WYAK

Alaska Out Loud

#4 Winter 2012-13

My Alaska Contest Winners, Feburary 2013 

Middle Grade
1st: "Stikine-My Home" by Kayla Hay

My fingers glide through the icy water. The river playfully spits droplets of melted snow into our faces. My brother and I share joyful glances. Stikine gently lifts our skiff off the water, and all of us jump off the metal bottom of the boat. The bruises the landing gives our knees may hurt a bit, but it’s a good kind of hurt. A happy kind of hurt. A hurt every Wrangell Alaskan should feel...scroll down to read more.

2nd: "Forget Me Not" by Sarah Chen

Some places have giant malls, soaring skyscrapers, and amusement parks filled with screaming children. I think we have something more special. Take a look outside your window and tell me what you see. “Green”, you say. Yes. That’s what makes us special. That blue flower, over there, where else has that? In other places, it’s trapped. Surrounded by a wall of clay and tied to sticks. Trampled on, ignored, crushed by concrete, sheared off by lawn mowers, it is destroyed without thought. But what about here? “But what is one flower?” you ask...scroll down to read more.

High School

1st: "Old Man O' the Mountain" by Trevor Woodhouse

There is a man living on my roof. “What ho,” he used to yell down as I left the house. “What ho.” His voice was a guttural bark, a cacophony of noise that I could never manage to imitate. I would look up and nod from inside the frosted windows, acknowledging his existence just as he acknowledged mine. Perhaps my mother or father once noticed him, but they never told me so...scroll down to read more

2nd: "The North" by Paige Street

Behold:
The shelter of smoke and coals
The lives of two humans alone
woven together like spruce root bowls,
watertight.
Behold:
The lone wolf howl in the isostatic flats
pure lust in tooth white and fur black,
hungry
(scroll down to read more)

From a WYAK Workshop at McLaughlin Youth Center

Always a Part of my Heart

In life I loved you dearly
In death I love you still
In my heart you hold a place
No one can ever fill
It broke my heart to lose you
But you did not go alone
For part of me went with you
The day God took you home
-----Anonymous 

Ghosts and Legends Contest Winners Oct 2012

Ages 10-12:
1st place: Birthday Present by Nataly Ayala
2nd place: The Doll at the End of the Hall by Nevada Buechner

Ages 13-15:
1st place: Beyond by Katherine Johnston
2nd place: It’s All in Your Head by Lily Reichard

Ages 16-20:
1st place: Grandma’s Ghost by Kaylea Wuya
2nd place: Something in the Woods by Sean Adams

Stikine--My Home
by Kayla Hay 

My fingers glide through the icy water. The river playfully spits droplets of melted snow into our faces. My 

brother and I share joyful glances. Stikine gently lifts our skiff off the water, and all of us jump off the metal bottom of the 

boat. The bruises the landing gives our knees may hurt a bit, but it’s a good kind of hurt. A happy kind of hurt. A hurt 

every Wrangell Alaskan should feel. 

Stikine is a mystery. Her concealing fog blocks out all travelers when unwanted. Her fast flowing words rapidly 

pass them by, purposely inaudible. Her arms unsuspectedly emerge from her depths, clawing, wanting to know who you 

are, and where you come from. 

Yet for her family, the people who respect and love her, she is friendly and inviting. She embraces us with open 

arms, and greets us with her purring voice. She welcomes us into our watery home. . .

Four hundred miles long, Stikine lives up to her native name. Stikine, or 

Stik-Heen to the Tlingits, means “Great River.” Starting in British Columbia, she ends at the front of Wrangell, my 

hometown.

I’ve lived, laughed, and loved with Stikine. She shares her secrets with me. As a little kid, I’ve played in her 

waters, gone inner-tubing across her lakes. I’ve fished in her sloughs, had family barbecues on her shores. I’ve slept in her 

cabins, and sunbathed on her rocks. 

I was born with Stikine’s blood. It’s not a hereditary thing, but a spiritual one, passed on from generation to 

generation. . . her bonds strong. 

The engine purrs as we pull into the harbor. Everything is perfect. Perfect. I turn around, and look back at 

Stikine. Her water glistens outside of the harbor. ‘Until next time. . .’ 

As the sun falls behind the mountains, I turn back to my family, and smile. . . . I’m home.

Forget Me Not
by Sarah Chen 

Some places have giant malls, soaring skyscrapers, and amusement parks filled with 

screaming children. I think we have something more special. Take a look outside your window 

and tell me what you see. “Green”, you say. Yes. That’s what makes us special. That blue flower, 

over there, where else has that? In other places, it’s trapped. Surrounded by a wall of clay and 

tied to sticks. Trampled on, ignored, crushed by concrete, sheared off by lawn mowers, it is 

destroyed without thought. But what about here? “But what is one flower?” you ask. That 

flower, just one, symbolizes how we treat things. 

Here, they are treasured, protected, without suffocating them. Drive, take the wheel 

and just drive. Watch the houses shrink and fade. Take one step out of your sheltered little town. 

