Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

NATIONAL CABIN FEVER DAY.

It's official. The cabin fever season started early this year, attacking the Olympic Peninsula in a vice-like grip that shows no sign of weakening in the foreseeable future. Cabin Fever Syndrome is a common, chronic, poly-phobic seasonal disorder that can make its appearance about the time the last Christmas cookie crumbles. Experts agree that the early appearance of this disorder might have been caused by the toughest winter in twenty-five years. The severity of this hard winter was predicted in my wilderness gossip column last autumn based on the number and size of spiders and the thick layers of fat on deer and mountain trout. That's how I knew my own cabin fever was coming on: I was writing a newspaper column about writing a newspaper column. Which spawned a movement to declare a National Cabin Fever Day to spotlight the insidious danger of this disease.

The latest research on this curious condition confirms a coincidence of congenital characteristics contravening conventional clinical concerns of a catatonic convalescence. There are many theories on the origin of CFS. Whether it's the sudden change from a diet consisting solely of Christmas fudge or light deprivation associated with the final unplugging of the Christmas lights, CFS can reduce an otherwise healthy individual to a zombie-like couch tuber whose motor skills have dwindled to twitching the remote control and opening another tub of ice cream. CFS victims often appear confused and bloated because they are. These patients can exhibit a wide range of symptoms that include drowsiness, insomnia and a brain numbness. CFS victims are often unaware they have a problem until they begin hoarding hot water bottles, darning their socks and watching old movies.

The more advanced cases of CFS are often convinced that winter will never end. Knowing you have CFS is the first step in finding a cure. It's not something you have to be ashamed of anymore. For too long cabin fever sufferers have been unfairly labeled lazy no-good-for-nothings who can't get out of bed in the morning and pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps because we can't find our boots.

Many so-called experts will tell you they have a cure for cabin fever and I must have tried them all. I consumed massive amounts of fudge. That was supposed to fool the brain into thinking it was still consuming Christmas fudge by short-circuiting the toggle switch mechanism inside the brain muscle itself. I vacationed in a tropical paradise which would have cured the cabin fever if I hadn't made the mistake of coming back to the cold and gray of our endless winter. I thought all these so-called cures for cabin fever were nothing but self-defeating wastes of time.

Then I received an invitation to go razor clam digging at night, in the middle of winter on a remote beach along the storm-tossed Pacific Ocean. I thought they were nuts but no, they were clam diggers. Maybe it's just because they are too busy trying to keep warm, but razor clam diggers never seem to suffer from Cabin Fever Syndrome.

Anyone with a shovel can dig a butter or a steamer clam, but it takes a sophisticated evolutionary tool kit to dig a razor clam. This is especially true in the night tides, where you must dodge the full fury of the Pacific surf in hopes of spotting the faintest dimple in the sand that reveals the presence of the elusive razor clam. Spotting the clam and digging them are two different things. Sometimes it's a challenge to match wits with a clam, until you remember they have no brain. When you find yourself kneeling on a tide flat in the dark with your arm in a hole in the sand feeling around for a clam, you realize you have been defeated and outsmarted by a creature with no central nervous system. That makes perfect sense in the evolutionary scheme of things. Bivalves have been around since the Cambrian Era more than five hundred million years ago. The whole time the clams have been evolving into stronger, smarter and faster organisms with complex abilities to survive in a hostile environment. Meanwhile humans seem to be evolving into a less intelligent creature with every passing year.

People have different theories on how to dig razor clams. Some use a shovel while others employ a clam gun. Both methods involve back-breaking labor. Razor clams move with surprising speed in wet sand by extending their foot or digger then flattening it out like an anchor. The clam pulls itself down to its anchor and repeats the process, digging down at a rate that is faster than some people can dig with a shovel given the conditions. Some clam diggers hunt razor clams on the dry tide flats and others look in the surf where the clams are shallow and easier to dig, in theory. As the wave retreats, you have only a little time before another wave crashes in. You must spot the clam and dig like a banshee with the roar of the surf at your back until you've dug as deep as you dare. Then you reach down into the dark, wet hole to grab the fleeing clam that is digging downward at a rate that is unbelievable to anyone but a clam digger. With any luck at all, you are able to grab the shell of the retreating clam, maybe with only a thumb and forefinger. There you struggle with the fleeing clam as it tries to dig to China. In the heat of the struggle, you hear another clam digger rush by, heading back toward the beach shouting,

"Wave!"

