the trek to sled dog central

I arrived at sled dog central yesterday in the afternoon after three days of taking my time to get up here. they were really peaceful days- I just wandered at my own pace, checking out the scenery- stopping just about every twenty miles or so to take a walk, a picture, or a crap.
Along the way, I took a walk with a fellow traveller up to where the dall sheep wander in the mountains around frozen kluane lake in the yukon, nearly crashed into a mama moose on the road in the rain, and stuck my feet in the rivers still mostly frozen and full from the run-off from the great snow. I was warned by many a gas station attendant and visitor center guide that the grizzlies are hungry because they're just waking up from a long winter hibernation; it had been an especially long freeze this year. Despite my fears, I haven't seen any brown bears (aka grizzlies), but I had my bear mace just in case and I sung at the top of my lunges anything that came to mind. I did see a black bear out on the ice of a frozen lake on the BC/ Yukon border. It's good to see them when they're far away; I'm not hoping to see any up close. I've had to come head on into fear thinking about these bears and other wild things. The thing is, if you see 'em up close, there's nothing to do. You're totally prone and vulnerable if they come near. At night in my tent, I would lie awake thinking about the ravenous creatures just waiting for a tasty morsel to come there way. I've always been afraid of the dark anyway, but when you're out here all alone, those fears seem to pile up and multiply and turn completely irrational. Even going near an outhouse in the dark, my mind turns to crazy stories i heard when I was young about killers waiting in outhouse wells or big bugs or just monsters that might be lying in wait. My fascination with programs like unsolved mysteries and ghost stories as a young person left me with a strong sense that the unknown holds many horrific possibilites and when I'm alone, sometimes these things take over my mind and its difficult to be sensible. One night, camping by a pristine frozen lake, as I was lying down in my bag, I could see the mosquitoes all trying to make their way through the mesh of the tent to eat me alive. this was enough to force me deep down into the bag and straight to sleep in order to escape. Its funny how true your mind can make the saying, 'what you can't see, can't hurt you.'

yesterday afternoon, when I arrived in Fairbanks, i grumbled to myself- "welcome to small town america" and wasn't looking too forward to having to stay too much time there. I was doubting myself and wondering if this was the place for me. I called my boss at the sled dog kennel to tell him I'd arrived and he asked me to fetch some milk and golden grahams at the store. I headed over to the good old fred meyers of fairbanks to get those things and some supplies for myself. I've been told that's really the only place you can find the 'natural foods' that I depend on due to my mountain of food allergies. Fred meyers was really not the place I wanted to be either and so my trepidation grew. Not to mention that I'd passed this huge military base on my way up here. I wondered what kind of weird right-wing military people I'd meet in this part of the world, too. on the boat I'd met all kind of military people and even a guy who lived up here who called himself a consultant in Iran, but wouldn't disclose any more information about his work. Worrisome. this is a tangent, but it seems relevant: I talked to one kid on the boat who was in some kind of military training who basically said that the people of New Orleans should rot because they were all criminals and looters. I didn't know what to say- how do you explain the systems of oppression and white supremacy and the whole criminal system to someone as ignorant as that in the first place? But I made it up north out of fairbanks, wondering what would await me, hoping for the best, fearing the worst.....