others, judging from the considerable vertical distance between the overlook and its crevassed surface.  There is also the added attraction of being able to walk on trails to the toe of the glacier. 

I didn't stay long.  I wanted to get over the pass and descend lower to find a suitable place to camp for the night.  At some point beyond here Jasper Park ends and becomes Banff Park, not that it made any difference.  It was just a dividing line on a map, not unlike other artificial boundary lines that separate land and people.

Late in the day I began asking where the days camp would be.  I heard continue to about 6:00PM.  Closing in on the time I asked again and was told to look for an old road bed in the valley ahead.  I would be surprised to find an old friend.  Descending into the valley I crossed the North Fork of the Saskatchewan River.  Sure enough across the river on the west side and lower down I saw the old road bed. In the distance were buildings on the east side that might be a campground.  I couldn't be sure.  A little closer but still distant I could just make out through the brush, the back of what looked like a large sign, perhaps a pullout.  I didn't go that far.  Instead I found a not too steep place close at hand and descend onto the old road bed. 

Once there I turned back towards the river while looking for a way off of it.  A convenient ramp, perhaps an old bridge abutment put me into a clearing just upstream from the bridge.  Pushing my bike across the clearing I paused for a moment looking for a less exposed place to camp.  When I looked down I saw several old, half buried logs, perhaps from an old cabin foundation.  A feeling of sadness came over me.  Unaccountably, the feeling lingered as I pushed up over a low bank and crossed a trail leading to the river into another forest opening.  A carpet of diminutive kinnikinnick with it red berries almost shouted out camp here.  It was a nice place.  I leaned my bike against a clump of white spruce trees.

Suddenly it came to me.  These where the Four Sisters.  I'd know them in another life time when they were young.  Now they were old, weathered at their tips much like me.  This was my surprise. I had read we have lived many lives before.  Until this moment I had never been in a place where I had that intuitive sense of knowing it.  There was more to come.

I set up camp by the Sisters then went looking for a patch of bare ground to build a fire where I wouldn't burn a hole in the vegetation.  In a swale I found a place.  And yet another surprise, nearby were four more intertwined "Sisters" about the same height, more vigorous and youthful looking.  It stuck me as unusual to find two clumps of four trees like this so close to one another.  Looking around some more I could see other clusters of two and three spruce growing close to one another.  Further removed the growth pattern was more random.  It was puzzling. 

I ate in the dark by firelight.  It was the usual entre, a "grand mixtura" of pasta and rice, a handful of dried refried beans for protein, with some mutilated green pepper and onion thrown in.  If I had it I'd throw in part of a tomato, add a dollop of olive oil for fat, a dash of spices and sometimes a a fresh egg.  A bit boring after awhile but sustaining.  Afterward there were bits of chocolate for desert to delight the palate.  In the cooling night air the warmth from my small fire was welcome.  When I turned in the moon rose full and bright over the eastern hills down river.  Life was good. 

Snuggled inside a warming sleeping bag I waited.  The Sisters told me this was known as The Place of Remembrance.  It had become that for me.  I had lived here with a young woman whom I loved dearly.  We were native Americans. In those days non-natives were coming into the country.  With them they brought foreign sicknesses and many died.  She was one of them.  In the final moments of her passing we vowed in life times to come we would meet again.  In my grief I was inconsolable and lashed out at those I blamed for her death.  I became a murderer of women and children.  I died in a far off place.  It was a broad outline with few specifics.  It was enough.

I wondered who this young women was?  Then I knew of her from this lifetime.  It was the Sage of my recollection at Tangle Creek earlier in the day.  Years ago on another journey my path had converged with a woman called Sage.  We had two weeks together, not so long but enough for the fullness of love to blossom.  I had the sense of it then that that was all the time we would have together.  I wondered why?  Only now did the pieces separated by the years and another life time come together and make sense. .  She told me at the time of an incurable degenerative disease she had.  Had she passed from the life?  I didn't know, we had lost contact years ago.  If so she had reached across a great divide to let me know of a vow fulfilled.  It would be so like her, this person of  loving heart that I'd known.  Was it possible we were cosmic sojourners living and loving through lifetime past and again in this incarnation. I wanted to believe it.

