After last call at three a.m. the sunon the horizon like a giant lodestarwould guide us over uneven boardwalks and dirt roadstoward the George Black Ferry, acrossthe mud-fed Yukon River to where our hidden worldof tents lay inside a maze of birch,where branches knocked and clacked in the windlike the restless bones of ghosts,where someone always screamed blue murder backat the landlocked sled dogs as they criedand howled at the lingering seasonand stunning lack of darknessinside the night...