Wild Territory E-Book

Steffen Kjær

• Herausgeber: Aniara
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 221

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

In the far North, where landscapes seem carved from endurance itself, men of all ages test their limits—against nature, each other, and the quiet within. In River Rafting, Frederik faces violent waterfalls, haunted by his need to prove himself and captivated by Sarah, who is fascinated by cool rafting guides. Two friends, Jon and Nilas, chase exhilaration in Mountain Climbing, only to find that the highest peaks demand more than courage—they demand reckoning. In Teambuilding, a company retreat in the woods turns into a brutal game of power and fear where teamwork is a facade and rivalry runs deep. And in Press Card, journalist Jeppe and photographer Michael race from one dazzling freeride ski resort to the next, chasing the perfect story—until ambition itself becomes the deadliest terrain. In six short stories, author and mountaineer Steffen Kjaer uncovers a deeper wilderness, where survival instincts blur with desire, and where ambition sometimes erodes judgment.

Leseprobe

Wild Territory

A Short Story Collection

Steffen Kjaer

Contents

1. River Rafting

2. Mountain Climbing

3. Team-Building

4. The Press Card

5. Yosemite National Park

6. The Fells of Lapland

Aniara, 2025

www.aniara.one

© Steffen Kjaer

Original title: Vildmarken

English translation by Aniara

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by EU copyright law.

ISBN Print: 978-91-8995-470-0

ISBN E-book: 978-91-8995-471-7

River Rafting

He tensed every muscle. Adrenaline surged through his body. Now he just had to get through the first of the waterfall’s three drops somehow.

“Paddle!” he shouted, his voice echoing off the mountains surrounding the river. Half-hearted shouting wouldn’t cut it—you needed solid lungfuls of air to be heard above the roar of the massive cascades of water. “Paddle! Hard forward!” It was his first season as a rafting guide, and now there was only one week until it all began, when the first tourists would arrive. While the thought that he’d soon be responsible for guiding paying guests lingered in the back of his mind, it certainly wasn’t his main preoccupation now, 10 seconds before the waterfall.

8 seconds. 6 seconds. Wow, wow, wow, he managed to think, but quickly converted all instincts into shouted commands:

“Hard paddle! Right! Right!” Frederik yelled. But the extra force on the raft’s right side came too late and wasn’t enough to break free of the large boulder in the middle of the current. He should have given the signal 3 to 5 seconds earlier.

Damn it, he thought, leaning out over the side from his position at the back of the raft. This way he could use his weight to maintain balance, preventing the entire raft from flipping and dumping them all into the thundering, cold river.

In the raft was the center’s owner, an English expat, John Ratcliff. Around 40, no children, a local girlfriend. The others just called him Boss or sometimes Cliff, so Frederik did the same.

“Sorry, Cliff!” Frederik shouted, quickly glancing around between the boss and the other guides in the raft to catch their expressions. How could they sit there so unfazed, barely 20 seconds after they’d all nearly been sent on their own dubious swimming adventures?

“Well done, Rookie!” called the guide sitting furthest forward on the left in what was really just a massive rubber boat. Five feet wide and almost thirteen feet long.

Frederik smiled back, nodded his head and mumbled, “Thanks, Nick!” He wasn’t sure if the recognition was genuine, but right now he’d take anything that even resembled approval.

Nick was one of the regular seasonal workers from England who came to Norway in summer to guide rafts. He had spent his first winter season in India, but also talked about six months on the Zambezi River in Africa. Nick was a tough guy. And it was crystal clear that he had Cliff’s deep respect.

“The landscape is incredibly beautiful, and everyone is so nice,” Frederik wrote to his mother on the back of the postcard. To his friends back home, he wrote that the river’s main fall looked like something that could strip away your courage and your skin in no time, but that he was chilling with the other guides; that there were parties and fires in the camp’s oil drums every evening; and that he was trying to “stay mellow,” as the guides kept saying to each other.

There was a particular attitude that Frederik hadn’t yet mastered. It was about being cool without being arrogant; about looking like someone who had everything under control. And above all, being unfazed—facing up to every challenge with just the right amount of insouciance.

At twenty-three, he envisioned a life where he could guide on the river every summer. Though his experience was limited so far, he felt certain that his recent years of mountain expeditions and countless weeks exploring unknown canoe routes had given him a foundation that would serve him well at the rafting center.

