Swiftcurrent

I spent the summer working a seasonal job in Glacier Park, Montana. The adventure this time was really the people I met. I worked at a resort deep in the mountains, a paradise place where humans access only four months out of the year. Otherwise the place is buried in snow and exists just as a dream to the people who knew it.

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I arrived on my bicycle when June came to Swiftcurrent and the place was just waking up. Cotton was blowing in the air from the aspen trees which were bright and green. Three years had passed since I’d been here last and ever since I left it had haunted me. It had become so far away, an untouchable memory of the summer of 2013 where I learned and experienced so much. When I finally made that left turn onto the Many Glacier road from the small town of Babb I had this incredible feeling of making it “home” after a long journey. I’m here, I know this place. 

People like me were arriving from all over the world to setup camp here for the summer, to reopen the small communities of St. Mary, Babb; the Many Glacier area. The wilderness in this region is fantastic, but it’s the arrival of the travelers that bring this place to life.

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I was unable to write all summer, I sort of lost myself here. I didn’t want to waste my time, so I spent every bit of free time enjoying the outdoors and enjoying the new friends I met. Of course, I didn’t have much free time, the evil corporation controlling this magical community stole all that from me. Working for the man, I suppose that is what I came here to do. I was a sous chef in the restaurant and knew the job would be a humungous work load. I wouldn’t work less than 12 hours per day, at the beginning and the end of the season it could be more like 18 hours per day, and often 6 or 7 days per week. On salary of course, so my overtime made no difference, and the restaurant had so many problems. I can’t even begin to talk about these problems, but from my point of view, it felt like I had been given an impossible task. It was managing the unmanageable, and the stress of the job caused our head chef to lose his mind. He quit/ got fired, leaving the huge work load of managing the kitchen for just myself and the other sous chef Conor.

It was my first time working a management position, and when I arrived in June I planned to take it very seriously. That went out the window pretty quickly after working the first few weeks for 5$ per hour and highly understaffed. At some point I was just trying to survive, and assumed I would be fired for all the disrespectful things I was saying… (and shouting, and breaking things, etc…) But they couldn’t fire me because they didn’t want to do my job, ha!

Eventually, Conor and I trained 4 inexperienced prep cooks to become line cooks, having to cook for an extremely high volume this extremely complicated abomination of a corporate menu. As their incredible work ethic allowed the restaurant to barely succeed, our lives were able to normalize and we started getting two day weekends. We contemplated quitting every day, or going on strike, but what kept me around was our wonderful co-workers. We all started having great feelings of love for each other. Everyone was from somewhere different, whether all over the US where every region was represented, or various other countries. Slovakia, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia, Jamaica, Bulgaria, Ecuador, Taiwan, Thailand, Japan, and China were all represented in our kitchen staff. Everyone brought with them their own life stories and their own unique personalities.

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We were all learning together, learning how to cook or how to speak English and I was learning how to be a chef. I watched people break down into tears or erupt into anger, and I picked up the slack as best I could. After our head chef quit, (he would prefer to say he was fired), and after all our dining room managers quit, it was just us park kids running the show. We didn’t mind giving ourselves a shift drink (or two), eating as much ice cream as we pleased, and generally just stabbing back at the corporation whenever possible. It became a fun job, full of love, music and dancing every day. Even though we worked our asses off, we didn’t mind coming to work. A confusing love/hate relationship…

At the time I could have taken back control of my life, but instead I continued to burn the candle at both ends. I would stay up late even when I had to work early, just because I wanted to spend more time with these great people I worked and lived with. I couldn’t help but fall in love. I drank and partied a lot, would go to the local bar and sing karaoke with friends and dance, and on a few occasions spent the night camping on top of mountains or hiking even when I had to work in the morning. It seems like Glacier Park, the sublime beauty of the landscape and the beautiful souls it draws to it, always does this to me. It’s not a place to sleep or rest. There were multiple times I went to work after a night with no sleep. People would wonder why I seemed so crazy… Overall the lifestyle was a destructive one but it was an experience I’ll never forget.

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When September came, the great northern winter was extending its clutches back over the park. The aspens that were so green in the spring had already turned shocking yellow and the mountains became covered in fresh snow. It was time for us all to leave. Having arrived on my bicycle, I wasn’t sure how I planned to get out. The only plan I had which hadn’t fallen apart this summer was marked by a plane ticket, Boston to Bogota, Colombia, one way. After a celebration feast and a few fantastic parties with our staff, we closed Swiftcurrent kitchen down. In the three days it took to clean it, our friends all slowly left the park. The goodbyes were heartbreaking. Still, I didn’t know how I’d leave or where I’d go before somehow finding my way home to Massachusetts. I hadn’t decided up until the final few hours, cleaning the kitchen was so intense I couldn’t even pack my things until it was immediately time to evacuate. Meredith and Mike were sitting in my room as I stuffed all my possessions I could carry into my backpack. Meredith’s car was packed, and she had a space for me. She could also carry my bike.

I have never in my life left a room I lived in so messy, not properly swept, but I had run out of time. We got in the car, and without even being able to put the final finishing touches on cleaning the kitchen, I was taken away from there. Freedom was a good feeling.

That night we went to a place where friends were living in a trailer, squatting on the national forest land. Then more people arrived at this meeting place, all spewed out at once from the Many Glacier Valley. Soon 20 people had rendezvoused here in the woods and it was a magical final gathering. Everyone’s plans were different, many had no plans, but we were all set free and unleashed upon the world. 11 of us had decided to stick together and travel to Utah, I got to go along for the ride.

Finally I had the free time I had yearned for the spend with these lovely people. The vacation was perfect, I travelled with them for 2 weeks. We spent time in the Moab area, all living out of our vehicles or tents, camping for free in beautiful canyons or clearings in the mountains. They taught me how to rock climb and that occupied most of our time. We spent lazy days enjoying ourselves in the quiet mountains or swimming and jumping off cliffs into the river. Some of my feelings I couldn’t explain or understand, but everything’s a learning experience.

I spent the rest of my time with them around Zion and when I had to go on my own way it was hard to say goodbye. We had all plans to meet again, and we all planned to keep travelling indefinitely until then. This life can be confusing sometimes but still it’s the only way I want to live. Even though the traveler’s life is unstable and uncertain, nothing compares to the beauty or the passion of it. I feel like Swiftcurrent broke me down over and over, teaching me some life lessons and hopefully making me more humble. It seems like the more I learn the less I know, and the more people I meet only the lonelier I get. The more times when I think, “I miss you,” or the dreams I keep having. Then the thoughts I think when I wake up in the morning and can’t get out of bed. Where are you? Life will make sense again once I put this chapter behind me, and the future is exciting.

I left them outside Mesquite, Nevada and stood on the interstate with my bike and my thumb out. Miraculously I was picked up right away by a dude from Iran and he drove me to Cedar City, Utah. The next day I took a very arduous bike ride over the Markagunt Plateau, about 80 miles, and I biked about 20 miles further the following day. At Mt. Carmel Junction I gave up and stuck my thumb out. A cool dude picked me up and took me all the way to Flagstaff, Arizona. I spent a couple of days living the classic hobo life near the train tracks in Flagstaff and listened to a poetry slam and music into the wee hours of the morning which brought me to tears. Unsure of what to do the next day, and the following day, I hopped on a train to Boston. That was dumb, it wasn’t really cheaper than flying, but the ride did take about 70 hours. Gave me some time to clear my head I guess….. and I spent 6 hours wandering around Chicago.

The train pressed on, another night and day passed, and I wandered dazed into South Station, Boston, finally home.

 

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