Asphyxiation

The Vancouver Sun later confirmed the events of that night: two hikers found two dead bodies at Camper Creek on the West Coast Trail on the sixth of May 1998. The article didn’t say who the hikers were, nor did it say who the dead Native Americans were, for what would the world do with those four meaningless names? None of the four was famous, beautiful, or rich: just normal people drawn together on one particular night. The encounter was determined by two simple factors: the speed of the hikers along the soggy trail and the speed of leaking gas that asphyxiated two men in a patrol cabin.

The hikers never knew the two indigenous people, except for what they wore that night, what booze they drank, and what side they slept on. And those simple details were just enough to make the dead bodies Human: capable of joking, singing, fighting, and eating. So the sudden termination of these lives confused the hikers, for they weren’t sure what they should feel about the death of two strangers. The hikers stared and stared at the bodies, perhaps feeling sadness for the friends, parents, and lovers of these men, but feeling only emptiness for the men themselves. They were just two more anonymous faces, frozen in their final dreams and nothing more than dead.

I. Dididat Nations

People have lived on Vancouver Island since the last ice age, when the Bering Strait froze and allowed human passage from Asia to North America. The Pacific Northwest tribes thrived for thousands of years in this rich ecosystem, where trees grow to such vast sizes that a hollow trunk may hold twenty people without much trouble. For thousands of years, the forest remained a bountiful network of life: moss and lichens crept over every tree trunk and rock while bears crashed through the forest eating pounds of berries. Overhead, bald eagles soared, sharp eyes watching and waiting for their next morsel of food. And in the blue-green streams salmon leapt as they migrated from the ocean back to their birth places, where native tribes collected and ate them. .

It was only a hundred and fifty years ago that Captain Cook came here, and with him Small Pox and greedy settlers. The white people were anxious to sell fish and timber to other parts of the world, perhaps unknowingly also selling the souls of the indigenous people. And the white people built this West Coast Trail so they could rescue sailors from the many, many shipwrecks off the coast of the island. Now the trail is a tourist attraction, heavily trafficked by Europeans and Americans. It cuts through the land of numerous tribes, land that has never been truly owned but is considered the territory of certain groups. Hikers are warned to stay on the trail by signs that read "You are on the land of the Dididat Nations: do not stray from the trail: No trespassing allowed." And the native people have jobs maintaining the trail, running ferry services to it, selling fresh seafood, hotdogs, and Coke to hungry hikers, and living in patrol cabins. It is rare for hikers to interact with them beyond this, particularly rare for hikers to find them lying drunk and dead.

II. Bioluminescent phosphorescence

One night I realized that I don't need to look up to see stars here: they live in the water, arriving with the warm weather and upwelling ocean currents. Little swimming fireflies that are invisible during the day cruise through the dark water in loops and spirals. I can scoop up a handful, and stare into a universe of falling stars, then splash, breaking the silence of a Pacific night as sparks jump like white fireworks. I think about fireflies in jars and stars in the sky and wonder what I see in the water. Did a star fall into the Pacific Ocean and dissolve into luminescent shards? Or did God grind up fireflies and sprinkle them over the ocean? Do these creatures glow in my stomach every time I swallow a gulp of sea water? A universe at my feet, bits of life that are as tiny as stars are big, and just as mysterious.

And tonight I see the bioluminescence again, only this time it flies in a scattered, chaotic manner from the Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman’s (RCMP) red speed boat. His arrival slices through the glassy calm of a West Coast night, confirming the bizarre contrast between the trail’s peacefulness and the night’s trauma. I see his shadow step out of the boat and meet my friend's; they shake hands, and I hear the questions begin. My friend Matt's voice is nervous as he tells the officer how we heard the gas alarm just a few hours ago, how we found a short-wave radio in the cabin and called the Coast Guard. Matt's voice fades as I run across the rocks towards the tent, praying that the darkness cloaks me, praying that the policeman forgets to interview me. I slip into the silence of my green cocoon-like sleeping bag, hug myself, feel for bones in my body to gain some sense of lying on the hard earth. If I touch the sharpness of my elbow, or rib, or chin to the rocks or roots beneath me, then I know that I am real and on the ground and that even without sleep I will walk through the next day; the earth will spin, the sun will rise, and the ocean waves will keep crashing.

