An Upside Down Garden Arbor. Photo by Third Eye Photography
“So we’re off–over a very rough and rutted pass headed towards Talkeetna. When we got to the pavement, we stopped by a really funky art gallery/flower and rock garden. It had upside down trees and beautiful flowers and ripe red raspberries for the picking. Inside, we found handmade purses, vintage jewelry, photos and watercolors. The woman who owned it, Sylva was nice and talked a lot explaining where the name Albino Hare Garden Gallery came from–she had the only albino snowshoe hare to be recorded in Alaska. It ate dinner at their table like a one-year old!–and lived for five years–she was a little crazy–but very personable. Now, the rain is making sweet music on the Laura Lee.
I was crabby all day, tired from the crick in my neck the last three days and not sleeping well. Plus, I was feeling like I’d had enough. And then we worked out with the weights Dad brought and got to take a shower. I feel so much better.–like a new person. Ahh–to be clean in clean clothes! How it all reminds you not to take the day-to-day amenities for granted. I am still a little sick of my tiny bed and I am totally sick of my neck hurting, but I can deal again. Showering is the key.”
Rebecca’s journal entry
The next morning dawns with a ghostly haze suspended over the mountain range, as we
An Albino Hare Garden birdhouse. Photo by Third Eye Photography
head out towards Denali National Park. On a road off the Parks Highway in Willow, we pass a sign, ‘The Albino Hare Garden Gallery’.
“Hey Stan, could you turn around? That place looks interesting.”
Stan coasts down the long gravel driveway to a house with a studio in the front yard. We can’t help but notice the back garden. I feel like I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole and have emerged in Alice’s Wonderland.
Rebecca photographs the whimsical garden.
There’s an arbor of trees, but the trees are turned upside down and the trunks are stuck into the ground with their root systems fully exposed on top, intertwining, creating an arbor. There are flowers growing within the upturned roots continuing the illusion. Exploding underneath are gigantic flowers–roses, nasturtiums, daisies, poppies and asters
Photo by Third Eye Photography
blooming in a rainbow of colors. Rebecca photographs the scene from every imaginable angle, squatting, peering down, sometimes lying on her back. I feel a little dizzy in this upside down world. I wander, like Alice through wonderland, seeing the world from a totally different perspective…curiouser and curiouser. I discover secret areas with hidden flowers and children’s toys tucked under a ledge.
Trying to regain my balance, I sit on a stone bench. The air is buzzing. Are the flowers talking to one another? A juicy caterpillar under the bench inches across a mushroom. It wouldn’t surprise me to see him puffing on a hookah asking, “Who are you?”
Sylva in The Albino Hare Garden Gallery. Photo by Third Eye Photography
We go into the gallery and browse through handcrafted handbags, jewelry, fine art prints and wonderful photography. The owner strolls in and she turns out to be the most peculiar character in this fantasy. Sylva’s in her forties and has a round face glowing with peachy skin. She shares a tale that is as fantastic as her garden.
“One day, while my husband and I were out walking,” she begins, “we spied a white fluffy ball sitting in the precise spot where my son’s dog had been killed by a car two weeks before. We approached this little furry ball and it turned out to be a baby albino snowshoe hare. We took the baby hare home and named him Kugi. It was the only known albino snowshoe hare in Alaska. I recorded his size and weight at the post office every month for the record.” She proudly shows us pictures of Kugi sitting with the family at the dining table, dinner plate and silverware neatly set in front of him with a bib tied around his neck.
Is this Alice’s white rabbit sitting at the table of the ‘very merry un-birthday party’ drinking tea with the insane March Hare?
“Kugi chewed his toast into heart shapes and loved to watch animal shows on TV,” Sylva tells us.
She waltzes to the corner of the gallery and points to a t-shirt hanging on the wall. On the
A flower under the upside-down arbor. Photo by Third Eye Photography
back of the shirt are printed several lengthy paragraphs narrating the story of “Kugi, the Albino Hare.” Tearfully, she tells us about his escape and ultimate death.
“He was hit by a car five years after I rescued him, right in front of the gallery. We had a burial ceremony in the garden.”
Besides the t-shirts, there are Kugi notecards, Kugi prints and a book in the making. Could it be titled, Kugi in Wonderland?
“He taught me the meaning of true love and friendship,” she says picking up a framed picture of Kugi from a shelf.
I’m speechless throughout this astonishing tale. I nod sympathetically, mumbling my regrets at Kugi’s demise. Rebecca buys a few pairs of earrings and Stan purchases a healing salve Sylva’s son concocted. She invites us into her garden to pick raspberries with her. There’s a thick mass of bushes dotted with large crimson berries.
Did the Queen of Hearts’ knaves paint them red while we were talking?
The Albino Hare Garden Rose. Photo by Third Eye Photography
As Stan sits peacefully under the arbor lingering in the golden gleam, Rebecca, Sylva and I pluck berries and talk about our lives. She is the artist, “Alana” who creates most of the wonderful art in the gallery. She picks up a rock in the shape of a heart and tells us that over the years, she has found three thousand heart-shaped rocks, carefully placing each one in her garden. “They’re everywhere you look.” Sylva picks one up offering it to me.
With a gift bag filled with luscious berries, we shake hands and walk back through the Looking Glass.
I smile, thinking, “Life, what is it, but a dream?”
Boldly Going Nowhere…JC
Photos by Third Eye Photography
Rubber Tramping Through The Last Frontier is my travel memoir of a bold, four month RV adventure by conventional ‘sixty-somethings’ into the wilds of Alaska. If you would like to be a follower of this blog, Google, Rubber Tramping Through The Last Frontier, go to the blog and click on the follow button.
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