Borderland

“A mind at full ease with itself would not need to slither onto a page; a serene mind would not need to speak its mind.” (Bruce Sterling, Shaping Things, p.34)

Before I dive back into the edublogging action with all of the linking and thinking, I’m going to take a breath and exhale slowly. We were in the Canadian Yukon for the past dozen days, hiding out from the world. I took some pictures with my new camera.

Several years ago Amy and I decided that the Yukon was a great and mostly undiscovered outdoor playground, perfect for us, and we’ve been back there many times. The main reason for us to go camping in the Yukon instead of Alaska is infrastructure. Camping off the road system in Alaska is complicated by the need for expensive transport into the bush. Camping on the road system in Alaska feels crowded to those of us who live out in the hills.

In the Yukon there are fewer (far fewer) people. There are dozens of big lakes and every one of them has a road to it with a boat ramp. Not only that, there’s free DRY firewood in the campgrounds, clean outhouses, and nobody carries a handgun. In a word, it’s Civilized and still retains the aesthetic qualities offered by more remote and hard-to-get places.

An ideological challenge presented itself about halfway through our trip. We discovered that there were mice living in the utility trailer which held our food, clothes, sleeping bags, etc. They didn’t look like any rodent that lives around Fairbanks, so I suppose they were hitchhikers. I wish I’d taken a picture, but sometimes when you are in the midst of a crisis you lose perspective. We found them at dinner time, in the food box. We began the extermination exercise by first lifting and shaking each tarp and garbage bag, removing every item from the trailer, making a pile of mostly fishing gear on the ground. Eventually we found three mice who took refuge in the corners of the trailer bed, hiding where we had to peer down into a dark space between the deck lumber and the trailer frame to see them. They weren’t truly hidden or safe, except that we didn’t want to murder them outright. We’re not meat eaters because we don’t like to kill stuff, though we do eat fish and we’re not perfect. So the kids and I tried to coax these uncooperative pests out of their shelter.

The kids tried banging on the trailer frame and soon decided that shock and awe was not going to convince these hooligans to dash into the unknown from their “safe” little corners. So we tried using twigs as a nonviolent method of prodding them, hoping they’d run away. The mice didn’t get it that we were being wimpy vegetarians trying to negotiate a deal. I saw right away that we could easily maim or kill them by ramming a bigger stick into their dark little corners, but we resisted that barbaric option. My son suggested spraying them with a massive dose of mosquito repellent, but we told him that chemical warfare is considered inhumane. My younger daughter (who wanted to keep one for a pet) tried waiting for them to come out of hiding to trap them under a cup. She learned that mice are faster than she is. I made a ramp off the back of the trailer with a piece of plywood as an escape route (for the mice), and the smartest one took advantage of my offer, though it unfortunately hid in the wheel of our car so I drove off with it giving it a once-in-a-lifetime centrifuge ride before it dashed into the woods, dizzy.

The other two mice did not fare as well. After considering our options, our principles, and our dignity as members of a world-making species, we decided that we would not be held hostage by these tiny terrorists for the rest of our vacation. I found the suitable stick and announced my intentions to the misguided bleeding heart liberals in the family. They hid in the tents to avoid emotional distress from what they all admitted needed to be done. Wham, wham, wham. Needle-nosed pliers to recover the bodies. Camp fire cremation. No more mice. Slight remorse at not quite killing one of them. My son consoled me by reminding me, “At least it isn’t a moose.”

Sometimes limited options force you to carefully weigh your priorities and more clearly define your values. The technologies we have at our disposal are not always the best or the first choice, but with a little creative ingenuity and a clear purpose even a simple willow stick can be a tool for both annihilation and reflection.

Serenity is not my destiny. When the world is perfect, I’ll shut up.