To the Bright Edge of the World

by Eowyn Ivey

You have an eye for the extraordinary, Sophie. It makes me wish all the more that you could have seen Alaska, only without our hardships, for I believe you would have spied something beyond what my poor senses could fathom. I found myself inadequate in the face of it. Only now, as I leave these shores behind, do I begin to try to comprehend: gray rivers that roar down from the glaciers, mountains & spruce valleys as far as the eye can see. It is a grand, inscrutable wildness. Never are the people here allowed to forget that each of us is alive only by a small thread. Perhaps this is what young Mr. Troyer so longed to hear from me. I could not find the words then. It is you, Sophie—you make me want to express myself more profoundly. You give me hope that we may yet find meaning in our days. Your photograph serves as evidence. I am reminded of something the trapper Samuelson said of Alaska’s wild country. Here, I have found the passage in my diary:—She always keeps a part of herself a mystery. You have focused your lens on just such a mystery. These months I’ve been gone, I have thought often about the narrowness of your life at the barracks. I know all too well how meddlesome that society can be, & it grieved me to think of you so confined. I should have known you better. Of course you would buy a camera & build your own dark room. School teacher or officer’s wife, you are every bit the woman I fell in love with. This is what we will do, as soon as I am returned to Vancouve...