Ditch of a Ditch
July, 1911
Grand Central Valley
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| Grand Union Glacier on the Middle Fork of Grand Union drainage, July 2018 |
July, 1911
Grand Central Valley
Kigluaik Mountains, north of Nome, Alaska
in which Johnson makes contact with a new friend
There was this one coolie that kept looking up to catch Johnson's eye. Coolies didn't tend to look you in the eye, which is why Johnson noticed the man. Johnson had seen him, marching with his coolie gang, shovel in hand, at various locations up and down the mucky trails of Grand Central Valley. Always the fellow looked uncharacteristically up and outwards over the surrounding bevy of bent-over heads, to make eye contact with Johnson, as if expecting something.
Now, just as Johnson was about to execute an escape attempt— he intended to sneak away from his work post for a two-day pleasure trip to the north side of the mountains to investigate a glacier his friend Henshaw had told him about— just as he was ready to make the move, here came the same, strange little coolie, separated from his gang, trundling a barrel across the meadow at Thompson Creek. His trajectory seemed deliberately calculated to intersect Johnson's.
Now, just as Johnson was about to execute an escape attempt— he intended to sneak away from his work post for a two-day pleasure trip to the north side of the mountains to investigate a glacier his friend Henshaw had told him about— just as he was ready to make the move, here came the same, strange little coolie, separated from his gang, trundling a barrel across the meadow at Thompson Creek. His trajectory seemed deliberately calculated to intersect Johnson's.
This particular moment was freighted with peril for Johnson. It marked the crux move of his escape: the critical exit into deep brush. What with the chaos and misdirections of the work operations in Grand Central, where you really couldn't be sure which ditch was which, or whose ditch you worked for, or how water was supposed to flow uphill, Johnson was pretty sure no one would notice his absence from the operations. However, if some Teamster were to actually observe him at his moment of egress into the deep brush, word might get around he was shirking his duty. Johnson had already taken two previous vacations in this same way and gotten away with it clean, but this time, the queer coolie was mucking it up. To make matters worse, Johnson carried a somewhat conspicuous bundle over his shoulders stuffed with two days supplies (in a custom Swiss rucksack he had brought all the way from Zurich to the Territories). But the strange little coolie seemed more inquisitive than ever, to the point that he actually set his barrel upright upon the ground, leaving it behind, and continued in Johnson's direction, keeping his head low, his cap pulled over his eyes.
There was no way to avoid the pesky coolie. Then, the little guy spoke: "Please, sir, may I accompany you..."
He spoke quietly, in perfectly measured English that contained no traces of European, American, or Alaskan accent, certainly not Asian. Johnson was quite taken aback, but did not slacken his pace in his commitment to abandon his post. Impulsively, not knowing why he did it, Johnson gestured for the coolie to come along. In a flash, the two men had vanished together in thick brush, swallowed by willows. Instantly, the two became hidden away. Johnson now felt free to pursue his two day recreational hike to the north side of the mountains, confident that no one in the mucked-up operations of the Wild Goose Pipeline would notice he was gone.
He spoke quietly, in perfectly measured English that contained no traces of European, American, or Alaskan accent, certainly not Asian. Johnson was quite taken aback, but did not slacken his pace in his commitment to abandon his post. Impulsively, not knowing why he did it, Johnson gestured for the coolie to come along. In a flash, the two men had vanished together in thick brush, swallowed by willows. Instantly, the two became hidden away. Johnson now felt free to pursue his two day recreational hike to the north side of the mountains, confident that no one in the mucked-up operations of the Wild Goose Pipeline would notice he was gone.
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| Rick Anderson slogging northwest up the North Fork of Grand Central, July 2018. MacPherson's rogue ditch crew lay hidden in the folds of the hillside ahead. |
in which Johnson and the Coolie investigate an erratic
Wordlessly, the two men skulked along the gravel bars of Grand Central, hidden by species of alder and willow. It was strange, thought Johnson, this coolie. No matter how Johnson lengthened his tall, lanky stride, Johnson could not shake the little dude. As they reached the deserted North Fork of Grand Central, the pressure of discovery was dissipated, somewhat. No crews would be working up here to witness their insurrection. Still, neither man said anything for a long time. Johnson clung to the assumption the coolie could not speak English, even though his well-formed English phrases still rang in Johnson's ears.
As they hiked, he considered a visit to the erratics. Johnson always stopped at the North Fork glacial erratics for some acrobatic climbing on the compact granite. But today he felt too exposed, too self-conscious in front of the coolie. What would the heathen make of Johnson's gruntings and gyrations once he assumed the postures of rock climbing taught him by the masters of the Elbsandstein in Eastern Europe? Johnson decided to skip this opportunity to climb on the boulders, and just continued up the curving North Fork of Grand Central.
Out of nowhere, the coolie spoke again, in the same, pitch-perfect English: "Friend-- might we make a detour to the erratique glaciarie?" .
Dumbstruck, practically sputtering, Johnson no longer doubted his hypothesis that this was no normal coolie. How would a coolie know such a term as "glacial erratic?" What, exactly, was going on here? thought Johnson. He knew of no one else in the entire territory of Alaska besides himself who had read Dr. Forbes' theories on mountain building and glaciation— except, of course, Henshaw, his pal on the Survey.
"Chor'," was the only thing Johnson could think to say, in his thick, German/Scandinavian brogue.