A decision must be made. Let go of the giant razor clam or hang on and get creamed by a wave of unknown height, bearing down on you in the night. At this point we may consider the effect of the Butterfly Theory. That the movement of the air caused by a butterfly flapping its wings in South America, could cause a hurricane in Texas. Similarly, a razor clam squirting on a beach in Alaska could produce a rogue wave on the coast of Washington. It's just a theory, but I was keeping an eye out for rogue waves all the same. They can be a hundred feet tall, sink the largest ship and ruin your clam dig. As the big wave came in, I hung on to that clam for dear life, hoping its anchor would hold us both. It did. I got my clam. I got my limit. I didn't have cabin fever anymore!

CHAPTER 2

OLYMPIC MOUNTAIN GROUNDHOG DAY.

It was daylight on the water. A pounding hull in a rough sea told me what had happened. I'd been shanghaied, again. Through the murk of dawn, I saw bluffs that rose out of the sea on the port side and a narrow sand-spit closing the bay on the starboard. I shuddered; we were crossing the bar at the mouth of Sequim Bay.

This was the site of "Such-kwee-ing" the largest village of the S'Klallam nation. The village contained about a dozen split-cedar houses along the beach. The largest was the potlatch house owned by the chief, Xaiske'nim. A row of poles along the beach held the severed heads of enemies killed in war.

Sequim was said to be the S'Klallam word for "quiet waters," all of which means nothing when you're headed for the open sea into the teeth of a February Nor'easter that froze my brain to the marrow. Shanghaiing was supposed to have died out years ago, but it didn't, picture bingo night at the lodge. I hadn't noticed how everyone else avoided the eggnog. I thought it meant more for me. The last thing I remember was the leering mug of Captain Carp just before the lights went out.

Carp was of a cutthroat fleet of Dungeness crabbers at war in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. He always seemed to need another deckhand. I had ignored the gossip that had been floating around for years, about him using deckhands for crab-bait. Once aboard it didn't take long to learn the truth: Carp would use his own mother-in-law for bait if he thought it would work.

I couldn't say just how long I was trapped on the boat. We were miles from shore. I missed my soap opera. After a while I started to notice we were getting low on bait.

"Nobody walks off this job," the captain chuckled as he hacked away at another tub of bait with a dull machete.

Some folks think crab like rotten stuff, and maybe they do, but it's best to use the freshest bait you can find if you're going to entice them into a trap. You want bait that's oily with a lot of aroma, which would have described me after a day on a crab boat.

I knew I had only one chance to get off that boat. I waited until after the grog ration and told Captain Carp about the best secret bait for crab in these waters: marmots. The marmots that infest the alpine regions of the Olympic Mountains are a unique species of mega-rodents that spend the short months of summer high in the alpine meadows picking flowers, raising their young and digging burrows where they sleep through the long night of winter.

While modern science continues to debate whether the Olympic Marmot attains a true state of hibernation like members of Congress, it is no wonder this iconic creature was chosen as the official Washington state mammal. Any creature that spends most of its life sleeping in a tunnel with no light at the end of it could serve as a role model for the rest of the citizens of our fair state.

It was this mountain lifestyle that I found so attractive. I spent years gaining the trust of the marmots. It is one of my proudest accomplishments, which involved discipline and a lot of hard work. First, I stopped bathing. Then I sat very still and grew my hair until I was furry enough to blend in with the marmots. Eventually I made friends with the marmots the old-fashioned way, grooming and posturing until I was accepted into enlarged portions of their dens.

There I was able to decipher much of the marmot language. The marmots communicate with a series of whistles that sound like a car alarm or make you think the police are coming. They whistle to warn each other of coyotes, eagles and that other backcountry pest, the waffle-stomping granola-crunching backpackers. These are people who carry big loads of expensive tents and gourmet freeze-dried food on their backs while wandering around pretending to be homeless.

The marmot language is easy to understand. They are making fun of us. Biologists thought the number of marmots in Olympic National Park could be depressed by anything from climate change to coyotes. If the marmots were depressed, they could be endangered. If they weren't endangered, they should be.

As a way of giving back, I volunteered to carry out a survey of the declining numbers of marmots. That was a difficult task since the marmots live underground most of the time. To get an accurate count of the marmots I took it upon myself to develop innovative survey techniques using zircon encrusted electrodes to run electricity down their holes and shock the marmots out into the open where they could be easily counted.

Since all marmots look pretty much the same, a methodology had to be developed to avoid counting the same marmot twice. At first it seemed like a good idea to paintball the marmots, but weapons are not allowed in Olympic National Park. Instead it was decided to shave a small portion of the marmot. Any marmot with a bad haircut meant it had been previously recorded in the survey.

Then we'd attach a radio collar with a webcam to the marmot and see if they could still fit back in their hole. This would unlock a treasure trove of data about the marmots' private lives that could make them the stars of their own reality TV show.

