To Crack the World Open

Ward Serrill

Description

From a remote cabin in the rugged rainforest of the Alaskan wilderness, where the untamed landscape tumbles into the ocean, a remarkable yellow Labrador retriever named Woody helped an exile from corporate America seek a fierce freedom.

A young Ward Serrill arrived in Southeast Alaska in 1982, dispatched by his Seattle accounting firm to a remote native village to audit their new corporation. Within a year Serrill had ditched the job, with designs on forging another life up north, a new Labrador retriever puppy in tow. Woody—named after Guthrie—was of champion bloodline and seemed ready for any adventure.

After a stint working with Tlingit elders in the village of Saxman, Serrill was adopted into the clan. Some called him Dleit Yéil, or White Raven. But over time, his connection to the village began to fray as his relationships there unearthed dark aspects of his own family history. Only his friendship with Woody remained unshakable, and it was time to move on.

On the maiden voyage of their dogyak—a specially fitted kayak—Woody and Serrill rounded a point into a half-moon bay with rugged coastline. There, sixteen miles from town on the rough, steep bank, accessible only by boat, sat a small gray house on stilts. In the shadow of ancient spruce and cedars, with a waterfall on one side and the ocean below, he and Woody took up their years-long vigil in the place he came to call Shakri-La.

His experiment in self-isolation helped Serrill to confront the reality and the emotional cost of running away—physically and emotionally—all his life. Looking inward and facing his darkness, Serrill discovered an unexplored region of his heart that offered the true possibility of healing and belonging, made possible by the steadfast devotion of a very special dog.

An extraordinary journey of the heart and soul from the award-winning filmmaker and director of The Heart of the Game, To Crack the World Open is a poignant, adventure-driven Alaskan story of self-discovery, with one of life’s most essential relationships—a man and his dog—at its heart.

Sujets

• Personal Memoirs
• PETS
• Travel writing
• Memoir
• Travel
• Saxman, Alaska
• Pacific Northwest
• Pacific
• Tlingit
• United States
• West
• HI
• Or (homonymie)
• US
• CA
• Alaska

Informations

• Publié par: Girl Friday Books
• Date de parution: 02 novembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781954854192
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 15 Mo

Extrait

Praise for To Crack the World Open
This well written, deeply personal account of one man’s struggleto find his place in the world will find a place on the shelf alongside such Alaska classics as Jonathan Raban’s Passage to Juneau and Rockwell Kent’s Wilderness .
—Lynn Schooler, author, photographer, outdoorsman, and Alaskan wilderness guide
A compelling and poetically written memoir about a young man running from corporate America and the impact of a neglectful and painful upbringing. Living alone with his wise and loyal dog in the remote wilds of Alaska, he contemplates, interrogates, and confronts the painful places within, and ultimately understands the transformative journey of his life.
—Anna Quinn, bestselling author of The Night Child



Copyright © 2021 by Ward Serrill
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Poem by Li Po, from Crossing the Yellow River , translated by Sam Hamill, Tiger Bark Press. Poem by Li Shi, from Poems of the Masters , translated by Red Pine, Copper Canyon Press. Poem by Chuang Tsu, Inner Chapters , translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English, Vintage Books, and Chuang Tzu, translated by Herbert A. Giles.

Published by Girl Friday Books™, Seattle
Produced by Girl Friday Productions
www.girlfridayproductions.com
Design: Paul Barrett
Project management: Sara Spees Addicott
Editorial: Dave Valencia
Front and back cover photos: Ward Serrill
Interior photos courtesy of Ward Serrill, except where noted
Author photo: Sophie Jane Hardy
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-954854-18-5
ISBN (e-book): 978-1-954854-19-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021936178
First edition

To dog-loving souls and freedom seekers all . . .

You ask me why
I live alone in the mountain forest
And I smile and am silent
Until even my soul grows quiet.
It lives in the other world
The one no one owns.
The peach trees blossom.
The water continues to flow.
—Li Po
Dogs are mirrors
And mirrors, dogs
That is all ye need to know on earth
And all ye need to know.
—Dr. Woody
Love is the only way out of the box.
—Richard Buell

Contents
Author’s Note
Prologue
Chapter 1: A Dog with Wings
Chapter 2: Boxtown
Chapter 3: Into a New Land
Chapter 4: The Little Red Cabin
Chapter 5: Ticking at the Bottom of the Sea
Chapter 6: Rain
Chapter 7: Zen Doggism
Chapter 8: The Intimacy of Letters
Chapter 9: Accounting for Trees
Chapter 10: Dog Hockey
Chapter 11: Family
Chapter 12: Trucka de la Ducka
Chapter 13: The Abyss
Chapter 14: The Last Time
Chapter 15: You Be by Us
Chapter 16: Delores
Chapter 17: A Hole in the Roof
Chapter 18: Drumbeats at the Frontier
Chapter 19: Wham-O Dog
Chapter 20: Last Night at the Little Red Cabin
Chapter 21: Hooverville
Chapter 22: Lillian of Parnassus
Chapter 23: A Clan House
Chapter 24: White Raven
Chapter 25: Fall of the Marlboro Man
Chapter 26: Darkness in Hooverville
Chapter 27: Over the Edge
Chapter 28: Saxman Cultural Village
Chapter 29: Mrs. Custer
Chapter 30: Old Man Halibut
Chapter 31: Gányaa
Chapter 32: Escape from Hooverville
Chapter 33: Shakri-La
Chapter 34: Between Two Waters
Chapter 35: Whipping Post
Chapter 36: Morning Gun Therapy
Chapter 37: Winning the Lottery
Chapter 38: Freewoodsin’
Chapter 39: Dog Samadhi
Chapter 40: Woody Meets Dark Brother
Chapter 41: Last Dance with Delores
Chapter 42: The Waterfall
Chapter 43: The Night the Sky Fell into the Sea
Chapter 44: Paw Prints in the Snow
Chapter 45: Not Running
Epilogue
Addendum
Gratitude
About the Author