They cut over to the boulders. The coolie surveyed the quartz grains in the stone with interest, his hand unconsciously twisting his little black beard as he did so. Johnson feigned his own interest in the granite, instead watching the coolie out of the corner of his eye. The dimunative fellow appeared every part the academic, lacking only a pair of spectacles to complete the impression. Pretty thick beard for a Chinaman, thought Johnson. Normally, Johnson would have cranked off a few zero moves to the top of the boulder before moving on, but this coolie had spooked him shy. Besides, their position was still too exposed to observation. Both deserters were happy to continue up the valley into the empty Northeast Cirque of Mt. Osborn at the top of the valley.
in which Johnson encounters a rogue ditch operation in Grand Central
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| Map of Upper Grand Central Valley / Grand Union Drainage. A. Grand Union Glacier, Middle Fork Grand Union B. Middle East Fork Grand Union Glacier (or remnant) C. Chevron Gulley, East Fork Grand Union This shows where Rick and I went in July, 2018. The Elevation Head of the Wild Goose Pipeline, and evidence of its operational confusions, can still be found in this area. |
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| Map of Grand Central showing a hike from a previous year. Red line shows the hundred-year old carriage road, indicated as a dashed line on old USGS Maps. Purple line shows how to hike above the beaver ponds that have intervened since the Pipeline days. The road starts within 30 ft. of the present-day Grand Central bridge. Swaths of the road now lie under hundred-year old willows, and the entire valley is essentially a swamp, nevertheless, staying strictly on the road is the best way to hike into Grand Central. The blue arrow marks the easy pass that Rick and I hiked over to access the north side of the Kigs in this post. |
They turned the corner and came to a sight that filled Johnson with consternation. "Vat de—?" escaped his lips. He was so confused by what he saw that Johnson forgot to stay hidden.
A ditch crew was up here in the North Fork. Johnson was sure that operations had been discontinued in the North Fork, following a contentious discussion between engineers to which Johnson had been privvy. But here was a crew anyway, hidden from view of all the workers in the lower valley, ploughing out a little six-footer along the east rim of a small gorge. The clack of metal shovel blades against rocky ground sounded through the breezy air. The crew appeared to be composed of Teamsters, working only with shovels. There was not a single horse or piece of machinery to be seen, just human bodies bent over the landscape.
Johnson saw the foreman, a squat, pugnacious man leaning on his shovel, lording it over his crew. McPherson! grimaced Johnson to himself. That explains it. Johnson disliked the stubborn Scotsman. Everyone called him "the Troll" behind his back. The man seemed to think he owned the entire Grand Central Valley. At the meeting of engineers, Johnson himself had come out in favor of no more ditches up the North Fork. The water hoist up to Crater Lake had been a flawed idea to begin with, and the proposed span across the West Fork was proving costly and problematic. A majority of the engineers had agreed, except for a small faction, led by MacPherson. "A hoist be exactly what those big wigs in Nome are lekking for," the Scotsman had railed at the group.
Standing there in the North Fork with MacPherson's crew just ahead, Johnson surmised that the stubborn Scotsman had gone rogue. Ten to one the boss don't know he's up here, thought Johnson. Probably adding to his footage at twice the rate. This certainly wasn't the first rogue ditch in these hills. As a matter of fact, ditches were spreading in every direction, up, down, sideways. It all seemed a little crazy, given that water is supposed to follow the path of least resistance.
Johnson spat a projectile of saliva into the tundra. The coolie looked on silently, seeming to disapprove also. The only good fortune, thought Johnson, is now that bastard MacPherson can't rat me out, or I'll do the same to him. So Johnson and the Coolie boldly continued along their way up the narrow valley, in full view of the cantankerous foreman building his ditch to nowhere, who stood on his shovel, pretending not to notice the two deserters hiking up the valley.
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| The Rogue Ditch. Ditchmania gripped the hills north of Nome. For a moment, water was worth more than gold. But where to run the ditches? Opinions varied. Northeast Wall of Osborn rises ominously ahead. |
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| Feeder Line #2, a faint line in the brush at center, a fully-enclosed pipeline made of redwood staves coming out of the North Fork of Grand Central. Photo is taken from Crater Lake, facing northeast. The Feeder Line does not make it across the deep ravine of the West Fork of Grand Central, which is visible bisecting this photo horizontally from west to east. The pipe goes down into the ravine but does not make it back up to where I am standing taking the photo. The planners intended to build a hydraulic water-hoist to get the water back up to Crater Lake, but never got around to it before the whole Wild Goose Pipeline fizzled out. I'm betting they had already scrapped the plans for the hoist by 1911, which is why MacPherson is a renegade, hiding in the North Fork with his crew, madly building his boondoggle ditch to nowhere, fully aware the plans have been scrapped. |
The upper slopes of Mt. Osborn were turning their own unique shade of metamorphic burnt umber as the sun rolled like a ball along its northern ramparts. Johnson and his strange companion still walked together, almost in lockstep as they approached the boulder-strewn pass at the top of Grand Central North Fork. After a short afternoon of hiking together, the strangeness of the situation was wearing off, and Johnson had settled into a monologue as the two men hiked, in part to scare the bears away, but also because it was his way, like many a Sourdough hermit of the North, to talk to himself incessantly, and the Coolie's relative silence seemed to Johnson an encouragement of his own palaver.
But then, out of the blue, apropos of nothing, punctuated for dramatic effect, as if his mind had suddenly apprehended an obvious fact that had been dangling in front of him, Johnson exclaimed: "Chou ain't no Chinee."
Johnson possessed an often distracted mind. This evinced in him a kind of innocent joy, as if he were forever stumbling upon things for the first time, elated with the discovery. For the space of a few strides, only the sound of the two men's heavy breathing could be heard.
"Come on, now. Admit it," continued Johnson, directing his words at the Coolie, "I know a heathen when I see one. And you ain't no heathen."
"That may be true, sir," said the Coolie, his own flood gates of speech opening up at last, to Johnson's astonishment. "Though in the last mile you have served enough racial epithets so as to make a man such as myself a trifle wary of informing a man such as yourself my true tribal affiliation."
