When I drove into
Colter Bay on Sunday afternoon, I realized that I had absolutely no
idea where to go. So I found my way down to the marina, trusting that
things would sort themselves out. Down on the docks I found my new
manager, Mary.
“Lily! I'm so glad
that you're here! I'm really sorry, but you're going to have to leave
again, right now. Drive up to HR at Jackson Lake Lodge and get all
your paperwork filed and take the drug test...I want you to be able
to start working tomorrow morning.”
So I got back in my
car and went off to be processed, the usual slog of W-4, I-9,
whiz-in-the-cup, sign-on-the-line...Fortunately Mary had called ahead
to expedite things, so it didn't take much more than all afternoon.
Paperwork in hand, I found my way to the housing office back at
Colter Bay, where I received my room keys from the dorm supervisor.
My room was
institutional, utterly without character, and somehow moving my
things in there did not help at all. But it had a roof and wifi, so
my standards were more than satisfied.
The next morning I
showed up at the marina at 8 AM. Colter Bay was beautiful, a small
protected inlet cradled by a barrier island of lodgepole pines, rows
of docks, expensive boats, and bald eagles drifting overhead. Above
everything towered the Tetons in all their glory. On the way out west
in the spring I had driven past these very mountains, and looked at
them, and regretted that I had no time to spend with them – but
here I was.
That first day, I
did nothing but ride the cruise boats, taking notes on the narration.
I soon learned that I wouldn't be driving these boats, just talking.
My official title was First Mate. Unlike the Glacier Park Boat Co,
Grand Teton Lodge required their captains to carry 100-ton licenses;
the three captains were retired men in their 60's and 70's. Two of
them actually lived on their own boats in the marina. The other first
mates were closer to my age.
The tours followed
the same basic script - a little geography and geology, a little
history, some ecology, some glaciers and bird-watching – but each
first mate put their own spin on it. One focused more on history, one
told a lot of jokes, one preferred stories, and one, bless his heart,
was a terrible public speaker and did hardly any talking at all.
After the third time
listening to the tour, I started to think of the things I would
say when my turn came before the mike
As it turned out,
perhaps unsurprisingly, I found myself talking a lot about ecology.
Damn, I could talk about ospreys and bark beetles and fire ecology
all day long! Hadn't I spent the whole summer doing just that? If it
got a little heavy, I switched to telling stories about John Colter's
misadventures with the Blackfeet in 1807, or talked about hiking in
bear country. That always got them going.
“No hikers have
ever been attacked while hiking in a group of three or more,” I'd
say. Pause. “So as long as at least one of the other two is slower
than you...”
Big laughs. Why are
variations of this joke so universally popular? I don't love it
myself, but I'd noticed all the way back in Glacier that it went down
well, so I kept it up.
And so on. I learned
to introduce myself at the beginning and talk about myself, then ask
people where they were from, so we could bond.
“Oh yeah, you're
from Chicago? I went to school there. Russia? Used to live there.
Maine? I worked there for a few years, same with Vermont...”
This only backfired
once, when I made a crack about leaving the state of Ohio for greener
and more interesting pastures, only to look up and realize that half
the people on the boat were from Cleveland. Whoops.
But almost always I
liked the people, and the people liked me, and it was like being a
teacher again, except that I got tipped.
My first work week
lasted nine days, sometimes from 6:45 AM to 8:30 at night. By the end
I could give the tour in my sleep. Which wasn't to say, I had no fun
at all. The Colter Bay village was home to a virtual employee UN:
Russians, Turks, Jamaicans, Bulgarians, and a single Botswanan, not
to mention the usual run of American college kids and misfits. Most
people congregated every night to booze and shoot pool in the rec
room, and I often joined them.
The rec room could
be a wild place, especially late at night when the kitchen people
came in. They were a volatile crew; one memorable night, my ability
to quaff Jim Beam so impressed one of the cooks that he proposed
marriage on the spot... There were several fights, but I steered
clear.
The days had a
pattern to them, a flow, and I liked that pattern, and so September
passed under the mountains where I most wanted to be in the world.
