Search Results for: spotlight

“Most of this happened when I was a young man and very naive. I really was a member of a rescue team that searched for seven missing climbers on top of Mt. McKinley in the summer of 1967. One man on our team nearly drowned while crossing the frigid waters of the McKinley River. A […]

Parts of Speech The cloud speaks all in sibilance to the moon. To the mountain, it clanks together consonants like old cowbells. All day I have tried to hold still long enough to listen. There is a story in the way my skin unfurls when I’ve locked away industry. It has some of the same

I asked a friend who recently moved to Anchorage from Barrow how long it took before the urge to buy 10 cases of paper towels every time he shopped at Costco wore off. He said it had been over nine months since he left the Bush and that moment had not yet occurred for him.

Sometimes from within the shining grass, the headlights caught the eyes of some night animal: a skunk or badger, or down on the flats, coyotes. Seeing them, Urs slowed even more, feeling the car and himself to be one more night creature scurrying along with shining eyes. The full, round moon was beginning its descent.

CHAPTER ONE January, 2001, New Delhi Crowds of savvy people weave confidently through the thick, smoky atmosphere of Indira Gandhi International Airport. Monica is as star­tled as a body can be at 11:30 p.m., after 19 hours of travel. Desperate for air and space after the marathon flight in her small, stuffy seat, she’s overwhelmed

The bear reared up on its hind legs with a grunt, sniffing at the air. It opened its mouth, releasing an eerie series of woofs, primitive sounds like those a cowering dog would make. But the bear wasn’t cowering. It stood erect, its black coat gleaming.              His father had told him, had told him

“I think of how human interests developed early in life often stay with us. Adult passions seem like a modified version of a child’s delight. The boy from my neighborhood who pushed toy trucks around now operates heavy equipment for a living… I felt most at home when guiding in the backcountry or hauling crab

“TROOPER, COME QUICK!” Billy is calling the Lone Wolf Trooper Post from more than a hundred miles across the frozen tundra. Getting there from here requires crossing a major mountain range and following two sizable rivers. As he rants, I squint through the frost-covered window at the ski-plane squatting on the frozen stream below our

Arvad Winstor slipped into his parka and gloves and left the safety of his condo to wander about on one of the coldest nights of the year, seething and angry, not looking around. He went about two hundred yards before hearing through his hood an odd rumbling noise plainly loud enough to interrupt the fuming

My grandfather dies while I’m still on the boat. They don’t dock for anything—not illness, injury, or death will change their course once the season begins.  Each morning, while the rest of the crew huddles around the coffeemaker and grouses to life with a first cigarette, I lie in my cot, reading the letter as