"Come on, now. Admit it," continued Johnson, directing his words at the Coolie, "I know a heathen when I see one. And you ain't no heathen."
"That may be true, sir," said the Coolie, his own flood gates of speech opening up at last, to Johnson's astonishment. "Though in the last mile you have served enough racial epithets so as to make a man such as myself a trifle wary of informing a man such as yourself my true tribal affiliation."
Johnson stopped dead in his tracks, causing a corresponding cessation of locomotion in his companion. Slowly, as if he had been struck a blow on the head, Johnson turned to peer at the Coolie... or whoever, whatever, he was. Johnson still had not expected such an outflow of English to come from this man he had assumed was a Chinese railroad worker.
The man began to speak in earnest. The cessation of motion caused him to look in Johnson's eyes as he spoke. "Despite the coarseness of your, how do you say it, palaver, yes, you appeared from afar to me to be a man of intellect, upbringing, and sensibility. I have decided to entrust you with a confidence I have every faith you will not betray. I have no power, sir, to enforce your secrecy by threat or means. Only my strong intuition that you are a man of both openness and digression, as well as my eagerness to share open discourse with another human being after months of deprivation, allows me to reveal to you my true identity."
Recused, Johnson lapsed into silence. Johnson possessed a flexible mind capable of switching modalities easily. Here is a man of education, Johnson realized. This odd little Chinese fellow who had followed him right up the North Fork of Grand Central, was surely not what he appeared to be.
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| Looking west from unnamed pass between North Fork Grand Central and East Fork Grand Union. At center of photo is another nearby pass that provides direct access from Grand Central to the Middle-East Fork of Grand Union, and is probably only hideous Class 3 from this side. |
in which the floodgates of conversation are opened
The two men continued to hike together as the glow of the midnight sun suffused the arctic landscape. The bugs had died down under the midnight cool-down, allowing conversation to take place. Now that Johnson's modality was switched, and a few of his prejudices dismantled, there were plenty of topics on which for the two to converse.
Johnson's new companion, it came out, was indeed no indentured servant. He had been a man of means in Europe. He let a woman-- a Prussian Countess, if he were to be believed-- draw him into "complications" that eventually forced his expulsion to the "farthest corners of the world," meaning, of course, Nome, Alaska Territory. This much information Johnson was able to get out of the man, but the fellow was elusive when pressed for details. His enemies, the man explained, were "everywhere." His detractors-- debtors, Johnson suspected-- had people planted in the "farthest corners of the world," which is why the man placed the utmost importance on his disguise— that of an indentured servant laboring on a ditch gang for the Wild Goose Company-- "or the Pioneer Company, or whichever the hell company has currently pressed us into labor."
Johnson's new companion, it came out, was indeed no indentured servant. He had been a man of means in Europe. He let a woman-- a Prussian Countess, if he were to be believed-- draw him into "complications" that eventually forced his expulsion to the "farthest corners of the world," meaning, of course, Nome, Alaska Territory. This much information Johnson was able to get out of the man, but the fellow was elusive when pressed for details. His enemies, the man explained, were "everywhere." His detractors-- debtors, Johnson suspected-- had people planted in the "farthest corners of the world," which is why the man placed the utmost importance on his disguise— that of an indentured servant laboring on a ditch gang for the Wild Goose Company-- "or the Pioneer Company, or whichever the hell company has currently pressed us into labor."
"But now," continued the Coolie, "out of the greatest irony, I've come to actually enjoy the work. I've never felt so hale and well in my life as I do at this moment, though I must say, I am finding it a distinct relief to converse with another man of learning, such as yourself, in a European tongue." The Coolie spoke four or five languages, he admitted, thanks to a stern and well-traveled governess who hammered him with Latin.
"Well, don't d' oder coolies get a little suspicious o' ya?" asked Johnson.
"No, not in the least. They just take it for a fact that I am one of them."
"Well, I'll be doggone," said Johnson, his own English accent an amalgam of German and Swedish influences, difficult for the other man to understand.
The two men continued up the North Fork of Grand Central, ascending steep glacial moraines towards the pass at the head of the valley, and crossing over into the unnamed valley to the north. As they walked, a conversation developed in a mixture of English, German, and Latin. Johnson found the range of the man's knowledge considerable. The Coolie had studied at Leipzig, at the same time Johnson was flunking out at Dresden. It had been Johnson's wild period, when he spent his study hours climbing on the sandstone cliffs of the Elba River with nefarious characters instead of applying himself at the library. The coolie knew the same professors as Johnson, the same theories, the same tedious exercises of Academia. And so, furiously, like castaways drinking fresh water, the two men began to talk back and forth with increasing animation. Whether Johnson would admit it or not, the situation was very much as his new friend had stated-- after so long among the plebes in the diggings, it was indeed pleasurable to talk in a European tongue with another learned man.
Without a word, as if bowing to some unseen cue, the two men ceased their walking. The Midnight Sun had dipped well below the northeast horizon. The mosquitoes had dropped completely. Both men's feet ached from miles of tussocky walking. A tacit agreement passed between them: time for a little snooze.
Not sixty seconds they had lain there, when Johnson stirred. He had the kind of a slow-processing, subconsciously-wired mind that made him susceptible to after-the-fact outbursts.
Hey!" exclaimed Johnson. His voice was muffled. He had formed an intricate breathing tube out of clothing to slow the mosquitoes' advance. "Chu' ain't no Chinee... Chor' a Heeb!"
From deep inside his own handkerchieves, the other man seemed to sigh, as if awakening from early sleep. For his part, the Coolie's attitude towards Johnson, his new friend— this Swede, whom, the coolie gathered, called himself Franklin Johnson— was that the Swede posed no threat. The man was harmless, just another Alaskan man-child. Despite his apparent racialism, Johnson displayed that carefree disingenuity so common on the frontier, as if he would probably never remember any of the details confided to him in conversation, and if he did remember, carried not enough weight of firm judgment within him to act in prejudice against another man.
