Naked and open
Like I was at birth, nascent
Eager to be filled

We took a plane to Whitehorse and jumped on a bus to grab the narrow gauge rail from Carcross to Skagway, snaking our way through dusty cold White Pass on the sides of mountains like you see on postcards, and the remnants of trails used by Gold Rushers, before they built the cables and trollies that would make the job of ferrying a ton of supplies into the Yukon easier. This trail cared so little about life the horses fell and rotted in the rubble trying to make it; when prospectors tented down in winter they often seated stakes in the masses of the frozen beasts. From Skagway we caught a ride to take us along the salty inlet to the trailhead, where for two days we retraced 120 year old steps now etched by other travellers and wonderers in biomass old undergrowth and rocks that had stopped tumbling down the valley, for now, drinking glacial melt that clogged filters. On the third day we gained elevation for real, walking on small cloud steps in the mossy sweat that lugging packs and arses up valleys causes, stopping at the Scales where Mountie Sam Steele had his men weigh the prospector’s goods (and tax them) and where the cable and trolly enterprises started up by entrepreneurs (who knew where the real gold lay), and who put the First Nations’ porters out of business (because this is progress?). We started up the pile of boulders, some big as small houses and large garages, picking our way through makeable routes, stopping often to turn around and soak in the beauty of the valley we had hiked up, now behind, before turning gaze back to the way up, with its endless road of rock and occasional red stake to ease our minds that we remained pointed correctly (which isn’t always the best path), and find the first false summit only to see the next, and soldier up and up and up after more falsies that seem there to ensure we are serious, until finally we can’t ascend anymore and make this goal this morning – the Chilkoot Pass, which separates Alaska from the Yukon, Canada from the US, waters flowing east and west, moist and dry air, and the first half of this trek from the second. We looked east and new slopes, still the rock, but more weathered, smaller, and negotiable, AND THE LAKES! Laid out in front of us like Grannies’ string of pearls sitting in a high, long valley of snowy hills and mountains and air cooled down by its rise up the pass from the ocean and its warm maritime embrace…the blues and yellows and reds and everything in between – an artist would need all their skills and powers up here – this all lay at our feet as we parked the memories to focus on this new road and its wonders lying ahead.                         

Reading by Kayla Alle:

Reading by Mike Knippel:

Somewhere at this quiet table
In this quiet room
I feel a calling
A safe space
Somewhere in this quiet room I find a place where I can be something close to real
Something more than flesh and bone
A visceral thing
Wanting.
Maybe in this room there are
Various colors that decorate my memory
And my heart
There are
Certain smells; scents
And maybe I can smell them now, maybe I’ve smelled them everyday since.
Maybe this quiet room,
With it’s quiet table by the window has been with me every day
In my hello to my lover
In my morning bowl of boiled oats and milk
In the way I hold myself close sometimes
Sometimes.
Maybe that quiet room and it’s quiet table and it’s eager window,
Are now embedded in my skin and it’s sinews
The sum of all my parts.
In my darkest hours I hear it calling loudest
Reaching out to what’s in me
And often I find myself unwilling
To abandon that promise
Full and ready
As it always was.

In this crisp new light
Beyond the trees and shadows
One sees a new truth

Kayla Allie

Born & raised on the south side of Chicago, Illinois, where she explored her love of poetry through the city’s thriving slam and open mic scene. When not writing angsty words on paper, she can be found collecting plants and plant accessories, and bragging about them to strangers online.

Mike Knippel

Mike Knippel is a retired Naval Officer living on Vancouver Island, where he spends much of his time hiking and backpacking the remote forests, coasts, and alpine, sometimes painting and writing about what he sees and feels.