I knew this for certain, the circumstances of our meeting then and now were uncannily similar.  The moon was waxing full on a clear star lit night just as it had on the night when we said the last goodbye years ago. Or was I just baying at the moon for a lost love, gone daft, set adrift by the ebb and flow of unseen energies..  Still, in my wanderings I had come to know there are no barriers unscaleable nor ocean too vast to cross for the transcendental power of Love, the All There Is.  It no longer mattered what others thought.  I was like Ulysses out bound on a voyage of discovery.  I was a chronicler of events as I saw them, unleashed from the soul binding shackles of the mind, held together by fear of the unseen and unknown.  I was in the flow of a deeper wider river of uncertain dimension or destination.  I knew I was loved and being cared for, that's all that mattered. 

The sun was breaking through the Sisters when I got up.  Overnight frost was beginning to fade from the side of my tent facing the sun.  Before I could get a fire going the Sisters warmed me of danger still distant but coming.  It was a bad bear they said.  I should not linger.  I didn't doubt it.  I had learned to pay attention to these promptings through an experience I had had in '09 when danger was imminent.  I felt it in the moment.  I left the road to safety.

I had set wood aside for a fire the evening before knowing frost was likely but no more.  A few drops of alcohol from my stove fuel bottle set the wood quickly ablaze.  Warm hands and food followed.  Later while I was loading my bicycle panniers the Sisters urged me again to leave.  The bear was closer - coming.  Brushing my teeth and tying my Ride for the Planet polar bear signs on the trailer could wait.  I walked my bicycle down a trail angling off towards where I had seen the back of a sign the afternoon before.  It ended as I hoped at a pullout.  I was left feeling the bear would not come close to the highway.  It felt safe here.  The sign read Howse Pass.   In one of those "aha" moments, I read that 500 generations of native Americans had used this place.  From here old trails led north, south and east onto the prairies to Rocky Mountain House. I had followed a modern day horse trail to the pullout. 

A couple from Edmonton pulled in and parked near me while I was brushing my teeth.  When  I spoke to them I learned she was not very comfortable in the wilderness.  She was also afraid of bears.  They were going to hike the trail I had just retreated on.  He told me they had seen a bear in the lodge area where they had stayed.  It was not so far away.  I had past it just before I descending into the valley and crossing the river.  While there was no way of knowing for certain, this bit of synchronicity pointed to this as the bad bear the Sisters had warned me about.  I knew from experience campground bears are nothing to mess with having lost their fear of people.  After the fact synchronicities like this build trust and confidence in the inner guidance one receives.  I had unwittingly enrolled in a school of the spirit by launching myself into the unknown of these journeys.

Riding out of the pullout on the other side of the road was a Ranger Station, not a campground, as I had speculated earlier.  Near days end I was again asking about a place to camp.  I could easily make Lake Louise the next day.  It was too far to reach before dark.  Again I was told look for the old road bed before the next bend.  There would also be a surprise in this place.  I began paying closer attention.  There wasn't much of the old road bed left, just a sliver of it.  Most of it had been covered over by the newer highway.  I turned around in the bend to look for a place to get onto it.  In places it was too steep and there was a lot of brush grown up.  Some of it had been cut back in the past leaving short stumps to negotiate adding to the difficulty.  Heavy timber abutted the old road grade on the downhill side.  I was told native people called this the Place of Seeping Water.  I could see why.  Walking in the forest looking for a tent site I found many places where water seeped to the surface beneath a thick covering of moss. 

I nearly despaired of finding a dry level place for my tent, however.  If it wasn't wet the forest floor was too uneven.  Finally near an elderly spruce abutting the old road grade I spotted a make do place if I cleared a few dead branches out of the way.  It turned out to be one of the most sublime.  Unbenownst to me when I put my tent in place it was over a slight depression in the forest duff that gave a gentle bow to my air mattress.  In the morning it felt like I'd slept in a cradle, which indeed I had, Mother Earth's own.  It turned into a memorable place for another reason as I was to learn. 

Finding these seeps and needing a bath set me to thinking hot springs as the surprise I would find in this place.  I became fixated on it.  It was pure projection, an ego thing.  There was no indication of what the surprise might be.  There were some lessons in all of this for me.

It was dark by the time I got a fire going in a dry creek bed nearby.  While I was eating I noticed a light shining through the trees higher up on the main highway.  Without thinking I quickly dowsed the fire thinking someone was shining a flashlight in my direction.  I  didn't hear any voices, however and that was odd.  Then I noticed the light only moved when I did.  I had a good laugh at myself when I realized it was light filtering through the forest from the full moon.  It had just crested the hill tops east of the highway while I was eating.