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| World-famous trail hiker Rick Anderson in the East Fork of Grand Union Creek (as near as I can tell, that's what this drainage is) heading for the Chevron Gulley in the upper right-hand quadrant of the photo, with the curious rock obelisk perched above it. I forgot to climb the obelisk. It's short and solo-able from the backside. |
There followed an awkward pause. "I am a man, sir. My name, it happens, is Noah Applebaum. I trust you will not take this confidence lightly. As I have stated, my enemies may in truth be posted anywhere..."
"Ja... Ja," replied Johnson. He suddenly felt ashamed, for reasons beyond his ken. Johnson's mind had, to his credit, a flexible membrane. Unaware, the bubble of his known experience was bulging outwards. He felt unable to sleep, but constrained to continue feigning sleep. This situation is bizarre, thought Johnson. He, a Highland Pipe Foreman, lying out here on the tundra in close proximity to this weird polymath, this Applebaum fellow-- a disinheritor of considerable fortune and disgrace, Johnson suspected, possibly a member of some intelligence organization-- disguised as a coolie in a Nome ditch gang... and both of them on the lam from their jobs in the valley behind.
There followed another long pause in the conversation, the kind of conversational pause that might lapse back into sleep. But Johnson's guilty and restless mind drifted back, to a time six years earlier, to his Bacculaureate days in Dresden, Germany... to the sandstone towers of Saxony... mostly, to a man named Rudolph Fehrmann, the man they called Petrus...
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| Looking up the Chevron Gulley chosen by Applebaum to facilitate the passage from the East Fork of the Grand Union to the Middle-East Fork. The name comes from the patterns of the meta-igneous intrusions on my Amato-Miller "Bedrock Geologic Map of the Kigluaik Mountains" for this area. |
in which Johnson remembers his climbing days in Europe
It was 1904 when Johnson came into contact with Fehrmann. Johnson had signed up for a climbing class, but unbeknownst to him, the University Climbing Club had been taken over by a rebel group, the Schwarzer Kamin, known as the "Black Sweeps." Johnson had expected the usual accouterments of a University outing club: alpenstocks, long dresses, short ropes, bumptious, pipe-smoking guides. But he knew something was awry when he saw the "Schwarzer Kamin" Deaths-Head patches on the jackets of the trip leaders, shining with silver skull-and-crossbones.
Right off the bat, they picked Johnson out of the Lorry queue to sit in the back of Perry Smith's sportscar. Johnson had heard of Oliver Perry Smith, but never imagined he would be riding in the badass American's Bugatti. Fehrmann, whom everyone seemed to call Petrus, sat shotgun. They had picked Johnson out of the lorry line because of his sturdy, compact frame. "Oliver-- hatten wir unser neue Sicherungsmann?" Fehrmann had remarked. Johnson climbed into the Bugatti and Perry Smith sped off toward the countryside, beerskins raised, following the flanks of the Elbe River down at breakneck speed, leaving the Lorry far behind in the dust. Johnson fought down the urge to vomit into his shirt as the Bugatti drifted through the curves.
When they arrived at the cliffs, Johnson perceived that the structure of the Schwarzer Kamin trip would be "every man for himself," no matter if he were rank beginner. The guides, rather than conducting classes, began simply to solo up the towers, which appeared to the students impossibly smooth and steep. Any student who did not attempt to follow the masters upwards opened themselves to verbal ridicule offered from above.
The one they called Petrus radiated a palpable charisma. Johnson caught a glimpse of Fehrmann 80 feet above, straight above his head, slithering across a blank spot in a traversing sandstone ledge. One slip would have sent his body whistling straight down through the air to explode next to Johnson on the cobbles as a water bag explodes when it hits a stone floor. But Fehrmann managed the blank spot through a marvelous sequence of bodily adjustments, fluid, yet precise. On the far side of the ledge, eighty feet above the plebe, Johnson, Fehrmann perched, and waited.
"Steigen der butt crack!" he yelled down to Johnson, employing the word of the day, an Americanism pilfered from Perry Smith, which indicated Johnson should begin to ascend the intergluteally-shaped chimney leading up to the guide's terrifying perch. Johnson, a gentleman by nature if not by pedigree, already specially picked by the Master to ride in the Guide's car, really had no other option but to climb: he wedged his body into the butt crack and began to wriggle upwards.
Climbing the butt crack, in fact, did indeed remind Johnson of the defecatory process as he painfully extruded his body through the narrow, sandstone aperture. Soon, blood flowed from Johnson's knuckles and knees. Pieces of felt from his natty new knickers drifted like snow down the chimney. But the acolyte persevered, 80 vertical feet, and in due time emerged onto the traversing ledge where Fehrmann perched airily to the side twenty feet away. Below the two climbers, the yawning butt crack aimed to dump them into cavernous depths. Between them hung the blank spot in the ledge that Fehrmann had crossed.
"Leicht!" spoke Fehrmann. Easy. This one word put forth a do-or-die challenge: Johnson was expected to slither across the same move Fehrmann had made. This is insane Johnson remembered thinking. He was old and wise enough at the time, barely, to know when he was being manipulated through apish predisposition, but not old enough to resist. Was he not a man, after all? Get it over quick, thought Johnson.
He jacked himself down into insect position. Once committed, the move, a hand traverse, proved much easier than expected. Though footholds were non-existent, large and solid rails appeared for the hands. If Johnson just didn't think about the air below the butt cleft, the butt cleft didn't exist. Cogito ergo sum.
