Day 8 – The Call of the Wild

We headed north from our camp at Tombstone Mountain climbing up and driving through the Ogilvie Mountains. They are huge, glaciated peaks and valleys that still had quite a bit of snow on them. It is hard to describe the gorgeous scenes we saw around each corner or ridge. The first and fifth stanzas of Robert Service’s poem, “Call of the Wild” about sum up our morning’s travels.

“Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there’s nothing else to gaze on, 

Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,

Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,

Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?

Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream streaking through it,

Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?

Have you strung your soul to silence?

Then for God’s sake go and do it;

Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost…

Let us probe the silent places,

Let us seek what luck betide us:

Let us journey to a lonely land I know.

There’s a whisper on the night-wind,

There’s a star agleam to guide us,

     And the Wild is calling, calling… let us go.