Strange things done in the midnight sun

“There ain’t a single mosquito on the Alaska Highway… they all married and raising large families.” Pete the handyman has told me this at least 5 times already today, and twice that yesterday. He has a t-shirt and a bumper sticker of the same. Never fails to make him laugh though. He has a strange laugh… a few chuckles, followed by a wheezey high pitched giggle. “Big fuckers too.”

There are two kinds of information, according to Larry and Pete. Historical fact, which is actually more like local folk lore, and whatever you can make a tourist believe. “Tourists, they fuckin’ stupid.”

A middle aged man and is gaudy wife ask Larry if he knows what time it is.
“Oh sure. See that valley ‘neath that peak up there? Shadow of the peak tells what time it is exactly.”
“Wow. A natural sundial!” Says the wife, excitedly. “So what time is it?”
“Daytime. Can’t see no shadows at night.”
The couple is unamused.
Larry laughs about it all day, clearly anytime he is asked the time is the highlight of the week. “Those dumb fuckin’ tourists, don’t know nothing ‘bout nothing.”

"One time these two guys from Arizona, there up here to shoot some buffalo. they dont know or dont care we dont got buffalo up here, only wood bison. anyway they asked me "so pete we gonna get to see some northern lights up here tonight" so i tell em, "yep, i'll just go turn on the generator, let er warm up a bit and flip the switch on."

Pete takes me outside to tell me the names of the mountains.
“Now that one up there, she just got her name about 10 years ago. Ol’ Jack down the road there had a man working for him, name of Rabbit. Now Rabbit packs a lunch one day and heads up the mountain behind ‘Ol Jack’s place up the road there. Comes down about 4 hours later. “I made it up top” He say. “Buuullshit” Say Ol’ Jack. The next day Rabbit packs a lunch and heads up again, brings back snowballs, nails Ol’ Jack right between the eyes. Right between the eyes with a snowball in May! “Rabbit Mountain it is.” Say Ol’ Jack after he clear the snow away from his face.”
I can’t tell if this is local lore, or if I’m being taken in as the new city girl.

“Now that one all covered in snow still behind Rabbit, that’s Churchill Mountain. Named after an American President during the war, when the highway was built. Americans came through here to get up to Alaska, cause the shippin’ route wasn’t too reliable, with them fuckin’ German submarines out there. Yep, named after an American President, just like Mount Rushmore. Our own Mount Rushmore way up here. Just need to carve a few faces into the side.”

I don’t tell Pete that neither Churchill nor Rushmore were American presidents. Whether it was the mistake of the original mountain namer, or Pete’s relative knowledge of history outside the north, I don’t know.

“You go to college? I took a year of college, took forestry up there in White Horse, hadda drop out to support the family. What are ya takin? English? Whatdya study that for? You speak good English, I seen you reading around the lodge. Looks like you know English pretty good to me. People tell me sometime I don’t speak good English. I say, I ain’t tryin’ to speak good English, I’m talkin’ Canadian.”

“Speaking of Canadian, you ever study Robert Service up there in your university? Best Canadian poet in history. “There’s weird stuff done ‘neath the midnight sun by the men who work fer gold” Don’t come any better then that. You know anything better then that?” I almost say, “Yes. There are strange things done in the midnight sun the the men who moil for gold… you know, how Robert Service actually wrote it... But I don’t. I just smile and wonder if Larry’s version isn’t better anyway.