In the evening, there was a meeting for the guides. They all sat on two benches at the massive plank table. The large wooden terrace on the side of the building seemed to hover above the plateau where the stack of rafts lay, and Frederik sat where he could look out over the river. It was drizzling, but nobody seemed to care. Nick wore his sunglasses and a sun-bleached cap that signaled... Well, Frederik wasn’t quite sure what that kind of thing signaled anymore, but it was definitely a cool cap. There was something distinctly guide-like about it.

“There are three items on the agenda,” John Ratcliff announced. “First, we need to get everything ready for Monday when three groups are coming. Second, we need to discuss wages and such. And third, starting tomorrow, we’ll have two more people at the center, Sarah and Pernille, two girls around twenty... Some kind of internship. Something to do with event management or something like that.”

No one heard the last part, but everyone had clearly caught the bit about two twenty-year-old girls.

Nick smiled broadly with self-assurance. Then he said something about hot girls and rafting guides and the riverbanks of India. He nodded his head rhythmically while drumming his fingers on the table.

“Could anyone help these two ladies get settled in?” John Ratcliff asked, looking cheerfully around at the gathering of guides, who were all more than ready to assist. It was an easy win. Hands shot up all around the table. All five guides, including Frederik.

“Of course, Boss,” said Kyle, this season’s only Australian so far. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.” The others booed, Nick swatted at Kyle’s cap, and someone else mumbled that he could help too if there was more to be done. Then they laughed even harder. Kyle adjusted his hair, making sure the long, scraggly ponytail sat just right under his cap.

The guides’ pay was 130 kroner. Frederik could start at 110 kroner. Driving their own cars would pay 2 kroner per kilometer, if agreed with Cliff. And then it was just a matter of distributing the tasks between them.

“Just a moment, Boss,” Nick said. “130 kroner for guiding, I heard, but I didn’t hear what the safety would get. In the places where I’ve worked before...’ And then he started listing the Indian rivers, several other Norwegian spots, and finally the Zambezi, emphasizing each syllable of Zam-be-zi. “The safety kayaker has always had the highest pay.”

Frederik wasn’t quite sure what a safety kayaker actually did, so he kept quiet. Several others looked down at the table. But Kyle backed Nick up. Calmly meeting Cliff’s eyes, he said that it seemed like fair pay for a safety role. That probably only Nick and Kyle himself could be considered for the job, and that they were, of course, ready for the responsibility, even when the waves would run high, as he put it. And with that, the matter was settled. A safety would get 150 kroner per hour.

The sun was shining, and the valley’s early summer fragrances drifted on the morning breeze from the mountain’s plants and flowers. It was impossible not to notice. But strongest of all was the scent of pine.

Frederik’s tent stood near the forest at the edge of the rafting center grounds. Behind it, a number of trees had been felled, and when the sun beat down hard on the bed of woodchips and bark, the scent was strong and utterly dominant.

In a way it smelled good, Frederik thought, not knowing that this very scent of pine would stay with him forever, becoming one of the most powerful associations he would ever store in his inner web of experiences and memories. He had no idea that in the future, this scent would forever preserve a memory of shattered dreams and extinguished hopes.

In front of his tent stood his small folding table with a couple of chairs, and he had tuned the music to Bruce Springsteen. The lyrics were about how hard it was to escape small-town life and break free. About how tough it was to make ends meet. One day Frederik would have to go to America and see it all for himself. It was almost inevitable that he would end up disappointed if he found any scenario different from what Bruce was singing about.

“Come meet the camp’s new rays of sunshine,” Kyle shouted to Frederik from the driveway, where he was trudging along with most of Sarah and Pernille’s luggage. The girls walked beside him, their hands full managing sleeping bags and camping mats under their arms, flip-flops on their feet, trying to free up a hand for proper greetings, large sunglasses hiding smiling eyes, and beneath it all, a hint of nervousness.

Kyle had greeted them when they got off the bus, and was already a step ahead of everyone else. He made introductions, smiled, joked, and generally did his best to make Sarah and Pernille feel at ease.

In the afternoon, Kyle was supposed to show Frederik the route that the rafting center usually used when guiding groups on mountain hikes. This was another skill guides needed to master. Later, Frederik would be introduced to climbing and rappelling, but for now it was all about the mountain. He just needed to pack a light backpack with some food, a water bottle, first aid equipment, and a windproof jacket.

“Can you handle a map and compass?” Kyle asked, smiling as he tossed a map case into Frederik’s arms.

