While your reporter has panted and struggled up the storied Chilkoot ascent, Hoitsma has virtually pranced up, whistling all the way. Her performance leaves me feeling grimly 50-ish. Now they nibble at a light lunch while comparing notes on bear problems at Lindeman and the previous day's rescue of an injured hiker. It beats the heck out of trying to sort things out over the radio. The Klondike Park, which extends, in a sense, from Seattle to Dawson City, is a truly international park.
Rangers manage the American side, wardens the Canadian side.
But they work closely together. Their bosses in Ottawa and Washington, D.C., could learn from their example. These two nations continue to share some 4,000 miles of common border. But the relationship has always had its tensions over matters ranging from salmon to acid rain. And the Chilkoot summit, where one can gaze many miles into each nation's wilderness, is an appropriate place to ponder the differences.