Spring 2020 issue Backcountry Journal

All photos courtesy of David Sumner
Shaler Lake trail. An Akubra hat had replaced his hunting cap, and he
now wore shorts instead of the old Levis, but it was clearly him, fly
rod in hand. Yet, as he approached, he seemed strangely dour, and as
he entered camp he wiped away tears. Seeing my concerned visage, he
laughed at his emotions.
“David,” he reminded me, “I came here with my father, and I brought
you here. Mt. Aggazis, Spread Eagle Peak, Jordan, Everyman, the other
lakes. This is the most beautiful place in the world.” A pause, another
embarrassed laugh, emotion in his throat. “When it’s time,” he said,
“bring my ashes here. Bring my ashes here.”
We ate fish that night—the ancestors of the ancestors of the fish I
ate in 1980, the fish he ate in 1948. I burned my fingers as I pulled the
packet from the fire. I slit the foil, the steam rose; I lifted the tail and
with a fork separated the delicate flesh from the fine, translucent bones.
I could taste the lakes; I could taste the glaciers.
BHA member David Thomas Sumner grew up outside of Salt Lake City,
Utah, in the small town of Granite. He read Bring my Ashes Here as a
tribute to his father, Robert Smith Sumner, at his memorial last April. David
currently lives in McMinnville, Oregon, where he is professor of English and
environmental studies at Linfield College. When he isn’t teaching, writing
or playing guitar with his bluegrass band, he loves nothing more than to
wander the wild places of the West with friends, family and a fly rod.
WILDERNESS
HIKING - WORKSHOPS - HUNTING
SPRING 2020 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 57