Author’s Note
I describe this book as an impressionistic documentary of a period of my life. I have attempted to be attentive to the truth of my experiences while also recognizing that memory is a subjective animal. In order to tell this story, time and experiences are in places condensed and some characters are amalgamations. In order to further protect privacy, I deliberately changed the names, characterizations, and descriptions of a few people. I hope this to be as true as possible to my memory and the emotional truth of events and, in the end, an offering of healing and inspiration. I give thanks to all those who crossed my trail, both friends and those of a more challenging nature who inspired me to grow.

Prologue
Behm Canal, Alaska, Fall 1983
Pssshhhwaah! The gasp from the orca’s blowhole heaved somewhere ahead of us in the fog-enshrouded sea. Waves slapped the hollowness of the canoe. Woody stood up, his yellow Labrador ears poised forward. I assessed the situation: it was past midnight; we were a half mile from a shore I could no longer see; we had no light, no life preservers, no flare, nothing. Just my style—to launch off with little preparation or sense that anything could go wrong.
Pssshhhwaah! By the diffused flashes of the lighthouse through the fog, my eyes searched the dim water for a dorsal fin or a tail. Nothing. I started to count. One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . and got to twelve. Pssshhhwaah! Enlarged by the fog, it sounded like the breath of a giant wrestler laboring uphill.
No one knew we were out here. How long could I survive in forty-six-degree water? Seven minutes? I’d make it maybe a hundred feet. Woody, though, would likely survive; or would he swim around endlessly searching for me before succumbing and joining me in the under deep?
Pssshhhwaah! Another primal exhale echoed through the night, maybe twenty-five yards away, just off the edge of the fogbank. Then I saw it. A long, straight ebony fluke arched out of the water, shimmering, six feet high above a sleek, streamlined body. An adult male. He blew a plume of mist into the still night air before descending again, heading directly toward us.
In the bow, Woody stared ahead. Does a dog know how to pray?

Chapter 1
A Dog with Wings
Huntsville, Alabama, Fall 1964
The glass doorknob to the walk-in closet turned silently. A mysterious mélange of faded perfume, Brylcreem, and laundry soap filled the air. Downstairs in the living room, a vacuum cleaner whined and wheezed in our large, antebellum Alabama house as I closed the door behind me.
The dark of the closet wrapped itself around my seven-year-old body. I flicked on the light. To the right, atop a chest of drawers, was Mom’s costume jewelry: pearl necklaces, hairpins, and gaudy clip-on earrings with clasps that closed over my fingertips. Hanging nearby were polyester blouses, wool skirts, and a silver fox stole with its hinged jaw grasping the tail.
My stealth mission took me to Dad’s side of the closet where a neat row of gray and black suits, sport coats, and starched white shirts lined up like soldiers. My fingers trailed across the silky fabric of his bow ties. Furrowing through the pockets of his two overcoats brought pay dirt in the second one: a half pack of Marlboros. Two perfect tobacco cylinders slipped into my pocket.
On the way out, in the middle of Mom’s dresser, I found a half dozen bras with enormous cups. Pressing them to my face, my boy-mind was overcome by their perfume. But it was incongruous; I couldn’t imagine my mom or dad naked. None of us had bodies in that house. Nakedness was shameful, and anything dealing with body function was not to be mentioned. Sometimes, I would look down at my hands or feet or little-boy penis and wonder whose they were.
I felt the lace edges of a bra, and clasped and unclasped the wire hooks along the back. In the top drawer was her little black evening purse for dress-up events. I pulled out a dollar, a couple quarters, and a dime and stuffed them in my pocket, careful to leave enough change to mask the theft.
The door suddenly ripped open. “What in the name of God are you doing?” my mom shouted.
She had an armful of laundry that she threw on the bed, and then she grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me into the bedroom.
“I was looking for—” I sputtered, quickly thrusting my free hand into my pocket to cover the cigarettes.
“You know better than that!” she scolded and walloped me on the backside. I pretended it hurt. She spanked as hard as she could, but both of us knew it was having little effect. She was a small woman and not strong. Her impotence and frustration built as she wailed away, face red and kitchen apron twisted around her body.
“You used to be such a good little boy. What’s gotten into you?”
I had no answer, and felt a locust cloud of guilt descending. She could pierce me so easily.
“Go to your room until your father comes home!”
Her words struck fear into my heart, and I rounded the corner to my room as fast as possible. My room was the only refuge in this large house. I felt most safe there. Sitting on my bed against the wall and counting the World War II model airplanes hanging from ceiling strings calmed me. The P-51 Mustang with its shark-mouth insignia, the twin-fuselage P-38 Lightning, and the bombers—the B-24 Liberator and the Boeing B-17—that my dad had helped design. I liked how they slowly twirled on invisible currents. The room was permeated with the smell of model paint and glue.
The only sounds in the house were lonely ones—outside the window, nuthatches and robins caroled in the fall leaves of the oaks and maples in our wooded yard. Cicadas chanted low, and crickets had begun their evening song.
Dad’s ’62 Impala droned up the street, pulled into the driveway, and shut