Alaska: Part Three

I'm sitting here in my room in the Alaskan Hotel and Bar in downtown Juneau. I have two windows, one of which looks out at a concrete wall, the other into a 8'x8' ventilation chamber. If I open the window facing the chamber, I can talk to Betse, who has a window 90 degrees to my left, or Ike and Nate, who have a window underneath Betse's one floor down. We have lousy cell phone service here in Juneau, so this is a welcome development in communications. My room is musty with stale cigarette smoke and smells like dirty socks. Of course, the damp socks I hung to dry in the window might be coloring that aroma. This old, old hotel has a lot of history, and a reputation for being haunted. According to local lore, a woman was murdered one night in one of the rooms. She, and a few other of her ghosts friends, are said to regularly show up uninvited in various places throughout the hotel. I am staying in room 318, which is historically supposed to be one of the most "active". I was told by the guy at the front desk, that weird stuff most recently happened just down the hall in 311. Apparently, a woman who was staying in that room found a beer in her refrigerator after checking in. Being a teetotaler, she took it out in the hallway and threw it in the trash. When she returned to her room later in the day, the beer had found it's way back in the fridge. The clerk told me that she then quickly repacked her luggage, demanded a refund, and checked out in a hurry. I decided to test this phenomena, and put a beer of my own in the fridge when I arrived. With any luck, the poltergeists will recognize a kindred spirit, and a put some more in there while I'm away. We are staying here for the next two nights. By the time we check out on Wednesday, I'm hoping I'll have at least a six pack.

Everyone is trying to recover from our experience at the Klaune Mountain Bluegrass Festival. My last post left y'all at the city limits of Haines Junction, Yukon Territory, Canada. Without going into a play-by-play of the entire weekend, I will suffice it to say that we made an serious impact on the Yukoners, and the Yukoners made an serious impact on us. It was one of those places where the spectacular scenery was only eclipsed by the warmth and kindness of the people who live in it. Like all great festivals, Kluane Mountain is staffed completely by volunteers, and our hosts outdid themselves to make us feel comfortable in their home. We were fed, chauffeured around, and generally treated like 3 kings and a queen for the entire weekend. This was the festival's fourth year and, although it is primarily a BLUEGRASS (emphasis intended) festival, it's audience of about 250 showed this old timey honky tonk band that they appreciate a Wilder kind of music. Although we were seriously sleep deprived, we gave the folks our best and they ate it up. We played a concert on Friday night, and then another Saturday afternoon. I was told by one of the volunteers that the standing ovations we received after both shows were the first in Kluane Mountain's short history. On Saturday night (NIGHT???- the sun was still on the horizon at midnight), we attracted a packed house in the old community center as the last dance band of the evening. Anyone who was able to squeeze into the 90+ degree metal building was treated to the sight of a pulsating frenzy of two steppers, cloggers, and free form dancers jumping up and down at the front of the stage as we rocked, sweated, and rocked some more. Outside the mosquitos hung thickly in the air, waiting patiently for the overheated to come to the dinner table.

Sunday morning (MORNING???- the sun came blazing up above the horizon around 4am), we played an unamplified set in the Haines Junction log cabin church. The church was packed to it's log rafters, and it felt really good, for once, to be free of the microphones. We continued the gospel theme at our final show, back on the main stage, with at spirited version of "My Times Done Come" by the Golden Gate Gospel Quartet.

After the finale (featuring all the members of the bands who performed throughout the weekend), we packed up our crap and stuffed all our luggage into a van, a Subaru Forester and a pickup truck with a camper shell, for the three-hour ride back to the U.S. 19 people from the three American bands, (Alecia Nugent, The Steep Canyon Rangers, and The Wilders) had to share the cramped space in the vehicles. Ike and I knew it was a going to be uncomfortable, so we jumped into the pickup truck with Graham from Steep Canyon. We enjoyed the scenery and listened to our driver, Harvey, tell us stories about the freezing cold winters in the Yukon. He told us that Yukoners always try to park their cars so they don't have to turn the steering wheel immediately when they pull out. " At 60 below celsius, (-140 fahrenheit), if you turn the wheel to fast, eh?", he explained in a classic Canadian accent, "you'll rip out your CV boots, and then you won't be steering anywhere eh?" We rode on, and suddenly the van in front of us pulled over. Multiple band members spilled out, and I saw a short line of women forming outside the outhouse just a few yards from where we pulled over. Likewise, the men streamed into the surrounding brush, each apparently taking in the scenery for a few moments before heading back to their respective vehicles. Graham, Ike, and I got back into Harvey's truck and, as he fired up the engine, I saw Nate walking towards us from the big van. He came to the window and said, "hey, do y'all have any room for me in there?" We all shook our heads no and hoped for the best. "Come on!" he said. " I can't GO BACK in that VAN." Hey pleaded, "They've been playing BLUEGRASS the whole way, I'm SICK of bluegrass. I want to hear some AC/DC!!!" There was only a small area between Ike and Graham in the back seat of the pickup, and we all said in unison, "sorry dude, no way." Nate's head drooped, and he shuffled back toward the van. He was just a few yards away from it, when it suddenly pulled back out onto the highway leaving him in a cloud of gravel dust. He turned around and we knew our comfort level had just taken a turn for the worse. Ike cursed him from the back seat, "you son of b$@&h!, you PLANNED that!"

Nate climbed into the center seat, and after defending himself for a few minutes, he pulled out his cd, and we settled back in for the ride. AC/DC blared from the speakers, and we all had to yell for our conversations to be audible over the music. Although we were cramped, Nate's arrival brought with it an energy that was lacking before. Everyone in the van was over-tired, and the small talk and dreamy scenery had lulled us all into a state of near unconsciousness. Now, with Nate squeezed into the mix, we all perked up for the rest of the trip, laughing all the way. We arrived back in Haines, Alaska about 11pm. Everybody grabbed their gear, and we bid our Yukon hosts farewell. George, our chauffeur for the festival, had a few tears running down his cheek when he hugged Betse goodbye. Everyone shook hands and we all agreed that we really need to do it again next year.