"Forged in the Fires"

Three-year-old Clark Fair examines the rainbow trout he just pulled from the Kenai River.

FORGED IN THE FIRES

SUMMER 2013

NOTE: This piece was my winning entry for the “Pen the Kenai” contest, which was accompanied by the “Paint the Kenai” contest. The winning entries, featuring a large rendering of the winning mural, will be displayed at the Kenai Airport. See https://www.facebook.com/PaintTheKenai for more details.

I was forged in the fires of the Kenai Peninsula. My thoughts rise and fall with its topography. My movements are informed by its changing seasons.

Clark soaks his feet in a remnant pond high on Cecil Rhode
Mountain near Cooper Landing in the late 1990s.

My entire life has been here, from my infancy in Whittier, the neck of the peninsula, to my childhood in Soldotna, its crossroads; from high school and my first real job in Kenai to my hiking, biking, running, boating, and exploring from Kachemak Bay to the Kenai Mountains.

Without the Kenai Peninsula, I am a different man.

I dress for the roiling rhythms of its annual weather — winter, thaw, breakup, return of sun and salmon, autumn yellow, autumn brown, more winter. My footwear alone tells the tale — spiked running shoes for winter, cleated trail shoes for summer, Xtra-Tufs for anything wet below the knees. I have Sorels, Tevas, bunny boots, rock-worn hiking boots, sneakers, dress shoes, hip boots, chest waders.

Clark and friend, in the early 2000s, high on Hideout Hill in
Kenai Mountains.

I plan around the light that the peninsula provides — from the almost limitless sun of summertime to sometimes oppressive darkness of winter, from sunglasses during the explosion of growth and green, to the careful packing of headlamps and matches and extra layers in waning light and intensifying cold.

Being a part of the peninsula, however, is more than simple reactions and planning. I am shaped in my thoughts by my home.

I compare new places to this place. When I started college Outside, I scoffed at the hills they called mountains, wondered why they had so few small planes motoring through the skies, fretted at the absence of saltwater and sockeyes.



Canning salmon. (Yvonne
Leutwyler photo)

Too much flat land makes me nervous.

Too few rivers and beaches leave me parched.

A dearth of moose cannot be compensated for by a fenced-in field of dairy cattle.

I want to fish through the ice of the lakes down Swanson River Road, climb to the saddle on the Skyline Trail, watch from my dining room window as the sun rises over the Harding Ice Field. I want to taste what has been harvested from this place — highbush cranberry jelly and liqueur, canned red salmon, a sheep roast, a fireweed salad, razor clam chowder, steamed blue mussels. I was raised on fresh Dolly Varden, rainbow trout and silver salmon from the Kenai River; king crab, shrimp and halibut from Kachemak Bay; bull moose from the Kenai lowlands and Dall sheep from the Kenai Mountains. My mother served up moose steaks for dinner, then chopped up the leftovers to stir in with our scrambled eggs for breakfast. She ground moose meat into burgers, dumped it into chili and onto homemade pizza, stirred it into casseroles.

Clark's father, Calvin, stands over a 1965 kill.

We lived on the land and took what the land provided. And, as much as possible, we tried to nurture the land, careful not to soil our own nest. And even today, 55 years after I was born in Alaska, I am dancing to the beat of the Kenai Peninsula — always my home, no matter where life takes me.

Late winter 2013 on the Skyline Trail, Clark poses with (clockwise from himself) Yvonne, Trevor, Tony, Mike,
Oliver the black Lab, Nate, Ryan, and Stephanie.