"Kinderleicht," gasped Johnson, flopping onto the ledge next to Fehrmann. Fehrmann's Death Head patch flashed in the sun. It was here, at this precise moment, Johnson became a climber. Boom, like that. Klettern would hereafter exist for him as a lifelong occupation. He was destined to take climbing with him to Alaska, to Nome, to the unnamed valley north of Nome where he now lay out on the tundra with the strange, educated Jew, practically sleeping with the fellow, come to think of it. But sitting on the ledge that day eight years before, next to Petrus, Johnson felt a freedom he had never known before or since. He wasn't dead. Which made him feel so very much alive.
Fehrmann and Johnson scampered a few feet more to the top of the spire. Fehrmann shook Johnson's hand. At that very moment, a foot appeared on the ledge just below, followed behind by the gangly form of Perry Smith spidering up out of thin air to join the other two on the summit.
"Petrus," remarked Perry Smith, somewhat breathlessly. "The gooder Knobs are gesteegen."
Initially, Johnson had found the American coarse and boorish, (ironic, thought Johnson as he lay sleeping: given my own transformation into that most coarse and boorish specimen, the Alaskan Sourdough,) but there in the spire-top world of the Elbsandstein, Oliver Perry Smith was transformed into a gentleman of noble spirit, a demi-god, almost, of formidable military demeanor.
Fehrmann and Johnson scampered a few feet more to the top of the spire. Fehrmann shook Johnson's hand. At that very moment, a foot appeared on the ledge just below, followed behind by the gangly form of Perry Smith spidering up out of thin air to join the other two on the summit.
"Petrus," remarked Perry Smith, somewhat breathlessly. "The gooder Knobs are gesteegen."
Initially, Johnson had found the American coarse and boorish, (ironic, thought Johnson as he lay sleeping: given my own transformation into that most coarse and boorish specimen, the Alaskan Sourdough,) but there in the spire-top world of the Elbsandstein, Oliver Perry Smith was transformed into a gentleman of noble spirit, a demi-god, almost, of formidable military demeanor.
The three men perched close together on the sharp tip of the needle. A friendship was kindled that day. Yes, thought Johnson, a friendship that cost me my Diplom. The climbing lifestyle had not proved beneficial for Johnson's matriculation at college. He was forever plucked from the core of his studies by the Bugatti, wicked grins upon the faces of Petrus and Oliver as they roared out of the village, wineskins lifted, madly intent on some single piece of sandstone in the distance. Fehrmann needed only invoke the high principles of art, commitment, and reckless derring-do to make Johnson fall in line, for after all, Fehrmann channeled rock-climbing's past and future, and knew he did. The knowledge was already pre-written in the movement across stone, the kletter-epistemology of climbing itself, but while Europe rose sluggishly from the slogs and bogs of the Hobnail Era, Fehrmann had already foreseen sport climbing coming eight decades ahead, already sought to protect the sacred Elbsandstein from sport-climbing's impurities. Funny when drunk, profound when scared, Fehrmann's climbing spoke volumes. He often quoted Nietzche. His eyes had a glow. Soon Johnson wore a Deaths-Head on his own sleeve.
The bad thing, Johnson now remembered, happened on the down-climb. Remembrance of the incident made Johnson's body shift uncomfortably against the tundra where he lay next to Applebaum. The three climbers, moving not far apart, had reversed the summit moves to reach the long horizontal ledge above the Butt Crack. Fehrmann climbed first across the blank spot, while the other two perched like gargoyles on the ledge. Just then, Fehrmann espied a junior member of the climbing party on the ground below, milling about. It was one of the fellows that had ridden the Lorry, a clumsy, bumbling Plebe whose name Johnson no longer remembered. Something about this Plebe seemed to enrage Fehrmann. His face locked in a scowl. He maneuvered across the ledge with remarkable agility.
"Oliver," spoke Fehrmann, conspiratorially. "Pass auf! Das Stein!"
As he spoke the word "Stein," Fehrmann nimbly, and quite deliberately, Johnson had always thought, kicked a large, loose rock into space.
Over, and out, through the airspace beneath the butt crack, sailed the rock. "Stein!" screamed Perry Smith.
The rock missed the Plebe by inches, exploding into dust cloud and fragments. The smell of melting sand wafted up to the ledge. Johnson was silently horrified, but also, puzzled and confused. His new mentor and hero had, apparently, just tried to kill one his own students. Down on the ground, the Plebe barely knew what had almost killed him.
And then Petrus, out of earshot from the ground, but audible to his partners on the wall, began to utter what sounded like a hiss-- a long drawn out "ee" sound, out of which gradually emerged a single epithet: the word, "Heeeb," repeated over and over again, in the manner of a low wheeze.
Oliver remained on the ledge, a gunslinger smirk on his face, amused with his friend's tirade, but otherwise inscrutable. Johnson, younger and more impressionable, more follower than leader, simply assumed that here was an example of how the locals behaved: real climbers (with Petrus the arbiter and standard for what constituted a real climber) must despise the Jew, and drop rocks on them from above. In the years that followed, Johnson had occasion to witness other anti-Semitic escapades at the cliffs. "If the Jews climb," Fehrmann was heard to say, "Sport Climbing will come rushing in along with them."
Johnson was not clear if he had ever personally known a Jew. He had never understood the ethnic delineation, nor paid much attention to the ancient Scriptures, and in truth, had led a sheltered life. It was true he had learned more about life from Rudolph Fehrmann than he did in all his engineering classes at University. So it was that Johnson, through his years of climbing the Elbsandstein with Petrus, was indoctrinated into the strictest code of rock climbing ethics the world has ever seen, but never understood Fehrmann's anti-Semitic rants. What shall be the judgment on Johnson? Could he be laying there in the unnamed drainage north of Grand Central, an older and wiser man, laying judgment on himself right now?