Potential marmot surveyor applicants had to be unemployed and able to fit into extremely small spaces for no pay. The Marmot Survey was looking for self-starting, out of the box team-players familiar with digging, blasting and mining techniques, with electroshocking and hair removal skills and able to pack extremely heavy loads through rugged terrain while blindfolded.

Marmot surveyors should celebrate the diversity of alternative camp styles, unlike the embittered marmot survey partner I was burdened with. We'll call him Edward. He was not a team player, saddled as he was with a 90-pound pack of freeze-dried this and light-weight that while I carried some Chinese take-out. Edward was just mad because I thought of it first. There is no room for haters on the Marmot Survey, not when the future of this iconic species depends on our survey efforts.

Unfortunately, the soulless automatons of the one-world-order-park rangers wouldn't let me onto the Olympic National Park Marmot Survey Team. Some sort of sissy wilderness safety rules prohibited marmot surveyors from surveying alone. Surveying marmots is like any other hunting trip. I hunt alone. When I hunt alone, I'd rather be by myself. It requires solitude to gain the animal's trust and get back to the burrow where the magic happens. Adding more surveyors to the mix can compromise the mission.

Just getting to marmot country is a challenge. I parked at the Dungeness Trail at daylight. Backpacking is a back-breaking form of strangulation that would be outlawed as torture by the Geneva Convention if not for the fact that you do it to yourself. As I made my way across the parking lot, I began to feel feverish, short of breath and dizzy as a tweaker in a crosswalk. Little did I suspect that thousands of feet beneath me a great tectonic struggle between the Juan de Fuca Plate and the North American Continent was forcing the Olympic Mountains even higher! No wonder I was exhausted! There was only one thing to do: cook some bacon. After that it was time to take a nap and bandage the blisters on my feet. Days later, with the expedition running seriously low on bacon, I reached marmot country, a place called Avalanche Valley.

I made my way to the head of the valley where a number of marmots whistled a cheery welcome.

I had just followed a marmot pretty far into its den when disaster struck. The Juan de Fuca Plate must have slipped against the leading edge of the continental shelf, again. I was stuck between two colliding tectonic plates of the Earth's crust with my head stuck in a marmot hole.

Then I was attacked by an aggressive marmot with its vicious fangs bared and its fur all turned the wrong way. It was whistling like a rabid pig, less than two feet from my face. That's the time when some marmot surveyors will panic, go claustrophobic and wash out of the marmot survey team. Our instructors had tried to prepare us for a confrontation like this during 'hell week' in marmot surveyor school, where we were locked in a 50-gallon drum and rolled down a steep hill.

Still, nothing can prepare you for getting trapped in an occupied marmot burrow. Things can get crazy fast and anything can happen. Being afraid of marmots is nothing to be ashamed of. It's how you handle that fear that determines your chances of survival as a marmot surveyor. Luckily it was a hot day and I was sweating bacon grease. Eventually I squeezed out of the hole and headed back down the mountain with my survey results. Park Service officials said they would preserve them in the appropriate file.

Years later, with Captain Carp running out of crab bait, I remembered the marmots. While I had taken the sacred oath of a marmot surveyor to never use my special knowledge for evil, it was me or the marmots. I had to think of something. I just sort of put two and two together and told the captain that in February, the marmots dig their way out of 20 feet of snow to check out their shadows. That's how they predict the coming of spring hereabouts. I assured Captain Carp that marmots were the best crab bait in these waters and I had a sure-fire method of catching them. All I needed was the right gear. Captain Carp dropped me ashore with a fish net and a gunny-sack. I escaped into the woods where I was able to write this.

CHAPTER 3

VALENTINE'S DAY.

You don't see many women out on the river. Once in a while a guy will call up and want to take his wife on a winter steelhead fishing trip. That's when I ask, "Have you tried counseling?"

Married people should try a less drastic solution than steelhead fishing, before their relationship reaches a point of no return. Sometimes by reminding them of feelings they might have had before marriage, the couple will come to their senses and realize that no steelhead is worth risking a relationship. I've heard all the excuses. Money, power, revenge, but that's still no excuse to subject your significant other to the pain and abuse of a winter steelhead fishing trip where even the fish are too cold to wiggle. Steelhead fishing can destroy relationships.

I know that now, after the way my heart got stomped by that waitress. She had pretty hair. She worked in a bistro slinging steaks cut from cows that must have limped off the Ark. There was watery coffee in dirty cups. She yelled at me for being a worthless fisherman and tracking my muddy boots across the floor. I wasn't there for the food. I was homesick.

(Continues…)

---

Excerpted from "WildLife"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Pat Neal.
Excerpted by permission of iUniverse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---