My name is Davethe police officer says as he sticks his head in the tent and asks if I am okay. Okay??? I want to ask him the same question, because he has just seen those same dead bodies, and his eyes look as sleepless as mine feel. He sighs, then begins the no-nonsense questions: Name? Age? Permanent address? Reason for being on the trail? He pauses, and I stare hard at him, wondering if he has a family and if he likes to drink beer while he watches football from a leather recliner. He meets my eyes and asks if I want to leave the trail tomorrow. I shake my head, and smile, briefly tempted by the thought of an exciting helicopter or motor boat ride, but I know I can't leave the trail that I just began. He nods, silently approving of my decision, says goodbye, and lets the tent flap fall back into place. As his footsteps crunch away I feel the muscles holding up my smile snap and I watch the patterns of descending darkness shift across my body.

III. Seastars and Anemones

We leave early the next day, just as the sun finally meets the rocky edge of Vancouver Island. I feel the light arching overhead, and wonder if my dad watched the same sun strike our blooming Connecticut apple tree three hours earlier. We ignore breakfast as we hurriedly pack up tents, dishes, books, and raingear, lace our crusty hiking boots, and heave on fifty-pound packs. We silently agree that nothing is more important to us than getting as far away from the site as possible before the RCMP man returns to remove the bodies. Each step means a new day is upon us, that last night’s horror will become a part of our past; a secret memory looming between us and perhaps someday an anecdote to tell close friends.

The tide is out when we reach the sandstone shelves: slabs of sedimentary rock pitted with pink tidal pools. Nowhere else in this green and brown temperate rainforest can these brilliant colors be found: piles of purple sea stars line the pools, arms twisted around each other, every creature clinging to as much rock as possible, as if there isn’t enough rock along this 500-mile coastline for all the starfish. Alone, each sea star is a stunning, bright, spiny miracle of the ocean environment. But the masses of many starfish together become vaguely obscene to me, for their interlocking arms and shamelessly twined bodies make me believe that something defying all laws of sexuality in nature is occurring right before my eyes and that I should not look.

And then there are the green and pink sea anemones, to whom water makes all the difference. On the dry sides of the tidal pools are crusty, closed creatures, covered in chunks of small rock like globs of jelly dropped in a sandbox by a little kid. They feel wet and slightly sticky to the touch, even though the only water on their bodies for six hours has been a small amount of sea spray. Underwater, however, the anemones shed their gritty protection as a striptease artist sheds her clothes, and their tentacles swirl around massive rounds of jelly flesh. One touch from my finger and it is all sucked in, like a popped balloon or a disturbed turtle. Safety, self protection. What every creature needs but not every one has.

IV. Unclaimed

I still hope that one day I will meet someone who says, "I had a brother who died of gas poisoning on the West Coast Trail in British Columbia," because then I would know that at least one person mourned these men. They passed so quietly, so smoothly out of this world that if it weren't for the screaming gas alarm in the cabin, we would have hiked right by and perhaps they would not have been found for weeks. They never woke up, never knew they were dying; they fell asleep with alcohol in their hands and expected to arise the next morning with hangovers. They crept out of life like it didn't really matter whether they were alive or dead in that patrol cabin, as if they had nothing to give the world and the world had nothing to give them.

V. Tsuiat Falls

Tsuiat Falls drop from the a sandstone cliff over a hundred feet high directly into the ocean. The water pounds the sandy shore, as if angrily reminding the beach that waves are not the only powerful force of nature. The water itself is clear and bluish green, with hints of moss and debris carried from the forest floating in it. And it is cold: a brilliant, shocking relief after days of salty ocean water stinging my sweaty body. So I slip, naked and shivering beneath the turbulent surface, and gaze with green-tinted vision through the thinnest part of the water at the diffused yellow sunlight and thin pink clouds.

Tsuiat Falls are only a few days' hike from where we found the bodies, yet the crashing blue-green water spins me into a reality that is worlds away from the sight of stiff men. I'm not sure if this is healing or forgetfulness; all I can be certain of is the bite of the water on my skin and the dropping sun. I stare at my hand under the surface of the water, fascinated by how far away it looks and by the deep blue color of my fingernails. That hand isn't a part of my body, how can it be, it is deep in the water, opening and closing experimentally as water crashes on top of it. I want to leave it there, forever feeling the numbing water, forever fighting the currents that would wash it out to the Pacific Ocean. But then my arm moves, lifts my hand, and I realize it is mine, as are my legs and toes and wet matted hair. And the water keeps falling, pounding, rushing and I just stand there, staring, watching, waiting.