Chinook by George Hosier  - October 3, 2006

Summer Requiem

The time has come to write the obituary for the summer of 2006. The mountains, gripped by rigor mortis, stare sightlessly upwards, unblinking as the snowy burial shroud of summer’s demise is drawn over their craggy faces. Waterfowl flying in solemn procession ululate a mournful eulogy. The gregarious sun is becoming increasingly reclusive in his grief, withdrawing behind a black veil for longer periods each day. Alaskans from all walks of life sink exhausted into bed for a few hours respite from frantic efforts to clear their backlog of last minute funeral preparations. In short, the entire arctic and sub-arctic community seems to resonate with sorrow that the bleak grave of winter is upon us.

It’s really not hard to understand why many cultures built a religion around the ebb and flow of the seasons. In particular, the people indigenous to northern latitudes must have felt a more urgent need to placate the elements. Because their survival depended on the food and shelter that could be harvested from nature, the arrival of smothering snow and entombing ice must have symbolized their worst fears of the afterlife. Desperately they constructed sacred rites to postpone the inevitability of death.

This being the Last Frontier and all, some of those primitive rituals have not yet been lost to the encroachments of cynical modernity. In fact it was just this weekend that I participated in one of the most spectacular of the seasonal ceremonies—the Funeral Pyre. As men have done for thousands of years, Alaskans carve their livelihood out of the wilderness. They then bulldoze the wilderness into giant piles, douse it with gasoline and throw a match at it.

The battle never ends. The moment we relax our vigilance, nature will inexorably come slinking back to reclaim her own. Ancient civilizations replete with markets, paved streets and ziggurats have been swallowed like an aspirin by the jungle. Temples and palaces have sunk beneath migrating dunes of desert sand. My cheeseburger, momentarily set down on the woodpile out back, dissolves in the stomach acid of a bevy of magpies, squirrels and camp robbers.

Likewise, the baby spruce, rose bushes, alder brush, and poplar saplings on my property get their jollies out of seeing how fast they can creep out from the safety of the tree line and render a square acre of cleared land impassable. They retreat back into the woods when I’m not looking, or freeze in place when I catch a glimpse of movement out of the corner of my eye and whirl suddenly to confront them.

Only the annual fall Funeral Pyre can teach them a lesson. Originally, I believe the Funeral Pyre was a seasonal rite of passage illustrating summer’s untimely death. Nowadays, however, we torch the Funeral Pyre in the fall, mainly because of the forest fire danger. Autumn is the only time we can safely dispose of the pile of plant carcasses that have fallen in battle before my mighty machete, weed-whacker or chainsaw.

Each year as I prepare for the annual torching, I don my vestments--an old pair of coveralls, boots, and gardening gloves. Then I assemble the other items necessary to proper performance of the ritual. Carefully, I carry them to the funeral site. My wife takes her place at the far end of the field clutching the cell phone in one hand, the forefinger of the other hand poised just above the 911 speed dial button. Beside her, my son is astride the idling four-wheeler, a blanket, fire extinguisher, and one gallon jar of burn cream bungeed to the front rack.

My neighbor leans on his fence, shaking his head. He follows a different doctrine in his observance of the Funeral Pyre ceremony, and has often tried to convert me, but I will not compromise. I firmly believe that the Funeral Pyre must be torched with a spectacular pyrotechnic show. It adds to the awe and grandeur of the moment and horribly frightens any baby trees that may be looking on. It horribly frightens my wife, too, but she doesn’t count since she has never expressed an interest in sprouting up all over my cleared field.

With great pomp and ceremony I remove the lid and nozzle from my gas can and slosh four-fifths of the contents liberally all around the perimeter of the pile of slaughtered brush. I then take about a three foot length of two-by-four and completely saturate it with the rest of the gasoline. This is my wick. I tuck the end of it up against the edge of the dripping brush pile.

The moment has arrived! With a flourish, I remove a book of slightly damp paper matches from my right coverall pocket and tear off a match. I glance around to be sure my congregation is ready. They are. My wife is squinting both eyes tightly shut, no doubt offering a prayer of appeasement. My son is revving the four-wheeler in excited anticipation. My neighbor has his head thrown back and his mouth open in reverential awe. A strange staccato wail escapes from his lips and his shoulders shake rhythmically as he appears to sink into a meditative trance.

