North of Hope (29 page)

1
. Daniel Merkur,
Powers Which We Do Not Know
(Moscow, Ida.: Univ. of Idaho Press, 1991).

2
. Ibid.

3
. J. Gelineau, SJ, “Music and Singing in the Liturgy,” in
The Study of Liturgy
, ed. Cheslyn Jones, Geoffrey Wainwright, Edward Yarnold, SJ, and Paul Bradshaw (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1992), 498.

4
. Brian Payton,
The Shadow of the Bear
(New York: Bloomsbury, 2006).

5
. Paul Shepard,
The Sacred Paw
(New York: Penguin, 1985).

6
. Doug Peacock and Andrea Peacock,
The Essential Grizzly
(Guilford, Conn.: Lyons, 2006), 44, 46.

7
. Peter Kivy,
The Fine Art of Repetition: Essays in the Philosophy of Music
(New York: Press Syndicate of the Univ. of Cambridge, 1993), 26.

8
. Ibid., 27.

9
. Gerald G. May,
The Wisdom of Wilderness: Experiencing the Healing Power of Nature
(New York: HarperCollins, 2006), 30–34.

10
. John Haines,
The Stars, the Snow, the Fire
(Minneapolis: Graywolf, 2000), 52.

11
. Mary Oliver, “Bear,”
Why I Wake Early
(Boston: Beacon, 2004), 41.

12
. Beryl Markham,
West with the Night
(New York: North Point, 1942), 62–63.

It is impossible to acknowledge the many people who have offered ideas and guidance over the many years it has taken to create
North of Hope
. I am overwhelmed by how generous so many were with their time and consideration in response to my frequent inquiries and requests for assistance on this long and uncertain journey.

Thank you to those willing to read the manuscript along the way: Emily Russin, Nan Mooney, and Sarah Delaney were readers of early sections, and Kyra Freestar edited an early version of the manuscript. Hugo House instructors Peter Mountford and Waverly Fitzgerald gave encouragement and excellent feedback on portions of the manuscript and proposal. Seattle Pro Musica director Karen P. Thomas lent me resources to research Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor. Katey Schulz, Andy Schlickman, and Marcia Somers read later versions and helped me focus and hone my themes. A very special thanks to Hannah Moderow, who gave much time and substantial energy to look over the manuscript before I submitted it to make sure it was ready to fly.

Thank you to the excellent staff of the Anchorage Museum for research assistance; to the staff of the Elmer E. Rasmuson library
at the University of Alaska Fairbanks for referrals to experts and research sources; to the staff at the Z. J. Loussac Library; and to the North Slope Borough Search and Rescue Division. Many thanks to Robert Thompson, resident and Arctic guide in Kaktovik, Alaska, for looking over a part of the manuscript for correctness; to Jim and Carol of Arctic Treks for their consultation on place name origins and geology; to Karen Jettmar of Equinox Expeditions for her review and consultation on several parts of the manuscript; and to Dr. Wesley Wallace from the University of Alaska Fairbanks Department of Geology and Geophysics for his expertise on the geology of the Romanzof Mountains and Arctic riparian ecosystems.

The Gwich’in Social and Cultural Institute provided invaluable assistance in research and the opportunity to talk to their elders. Thank you especially to Hannah Alexie and Catherine Mitchell.

I am indebted to my teachers and classmates in Seattle Pacific University’s Master of Fine Arts program who have been fellow travelers and guides on this writing journey, and to my agent, David Jacobsen, who helped find a home for this manuscript.

I owe an eternal debt of gratitude to the vision of Carolyn Fonseca McCready and to the candid and careful attention of my editors, Dave Lambert and Brian Phipps, and to the rest of the team at Zondervan for their shepherding of this book to its final state.

And most of all I thank my husband, Peter, for his love and support to pursue my passion, and God, without whose grace none of this would have been possible.

