We went where the wind insisted across the frozen river
to reach an abandoned fish camp, a desolate place.
The hat I wore was of wolverine fur — it was like that
in the arctic — for the tribe I stayed with used every part
of what they caught, and the animal was blessed for everything
it offered, and what it gave of itself went well beyond food.
Up river, twenty-some miles, we parked the snowmobile
to climb an embankment but our boots sank suddenly
we were thigh-deep in snow. Couldn’t lift out. Needed to
grab hold of something, though there was nothing to cling to
only firm gusts of wind and a fistful of flakes.
Our hands went down to balance our weight, to lift
our boots from the depths of the windblown drifts,
hoping the snow would hold as we crawled like wild animals,
Kim and I, like a wolverine might have,
had one been there. There were imprints in snow
that Kim said were lynx tracks. When she mentioned
they were fresh, a fear came coursing through. Still,
we inched along while the snow held us, it held as we scaled
to the spot where some cabins were. And where the racks were
for smoking salmon in summer, and a frozen field was,
and behind the field a forest of enduring spruce.
Their boughs were weighted by snow
but beyond that nothing could be discovered.
The lynx that came had gone.
Seemed the land wanted nothing upon it but winter.
It could ward off anything by what it wore.
