Airborne in Alaska

Airborne in Alaska

By Harrison Lowman

Susanna Bronca is quite content with her view from the ground.    Gazing out across the bow of the cruise ship “Spirit”, the forty-four year old King City native soaks in the Alaskan tapestry being woven before her.  A snow-tipped mountain cuts through a royal blue sky, its torso scarred by glaciers that gutted it a thousand years ago.  Towering firs and spruces stand at attention, their bases lined with swaying golden grass.

            Susanna waits alongside her husband Vanni, and her two boys Tristan and Aidan on the deck.  The scraggily teenagers fish strands of their adolescent locks out of their eyes.  Uncle George, aunt Sandra and baby Georgie accompany them.  The extended family’s bags are packed for a day trip.

            The tourist vessel surges forward, displacing the reflective water below. A fine salty mist permeates the morning air, saturating empty lawn chairs and forgotten towels.  Men dressed in white uniforms walk well-rehearsed steps.  The ship lets out a thunderous bellow from its horn.  The Broncas have arrived at Skagway.

            Families hustle down gangplanks and disperse throughout the northern port.  The colourful boats that line the docks are guarded by a group of bald eagles. 

When Susanna lays eyes on her family’s method of transportation her heart skips a beat.  The white floatplane couldn’t be more than thirty feet long.  Its crimson racing stripe reminds her of the speeds they will soon be reaching.  Her stomach churns.

            Heavy footsteps echo off of wooden planks.  The family looks up to see their pilot, a forty-something local donning worn out blue jeans traipsing towards them.  Her wavy yellow mane cascades down her blue windbreaker.  Glasses sit perched on her large pointed nose.  They are wound tightly around her neck with a protective band.  She ushers the hesitant Broncas aboard the aircraft.  Tristan feels like he is piling into the minivan for hockey practice.

            Once inside the family is cramped and claustrophobic.  The cabin is a sea of legs and arms.  They are given headsets to communicate with one another over the moaning propeller. 

            As the plane’s pontoons leave the water it soon becomes clear something is awry.  Wind whistles through the cockpit, smacking the faces of the family inside.  The pilot is not fazed.  She flicks her wrist, swiftly closing the door firmly beside her.

“Is that normal?” asks a baffled Vanni.  “Oh yeah, no problem, happens all the time.”  Susanna’s brow furrows.

The floatplane dips through canyons and fjords.  They can feel every movement the aircraft makes.  Leaning back in the co-pilot’s chair, uncle George begins to taunt his sister in-law.

            “Can this thing do any barrel rolls, any loop de loops?” he asks the pilot.

            George’s requests fall on deaf ears.  The pilot has spotted a pod of orcas under the plane’s left wing.  Their rubbery black hides skim the surface of the depths below. 

Excited by the rare find she throws the aircraft into a corkscrew dive.  Susanna’s loose head is jolted violently forward.  Delicacies of the north find themselves on the mother’s new mukluks.

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The National War Memorial

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The National War Memorial

By Harrison Lowman

            Raindrops dance across a granite cenotaph.  Endless liquid finds its way between cobblestones, racing through indentations and crevices.  The wind groans.

            The storm feeds surrounding foliage.  Blossoms peer upward, delighted by their skyward visitors.  Sprouts stand shoulder to shoulder in cracks, pushing aside their brothers in a fight for sustenance. Plants are given life in a place that honours death.

            Leaves sag as branches tremor under immense weight.  The trunks that support them buckle.  They shrug every so often, allowing excess to fall to the earth below.

            The square is all but empty.  Plaques remain unread; their raised text sits in bronze.  Rental bikes are perched on their racks.  The maple leaf flag above is jovial.  The storm has injected life into its stagnant cloth.  Cars drone by, like a hive of bees humming in formation.  They form temporary paths on lubricated pavement.  A lone jogger pushes by.  His muscles tense and veins jut as he tries to outmaneuver the water that falls around him.

            Passersby dart in and out of buildings.  They walk with vigor, wincing as raindrops make contact with their skin.  They don colourful domes to shield themselves from the sky’s secretions.  Bureaucrats hide themselves under today’s news. Their eyes peek over the brims of jackets.  Although they make this pilgrimage each day, they cannot help but crane their necks towards the statue before them.

            Bronze sentinels stand steadfast before their preoccupied audience.  The strokes of their sculptor are still visible on their jackets and boots.  The soldiers march into an invisible expanse.  Their eyes are transfixed.  Their limbs are battered and bruised, wound with dressings of gauze and cloth.  Caught in midstep, they trudge through muck and sludge towards an objective never to be achieved.  They haul mechanical burdens of soldered metal; artillery that will never be fired, grenades that will never be thrown.  These men and women wear their livelihood on their backs- rifles, canteens, picks, gasmasks.  Temporary waterfalls trickle down the frozen figures.  Some remain untouched by rain.  Protected by an arch, they stand out amongst their blackened counterparts. 

            High above, two angels are intertwined.  One holds a wreath, the other a torch.  Their flowing garments cascade over rocks below.  A crow makes home atop the holy beings and heckles at passersby. 

            Determined tourists begin to make their way up saturated stone steps.  An elderly man in a cream coloured trench coat raises his Nikon towards his face; his tote bag balanced precariously in the crook of his arm.  He is etched with wrinkles.  The soaked lenses of his glasses magnify his pupils as his shutter snaps.  A young woman in a black suit approaches a man in uniform.  His shirt is teal, garnished with shiny golden epaulettes.  A military crest is stitched neatly on the corner of his emerald beret.  Their conversation pauses as they look down upon the tomb below them.

            The sound of bells cuts through the pitter-patter of rain.  Two o’clock.  The chimes mark an end to the afternoon showers.

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