Shannon Huffman Polson
lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest. Her writing has appeared in a number of literary magazines and periodicals, as well as two anthologies. Polson graduated with a BA in English Literature from Duke University, an MBA from the Tuck School at Dartmouth, and an MFA from Seattle Pacific University. She served eight years as an attack helicopter pilot in the army and worked five years in corporate marketing and management roles before turning to writing full time. Polson serves on the board of the Alaska Wilderness League and sings with the critically acclaimed Seattle Pro Musica. She has looked for adventure and challenge anywhere she can find it, scuba diving, sky diving, and climbing around the world, including ascents of Denali and Kilimanjaro, and completing two Ironman triathlons. She and her family enjoy backpacking, any kind of skiing, paddling, and spending as much time outdoors as they can in the western states and Alaska. In September 2009, Polson was awarded the Trailblazer Woman of Valor award from Washington State Senator Maria Cantwell.

Polson can be found at
www.aborderlife.com
.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

Shannon Huffman Polson has written a soulful and brave book about death, life, and the complexities surrounding both. There is nothing sentimental in these pages.
North of Hope
shows us how personal loss and loss of our planet come from the same place: Love. This is a testament to deep change, human and wild.

—Terry Tempest Williams
author,
When Women Were Birds

Daring, perceptive, and eloquent—Polson’s writing is clear and forceful. Like all true pilgrimages, this one is challenging, and well worth taking.

—Scott Russell Sanders
author,
Earth Works
and
A Conservationist Manifesto

Polson’s extraordinary journey draws you into the depths of anguish and brings you back out realizing that while not all things fractured can be healed, the soul will gravitate toward beauty, art, and meaning if guided in the right direction.

—Alison Levine
mountaineer, polar explorer, and team captain of the first American Women’s Everest Expedition

North of Hope
is an enthralling story of loss, courage, and redemption told by a gifted, original, and brave new voice, Shannon Huffman Polson.

—Robert Clark
award-winning author of ten books, including
Dark Water: Flood and Redemption in the City of Masterpieces
and
Mr. White’s Confession

As Shannon Polson poignantly recounts the loss of family members to a grizzly attack in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, framing her memoir around her own trek into the wilderness where they perished, she comes to believe that there is grace and wonder in the most unlikely places, that the landscape’s wildness can teach you about letting go of control, and that Easter doesn’t arrive until you’ve experienced Good Friday. Anyone who has endured the grief of losing someone or something they loved will identify with the advice Polson was given: “When tragedy comes into your life, the most beautiful thing you can do is keep moving forward.”

—Cindy Crosby
former National Park Ranger and author of
By Willoway Brook: Exploring the Landscape of Prayer
(www.cindycrosby.com)

Shannon Polson brilliantly tells the story of venturing into the Alaskan wilderness to find the place where her parents were killed. Interwoven with that journey is the story of how she auditioned for and sang the Mozart Requiem. Only music could provide solace for her strange, almost unimaginable loss. This is no ordinary memoir. To read it is to be changed.

—Jeanne Walker
author,
New Tracks, Night Falling

Shannon Huffman Polson has written a book about loss that is both unique to her personal experience and universal to the human experience. She writes with clarity, honesty, and poise. The end of her story has the surreal feel of fiction—a moment so unbelievable and fitting that it must have happened. Readers will find themselves caught up in that poetic end, and in the breadth of story that comes before it.

—Andrea Palpant Dilley
author,
Faith and Other Flat Tires:
Searching for God on the Rough Road of Doubt

North of Hope
, Shannon Polson’s gripping account of the shattering, traumatic loss of her father, is a must read. In the end, Shannon is faced with a choice—does she choose the beauty and majesty of life or succumb to the pain and trauma of the loss of her beloved father? It is only after her father’s death that she truly listens to, and embraces, his message—to believe in her own strength and to live a life of meaning and purpose. Shannon’s book is a gift to everyone who reads this powerful, inspiring story.

—Janet Hanson
CEO and founder, 85 Broads

North of Hope
is a remarkable story about the power of the wilderness both to harm and to heal, and to provide strength and sustenance to the human spirit, no matter what the challenges.

—Nicholas O’Connell
author,
The Storms of Denali
;
instructor, www.thewritersworkshop.net