“Yeah, I should think so,” he replied, hoping he could still remember everything. First, he needed to orient the map so that north on the map aligned with north in the terrain. That was easy enough. Then he had to find his starting point. Where was the rafting center? Obviously east of the river, he knew that much. And south of the dam where they’d put the raft in yesterday. So it must be around here somewhere, he thought, letting his finger trace along the winding blue line on the map.

“This must be the rafting center,” he said, pointing at the map and looking up at Kyle.

“Yep, and we’re throwing one hell of a barbecue here tonight to welcome the new girls. That is, if we can find our way back,” Kyle said, grinning in a way that probably only an Australian could pull off. He pointed to a small cross on the map: “We need to get up there. After you, Rookie.”

The route started right behind Frederik’s tent. The first stretch followed winding forest trails, and along the way, Kyle explained everything worth noting as a guide. He pointed and explained. Here you could see the trail markings on trees and rocks. If the mountain was dry, he could take the route to the left across the flat rocks. However, if it had rained, the rock would be slippery, and then he’d need to take the group a bit further through the forest before reaching the open mountain plateau.

As a guide, you had to remember that you always had your group’s trust. In fact, you had it even before you’d guided them through anything at all. It might seem strange. But that was just how it worked. A guide was someone people looked up to, Kyle explained, emphasizing that this kind of respect came with obligations.

Frederik thought it was all incredible. He could almost feel himself becoming a guide already. He was eager to learn and made an effort to remember everything. Along the way, they were supposed to turn around to see the route as it would appear if they needed to find their way back. It was a clever trick. And there were more like that. If you made sure to place your heel high on the trail’s stones and small rock fragments, the climb wasn’t nearly as hard on your calf muscles. These were the kind of things worth passing on to your groups.

At the summit, Frederik learned how to triangulate his position. It was a useful technique when you weren’t exactly sure where you were but could still recognize distant landmarks.

Sitting on their respective backpacks, they simply enjoyed the view, their packed lunch, and the tranquility. It was strange to think about how the landscape had transformed with almost every hundred meters of elevation they had hiked. Up here, everything was open. The rock was rounded, and the plateau was shaped in large, gentle waves. Kyle explained that these forms were created during the Ice Age, when the ice had pushed its glaciers across the mountains.

“Who wants beer?” Nick shouted from the riverbank. Everyone did, and Nick made quite a show of pulling the chilled bottles from the river, which this time of year was still barely warmer than a refrigerator. Frederik was tending the grill a few meters away, while Kyle played Radiohead and all sorts of other indie rock.

And Sarah and Pernille were smiling, relaxed. That was almost the most important thing. They were the real stars of the show, as Nick explained when he kicked off the party by declaring that a guide’s worth could always be measured by their ability to party and make newcomers feel welcome.

“Yeah, make it a huge one, dudes!” This time it was Kyle shouting. Out on the water, they watched a raft from a competing rafting company slam over one of the rapid’s holes. Frederik heard the others talking about how you could get sucked back into that hole if the raft wasn’t carrying enough speed.

“Hang on, guys!” Sarah called out to the group on the river, who had now made it through the most challenging part of the route. She was the more outgoing of the two girls and seemed to be enjoying the happy atmosphere. Maybe Pernille just needed more time to get to know people, Frederik thought as he sat down between her and Sarah, asking them if they had tried rafting before. Neither of them had, but they were hoping to get a trip in one of these days.

“Hey Kyle!” Frederik shouted. “Think we can take the girls out on the water if we’re training tomorrow?”

“Do bears shit in the woods?” Kyle yelled back and answered his own rhetorical question: “You bet they do!” Then he flicked the brim of his cap and said of course they could, and the girls should get ready for adventure. Nick asked if perhaps they might need a real guide then? He flashed a wide smile, puffed out his chest and shouted that now they were going to have a proper party. In front of them, the river roared, and the sun was about to disappear behind the mountain.

There was always something to do at the center. The wooden building was two stories high and about twice the size of a typical family house in the area. John Ratcliff lived on the top floor. Downstairs housed a shop, common room, and changing facilities for all the guests. The storage area was accessible from the building’s exterior. One room was filled with all the dry equipment. There were backpacks, climbing gear, and all kinds of tools. In the adjacent room stood two large plastic barrels with their lids cut off, now used to store paddles. There were at least 50 paddles, all positioned with the blade up and T-grip down. Along the back wall, iron pipes hung horizontally from the ceiling beams by climbing ropes, serving as floating racks for all the wetsuits, spray jackets, and life vests.