Open your door and look. No, don’t just look, see. Can you see it? The mountains, the hills, the 

trees. Evergreens, their needles faintly scented, bushes, filled with clusters of berries. And then, 

let us just sit here. See that small creature, squirming along with its life? Wait. Watch. A season 

goes by. What is it now? Winged and beautiful, fluttering into a changed life. 

We continue to wait. See that flower? The blue one? “Where?” you ask, “I see nothing 

but white.” That is because it is now the season of cold and sleep. This is the season to wait. 

Wait for this land of frozen beauty to melt. “But where is the blue flower?” you ask. Wait. Watch. 

The white thins, flows away. “There is still no flower!” you wail. I told you. Wait. Watch. 

Do you see the green that has come? There it is now! That beautiful blue flower has 

returned. It returns every year to ensure it is not forgotten. Forget-me-not. That is the message 

it sends. And now I must go. “Where do you leave to?” you cry, “What is your name?” I am this 

land, this earth. Every day, every month, every year, I am here. 

“Please don’t leave,” you whisper. I will always be here. I whisper my name to you. You 

smile. “It is a beautiful name,” you say. I smile in return. As I fade, I hear you calling. “Forget me 

not Alaska! Forget me not!” In response, a bud blossoms into a blue flower.

Old Man O' the Mountain 
by Trevor Woodhouse

There is a man living on my roof.

“What ho,” he used to yell down as I left the house. “What ho.” His voice was a guttural 

bark, a cacophony of noise that I could never manage to imitate. I would look up and nod from 

inside the frosted windows, acknowledging his existence just as he acknowledged mine. Perhaps 

my mother or father once noticed him, but they never told me so. The car always continued until 

he was out of sight; his rough outline turned to shadow in the long winter days.

I never let him know I was going to leave, but he likely already knew. “College is not 

really so far away,” I told myself. “Alaska is just a place like any other, and anyways, I’ll be 

back for Christmas.” Nobody cried when I left home. There was no fanfare or festivity 

surrounding my departure. I simply walked down the jetway. The old man waved to me, I’m 

sure, as we flew over. “What ho,” he likely said. For several minutes, the mountains filled my 

vision through the tiny window, and then they were gone. 

Amidst all of the new ways of college, I never thought of the man once. He was not 

something to be considered. He was in the North, and I was not. Only as I stepped back onto my 

familiar ice-crusted driveway did he return to mind. Suitcase in hand, I stared up at the icicle 

infested gutters, scanning for life. 

“What ho!” I cried into the echoing mountain air, but the man did not respond. Perhaps 

he had gone. 

The barren trees waved in a slight breeze from the east, their dead branches swinging 

back and forth in the yard and on the mountains. The snow was only inches thick, scattered piles 

of slush on the yards. This was not the typical Alaskan December. Perhaps he had gone—

departed to find someplace colder. “That would be just like him,” I said aloud. The mountain 

whistled with the wind.

As I finally gave in to the chill, suitcase heavy in my hand, a wisp in the air caught my 

breath. “Look one last time,” the cold seemed to say. “Look one last time.” With hesitation, my 

gaze rose once more, and I saw what I needed to see. Not one, but two small pillars of smoke 

rose from the roof of my home. The house had one outlet, yes, but the second—I knew it was 

him.

Obtaining and using a ladder is not so difficult for a capable young man. It was little time 

before I felt the slack and grain of roof tiles under my feet, the slight smell of smoke on the air. 

To live on the continually slanted surface—I do not see how he could stand it. Each night sleeping with the knowledge that a misplaced yawn or stretch might send you rolling off the 

edge, I cannot understand him. But I did find him.

On the southern face, nestled within the joining of two perpendicular sections of the roof, 

lay an interesting sort of dwelling. Several thin logs, each braced by those of the opposite side, 

stood upright in a sort of tilted teepee. Between them all lay a quilted patchwork of hides, every 

one a different color and shape, every one indiscernible as to what animal it had come from. I 

could see a tiny opening revealing a dull glimmer of flame; smoke rose lazily from a hole in the 

hide walls.

“Hello?” I called out. “Hello? Are you all right, Mister?” When no response came, I drew 

nearer, the smell of fire—and food—now potent. “I’m back from college. Just thought . . . you’d 

like to know.” The tent smelled of sap, and each step forward seemed to bring me farther away 

from the comforts of home. Perhaps he was simply sleeping. I turned back, and back again in 

indecision. Perhaps he was sleeping. Would he be angry? Did it even matter? Without another 

thought, I crawled promptly through the tiny flapped opening and into the dwelling of the man 

who lives on my roof.

What met my eyes was not expected. A tiny flame feasting on dried leaves and twigs

centered the room, and a half-withered form lay curled up on the upper slope. He shook violently 

every couple of seconds, each fit accompanied by a partial roll up the slope to prevent himself 

falling into the fire. He did not look well, but as I watched, I saw his eyes open, jump wide with 

surprise, and then soften in recognition of the boy he had greeted for so many years. With pained 

vigor, he raised himself up, beard hairs curling before my eyes, and the man began to cough.

“What ho,” I said with a smile.

