above the fireplace but my square head friend got right hot and upset over that notion.
Big and mean? Well, yes, they were big and mean. With razor claws, dripping fangs, fiery eyes and they had no fear. They were creatures from hell.
The second and last night and not surprisingly, I had successfully stumbled my way back to the stronghold with a skin full of beer I had promoted and took hold of downtown and those evil and unspeakable hounds came at me. Growling and snarling and smashing and slashing at the fence and it was a fearful instant and that fence seemed mighty poor protection at that moment. My heart stopped. Then I recovered, thought for a second and stepped closer to the cage. I was wearing a ruthless grin. “Here doggies, nice doggies, come and get it” and I unzipped and let go and fly an amazing and astounding stream of hot piss, which soaked and shampooed the bastards down. They went crazy. The stupid fuckers were caterwauling and crying with rage and frustration, banging and slamming against that super steel mesh, cowling and howling, rolling and sloshing in the mud and the blood and the beer. My laughter was hollow. I knew I’d be leaving soon. I knew I had to leave the Yukon or perish. Slowly I shook my head and went inside the cabin.
Sleep was hard to find that night. All during the cold and early morning hours, I thought those hounds from hell just might come crashing thru the walls, coming for me, seeing as how I had riled and ruffled them to an extreme fever and pitch and had kindly given them my scent and they knew exactly where to find me. And they wanted me bad. And they would have rendered me dead. It could have happened. Easily.
The night was lit with the sounds of riot and disorder, fierce shrieking, baying and screaming, wails and yips and yowls. And if this peal and uproar wasn’t enough to keep me pissed off and paying attention, those damned dingoes, after they had done with the weak and the wounded, took to indiscriminant rutting and buggering with each other. The yelps and squeals of ripping and tearing flesh, were ghastly and gruesome sounds to hear, at a drunk and dark 4 A.M. It sounded as though the pack, including kith and kin from every part of the Yukon, were readying and preparing a primitive rite, prior to an organized storming of the bunker.
Should Darwin have come across Canada’s Yukon Territory, he would surely have cut and run but not before shouting, “Survival of the fittest!” A sage of the Yukon would nod shrewdly and say, “Call of the wild. Code of the north.” Me? Hell, I knew it was every man for himself. That was wisdom deep and profound enough for me to understand. I also knew it was best to take it on the lam before the North Country went totally insane on me.
So I shot the moon early the same morning but not before stopping in front of the wolves’ cage and pointing and leering and laughing at those freaks from hell. The last I saw of those mongrel beasts, was they were purely and positively berserk, turning and spinning cartwheels and back flips, trying to chew thru the steel fence which contained and confined them, trying to get at me, to release me from my mortal coil.
Leaning up against the brick fronting of the Edgewater Hotel and praying for a miracle. Hoping I wasn’t too conspicuous and wondering who across this great country Canada owed me a favor or money. Who, within the vast range of my visionary network would be good or foolish enough to lend me jack – cash. No one. When you are down and out, you have no friends. You are alone. It is an axiom. It is also one of those true – life facts which occasionally bothered me yesterday.
One slight and slender prospect and in a fit of panic and desperation, I placed a collect call to my best friend down south. Zowie! Shazam! A radical but wise speculation! The government of Canada had done the right thing and upped with the money they owed me! Two hundred dollars shot north fast! Mercy!
It took me 2 nights to splash and spill that satisfaction on a bar – room floor and about then the full realization of my dilemma came over me. For sure, it was time to do a fast exit from W.H. and the only way out was back down that damned dirt road, to turn around at G.P., to go north again, to Yellowknife.
This brilliant strategy had been determined during my last alcoholic stupor and slumber in W.H. After all, no doubt I would find a lot of really good friends in Y.K. So long ago, way back and during the summer of 1976, I was convinced God was not a kind fellow.
All is well
G.B.T.
Yellowknife – Basically
My reception in G.P. was cold and the good and gracious citizens of G.P. may have let me have a glass of warm water before putting me on the road again.
The long road is a harsh and uncaring bitch and I’ve walked that white line many times and always alone. The road will steal your pride and make you humble and you become aware of how small you really are. On the road, there were times when I despaired of seeing civilization ever again. Not that I’ve ever had great need of organized structure in my life but society’s mainstays, books and beer and other excitables have sometimes been necessary. Hell, at times even people hold me with a peculiar fascination. The long road builds character and strength and courage and allows you to think and imagine your mistakes and alternatives. On that journey, back in ’76, I did all kinds of time inside my head, only to find hordes and legions of barren and broken questions, no answers, just bitter need and longing.
There I was in ’76, charging angrily down the throat of the N.W.T., wholly unprepared for what lay ahead. Had I recognized a climactic ending to a frenzied lifestyle, perhaps I would have fled screaming and screeching in the other direction. But no, that would have been a cheat and the next 100 days had been written and would have come to pass no matter where I ran to. An equal form of adversity would have chased and followed me and nothing I could have done about it. There was no escape. I don’t believe in chance or luck today. There is a reason and a purpose for everything.
A man would have to be seriously disorganized, to want to live anywhere suggestive of the N.W.T. From where I was standing, the N.W.T. was not much more than a flat, scrub – rock wasteland. The N.W.T. is no more than a huge and festering gravel pit. The land was asleep and gloomy, devoid of vitality, not like the jolting and stirring landscapes and scenes capes I had looked upon, in my own small way, in other lands, in other countries and here in Canada.
There was one redeeming feature regarding the N.W.T. Should a man have wished to remain obscure and anonymous, well, the N.W.T was the place to be and I can understand seclusion and solitude. Hell, I enjoy serenity and I delight in being on my own and free but the N.W.T. was a meaningless quiet, dull and insignificant and of no big importance to me. The N.W.T. and I could never blend and flow together. We could never intermingle, contribute to and help each other. In the N.W.T., I could not feel the heartbeat. Of a certainty, I had crossed deserts that had more character and inspiration. Nothing exciting lives in the N.W.T. I could have been watching and listening from beyond the far reaches of outer – space, for all the virtue and rectitude I found between G.P. and Y.K. and no matter I may have run afoul of the law there. I guard myself against bias and preconception. I will not lie.
The rides were lengthy. Hell, human habitat was scattered widely and randomly across the orange rock and moss of the N.W.T. and I came to believe the only creatures endemic to that part of Canada, were those huge and horrible blow – flies, black and hideous slips of nature, which kept attacking me and trying to drag me off and into the bush, where they would have had their way with me. Once or twice, I honestly wished for a shotgun to ride herd on the evil bastards.
Standing on a remote and desolate corner, high above Alberta and I was exposed and vulnerable and truly grateful for 1 ride that is worth mentioning. The man was moving and transporting 10 lbs. of quality marijuana and it helped take the pain away. Also, the young man had recognized my fierce need and want for the 5% and he took care of this craving from the depths of a large ice – chest, which happened to be firmly anchored between us in the cab of his
