Steves Blog THE CRYSTAL CAVE stevetimmcatholicfsblog.homestead In early-1978, a good friend of mine asked me if I would like to accompany him on a big game hunt to the northern Yukon Territory. I’d never even hunted out of state at the time, so the prospect of traveling to the arctic was incredibly attractive. A Lesson in Geography, Climate and Critters Okay, we’d heard of the Yukon and we remembered the story of the Gold Rush of 1898; Chilcoot Pass and all that stuff. But, other than being a cold place and way up north; where was it and what were we going to hunt? Google was unknown in those days, so we turned to an encyclopedia and this is what we found. The Yukon Territory is a huge triangular-shaped Canadian protectorate and the capitol was Whitehorse. Only 9,000 folks lived in the Yukon and over 6,000 of them lived in the capitol. We would be hunting in the far northeast of the territory; pretty close to the Arctic Circle and right on the border of the Northwest Territories. We’d be in the northern end of the Selwyn-Mackenzie Mountains and the climate was brutal. Some years, the area never saw above-freezing temperatures and the soil was permafrost clear to the surface twelve months out of the year. This particular Yukon Game Area (YGA) had just been opened up and had not been legally hunted for many years. The Game Department and a few bush pilots thought there were a few Dall sheep, moose, mountain caribou, grizzly bears and black bears in the area … but nobody truly knew. In our ignorance, we signed up for the hunt. Indeed, it should have been a total bust, but it wasn’t. By the Grace of God, we literally had the adventure of a lifetime. My friend, John, and I both harvested ancient Dall sheep rams and old mountain caribou bulls. All of our animals were many years past being able to breed. In a climate that is frozen for almost the entire year and by taking the oldsters out of the herd, we were allowing more young animals to be born and to survive the harsh environment. The Northern Yukon OK, let’s fast-forward to August of 1978. Basically, we flew from Portland to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory; we overnighted in Whitehorse and flew by bush plane to Mayo Landing, YT the next morning. We gassed up at Mayo, flew another 350 miles northeast and landed in a small lake that was on the border of the Yukon and the Northwest Territories. The outfitter had established a base camp on the lake. The camp was composed of a half dozen tents, a corral for his horses and a meat cache, to keep game quarters out of the reach of the grizzly bears. We stayed overnight in the base camp and headed straight north, along Snake River, on the following day. Our small party was comprised of my friend, John, his guide, Roy, my guide Rudy, our cook Karri, and myself. We had a horse for each of us and five pack horses. Oh yeah, and we were accompanied by a dog of indeterminate parentage that we called “Crossbreed,” because he had one white eye and one blue eye. We followed the Snake River for three days and set up a spike camp that we’d hunt out of for the duration of our stay. It’s hard for me to pinpoint the distance that we traveled, mostly because lots of our time was spent crossing and recrossing the river, fighting through almost impenetrable thickets of black spruce and bogged down in sand swamps. Looking back on it, thirty-five years after the fact, our little party was floundering around in incredibly unforgiving wilderness on horses that were not capable of the job. When we established our spike camp, we left the horses in the river valley to feed on their own and all hunting was done on foot … up the unbelievably steep and unnamed mountains that border Snake River, just south of it’s confluence with Peel River. Each day was an inconceivable exercise in survival; we were constantly climbing and descending steep talus slopes and sidehilling across impossible drainages. A couple of times, my guide and I got caught in whiteouts while we were high up in the mountains. When the visibility was zero, we simply had to wait out the storms in a very small pack tent until the weather cleared. All of this leads me to the subject of this blog chapter, the Crystal Cave. The Crystal Cave About halfway through the hunt, Rudy and I were climbing the mountains west of base camp when we saw several Dall sheep at the base of a high cliff face. We closed the distance on the sheep and found that they were just ewes and lambs. What made the stalk interesting, however, was that the sheep were standing at the entrance to a cave. One thing that modern city folks don’t know is that sheep, both wild and domestic, are cave critters. Literally, at the first sign of danger or stormy weather, sheep go into a cave, if one is available, until the threat is gone. Seeing as we were there anyway, Rudy and I decided to explore the cave. It took a bit of effort to get there; first we had to descend a talus ridge, sliding all the way down. Then, literally