“What ho,” released the man before lapsing into another fit of coughs. “You been gone.”

“College. You look quite sick—are you alright?”

“Me? Ah’m always ahlright, Sonny. It’ll pass.”

“No, you’ve quite definitely got a fever. You should come down into the house. I’ve got 

some medicine that might—“

“No, Ah’m ahlright,” he gargled in the deepest register of his voice, and I could think of 

no response. The room was dark, but in the light of the flame I could see his hair, black and 

silver in a tangled mess. His skin was darker than it should have been, charred by flame and 

calloused by use. Grey eyes stared at me with a cold persistence.“I’ve always wondered,” I continued, “How do you actually live up here? I mean, water 

is easy enough, but what about food and shelter and—well, where did these hides come from? 

It’s not as if squirrels provide much meat!” The ragged man looked at me with an odd 

expression, and then began to mutter some series of feverish thoughts which I could not entirely 

understand. Only the words ‘zip line’ and ‘crossbow’ stood out. I changed approach. “My real 

question, and the reason I’ve been wanting to talk to you for years is this,” I said, staring into his 

cold eyes. “Why don’t you come down off of the roof?”

“Why don't ah come down--why don't ah? Because you sent me up here in the first place. 

You have your nice warm house with ahl of your robotical fixitures and your Grand Piano and 

that wimpy little dog you care for. You sent me -- you sent me here a long time ago.”

“I don't understand.”

“You see that mountain every day, don't you? You tilt back your head when you leave the 

house, and you hear me greet you with your tiny little ears-- and you look up at that peak, and 

you says ‘what a wonderful place to live,’ and then you drive away in your car. Tell me this, son. 

Have you ever been up that there mountain?”

“I have actually. I climbed it just this summer.”

“Oh, mah. He climbed it just this summer,” the man whispered to a fur garment lying 

across his shoulders. “But does he know the places that the mountain goats like to eat, or the 

fields of golden grass on mah slopes, or the stench of bear on the air? He climbed it just this 

summer. Surely that is enough to know mah steepest of slopes, mah pine trees stretching high 

into the air, mah glorious vantage of all he once knowed.” The bearded man seemed to grow in 

stature as he spoke, the tiny flame growing taller with him, until both had consumed my vision. 

“Surely he would recognize that mountain when he met it,” he finished.

“You’re feverish, Mister,” I said. “You lie down, and I’ll go get that medicine,” but the 

man just stared at me. He stared with the sharpest part of his eyes, so that they cut down into me 

and tore at my heart. “I’ll go get that medicine,” I lied, and I left, swiftly, out of the tiny flapping 

door. I would not come back. He didn’t need the help.

Outside, in the beginning of a long, dark night, the chill wrapped itself through me as if I 

wore no coat. The mountain stretched out high in front of me, my very house a resident of its 

downward slope. A familiar voice lifted up on the breeze and carried on in my direction, “You've 

always kept me outside, Sonny, but I'm never that far away." When I am away, when I walk in the fall nip or winter tempests, when I live under the 

darkness of a sun that sets far too soon, I see him sometimes. He stands on the roof of a church, a 

classroom, a house, and he yells out to me, “What ho!” and sometimes, in the darkness, I feel 

just a little bit warmer. 

"The North" 
by Paige Street

Behold:

The shelter of smoke and coals

The lives of two humans alone

woven together like spruce root bowls,

watertight.

Behold:

The lone wolf howl in the isostatic flats

pure lust in tooth white and fur black,

hungry.

Behold:

Aurora borealis behind cumulocirrus:

The Northern Lights 

in a nightdress--

sublime.

And here I am. 

Street lights reflected off of clouds in rusty ambience. 

then off the snow, orange glow

thrown around so we can still find our way without a GPS

or moonlight or stars.

A four hour day is only the lunchtime rest

and a 20 hour night is only one long moment

of coffee and Jim Morrison

back where I'm from

Where I'm from, the voices huddle under roofs,

hands cuddle under blankets and jackets,

ears congregate around the guitar and speaker cabinet--

and when they feel about it, they don't ever hold it back

where I'm from

We bear scars in the wet

bears scar us back

long west sun sets on our

long black guns,

we see hung deer bags

like swung lunch sacks

yes, I've seen guns shotbut I've seen .44 mags splash

in the channel in memory of the dear

lives of lost freshman comrades

car crashes and liquor heads

leading US suicide trends

90 year old sourdoughs still smoking cheap cigarettes

this 

is the resilient slow death of the 

wild 

wild 

northwest.

Where I'm from we are the etched

question how do we bear the scars

of the warrior chiefs and the abusive missionaries?

How do we treat the wounds of alcoholism and prison visionaries?

How do I assume this humility

when the true weight of our history eludes me?

This land has seen too much death

we occupy the horizon,

the smile of the sky

mountainous jagged edge toothy sneer

reminding us what it takes to make here home,

clothe ourselves in smoke signals and cell phones

because nobody makes it alive in the North 

alone.

Behold.

Birthday Present

by Nataly Ayala

I stared into the doll’s empty eyes. Blank and lifeless.