This is my first time in Alaska. I have a lot to learn.

I can see the headlines in the Anchorage paper: Idiots from Los Angeles Freeze to Death Near Pipeline.

YAMAHA OF THE YUKON BY BERNARD HAFELI 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 21

The bear looms above me. Cold black eyes glisten menacingly on each side of a thrusting, malevolent snout. The mouth is open, baring a phalanx of jagged, king-size, impossibly white teeth. One claw rakes down in mid stroke, the nails long and curved inward, ready to lift flesh from bone like fuzz from a lint screen. I’ve been thinking about death a lot lately. This is surely because of Linda, specifically what Linda wished for me before I left: that my cab would get pancaked on the 405 and I’d be squashed like a cockroach (what about the poor cab driver and the people in the other vehicle?), that my plane would crash into the side of a mountain and I’d fricassee to an untimely crisp (no thought of the other passengers), that I’d get lost in the wilderness for cold, agonizing days only to have my lungs ripped out by a …