Chapter 8 #2
"Are you?" Her mother this time, sharper. "You're alone in the wilderness, close to people who might be breaking the law. That's not careful, sweetheart. That's dangerous."
"I have my satellite phone. I have GPS equipment. I know this area better than anyone." She heard the defensiveness in her own voice and tried to soften it. "I'm not going to do anything reckless. I just... I can't sit here and watch them destroy this place. Not when I can do something about it."
More silence. She could picture her parents exchanging glances, having one of their wordless conversations born of forty years of marriage.
"Check in with us every day," her father finally said. "Morning and evening. If we don't hear from you, we're calling the authorities."
"Dad—"
"That's not negotiable." His voice held steel underneath the concern. "You are in the Alaskan wilderness, alone. Daily check-ins, or we're sending search and rescue."
Janice felt tears prick her eyes, an emotion she hadn't expected. "Okay. I promise. Morning and evening."
"We love you, sweetheart," her mother said softly. "Please be safe."
"I will. I love you both."
She ended the call and stood for a moment, phone clutched in her hand.
Her parents were right to worry. This was dangerous.
But it was also necessary. Someone had to find out whether Northern Summit was the cause of the water chemical poisoning, and right now, she was the only one in a position to do it.
Her phone buzzed with a text from Marcus. Found some preliminary info on Northern Summit. Not good. Call me when you can.
She tried calling back, but the signal was too weak, cutting out after two rings. The text connection worked better, so she typed. Storm interference. Will try again tomorrow.
His response came immediately. Be careful. These people have powerful connections.
Janice stared at those words for a long moment. Powerful connections. Of course they did. Companies like this didn't operate in isolated corners of Alaska without permits, payoffs, and protection from people who mattered.
The decision crystallized. She'd go out, take her snowmobile to the upper cameras, and document whatever she could find. With GPS coordinates, she could easily find her way back. But first, she needed to prepare.
Janice spent the next hour gathering equipment.
She dressed in heavy-duty winter gear, including insulated coveralls, a face mask, and goggles.
She checked her GPS unit and backup batteries, her camera with the telephoto lens, water-sample collection kit, emergency beacon, and first-aid supplies.
Everything went into her backpack in organized layers, each item chosen for necessity rather than comfort.
She checked her newly relocated camera to see if it had captured fresh images.
Snow falling through the frame, created a curtain of white.
A fox trotting past, its red coat bright against the monochrome landscape.
A moose browsing on willow branches, unaware it was being filmed.
Smiling, she hated to go out and disturb the wildlife, but she knew that ignoring a potential problem would be worse than startling a fox or bird.
Locking the cabin behind her, she walked to the snowmobile, stored under a tarp beside the cabin. The machine was old but reliable, maintained carefully throughout her tenure here. It started on the second pull, engine rumbling to life.
"This is either very brave or very stupid," she told herself, voice muffled by the face mask as she climbed on. Probably stupid. Almost certainly stupid.
The world disappeared into white within minutes of leaving the cabin.
Snow fell so thick she could barely see ten feet ahead, navigation dependent entirely on her GPS and her memory of the terrain.
The snowmobile's engine roared, its tracks churning through fresh powder as it headed toward the upper reaches of Clearwater Creek.
The ride was brutal. Wind-whipped snow stung any exposed skin, and the cold seeped through even her heavy layers.
She focused on following the creek, using the dark water as her guide when visibility dropped.
The GPS showed her position, the little blue dot creeping slowly upstream toward the coordinates where she'd seen the boot prints.
Twenty minutes felt like hours. Her hands ached from gripping the handlebars. Her face went numb despite the mask. But she pushed on, driven by fury at what was being done to this place and determination to document it.
The terrain grew steeper, the creek narrowing as she climbed toward its headwaters. Here, the forest pressed close on both sides, spruce trees heavy with snow creating a tunnel through the wilderness. She slowed, searching for landmarks, trying to orient herself.
She spied the split spruce where she'd relocated her camera. She could just make out its distinctive forked trunk through the falling snow. Janice killed the engine and climbed off the snowmobile, legs shaky from the cold and the vibration.
The camera was still there, still angled correctly, its housing barely visible against the dark bark.
She followed the creek upstream on foot now, moving carefully through ankle-deep snow.
The contamination had to be coming from somewhere close.
The chemical levels she'd recorded suggested a source within a mile or two of this location, not the distance where Northern Summit's permitted operation was supposed to be.
The forest opened suddenly into a clearing she didn't recognize from her previous surveys. Fresh. Recently cut. Janice stopped at the tree line, her breath catching.
Equipment. Not a full mining operation, but definitely a staging area.
A portable generator under a tarp. Fuel drums stacked in rows.
What looked like partially covered drilling equipment.
And there, at the far end of the clearing, looked to be a containment pond with a bright blue tarp stretched across it, already sagging under the weight of the accumulated snow.
I wonder if that’s a tailings pond? Chemical processing waste from whatever they were extracting upstream, stored in a hastily constructed containment that was probably leaking into the groundwater and creek.
Janice pulled out her camera, her hands shaking, partly from cold and mostly from adrenaline. She documented everything. Wide shots of the clearing. Close-ups of the equipment. The fuel drums with their faded labels. The tailings pond with its inadequate containment.
Her GPS unit recorded the exact coordinates that were miles outside Northern Summit's permitted operating area, deep inside protected wilderness where they had no legal right to be. But then, she had no proof that the equipment belonged to Northern Summit. Shit, it could be someone else.
She wished she could move closer to see if there was any identification on the equipment, but would have to cross the water. She might take some risks but wasn’t about to attempt that.
A branch cracked somewhere in the distance.
Janice spun, heart hammering. Nothing. Just the forest, just the heavy snow probably breaking a limb.
Or just my imagination running wild. She forced herself to breathe, to think rationally.
She was alone out here. The storm had everyone else hunkered down in town or at the main mining site miles away.
She turned back toward where she'd left the snowmobile. The tracks she'd made on foot were already filling in, barely visible depressions in the fresh powder. She followed them carefully, counting steps to make sure she didn't get turned around in confusion.
The snowmobile appeared through the lacy curtain of white, exactly where she'd left it.
Relief flooded through her as she climbed on, started the engine, and turned back toward the cabin.
She had what she needed. Photographs, GPS coordinates.
Enough to warrant an investigation by the EPA or whatever governing board approved the mining.
Now she just had to get home safely and figure out her next step.
The ride back was slightly easier, following her own track through the fresh snow.
But the wind had picked up, and visibility dropped even further.
Several times she had to stop and check her GPS to make sure she was heading in the right direction.
The cold now penetrated deeper, exhaustion making it harder to generate body heat.
Just when she felt sure she was frozen underneath all her layers of clothing, the cabin appeared in the distance. Tomorrow the roads would start being plowed. Tomorrow, life would return to something resembling normal.
But nothing would ever be quite normal again. She'd crossed a line today, moved from passive observer to active participant in something much larger than her research project. And there was no going back.