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| Middle-East Fork Grand Union Glacier, July, 2018, looking southeast from Johnson's high point where he experienced an awakening to his own racial biases. Don't know if a glaciologist would say it still qualifies as a glacier. Also don't know if this drainage should really be called Middle-East Fork. |
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| Another look at Middle-East Fork Grand Union Glacier (July, 2017) from the other direction, taken from the pass between Grand Central North Fork and Grand Union Middle-East Fork. If it's still a glacier, it seems like a doomed one. |
His Fehrmann years passed when Johnson flunked his final exams and, in disgrace with family and benefactors, boarded a steamship for America. Since then, the New World— San Francisco, Seattle, Alaska Territory, Nome— had changed Johnson's worldview. "Judge a dog runner on his stripes," was the creed of the Territories. A man was either Sourdough or Cheechako, skookum, or not skookum— these were the only delineations necessary between people. Usually a person was too deep under their parky hood to make their nationality, anyway, thought Johnson. It struck him suddenly how far he had travelled from the cloisters of Europe. Perhaps this is the reason why, as we return to his form curled on the tundra under the midnight sun next to Applebaum, Johnson was tossing and turning uncomfortably, guiltily, remembering his escapades with Fehrmann six years before.
The mosquitoes, rising back up along with the sun, forced Johnson and Applebaum out of their slumber at an early hour. "Fine day for continuing our walk, sayest thou?" the latter declared.
Johnson only grunted in assent. He had forgotten to make room in his rucksack for coffee, tea, or cookpot. Miraculously, Applebaum produced from deep within his tunic a plug of the finest tobacco, and a small, ivory pipe inlaid with tiny ornate designs.
"Be forewarned," remarked Applebaum, striking a match. "I obtained this instrument from a coworker."
"Oh... ja, ja..." said Johnson, distractedly, not understanding. Soon, the two wayfarers were stretching their legs out, heading in the opposite direction from their jobs, which they had deserted in the valley behind. Johnson clung to the notion he must locate the Grand Union Glacier, "the westernmost glacier in North America" according to Henshaw's tip, Johnson's original objective, and reason for leaving his post. Johnson's original conception of the hike had been to entirely exit the mountains to the north, walk west across swamps, and then make a left turn back into the mountains to reach the glacial cirque affixed by Henshaw.
"Does not," questioned Applebaum, gesturing with his arm toward an opening in the steep hillside to their left, "this gullet provide an early tack to your next valley? A 'short cut' to your gletscher?"
Johnson had already been eyeballing the same gully. It led steeply up velvet steps through savory granite slabs and boulders and would indeed provide a shortcut to the next valley. A curious and prominent granite obelisk crowned the gully, hanging out directly over their heads like a Chamonix aiguille. In fact, Johnson and Applebaum had discovered the "Chevrons of Orthogneiss" that transect the northern uplift of the Kigluaik Mountains in this area.
"Let's chust take it," said Johnson with enthusiasm. They started up Applebaum's gully.
Johnson forgot to be self-conscious around his companion, and bouldered with abandon on their way up the hillside. While Applebaum confined himself to the tundra walkways that led steeply upward, Johnson perched instead on knobs and cracks to the right or left, grunting and contorting his way up the gully by a synthesized means of self-gratifying gymnastics on rock. At one constricture, in order to continue their upward progress, both climbers were forced onto a bare granite slab above an uncertain landing, which Applebaum climbed with perfect aplomb, much to Johnson's satisfaction. As they emerged at the top of the gully, they flushed a wolverine, which skulked away indignantly. Johnson carried a pistol in his rucksack, but knew damn well its action was rusted and useless. I'll stash it under a rock, thought Johnson. The great obelisk which had hung over them like an aiguille proved nothing of the sort. It was more like a dike protruding from the chevron, only twenty feet on the back side. They shared a lunch of stale flapjacks, hitting again from Applebaum's tainted pipe.
They continued west at rapid pace into the next valley, past granite tors that begged Johnson to be climbed, but would require the use of ropes and trickery with knots, Johnson figured. As they gradually crested the wide ridge, their view emerged of a small glacier nestled below them at the head of the next valley. At the top of the glacier, a bergschrund was visible. Above the schrund, walls of rock, snow, and ice streaked upwards to pointed summits. Does justice to the Kaisergebirge, Johnson reckoned.
"Your gletscher, sir?" spoke Applebaum, in his voice a trace of reverence.
"Nein, nein. I mean, ja, it's a gletcher, OK, but it's not d' one dat Henshaw zaid. Ve go one more valley after zis van."
Down they went, gleefully skidding down snow slopes into the next valley, two men freed from the cares of the world. At the bottom of the valley— we can identify it as the East Fork of Grand Union Creek—they loitered near the terminus of the tiny glacier on mats of tundra and wildflowers. The two men had fallen now into the habit of conversing fervidly as they covered ground on foot. Applebaum, Johnson learned, was a polymath of considerable proportion, with pretensions of being a naturalist— he struggled in vain to name the proliferate species of alpine wildflower. His facility for languages, he told Johnson, was the influence of an enlightened governess who helped raise him, his father, a Kleindeutscher with a comfortable position at Leipzig. However, when the conversation turned to the Duchess who had precipitated Applebaum's downturn in fortune, he was less than forthcoming, only muttered dark epithets, and spoke vaguely of castles and impalement. Johnson sometimes got the feeling the man was an operative, but by what agency, he could not imagine.
In turn, Johnson shared his own personal history, which had taken him from his precocious school days in Svealand, to a scholarship at the Technikum in Dresden, and now, following his complete disillusionment with Western Civilization, to North America, to this obscure valley in Alaska, where he felt fortified from all human consideration.
"And how did you come to be employed with the Pioneer Company?" inquired Applebaum.
"Nein, nein, I'm wid d' Wild Goose," replied Johnson. "I got a cousin which keeps company wid Mr. Lane hisself. Got d' job right outer San Francisco."
