By Andrew Cremata

I turned just in time to see my Leatherman multi-tool fall off the boat and into the water. After removing a hook from the mouth of a cranky king salmon, I carelessly set the tool on the port gunwale while wrestling the fish into my ice chest. The boat hit a wave, lurching awkwardly like a late-night bar patron, and that was the end of my Leatherman. 

Before its untimely demise, my multi-tool rested in a leather sheath attached to my belt buckle for nearly fifteen years. The knife tip was broken and the flathead screwdriver was bent beyond recognition, but years of use and conditioning allowed me to open and close the pliers with one hand. 

This unique custom feature made the tool especially useful. Over time, my Leatherman became an extension of my body. Reaching down to my hip to retrieve the tool was automatic and no different than driving a car or scratching an itch. 

My multi-tool’s highly specialized personalization also made it impossible to replace. For more than a year after losing the Leatherman, whenever I caught a fish my hand instinctively reached for the empty space the Leatherman previously occupied. Every automatic motion to grasp the long-lost tool conjured memories of its loss and a hollow gut feeling accompanying the realization that nothing under the sun or moon could bring it back. 

Last October, a week after storing my fishing rods away for the winter, my little dog Rufus and I hiked to the summit of Nares Mountain, just east of Carcross in the Yukon. We’d hiked the trail many times before, but it was the first time we descended along an alternate route featuring sheer drops from ragged, rocky cliffs covered in golden lichen. 

It was far from our first big hike together. Every year we hiked every local Skagway trail, extending many trips further into the alpine to places seldom seen by humans or their canine companions, including a hike up toward Face Mountain last year. In 2017, Rufus and I hiked to Paddy Peak, the tallest mountain between Skagway and Whitehorse. During other years, we hiked up Fraser Mountain overlooking the Canadian border station, Halcyon Peak just south of Log Cabin, and the Sam McGee Trail high above Tagish Lake. 

Every summit reached was an opportunity to sit, rest, and enjoy the view. As though reveling in the thrill of reaching new heights, Rufus rubbed his face on me before finding a suitable perch for staring out over broad northern expanses like a mountain goat surveying his vast domain. 

Rufus went on his first camping adventure when he was just a tiny puppy. While fishing from shore, I hooked into a massive lake trout on light gear. The fish pulled me up and down the rocky shoreline as I slowly fought it closer to the beach. Rufus stayed on my heel, stumbling over rocks twice his size to keep pace. 

Over the years, we traversed many more miles along endless shores around lakes, rivers, and oceans. Rufus was always there, panting at my heel or watching my back while I lost myself in the soothing oblivion of cast and retrieve. He didn’t like it when I waded out into the water, so I tucked him into my neoprene waders where he often fell asleep with his head resting on my arm.

Rufus knew when bears were close and notified me with a distinctive growl. He more than once went toe-to-toe with moose, caribou, mountain goats, and mule deer, jumping in front of me and barking with all of his 12-pound might. 

 Not long after our annual Nares Mountain hike, Rufus got sick. Over the next four months, his health deteriorated despite trying just about every medical remedy to restore his vitality, even doggie acupuncture.

Meanwhile, our hikes got shorter. We were headed to Yakutania Point for one final hike when Rufus died just after pulling into the parking lot. 

Two months later, the lakes began to thaw. I drove north by myself in search of fish. While passing familiar mountain peaks, my eyes were instinctually drawn to the many places where Rufus once walked. Every shoreline trail became a memory conjuring hollow gut feelings born from the realization that nothing under the sun or moon could bring him back.

Empty spaces, inside and out.

Last October, Rufus and I didn’t spend much time atop Nares Mountain. The wind blew fiercely, and I had trouble maintaining my footing as we took our first steps down the mountain. It was our last big hike. Rufus slept in the passenger seat of the car on the drive home. 

Our first Nares Mountain hike was ten years earlier when Rufus was only two years old. It was a calm, sunny day and after reaching the summit, we sat down and ate lunch. When we were done eating, I leaned my back against a large boulder and Rufus sat on my lap, looking out over a half dozen mountain peaks we would one day crest and many miles of beach where we would eventually chase fish from sunup to sundown.

And yet of all those many memories, nothing can compare to the fullness of that moment on the mountain as the sun enveloped us in its warmth and we dozed off to sleep under a deep blue Yukon sky.