I step forward and strike the match sharply against the abrasive strip. The damp head crumbles into powder, releasing not even a spark. I tear off another match and hold it close to its head, using thumb pressure to rub it hard. It sputters suddenly into flame, and spits a piece of red-hot match under my fingernail. I emit the traditional squeal of pain and reflexively let go of the match.

A great wall of flame blossoms before my face with a sound like that of a low-flying A-10 Warthog in the process of firing its 30mm GAU-8/A Avenger Gatling gun. It seems that the talon of a gargantuan Balrog picks me up and hurls me far over my neighbor’s fence. I land on my face and feel something pop in my neck. I can’t seem to move, but out of the corner of my eye I can see chunks of charred and flaming baby tree body parts impacting the ground all around me.

The ritual is proceeding flawlessly. For a moment I worry that my son is going to get stage fright and forget his part of the ceremony; but I shouldn’t have feared. Right on cue, I hear the four-wheeler roar up and brake beside me. I hear the welcome hiss of a fire extinguisher, as its soothing contents suffocate the sacred flame that consumes my coveralls.

The neighbor, still deep in his wailing chant approaches and directs the full force of a glacial garden hose stream to the portion of my coveralls that were formerly most fully enveloped in flame—specifically, the area that had once concealed my derriere. I say formerly, because no coveralls remain in that vicinity, having been fully consumed by the sacrificial fire. With this final cleansing act, the ritual is completed. I rise from my prostrate position, greatly renewed and invigorated by my neighbor’s contribution to the ceremony. Together we lift the smoldering remnants of baby tree corpses from his yard and bear them away on ceremonial shovels to be returned to the spot from whence they came

There are other rituals that we practice at my house, but one of the most inspiring observances that mark the decline of summer and approach of winter is the Aurora Dance. To those who say that winter is a total loss, and that no good thing comes from the passage of summer, I say, go outside on a clear night and look up. Your consolation reward for the brevity of your summer will be waltzing and pirouetting in brilliant bands of green, red, blue, and violet above your head.

The Aurora Borealis is God’s apology for the long cold winter here in the Northland, and a handsome apology it is. Some people don’t appreciate them, I suppose. I know a guy who is literally incapable of marveling at the Northern Lights. He calls himself a “gee old fizzy cyst” or something like that. I tell him that I think he’s too hard on himself, but, yes, he does need to lighten up a bit. Instead of joining me in the Aurora Dance, he would rather launch into a scholarly lecture about sunspots, solar winds, charged electrons, magnetic fields, tropospheres, altitudes, and oxygen and nitrogen ions.

I’m real glad the guy is so smart, and that he has condensed an aesthetic and spiritual experience like witnessing the Aurora down to a postgraduate thesis. I’m just not sure he knows what he’s talking about. The natives tell me that the Northern Lights are actually the result of a rousing game of walrus-skull soccer being played by the spirits of people who have died and gone through the hole in the sky to be with Raven. They tell me that the crackly, whistling song that many have heard the Northern Lights sing is our dead forefathers trying to communicate with us. Evidently you are supposed to reply in a whisper and anyone uninhibited enough is welcome to dance with the Aurora.

My favorite explanation though, is the Algonquin myth that Nanahbozho, creator of the Earth, traveled to the north to live when he had finished creating everything. There in his new home he built large fires to remind his people that he still thinks of them. When we witness the Aurora Borealis, we are seeing the reflection of his great fires and should comfort ourselves that our creator has not forgotten us. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a far more inspiring explanation for the Aurora than some gobbledygook about solar winds charging nitrogen molecules.

That’s why I practice the Aurora Dance. I dance to the Creator. I dance to the coming of another winter that my Creator has allowed me to see. I dance to the wonderful summer I have enjoyed. Late some evening if you drive by my house you may see me cavorting outside with my head thrown back and arms spread toward the rippling curtains of aquamarine and lapis lazuli far above. Why don’t you stop your vehicle and join me? It will do you good. I’m probably doing the Aurora Dance. Either that, or I’m dancing in pain from the lingering effects of the Funeral Pyre ceremony and the conflagration of my ritual coveralls that covered the portion of my anatomy upon which I’m accustomed to sit.

 

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