“Start by taking all the paddles out. You can lay them in the grass. The blue barrels need to come out too—hose them down and then fill them with water and a liter of soap from this container.” Cliff was in a commanding mood this morning, dishing out tasks left and right. The season was approaching, and everything had to be perfect. The soapy water would be used to wash all the suits. Frederik and Sarah were assigned that task. First all the spray jackets, the tight-fitting waterproof jackets for the guests, then the wetsuits, which were sleeveless full-body suits made of neoprene. Afterwards, everything needed to be rinsed and hung to dry in the sun. There was sweeping to be done, and every single life vest needed to have its stitching and straps inspected. In front of the building, the other guides were busy pumping up the fleet of large rubber rafts. There was apparently one that needed patching.

“So, did you enjoy the view from the mountain?” Cliff asked while showing Frederik how to clean a spray jacket.

“Yes, it was really beautiful up there,” he replied.

“Kyle says you’re good with a map and compass, and that you managed to find your way back to the party yesterday too,” Cliff said, nodding approvingly before adding that he was confident Frederik would have a good season at the center.

Each year brought new encounters with young men like Frederik. Here they could explore and experience. A season at the rafting center was a modern journey of self-discovery. There were similarities, of course. But a season on the river still differed from the more classical journey, where the goal was to see as much as possible, absorb impressions, feel the changes, and experience new winds and foreign cultures. On an extreme sports journey of self-discovery, it was about being an active part of it all. It required challenges. The rush. You had to experience it yourself. It was about testing yourself where the safety net was minimal. And it was all about being part of the lifestyle.

“And what about you, Sarah?... I hear you and Pernille are getting on the water this afternoon. Should be a great run. They’re releasing 80 meters today,” Cliff said as he walked to Pernille and handed her a bucket of paint for the garden furniture, and then it was time to get to work.

“Frederik, what did he mean by releasing 80 meters?” Sarah asked.

“I don’t know,” Frederik said, feeling like he should say something more but finding it hard to think of anything clever. He glanced at her neck and her legs. She was a pretty girl.

“We’re going to run this exactly like we would any other session with guests,” Cliff said. “The first ones arrive in two days. But today we have Katrine’s friends helping us fill up a raft.” Nick whistled, gave a little nod of his head, and said it would definitely be something to remember.

Katrine was Cliff’s girlfriend and quite a capable rafting guide herself. Cliff arranged the teams. Kyle and Frederik would take turns guiding one raft, where Sarah and Pernille would join them along with two of Katrine’s friends. Nick would be safety in the kayak by the waterfall, and the rest would go in the other raft.

Everyone piled into the bus, which could hold fifteen passengers. At the back, they had the trailer where the two rafts were stacked and loosely secured.

“Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” Kyle sang from the driver’s seat, laying on the horn and cranking up the music. It was two kilometers to their put-in spot. “I don’t like rafting!... I love it!” Kyle bellowed, swaying to the reggae beats from the bus’s crackling sound system.

“Hang on, dudes!” Nick shouted from the seat next to Kyle, resting his arm in the window frame and throwing a hand signal toward himself.

It was Kyle who gave all the instructions outside the bus before they hauled their gear the final meters down to the water. Frederik pondered which of the two, Kyle or Nick, was higher in the hierarchy. It was hard to tell. There was definitely great respect for Nick’s abilities on the water, and when Kyle said something, people listened.

“They’re releasing 80 meters today!” Nick shouted. He stood next to the trailer, briefing everyone about the afternoon trip. “That means the dam operators have informed us they’re letting 80 cubic meters of water slip through every second. So I reckon we might get a bit of a bounce going downstream.” He grinned and explained that an expedition always began with the mandatory swim test for participants. “And Frederik, if you haven’t had yours yet, you’ve got something to look forward to. But don’t worry, we’ll be downstream with a throw line.” Nick put his helmet on his head, grabbed his paddle, and walked out onto the rocks by the water’s edge.

They stood just 50 meters from the dam. The noise was so loud they could barely hear each other. Kyle explained to Frederik that the dam could release anywhere between 50 and 200 cubic meters of water per second. That the volume, of course, made a huge difference to how wild the rafting would be. That 50 was so little that many of the troublesome rocks weren’t covered. And that 200 was crazy. Eighty was fine.

