True North: A Journey into Unexplored Wilderness

by Elliott Merrick

I think of the people in the cities going home from work, standing and sitting in trolleys and trains. Some of them have their eyes closed tight to shut out the day that has jerked their spirits a thousand conflicting different ways, to blot out the noises, the greedy faces, and the horrible, colored signs. I feel as though the cares of all these people weighed heavy over the tree tops, as though some day someone must set all those lives free. No one can say what an evening like this is, or what it does. I can only say it is loneliness and solitude and beauty so sad it makes one’s heart break with sorrow and leap with gladness to have seen and been savage enough to feel. Whatever I say is only words. One has to be here in the cold, going home to partridge stew in a cabin, on hard legs, with the snow crunching, with months of the life behind one, to feel the red sky and the fading light creeping into one’s muscles and brain and nerves to motivate one’s life forever after. Kay met me in the doorway, and we watched the night grow dark. At least we know what we are losing, know that if we never come back it is our own fault. And that is worth knowing. However senseless life may ever be, the spruces will still be here, drawn up straight or whispering to each other in the darkness, listening, waiting, not for us to come back, but for men to become better, for men to come and rub their cheeks against the shaggy bark, clasp the ageless trunks in loving arms, and say, “This, oh, th...