"Come now, Franklin," said Applebaum, with a dramatic pause. The two men had reached a penumbral zone of deeper intimacy, like two people made to share a compartment on a long train ride. "Why don't you tell me your true name?"
"Oh, vat? Ja, ja, vy not? Ich heisse..." Johnson hesitated. He had forgotten his own patronymic. "Bjorn Ulvaeus." Even as he spoke it, Johnson thought it sounded funny to hear his name after all these years.
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| Jabba the Tor, on divide between East Fork and Middle-East Fork Grand Union. Lacking a rope, I was not bold enough to find a way up this long, Hut-shaped piece of gneiss. |
in which Johnson and Applebaum split up for a time, and Johnson discovers the Grand Union Glacier
"So, vee muss cut over vun more hillside ta get to da big gletcher."
"I would be remiss," spoke Applebaum in apology, "if I did not inform you that I suffer occasionally from the condition known as vertigo, which, I regret to inform you, is acting upon me at this moment. I'm afraid I must wait here, happy in this alpine splendor, while you complete your mission."
So Applebaum waited in the tundra meadow while Johnson went up alone, making short work of it to the crest. As he topped the ridge, the view suddenly opened to the east, west, and north. Johnson could look all along the limestone shield that fronts Mt. Osborn to the north. At last he could look down upon the Grand Union Glacier, his reason for coming, in the next adjacent valley to the west. Unlike Windham arriving for the first time at Montenvers Station, or Professor Forbes himself looking out upon the Mer d' Glace, Johnson gazed down upon the glacier, nestled in the adjoining valley to the west. Johnson had been to the Brenva in Italy. The Grand Union Glacier was only a pipsqueak, but just as beautiful, and more wild thought Johnson. Each one of these little cirques, he realized, contained a pipsqueak glacier, and they were all shrinking, shrinking, shrinking away.
Exactly which fork of the Grand Union River this glacier headed, Johnson could not determine-- many forks of the Grand Union drained the mountains to the north, at first in straight lines downhill, then curling round upon themselves at the sea level line of the Imruq Basin to disappear in a tangled knot of waterways— a "grand union" of waterways in the vicinity of Mary's Igloo, configured just as the so-named railcar switch, where a boatman may switch between the "rails" of the Kuzitrin or Pilgrim rivers.
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| Map showing confluence of Grand Union Creek and Pilgrim River. I have a strong theory that Grand Union Creek is so named due to this knot of waterways, which sits east of Imruk Basin in the vicinity of Mary's Igloo, and its resemblance to a classic "Grand Union" rail track junction. (see below) Just south of this map, Grand Union Creek forks out into five branches, the eastern two of which are covered in this post. |
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| "Grand Union" rail track junction. |
On the south, the ridge upon which Johnson stood turned into a rocky spine leading to a pointed summit. Now, it was Johnson's turn to suffer vertigo at the thought of continuing to the summit, up this spine, with what looked to be Grade 1 or 0 moves, as Fehrmann would have exhorted him to do. But Johnson was well-prepared with reasons not to climb. He had brought no axe nor creepers for the hanging snowfields that would come into play. The zing of falling stones was plainly audible through the warm air. But chief among his reasons, he had to admit, was his new friend, Applebaum, awaiting his return in the meadows below.
The prospect of returning to the strange fellow's company— Johnson could see him down there on the alpine tundra, a tiny dot waiting patiently among the rocks— seemed more preferable to the prolonged terror of a Dresden-style death climb. Been on too many trips alone thought Johnson. Down there in the meadow existed a rare occurance in these hills: another human being. Not only a human being, but a possible friend, a fair and learned companion. No matter how heterodox their encounter, Johnson reasoned, it was the miracle of companionship. And the man had some amazing tobacco.
Johnson decided to do the hardest thing a climber can do: not climb. He turned his back on the summit. He allowed himself the chicken out. The climb of the arete would have to wait for another day. Immediately, however, the voice of Petrus rose up in his head exhorting him to climb, to face the challenge, to transcend human weakness... but Fehrmann had been exposed, somehow, on some level, as a fraud. Johnson felt happy as he headed down the mountain, and discovered a nice steep strip of summer snow on the way, and had one of the best foot skis of his life.
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| North Face of Peak Grand Union (Pk. 4500+), second highest peak in the Kigs. I finally skied up the backside (south side) of this thing in April, 2019. |
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| Kigs from the North. A. Middle Fork of Grand Union Creek B. Middle-East Fork C. East Fork. I put a dot at Johnson's high point. I stole this segment of photo from Jamie Saghaffi's iconic Wiki Page shot of the Kigs from the North. Only the East Fork provides an easy pass over this portion of the mountains. |
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| Another stolen shot: "Grand Union Glacier, 1983", by Darrell Kauffman, University of Northern Arizona. Included here to verify the identity of the glacier glimpsed by Johnson in this post. After all, Kigsblog was under indictment for misidentifying this glacier in the Anchorage Daily News. |
From the ridge, Johnson had glimpsed a shortcut back to Grand Central, a high pass leading directly from the Middle East Fork Grand Union Cirque to the Northeast Cirque of Osborn, but Applebaum could not be persuaded to scale its precipitous slopes. "That stalking predator, acrophobia," he explained. So the two truant workers began the arduous hike back to their jobs, back the way they had come, over the pass where they had flushed the wolverine, past the top of the "Obelisk," which Johnson forgot to climb so engrossed as he was in social discourse, down the Chevron Gully which held a few steep spots itself but seemed to meet Applebaum's specifications, up the Unnamed Valley (East Fork Grand Union?) that led back to the North Fork of Grand Central, where the force field of their workaday lives began to reassert itself upon their consciousness.
