The small, utilitarian private charter plane landed with a bump on a rough, frozen airstrip. The air that rushed into the cabin was brutally cold, sharp with the scent of pine and ice—a world away home.
Clara led me out into the early hours of the morning. Above us, the sky was a deep, velvet black pricked with impossibly bright stars.
The final leg was a grueling, two-hour drive in a sturdy 4x4, bumping along unpaved tracks. When we finally arrived, the cabin was exactly as Nash had described: isolated, solid, and utterly silent. It was a rustic, two-story structure made of rough-hewn logs, tucked deep within a valley, surrounded by miles of unbroken Canadian wilderness. There were no lights visible for miles.
Clara quickly showed me the essentials: the wood-burning stove, the satell