Frederik could feel the nervousness growing in his stomach and chest. Kyle told him to just take some deep breaths and, when he was ready, jump as far out into the waterfall as he could. Further downstream, Nick and the two other guides stood out on the rocks. Nick signaled that Frederik could jump.

He jumped as far as he could and went completely under, but the buoyancy of his sturdy life vest immediately thrust him back to the surface. Now he had to remember everything he’d been taught. He gasped in the cold water. First, he needed to float on his back with his feet downstream. That way, his feet would hit any rocks in the water, and he could kick off them. Frederik knew this had to be done right. He hammered through the waves. Water slammed into his face. It was all about breathing whenever his head cleared the water. Nick blew hard on his whistle, signaling Frederik that it was time to swim. Frederik rolled onto his stomach and front crawled toward the shore. All the while, the current was so strong that he shot past the first guide, who hesitated to throw his line. Under no circumstances should you try to stand up in the water—your feet could get trapped under a rock, forcing you underwater, possibly without any chance of breaking free.

Each guide carried a throw bag with a floating line neatly packed inside, designed to unfurl during the throw. If needed, the swimmer could grab hold of it and be pulled to safety. But Frederik was determined to make it in without help. He tore through the water with powerful strokes. The other guide raised his throw bag and looked at Nick, who stood furthest downstream. Nick shook his head, and the guide lowered his arm without throwing. Ten meters before he would have passed Nick, Frederik made it to shore. He got a firm grip on a rock at the water’s edge, took a couple of deep breaths, and pulled himself up onto the bank.

“Well done, Frederik,” Nick shouted, waving his paddle toward the next person who could now jump in.

“This here is the raft’s chicken line,” Kyle explained. “If we really get the raft rocking, you can grab the chicken line with one hand.” He pointed to the rope that was mounted all the way around the top of the raft’s inflatable frame. “But never... never, never, never let go of your T-grip. You can grab the chicken line with the hand closest to the water from where you’re sitting. Reach across the paddle so the shaft sits under your arm. And then hold tight to your paddle at the T-grip,” he said, referring to the paddle’s handle. And then he warned again that the T-grip could knock out teeth and anything else that wasn’t secure.

And that was that. Now it was time for Sarah and Pernille’s first trip. The raft glided away from shore. Frederik sat as guide in the back on the right, wielding a paddle longer than the ones the guests had. He had wedged his left foot firmly into the foot strap at the bottom of the raft. This way he could lean out over the edge without falling into the water. He leaned out and took a few powerful strokes with the paddle to correct their course.

“We might quickly need a low center of gravity in the raft,” Frederik explained as they drifted toward the first rapid. “So if I shout ‘get down,’ you need to immediately grab the chicken line and throw yourselves flat down into the bottom of the raft. That way we can probably avoid flipping the whole thing.”.

“Get down! Get down!” Frederik shouted barely 20 seconds later, and everyone dropped down into the raft. It was only a test, but it mattered. Two people had let go of their T-grips, and Kyle stressed the need for concentration.

The first and smallest of the three rapids was approaching. Frederik could feel the adrenaline rising again. Pernille looked down, and Sarah glanced back briefly at Frederik. He smiled at her.

“Forward paddle! Hard right! Hard right!”

The course was exactly right. Frederik couldn’t have steered them better through the first rapid. Now he just needed to keep better control of himself.

“Let’s get everyone home today,” Kyle said. “Including the guides,” he added, pointing back at Frederik, who was swimming quite a distance behind the raft. At the bottom of the rapid, his foot had slipped out of the footstrap. It was stupid. It irritated Frederik, and he briefly wondered if Cliff, or even worse, Nick, had seen his little mishap. It was fine now. But next time Frederik would be the only guide in the raft, and he’d stay on board.

It was a quiet evening at the rafting center. Frederik was cooking with Sarah and Pernille. The other guides had gone back to their rented cabin up on the mountain, but might return later to play beach volleyball. Cliff was rarely seen in the evenings. He was probably trying to maintain some kind of privacy.

The next day would bring another packed schedule, with Frederik and Kyle, and possibly one of the other guides, taking a group out to the cliffs for climbing. Frederik was already looking forward to it. He had some experience himself, had participated in various courses, and definitely knew enough to be part of the safety team for the event. He was eager to see the spot.

“I hope you all like tomatoes?” Frederik asked. And they said they did. He felt quite confident about the recipe and in other situations would have bragged about his signature dish. But if he was going to boast, it should be something worth boasting about.