living off-grid in these eastern wilds.
No one is about so I make my way
through the discarded clutter already
being reclaimed by the long grass
and peer through a small window.
Inside, a single cow is chained to a
pole. As I make to leave, from an
opening in the wall a white horse
appears, looks at me quizzically then
slowly walks away through the weeds.
It is a surreal moment and I laugh at
myself as my thoughts turn to fairy
tales and princesses …
Dodging puddles along a straight
dirt road that makes its way through
endless miles of taiga. In my joy I
reflect that I'm like a boy with his first
bicycle; a dog with two tails; a man
whose wife holds him close and with
toothpasty breath whispers in his
ear, "Hi there, pardner, what'cha bin
doin'?"
I ride on until late afternoon along
a rain-wet track until a wide river
blocks my path.
Leaving the ferry, I explore the
sandy bank, twelve foot high and
deeply undercut. Under the dark sky
and the endless presence of trees
that I know continue uninterrupted
for thousands of kilometres in every
direction, the slow moving of water
and the old paddle steamer waiting
and still, I am transported elsewhere,
to an older, unpeopled world sepa-
rated by space and time from the one
I am used to. I can understand why
during Soviet times, this place was
deemed so suitable for establishing
penal work colonies. The extremities
of space and climate make fences and
walls redundant; you don't need them
when there are thousands of miles
of forest between you and freedom:
mosquito-infested swamp in summer,
frozen solid in winter - although,
even in these remote places, prison-
ers were kept penned behind barbed
wire with crude wooden guard towers
constantly manned.
Darkness comes. The banks of
the river merge with the trees. The
TRAVERSE 42
mosquitoes have gone to sleep; a
deep calmness settles over the land
and the river surface turns to silk.
At last the man who has been fish-
ing pulls up his line, drags the chain
across the ramp entrance and, with
a clatter from the winch, the heavy
metal ramp is raised. The ancient
paddle-wheel tugboat nudges us into
the flow and we set off up river. I
stand on the stern watching the huge
paddles churn up the water, the
empty riverbanks sliding by on either
side and feel like Huckleberry Finn
looking out on the wide, slow-flowing
Mississippi long, long ago. The river
is so deep that at times we pass just
a stone's throw from the low, pebbly
riverbanks and in the evening still-
ness Arctic terns dip and weave just
above the water, showing off …
In the cool of the morning, the sun
lifts above the horizon and lies yellow
on the road with even the stones cast-
ing long shadows. The dirt is basical-
ly good, the trees and the mountains