The next morning I was guided downhill following the dry creek bed near camp.   All the while I was on the lookout for a hot springs.  A half mile or so from camp I was instructed to turn right and walk north.  In a short way I walked into a small clearing.  A light frost had settled onto the grass in this unsheltered opening.  There was nothing especially remarkable about it.  I kept going.  Further on I came to a much larger opening edged by a mixed evergreen aspen woodland.  The view from the meadow was stunning, highlighted everywhere by the green gold of autumn.  To the east and west this "artist" had framed a masterpiece like no other with the jagged crests of the Canadian Rockies.

I had found the place I was intended to discover.  There were many small seeps or ponds scatted about.  Some were bathtub size and others many times larger, none of any great depth.  I stuck my finger into each one testing for warm water.  They were all cold.  A few even had a thin layer of ice around the edge.  On my first circuit to the east then back west I noticed a lone duck.  It was a female pintail resting on a larger seep off to my right, to the north of me.  It didn't fly away.  I paid no more attention to it. 

From the western edge of the forest I turned back east again on a line that would take me directly back to the highway without retracing my steps.  I kept looking for new seeps and testing each one but they too were cold.  I was puzzled.  Why was I led here?  I was clearly missing something.  Then the answer came - in part.  This was a place native people visited to bath and love one another during the heat of summer.  It truly was an idyllic spot set amidst so much beauty.  It was easy to understand why people would be drawn here.

Closer to the eastern edge I looked over again and saw the pintail duck still resting on the pond.  I continued into the forest beyond still looking but with waning hope of finding a hot springs.  Back at the highway it became apparent I was meant to learn something else from this experience.  And it was this.  When you allow your ego to get in the way as I definitely had and project an outcome onto inner guidance you risk missing entirely what you were meant to discover.  At the very least you will diminish the joy of the discovery experience.  It was this sense of diminishment I was feeling walking back to camp.  While I was in the opening looking for a hot springs I had missed the symbolic meaning of the female pintail duck, of long neck and one of the more graceful of the dabbling ducks..  It was Sage's way of reminding me of the times we had come to the Place of Seeping water to enjoy the beauty of place and one another in another life time.

The remainder of my ride out of the mountains and onto the prairies was shaped by these early experiences.  That far off place I died in led me to follow a route of travel that took me to Last Stand Hill at the Custer Battlefield Monument east of Billings, Montana.  But why there?

Passing through Longview, Alberta, roughly 50 miles south of Calgary I took a warm up break at Heidis Food Saloon.  There I met Buryl, a clairvoyant as I was to learn who said shortly after meeting me she saw a person wearing a feathered headdress.  Later she told me it was unusual for her to do a reading like that on a first meeting.  She was not able to tell me much more except she saw that person sitting beneath a ledge or outcrop of some sort. 

Further south across the prairies I had the feeling at times I was roughly travelling the same route as I had before to Last Stand Hill.  South of Hardin I was on a stretch of highway bending off to the south.  At that point I heard I might see something familiar up ahead.  Further on a line of low hills came into view..  The name Rattle Snake Hills came immediately to mind.  As it turned out these distant hills where those of Last Stand Hill fame.  Near the Visitor Center at the Battlefield Monument signs read watch out for rattlesnakes. 

I walked and then rode some around this place of epic struggle and dying.  In the end I couldn't say for certain if this was the place I had died in another life time.  What was clear was that I was not one of the well known warriors that had died here.  There was an intriguing possibility.   One unnamed warrior had died from a bullet to the forehead close to where Custer and his men had been "rubbed out" July 25th 1876.  Later that day I camped on the south bank of Little Big Horn river opposite Medicine Coulee Ford where many warriors crossed to attack Custer and his men.  That I ended up camped there was another bit of synchronicity and "chance" meeting with Real Bird a Crow elder and historian for battlefield reenactments.  In this area south of the Little Big Horn and to the east and west was where a large encampment of native Americans was located and first engaged by Major Reno.

In early November with winter nipping at my heels I ended this part of my journey in North Glen, Colorado near Denver.

Looking back there remains a lingering sweetness to these experiences.  It was a real joy sharing them.  I know these recollections will be a stretch for some while others may nod with understanding.  The details of a past life are not as important as the discovery itself.  We have all incarnated before.  It puts death in its proper perspective as an experience we all share.  It is a doorway we've passed through many times.  There is nothing to fear in it.  It is as Chief Seattle said, "death, there is no death only a change of worlds."