We had a spring and stream fed lake on our homestead property, with beaver dams at both ends, giving the lake depth, although. it contained copious amounts of Lilly pads. These pads provided sanctuary to many fish, amphibians, avian's, and mammals, living in those environs. In short, it was a paradise of life.
At all times of day, various tableau, were playing themselves out, among and between the creatures, calling this lake home. Our old Army field glasses were kept busy, from where they sat, beside the pitcher pump dad had installed at the kitchen window overlooking the lake. We called it Clyde Lake.
The property is no longer in our hands and the person who purchased it determined to destroy the beaver dams and turn the lake into a mudhole, vacant of all life. It's ironic, dad denied an oil company the rights to build an oil refinery across the lake, only to sell to a wealthy Texan, who held no value in Eden. C'est la vie, which means, in this case, I am very damn sorry.
But I was a boy and this was a lesson of the first order. Although Clyde Lake may no longer exist, due to excessive desire to tear down, and careless ignorance to life among creatures, it was one example of the beauty and diversity of the northland, at the time.
There is a highway passing through the province of British Columbia, in western Canada and meandering up through The Yukon Territory and ultimately into north eastern Alaska and on to Fairbanks, Alaska. This highway is called 'The AlCan' or Alaska/Canada highway. It was begun as a joint project of both the United States and Canada during the second world war, with the view in mind to protect military convoys from enemy aircraft strafing.
That road is now entirely paved, but in the days I made many a trip on it, it was not and there were more than 1500 miles of gravel designed in tight and continuous 'speed' curves built like a brick shit house.
It was the death of many a car and truck and the destruction of many many a rubber tire. Truckers were just crazy to be on that highway. But truckers have always been a little crazy, and prone to isolated lives and travel cross country.
Along that stretch, through wilderness unrivaled, are outposts, trading posts, lodges, weather of every conceivable kind, truly wild north American natives, the kind with those milk white veils over their eyes, a couple of beaver pelts over their shoulder, and a rifle, with a scope, pointing right at our pickup truck window. We stops in the middle of the gravel, He lowers the rifle, passes on, toward the banks of wild and majestic Kluane Lake.
Kluane, pronounced Kloo-wah-nee, stretches east to west for 50 miles and about 5 to 6 miles wide, right along that magnificent AlCan highway. The name Kluane, means Big Fish Lake in the indigenous language, and is full of large bodied Lake Trout and White Fish.
Kluane has moods, just like the man with the rifle. It can be beautiful deep blue one minute and turn black as a witch the next. I would hazard to guess, aside from highly professional pioneer skills, one would need balls like ball bearings, to really live there. And yet, a part of my heart does live there and, for some reason, always will.
Those memories that stick in my mind have those depths and those temperatures and those vivid beauties, straight out of springs, glacially fed drips and silt filled rivers of the far north. They are dangerous and groaning, like ice, on a borealis'd night at 60 below zero.
These are the spirit of my father, the mystery of his nature, the beauty of his soul, and it's safe inside, day or night, looking out that kitchen window...
Written by Bruce James Clyde 2015
Photo: Kluane Lake, Yukon Territory, Canada
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