Travel, v – to
make a journey, typically of some length, or abroad.
Traveler, n (synonyms) – Vacationer,
visitor, pilgrim, backpacker, nomad, migrant, wanderer.
Standing
under the arcade of airport in the pre-dawn darkness with the bags beside us,
we are saying the same goodbye we say too often now. So often these scenes have coalesced into the ritual of
fare-thee-well. Our embrace lasts
a little longer, and when she is gone it becomes only I, and I walk past the others lining the curb, collecting their
possessions.
I
am distracted by their goodbyes.
This day, in this place, all are traveling. They are escaping the cold northwest winds and barren hoary
mountains of winter. Fleeing the
same northwest wind that so long ago now our fabled friend Jack journeyed to,
seeking the hole from which it blew, so that he could shove his sullied old hat
into it and end winter. Jack,
always was the perpetual wanderer,
but these gaily-clad travelers are not wanderers, they are vacationers, and like Jack I am heading to the northwest, to the
place the cold winds blow from, and I am the migrant.
Migrant – A
person who moves from place to place to do seasonal work.
In
the concourses I encounter religious persons, Nuns and Clergy, pilgrims. I see the confidence of youth as they walk about with a
certain swagger, they are the center of their own world, for all that they own
is on their back, they are backpackers. Save the religious, for the religious
seem to comprise their own sect, you can segregate the purposes of the
travelers by their age. Youth
wander in exploration, seeking an experience, seeking a coming of age. In the elder years, the work is done,
and you travel then for pleasure, not often leaving the comforts you have
become used to, but taking them with you.
But, for those of my age, we are in the season of productivity.
The
travelers of my age are traveling for work. They are businessmen, consultants, laborers, technicians,
and among them at least one sailor.
I walk the terminals set apart from the collective, but also one of the
same. No fine business suit, or
urgent phone calls or emails while waiting to board, no traveling companion, it
is just I, and I am dressed in weathered work clothes and oil stained heavy
boots. I am not eagerly pursuing
my next gate, but marching to it hesitantly, each step a step away from
home. But I am like them, for I am
pulled along by a sense of commitment to the season of life in which I now
dwell, duty bound to earning a living, pulled to the seasonal catch on the
Bering Sea, and so there are other migrant sailors, canners, and longshoremen
like me from all across the world making their way to fill the ships and
canneries of Alaska. That is where
men go solely to make money, and to make it fast, then get back home.
I
was responsible for my travels as far as Seattle, and when I boarded the plane,
I knew that six hours later I would arrive to that destination, but after that
I could not say. I could not say
where I would be lying my head for the night, or when I would continue on to
Anchorage. When I did land I
called my company, and the word was much the same as when I had talked with
them the day before. ‘We don’t
know when we can get you up there,’ is what they said.
To
understand this one must understand the priorities of shipping, and the
difficulty of traveling to the far outposts of Alaska. It is the same principle that has
always existed. First, and last,
it is all about money, and in this industry whenever we are moving cargo, we
are making money, and my getting to the ship would be at the ship’s
convenience, and when a barge has to be moved, the ship does not wait, whatever
crew is present sails her. And to
complicate the aspect of essentially landing on a moving target is the fact
that in Alaska weather hinders any travel plans one makes. And when the weather is good, and the
planes are flying, the ship is often sailing.
The
original itinerary was to send me straight to Dutch Harbor, on the island of
Unalaska in the Aleutian chain. I
would meet the tug Malolo, then leave
from there towing a barge loaded with equipment and empty freezer containers to
St. Paul, another island 250 miles north, a part of a cluster of rocks called
the Pribilofs where there is a cannery.
However, the small commuter plane leaving from Anchorage was full, and
in this case capacity is not determined by the number of seats on the plane,
but by the weight that can be carried safely through the adverse conditions it
is intended to fly through. And so
I waited where I was in Seattle confined to a sort of limbo.
And
isn’t that what travelling is? An uncertain period awaiting resolution. And what are boats but vessels meant to
be maintained in motion, and that period aboard them and between ports being an intermediate state? In essence traveling to the vessel
would only be the prelude to the greater journey, the journey of the ship
itself. And this period of
uncertainty was only preparation for the two months aboard ship where days of
monotony are interrupted only by the sudden adversity of weather or the making
ready for port.
It
would take a week to get to the boat.
Flights were also full to St. Paul, so I waited for the boat to return
to Dutch Harbor. I stayed in
Seattle a night with a friend of my wife’s, then took a bus to Portland to
visit a shipmate, nearly having to leave prematurely twice do to possible
flight openings. I travelled back
to Seattle to catch a flight to Anchorage. In Anchorage I was delayed for twenty-four hours due to
weather. There I met with another
friend, one I had not seen in 15 years.
I met his wife and children and read bedtime stories to their
inquisitive girls.
And
so, one week after setting out, I stood on the windswept tarmac before the last
vehicle that would transport me to the boat, and after having checked in and
having stood on the scale to record my weight, and after the seating
assignments had been made accordingly, I boarded the flight that would comprise
the last leg of my journey, and this just to get to the vessel that would
transport sailor and crew throughout the reaches of the Aleutian Islands and
Bering Sea.
Three
hours later, as the long twilight of a northland winter night began to set in,
the plane dropped below the cloudy ceiling and skimmed over the white-capped
main. Craggy mountains devoid of
trees, cloaked in grass, bearded in red moss, and crowned in snow rose from the
seabed into the mists. Ships below
us transited to their anchorages beyond the headlands. The plane vibrated
violently on its approach, blown this way and then that, seeming ready to land
on the water as the earth came up to meet the wheels. Yet, even then, it was not meant to be. The plane bounced from the tarmac, the
engines accelerated, the pilot pulled back on the yoke, something was amiss,
and as we climbed again we flew over the crab boats and canneries, over the
ships on their moorings, the maintenance yards, the Russian Orthodox Church,
and the Malolo tied to the pier below
us. We rounded Dutch Harbor, then
made our approach again. Now, the
wheels took purchase of the tarmac the flaps came up, the engines shook, the
passengers shot forward, and when the plane came into control all took a
collective sigh, and gave a small cheer.
I had only now arrived to meet the ship, and only now did the time until
I would travel home begin to wane itself away.
-The Tug Malolo-
Bering Sea, en route Dutch Harbor - St Paul Island