on hands and knees, we crawled up the opposing slope. What we saw made the physical exertion totally worthwhile. The cave was in a concave section of the base of the cliff, so it was hidden from view until we crested a large outcropping. As we drew near, several sheep scattered about and we scrambled up the scree to the entrance of the cave. The cave opening was perhaps ten feet across and eight feet high and, typical of caves in the arctic, the floor was several feet deep in sheep droppings. We walked into what appeared to be a black hole. The rear of the cave was about twenty feet from the opening and it was rounded … and, in the sparse light from the opening, the rear wall kinda sparkled. I took out my flashlight and shone it on the rear wall. Oh my goodness, the rear wall was solid quartz crystals! Rudy unlimbered his flashlight and we stood there in awe as we both flashed light on the entirety of the inside of the cave. Every square inch of the inside of the cave was covered with beautifully-terminated clear quartz crystals. My memory of it stays in sharp focus … it’s surely beyond any human’s power to describe with mere words. It was a Cathedral to God … a Sparkling Cathedral to God, deep within the arctic wilderness. Rudy and I stood quietly and just looked at it. Finally, I broke the silence and said, “Any fool who would dare to break a crystal from one of these walls would be insulting God. I suppose that there are a few folks who would try to take a souvenir home, but it would be wrong to do it. Better that this Cathedral to God stays right here, exactly as it is and that it never be violated.” Ever a mountain man, Rudy answered, “It’s perfect … it’s perfect, isn’t it? And we’re the only ones who will ever see it.” I thought about that for a while and answered, “Yup.” In truth, this was about as remote a place as exists in the world. The Stewart Indians only hunted the Snake River valley because they wanted only moose. The area had not been hunted by modern man before and, even then, both entry and game tags were severely restricted. Without any doubt, no man had ever set foot in this cave and it was almost an impossibility that there would be another. God had given us an awesome reward … at least, that’s the way I looked at it. To this day, I still feel the same way. It was time for lunch, so Rudy and I each gnawed on a couple of caribou ribs, washed down by creek water. We were quiet, as we sat on the floor, savored our ribs and gazed upon the sparkling walls of the Cathedral to God … the Crystal Cave. After lunch, Rudy and I decided that we should each spend a little time alone in the cave; personal time, time alone with our own thoughts. We compared caribou ribs and Rudy’s was longer, so he went first and he spent about ten minutes in the cave. During that time, I saw his flashlight flailing about for the first couple of minutes and then it was dark for the remainder. When it was my time in the Crystal Cave, I spent most of it upon my knees, simply thanking God for giving me life and a soul and the willingness to love Him. I also thanked Him for leaving evidence for me to see, like the Crystal Cave, so that we might know what a magnificent artist He is. And, yeah, I did the Sign of the Cross while kneeling upon my knees in the middle of the Crystal Cave. “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” Before I left, I took one more look around. By this time, my eyes had adjusted to the dim light in the Crystal Cave. It was magnificent, it was glorious, it was beautiful … it was beyond anything I’ve seen, before or since. I picked up my rifle and we continued our journey deeper into the mountains. It was about an hour later that Rudy said, “I’ll bet you are going to revisit that cave for the rest of your life. I know that I will be doing the same thing. We both have this mental photograph of the Crystal Cave and whenever we need peace, we will visit it.” I added, “Amen,” We All Need A Crystal Cave My friends, I believe that we all need a Crystal Cave, or its equivalent, in our lives. We all get an amazing amount of peace from prayer, of course. But adding a mental quiet place, a space where we can simply melt into a oneness with God and His Vastness, can add a great deal to our worship. For some, it might be the intense memory seeing an impossibly-beautiful sunset over the Pacific Ocean, or the awe of looking at the wrinkled-up face of your firstborn child. It might be the memory of an epiphany from God during Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. The possibilities are endless and each is highly personal. As for me, there are many places I continue to mentally visit whenever I simply need to be alone with God. The Crystal Cave is one of my primary quiet place destinations and I’ll be sure to share others with you in the future. May God Bless You, by Steve
Posted on: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 04:04:14 +0000
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