To My Siberian Hiking Companion
The ground was hard, the light was soft, and the breeze carried a cold that cut straight into my lungs. Siberia seemed quiet and empty, just as I had imagined. But when I forced myself to notice things, a practice honed through nine months of non-stop solo travel, I could see the ground quivering, blades of grass bleached yellow by the autumn sun. Sergey, the wild-haired man who owned the B&B where I was staying, had driven me through the woods and up a steep hill to this viewpoint. After he drove off, I spotted a single cow staring off into the horizon as if it had momentarily forgotten why it had gone up the hill in the first place.
Then I noticed you.
You weren’t the first dog I had seen since arriving two days earlier; far from it. It appeared most households on Olkhon Island, a crescent of land in Lake Baikal, had a dog, and that the pets were left to roam free. It made sense. How far could they—you—even go, surrounded as we were by the deepest lake in the world? Could you really get lost, on an island of fewer than 2,000 people?
You approached with trepidation—a few steps forward, a quick retreat back, your ears folded back and your brown, liquid eyes wide and submissive. I put my hand out and my frozen fingers connected with your wet snout, then your rough tongue.
“Good dog,” I said. And continued on my way.
Minutes later, I noticed your bouncing silhouette next to mine. The sun covered the dust along the lakeshore in a golden blanket and your lithe shadow reappeared in my periphery, black as an abyss. I turned around and there you were, trotting just a few feet behind me. Another dog barked in your direction; you paid no attention, intent on pacing around my perimeter, occasionally ahead of me. For forty-five minutes, we went on like this. Just when I’d think you had gone on your way, disappearing into a thicket of larch trees, you would reemerge, and run towards me.
I saw the brown leather collar around your neck—you liked it when I scratched right behind it—and wondered who you belonged to. Did you leave home after breakfast every day, just to return in time for dinner? Was I one of many visitors you guided, or did you see something in me that only animals can? In a place home to so few people, surely you could sense I craved connection.
We walked through what had been described to me as “the Buryat village,” a collection of wooden houses where many of Olkhon’s indigenous population live. Solitary trees wrapped in colorful ribbons stood guard between houses, facing the lake. Each knot, on each strip of fabric, was evidence of a different prayer. Two young boys with shoulder-length black hair that glistened in the late afternoon light took turns on a shiny BMX bicycle, teaching themselves how to bunnyhop.
“Were you a traveler like me, in search of adventure and a story? A departed loved one, briefly crossed over from another plane of existence, to say hello? A guardian sent to watch over a lonely soul far from home? Or just a bored and friendly dog with nothing better to do than join a four-hour hike to nowhere? ”
We kept walking. Another half an hour passed before we neared the town of Khuzhir; I knew, because I could see the fishing boats in the harbor and the blue dome of the tiny church at the top of the hill. You still followed me. I opened a bag of potato chips and offered you one, but you weren’t interested. You drank some water out of the palm of my hand.
When I reached the top of the hill, on the town’s outer limits, I sat on the cold ground to take in the sunset. Amber rays lit up Shaman Rock, the holiest of peninsulas in a holy land. You laid down in front of me to watch the sun dip into the ancient lake. I knew this place was sacred to the Buryat, a people who followed a shamanistic religion that saw the boundaries between the animal and the inanimate as more porous than I did, the pathways between the living and the spirit worlds more frequently traversed. Were you a traveler like me, in search of adventure and a story? A departed loved one, briefly crossed over from another plane of existence, to say hello? A guardian sent to watch over a lonely soul far from home? Or just a bored and friendly dog with nothing better to do than join a four-hour hike to nowhere? Your ears perked up briefly and you emitted a low growl when a husky approached—and then retreated. Satisfied, you dropped your head onto your paws and waited until I was done with a sunset you saw every day. I didn’t notice the tears on my cheeks until they started to freeze.
Darkness descended quickly and with it, so did the temperature. I walked towards the center of town, where a single strip of dirt, as wide as Fifth Avenue, marked Khuzhir’s main drag. You came with. Shivering and hungry, I followed the scent of fish soup to a brightly lit wood cabin with the Cyrillic letters close enough to my own for me to recognize “cafe.” I bent down and scratched behind your ears, kissed your toffee-brown forehead goodbye, and went inside. You watched me through the panes of glass on the door as I ate my soup and drank a beer, somehow lukewarm in this frozen land. I watched you back and wondered why you waited. Perhaps you sensed that I hoped you’d still be there when I was done.
Then, it happened—too quickly for me to react. Two dogs—one a tangle of dusty black fur, the other with the squat stature perfect for nipping at heels—cornered you and started barking and biting. I ran outside, but it was too late. You were gone, as if swallowed by the sky along with the last motes of light.
The two newcomers glanced up at me briefly. Then they turned and sprinted away into the night.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sebastian Modak is a freelance writer and multimedia journalist based in New York City. He spent 2019 circling the globe as the New York Times' 52 Places Traveler, reporting from every destination on the Times' 52 Places to Go list. His work has also appeared in The Washington Post, Condé Nast Traveler, AFAR, and other publications.
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Header photo by Sergey Pesterev