The Horror - Up Close And Personal

When we arrived back at the Mecca and had breakfast, I joked that this, and Nicki's apartment, were really the only things I had seen in Fairbanks. Marie told me that I could soon add the experience of "how real Eskimos lived" to my list.

At first the idea conjured up images of ice igloos, fury clothes made from animal skin and sled dogs. Boy, was I ever wrong.

Marie decided to take me and leave the rest of the group behind. Nicki seemed to be the official chauffeur so the three of us drove North on the Elliot Highway. For about an hour it was a total white world and we could barely see the road. Marie told me that we were visiting some friends that had suffered from the "heater." She warned me that it would not be a pretty sight and gave me a few pointers on how to interact with the Inuit.

"They are a friendly people and they will want to sit down and share something to drink or eat with you before you ask any questions."

Soon, in the distance, the white background was punctuated by a collection of brown, rusting vehicles, some old sheds, lots of metal containers and some cinder block homes. I did see a few sleds and dogs but there were also mounds of trash and plastic tarps. In fact, it was really ugly.

Nicki elected to stay in the car and listen to tapes while Marie and I approached the single story dwelling. Before we could knock on the door it was opened and a very old woman with missing teeth greeted Marie with a big hug. They exchanged greetings in a language that I could not repeat. It had lots of guttural inflections and whistles and the same phrases were being directed at me as I was led inside.

It was warm. A kerosene heater warmed the small room. There was just enough room for us all to sit and the old woman immediately began to make some tea and offered us some canned sugar cookies.

The home was simple but contained lots of family photographs and art that was obviously drawn by a child. As we drank the tea, Marie explained who I was and the mood began to sink. The old woman cried and her voice became a shrill as she grabbed a collection of old photographs.

Through Marie, I learned that the woman's husband and son had been sledding with their dogs when the "sky burned them." They were found with their dead animals about 50 miles North of her home several days after the most recent "experiment" with the heater. She cried and broke my heart. I cried with her. Her pain was so obvious and I was aware that she had so little in her life as it was.

Marie showed me photographs of the woman's husband and son, taken only months before the incident. I looked but didn't know what to say. What do you say? They were gone and she was alone.

After about an hour we left. The woman tried to make us take some cookies with us. "Imagine that," I thought, "She has so little and yet wants us to have a gift." My heart was crushed.

When we got back to the car I could see that Marie was also weeping. But we were not finished. We drove a few miles up the road where there was a small collection of the same dwellings, grouped together. This time we would see the living victims.

Once again we entered a small dwelling. It appeared that the residents had designated a single shelter as a kind of community room. There was a generator somewhere, popping in the distance, and it supplied power for a radio that played strange music. There was an accompanying hum and hiss that reminded me of short-wave and I assumed the broadcast could be originating from Siberia.

The women in the community building seemed to know why we were there. Tea was already hot and they wasted no time showing me a baby with a deformed face [see Report]. The child had a hole where its nose should have been and a cleft palate. I am no doctor and so the significance of this defect was hard to determine until a second baby was brought to show us. This child had been born blind and had a deformed hand. Marie explained that both births were from women that lived here and who were pregnant when the "sky burned."

The mood here was different. The women obviously loved the children and had decided to care for them regardless of their physical problems. They smiled and made noises to the babies, who appeared to smile and respond to their love. I maintained my smile long enough to reach the car and then broke into tears. Nicki moved to the back seat and put her arms around me while I sobbed. I had not cried that much since I was a kid.

As we drove back, Marie said she had planned a few more stops but decided I had seen enough. That was a wise decision. Somewhere between this outpost and Fairbanks my sadness turned to anger. We decided it was best for me to return to Nicki's apartment.

Marie called Jonas and Dave and told them how I reacted. They decided it was best to let me rest for a while but insisted on giving me a send-off at the Mecca, joking that they knew I had to see that bar again before I left Alaska.

Nicki and I were alone again and we smoked a bowl to Greg Allman. She knew how to distract me and I did my best to forget what I had seen. Getting stoned was not the best remedy at first, but Nicki showed me some photographs of Fairbanks in the summer, of her and Jonas on some beautiful hikes, and I was soon in a better mood.

It struck me that photographs can be either happy or sad, bitter or sweet. And that tragedies can effect people in the same ways: for better or worse.