Johnson could already spot MacPherson's renegade crew in the valley below, tiny figures toiling on their ridiculous mission to run water under the stage. The ever present tinkle of hammers tapping on rebar floated audibly over the breeze. Voices, smoke, and industry filled Grand Central, where one day soon, only silence would reign. It will be easy, Johnson figured, to get back on the Ditch line unnoticed.
Johnson could already spot MacPherson's renegade crew in the valley below, tiny figures toiling on their ridiculous mission to run water under the stage. The ever present tinkle of hammers tapping on rebar floated audibly over the breeze. Voices, smoke, and industry filled Grand Central, where one day soon, only silence would reign. It will be easy, Johnson figured, to get back on the Ditch line unnoticed.
"Sir. We may not wish to be seen entering dieser Tal together," Applebaum voiced the unspoken thought.
"Nein. I vas chust zinking d' same ting," replied Johnson, thinking how he would soon depart Applebaum's tobacco.
And just like that, the odd bedfellows separated into the bushes without a goodbye, each to their own morainal corridor following the hillside down, Johnson into a thicket of willows that concealed him entirely for a mile or so until he popped out at the same place where he had popped in, twenty-four hours earlier. Applebaum's barrel still stood in the meadow where he had left it. Applebaum himself had vanished, never to be seen again.
Through all his years to come in the Nome diggings, Johnson would scan the work gangs for the mysterious coolie Jew, but would never make him out again, and furthermore, would always suspect his own complicity in Applebaum's sudden, abrupt disappearance. Many a time Johnson wondered, Did I dream the man? He asked around, but no one had any news of any European intelligence agents embedded in the Ditch Project that were accompanied by Asian security teams disguised as a Chinese railroad gang, which was the theory Johnson eventually settled upon. But Nome is, and always has been, a crossroads for wild, improbable characters, and soon Johnson's memory of Applebaum became layered over, and inseparable from, all the other improbable characters he would meet.
Through all his years to come in the Nome diggings, Johnson would scan the work gangs for the mysterious coolie Jew, but would never make him out again, and furthermore, would always suspect his own complicity in Applebaum's sudden, abrupt disappearance. Many a time Johnson wondered, Did I dream the man? He asked around, but no one had any news of any European intelligence agents embedded in the Ditch Project that were accompanied by Asian security teams disguised as a Chinese railroad gang, which was the theory Johnson eventually settled upon. But Nome is, and always has been, a crossroads for wild, improbable characters, and soon Johnson's memory of Applebaum became layered over, and inseparable from, all the other improbable characters he would meet.
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| Bouldering at Crater Lake, Grand Central Valley. Many a night, Johnson bouldered on this rock. This rock formed a windbreak for one of the sites at the Crater Lake encampment. |
Nome, Alaska
January, 2020
Johnson is the guy that's done all my climbs before me. These days, your average, ego-mongering, white-recreationalist skier-climber arrives in Nome and assumes the area has always been the empty, windswept wilderness he finds now, assumes Qaweraq is a blank canvas upon which to record his important feats of modern-day, lightweight exploration, assumes his adventure is a first ascent, a first crossing, a first descent. What he may not realize is that a hundred years ago, or more, the area was crawling with more people than generally crawl there now, due to both the Nome Gold Rush at the turn of the century, and the consolidation of native people in villages following the flu epidemic of 1918. So I invented Johnson to constantly remind myself, I am not the first. Maybe this boulder problem, or that Kigluaik peak, has already been done, done during a time before social media or spray.
This puts Johnson in the same fictional nether world as Paniptchuk, true first ascenscionist of Mt. Osborn, who dog-mushed to the summit during the early Holocene Age when the mountain was only a thousand-foot nunatak poking from an ice field.
MacPherson, the rogue ditch foreman, is fictitious, though not his ditch, and we've all met his real-life antecedent out there by Sampson Creek.
MacPherson, the rogue ditch foreman, is fictitious, though not his ditch, and we've all met his real-life antecedent out there by Sampson Creek.
Applebaum, of course, is also fictional. His invention was necessary to absolve Johnson from judgment of his association with Rudolph Fehrmann, a founding member of the Nazi Party, during Johnson's earlier years. Applebaum's embedment in a gang of Chinese railroad workers raises the interesting question: were Asian indentured servants present in the construction of Nome's ditches? The only supporting evidence I could unearth was, they must have been.
Other names, places, and circumstances are meant to be factual. I took liberties with Henshaw: I don’t know if he ever identified the Grand Union Glacier as such, or even if Henshaw was familiar with the latest theories on glaciation at the time. Rather, it is Kaufmann, later, I think, who suggests the Grand Union is the westernmost glacier on the continent. (A kigsblog survey is currently in play to assess each northside cirque of the Kigluaik Mountains for a glacier or glacial remnant, an ongoing result of the “North Side Mandate” placed upon Kigsblog by its own internal Kigscourt as of several years ago.) Huge liberties were taken with Rudolph Fehrmann. It may have been completely unfair to fabricate his behavior towards the Jewish bumbly, yet Petrus must answer historically for his behavior in the lead-up to World War II.
I have no idea how this blogpost got onto this tack. Johnson needed to be washed of his associations with a proto-Nazi, and this plot became the conveyance. It was a weird place to be writing from. As I read this post over, I see that Johnson's absolution remains ambiguous.
I have no idea how this blogpost got onto this tack. Johnson needed to be washed of his associations with a proto-Nazi, and this plot became the conveyance. It was a weird place to be writing from. As I read this post over, I see that Johnson's absolution remains ambiguous.
References:
1. Nome River Water Control Structures, Howard L. Smith, BLM-Alaska Open File Report 62, April 1997
2. Banner Creek Station, book(?)
3. John Gill's excellent Climbing History Website: https://www.johngill.net
