Diane L'xeis' Benson: Ship Creek Access

Thick brown fingers carefully wrapped the fish line, creating a loop. We were gathered around him in front of our Chugiak log home watching intently. My grandson seemed to get it right off. Uncle Jim finished by securing the weights and handing us one more pole. It would be another day fishing in Anchorage at Ship Creek.

Back in Alaska visiting again after military discharge, my son Latseen, his wife Jessica, and my grandson Gage gathered their things to go fishing with Tony and me. I packed up snacks, filled each thermos, and loaded backpacks into the pick-up.

“Diane, do you have any boots I can wear?” Jessica asked.

“Yep.” I pulled out some waders I just happened to buy at one of Anchorage’s many summer garage sales. A favorite pastime for us all. “I think these are nicer than my old ones!” I said. Conveniently, Jessica and I wore the same size. She was from Texas; a “Tex-Mex” she called herself and had never seen snow until her first Christmas in Alaska. Her father made the best tamales. I wished we had those to pack. Yum.

The truck was full with fishing poles, supplies, packs, boots, jackets, five people, and a wheelchair. We did it. We were off. Uncle Jim waved as we pulled out; a Vietnam War Veteran and former Army Ranger with hundreds of jumps under his belt, his ankles were shot. I watched through the rearview mirror as he carefully went up the ramp and disappeared into the log house.

We drove through Anchorage past where the old Alaska Native Medical Center once stood on the northeast end of 3rd Avenue—the place where my son came into the world. We meandered northwest towards Government Hill, down across the railroad tracks, surrounded by the city. People were strewn up and down Ship Creek. Not like fishing in Kenai, though; it was manageable. I found a great parking space, and everyone dutifully did his or her part to make the trek. Latseen hoisted himself swiftly into his wheelchair, and in happy anticipation of fish, we made our way down to the trail.

The trail ran along the river, and I went ahead to investigate its condition. Perhaps we should make our way closer to the mouth. Not too close, of course. Too much muck that would suck up your boots and leave you stranded would be no good. Not too far upstream, either, where the banks were too steep to get close enough. No sense in having to swing so high and far only to see your hook catching a branch or worse.

“Hey, look, grandma. A deck.”

Gage carried his pole and pack as if he had done this his whole life. Even though he lived in the Lower 48, he was made for the Alaska outdoors. Just like his father. We gathered on the sight deck and looked down. Could this work for Latseen? The rest of us who weren’t quite as gifted at casting would have to be down on the riverbank. Looking at the sun sparkling off the river’s ripples, I noticed how the water spread shallow, with twigs and a log disrupting the flow.

 Latseen rolled onto the deck. He’d give it a try. Someone would stay with him, and the rest of us clamored down to the banks and quickly got our lines in the water. I pulled out my little aluminum camping chair (I always carried it, even for long lines at the DMV before they finally put all those seats in). This was the life. I looked up to the deck. Latseen wasn’t there.

“Grandma. We’re moving,” Gage said and gestured to the trail.

We could glimpse Jessica and Latseen making their way towards the inlet. We scrambled together our things and scooted up to the trail. We neared the road that crossed the river, and somehow Latseen got his chair close enough to descend the concrete steps that ran alongside the bridge. I was nervous. Latseen eased himself down the steps on his hands, and then he and Jessica proceeded to cast. I shook my head in wonder. He always found a way.

Latseen was the strongest person I knew. Not because I named him “strength” at birth or because he was fearless. Or because he survived a war, a divorce, and had the wherewithal to fall in love again and marry a great woman. He was the strongest person I knew because he chose to live. “Live while you’re alive,” he said on national television after his year of recovery. He was on a show called Miami Ink, getting a tattoo that commemorated the bomb and the personal loss of his legs in Iraq. It helped him to handle the grief that he would not expose. Casting and reeling, he was quite content. The only thing that could make it better would be catching a fish.

After fishing with no results, we headed down the trail yet again, going towards the mouth of the river that weaved through grassy mudflats stretching each direction—the area encroached upon by shipping containers, pipe, and barges loading. But where we stood, where the river widened its mouth, I could almost feel a Bethel kind of breeze across the tundra: taste the southeast ocean air off Chatham Strait and capture the peace of isolation on a hill out of Ruby, overlooking the Yukon River. I breathed it in.

Seagulls squawked suddenly, and I almost fell over. I smelled fish. Clearly, there were fish in Ship Creek. Across the way someone shouted, “Fish on,” and upstream on our side of the bank, a fisher pulled the hook from a nice-sized king. Our eyes lit up. We were anxious to get our hooks back in the water. But the trail ended, and the wheelchair wouldn’t go—too rocky, too mucky. We stopped.

Gathered together on the bank at the end of the river’s trail, we stood facing the expanse of tall grass we could not enter. We stood together watching others fish where the river widened towards Cook Inlet. Our breath was on pause. We stood, watching. In a collective sigh, we silently stepped away. My son turned his wheelchair around and headed down the trail. He and Jessica settled back into the spot by the bridge. My grandson carried poles, helped who needed it, and then, with a satisfied gaze, cast his line. So did I.

I thought, “My family is here. My family is here. Just down the road from where Latseen was born. We are here. Together. It is a good day.”

Diane Benson originates from Sitka, graduated from high school in Fairbanks, and moved to Anchorage in 1976. She settled with her family into Chugiak in 1988, where she continues to reside with her sled dog team. Benson is a professor of Alaskan Literature and Native Studies for the University of Alaska system. She is best known for her portrayal of Tlingit civil rights leader Elizabeth Peratrovich, both on stage and in the PBS documentary, For the Rights of All: Ending Jim Crow in Alaska. Benson is a poet and playwright with a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Alaska. She performed her most recent work, including a deeply personal piece about a mother of a wounded soldier, Mother America Blue, in London, England. She is the proud mother of one son, one foster daughter, and two grandchildren.