HAINES -- The rain turned to snow by the time the lighting of the historic Fort Seward neighborhood began Saturday night. Our fledgling women's a cappella singing group had practiced "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" and "O Come All Ye Faithful" just for the event. Instead of choir caps we wore knit ski hats and headlamps.
We stood in the inky dark behind Tresham Gregg's art shop on the parade grounds waiting for the cannon to fire and the holiday lights to come on illuminating the big old homes surrounding the snowy hillside field. Other folks milled around in the darkness. Milk jugs with candles inside outlined the sledding hill where children coasted down and trudged up. Then from somewhere up in the darkness, up by the flagpole, we heard Jim Shook holler, "Cover your ears" and we all did, and waited. Nothing happened.
"Cover your ears," he yelled again. One woman who is new in town wondered if that was really necessary; we were, after all a couple hundred yards away.
We assured her it was. Jim's 3,000 pound cannon was originally designed to launch harpoons off whaling ships. It came off a sunken hulk in St. Michael. The restored gun now fires on special occasions and is a permanent fixture at the Fort. Each firing takes a pound of black powder and lot of old blue jeans. Jim packs the barrel with rags (denim works best), lights the fuse and waits for the big bang. "One time I shot a pair of Levis clear over Tresham's shop, probably the farthest any pair of jeans has ever traveled," he said.
Anyway, after the third "Cover your ears" there was a huge "ka-boom" followed by stunned wows. I felt the shock wave and the ground shift. The background was suddenly bright too, as all the lights outlining the grand homes were lit.
Someone launched a few more fireworks while Mary, Joseph and the baby doll that was Jesus waited on the shop porch to perform a living nativity scene.
I was not aware of our choir's part in the pageant, which our director, Nancy Nash, seemed to be in charge of. Turns out, Nancy wasn't either. Holly Davis was supposed to do it, but she got the flu. (Holly was born on Christmas, and has stayed faithful ever since. Her husband is Matthew and their little boys are named Mark, Luke, and John.)
Nancy is an organizer, so she jumped in, and got her husband Dwight to do the readings. Instead of Holly leading the carol sing-a-long, Nancy figured our chorus could.
The script was right from Luke's gospel, you know the one that begins "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree, from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed ..." With each scene we sang a verse of the corresponding carol: "O Little Town of Bethlehem," "Silent Night," "Angels We Have Heard on High" and, of course, the two we had actually practiced and for which we had waterproof music (the wet snow was falling in earnest). A couple of mothers herded dish towel-hatted shepherds, tinsel-haloed angels, and gift-bearing kings to their places.
I stood next to a friend who didn't know the words to all the carols. I was surprised to learn that I did. I owe this to my mother, who made sure her daughters sang in choirs, whether we wanted to or not. It's an odd feeling to be almost 50 and realize that something you learned as a child has paid off. It was like discovering a use for algebra.
Half the crowd missed all or part of the play and carols, because they were on the front side of the building, roasting hot dogs, or thinking about roasting hot dogs, on the flame-throwing bonfire of shipping pallets that threatened to char a nearby totem pole. A volunteer fireman speculated that if the pole caught fire it would crash down into the lighted tree, which would then burst into flames and fall down the slope onto the power lines which would send sparks over the derelict barracks building. That show would make the cannon blast seem like a pop-gun.
Luckily, as Tiny Tim said, God blessed us everyone, and the fire stayed put.
I am still thinking of my mother, who died in New York two years ago, still concerned to the end that her Alaskan grandchildren might never know the words to English carols or the proper Kings James version of the Christmas story.
She would be pleased to know that this year anyway, we all heard both. True, they were accompanied by booms and blazes rather than delicately chiming hand bells. But like Saint Luke promised so long ago, there remains plenty of goodwill and great joy, and December's snow continues to fall on our little patch of Earth like a kind of peace.
Heather Lende lives and writes in Haines and is the author of "If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name." She can be reached at hlende@adnmail.com.
HEATHER LENDE
AROUND ALASKA