Hanson Island Winter 2

For His Old Branches II

Leave a comment

The rain falls as a fine drizzle, turning the surface of each rock and log smooth and slick. My body feels unbalanced, the chainsaw in one hand, oil and two stroke fuel in the other. Beyond the crunch of my boots against the loose rock the world is silent. Blackney Pass stands calm and tranquil. The vista slows my heart and mind. This view. How easy to glance past it after all these months. The islands and channels are worn into my mind like the creases and callouses on my hands. Swanson, Harbledown, Baronet, Cracroft, Blackfish. What names. They stir the imagination, fall smoothly from lips and tongue like water over stones. For years I stared at maps, brushing my fingers over their namesakes, their crude imitations of green and blue put to paper. Now? I see them every day. May the novelty never fade.

I bend over the chainsaw and pull the cord. Through my ear muffs I can hear and feel the vibrating base of the saw as it comes to life. Oil, fuel, and metal. In my hands, with the simple pull of a trigger, I become master of the woods. Capable of felling trees that have patiently grown for a millennia, evicting squirrel, thrush, and deer as the roar of progress and the thunder of manifest destiny march through the woods. But for this I have no desire. I could no sooner fell a growing Cedar than take a man’s life.

I head down the beach. I’m searching for a sacrifice. For a gift willing to disappear from the physical world through the chimney of our cabin leaving only a small pile of ash as a talisman. The log is weathered and worn, maybe a little water logged. But its location is good, and cutting this one opens up space to negotiate the nicer, friendlier logs behind it. I pull the safety, click the button, and the war cry of humanity echoes off the standing trees. I cut with my head down, the trigger pressed halfway. The sharpened chain cuts clean and smooth. No knots. No warping. What a tree it must have been. Before it was reduced to this. Reduced to laying naked on the rocks, it’s branches stripped, its roots severed. I love reading the stories of the old hand loggers. The one’s that went up Tribune channel just north of here. Each tree was selected with care. It had to be. For each one had to be felled just right and rolled into the ocean. Clearcutting wasn’t just unnatural, it was impossible. Hard work. Anything but glamorous. That I could do. No one hand logs anymore. Carve a road into the hills and forests. Strip the forest. Every. Last. Tree. This log I’m cutting is nothing more than a refugee.

Brittney joins the ritual. She wraps her arms around the rounds as they roll free and patiently walks them up the beach, dropping them with a thud that shakes the forest floor. The rain continues to fall, mixing with the sweat on my brow and back. Cutting wood always makes me perspire. I have no idea why. I’m just standing here after all.

I work with my back to the water, the incline slightly uphill. After a time I stop and rise, stretch my back, and turn. A tug and its massive tow fills the strait. It chugs south with diligence. The rumble of the massive diesel engines echo in my chest. My eyes fall on the tow and a snarl spreads across my face. A log tow. Hundreds, maybe thousands of logs lay piled a hundred feet high. A hundred logs high and a hundred wide. Plucked from the raincoast, heading south to await their fate. As what? I’d be lying if I said I knew. Homes? Mulch? Toilet paper? It makes little difference in the moment as a wave of disgust washes over me.

The chainsaw vibrates and slides over the rocks, bumping against my foot, reminding me of my hypocrisy, that I’m standing in three inches of sawdust. That I live in a wooden cabin. That the kayak my father is lovingly crafting for me is made of it. What if the wood for my kayak was once on a barge like this? What if it had been pulled south, past this lab. So that I could one day paddle the inlets it had once looked over.

What’s enough? What is ethical? What is right? The oil companies had a field day a few years back when Shell’s big oil platform pulled into Seattle. Hundreds of big hearted, environmentally conscious people took to the water in kayaks, many of them plastic. Floating thanks to an industry that allowed them to be there. Does that make them hypocrites? Does it muffle or mute the cause they stand for? Do I have a right to feel angry when a log tow goes by? Is it enough to say that I’m doing what I can and accept that it’s impossible to not impact the environment negatively in some way?

There’s no answer from the ocean. Hard to hear with these ear muffs on and the saw rumbling. Avocados from Mexico, bananas from California. Oil, carbon, trees, methane, melting ice caps, Republicans. Dear God. And I’m worried about a couple of trees?

“Do what you can with what you have.”

Who said that? Roosevelt I think. Teddy or Franklin? I can’t remember.

A pillar of Christianity is that we are imperfect and that Jesus does not require us to be. We need forgiveness because we’ll keep screwing up. I look down at the log and feel a shiver run down my neck as the sweat and raindrops cool on my shirt. I think about the book I’m writing, that I want to see published. More than one if I can pull the wool over the eyes of an editor. Books that will be published… on paper since stone tablets went out of style years ago.

Just because I’m an imperfect environmentalist doesn’t mean I shouldn’t, or can’t talk about it. For if we wait until we’re not harming it at all, we’ll be delivering the message on horseback in between long treks through the forest, hunting with sharpened sticks and rocks. Next summer I’ll sit in my wooden kayak, and I’ll do so without guilt. From its seat I can be an agent of change. I can touch the lives of thousands of people as I lead them into the wonder of Glacier Bay. Reminding them gently, patiently, that if we lose this we lose ourselves.

I pick up the chainsaw. I’d be lying if I said I felt good about it as the sawdust started to fly again. One by one we carry the rounds up the hill and to the chopping block to where our woodshed (made of wood) stands. Beyond it is the forest. A forest rebounding from logging. At its heart stands Grandma Cedar, the ancient tree that has survived so much, has seen it all. A forest that, if we keep talking about it, will never hear the sound of a chainsaw in its depths again.

Hanson Island Winter 2

Unexpected Good News is the Best News

1 Comment

I wanted to write about something happy. Something hopeful and uplifting. But for the last couple months, it’s been hard not to feel cynical. What with all the political news, the hate and xenophobia that has infested and captivated all of us whether we’re for it or against it. Even here, on Hanson Island. I quit social media cold turkey for a few days. Every time I logged on I got mad, frustrated, defeated.

But not today. Not tomorrow, probably not for the rest of the week. I needed good news, needed a victory, something to reinstall my faith in humanity. It was SeaWorld of all places, that delivered it. Yesterday the aquarium giant announced an end to the breeding of captive Orcas and “circus style” performances. The finish line is still in the distant future, but at least it’s now visible.

There is of course, a PR spin on this, pivoting around the tenants of “world class care” and “more natural encounters.” We can peruse and scrutinize this is we want, but it’s been clear since the moment that Tilikum grabbed Dawn Brancheau’s ponytail, that SeaWorld couldn’t continue in its current state. Ever since it’s been a gradual slide. From the proposed ending of the circus shows in San Diego, to the “Blue World” proposal. Yesterday, SeaWorld in a way, admitted defeat. Though they’ll never come out and say it, announcing an end to captive breeding and by association, an end to Orca’s in captivity is admitting what animal activists have been saying for years. There is no ethical or conceivable way to keep a massive and intelligent animal in captivity.

Tilikum’s pending death may have had something to do with the announcement. The loss of one of their few breeding males would make the genetic logistics of their breeding program even more difficult and SeaWorld may have been planning for such an announcement. This is all speculation of course. Maybe they looked at their plummeting stocks, attendance records, and a new generation raised on Free Willy and realized there was no future.

But today, I’m not concerned with why SeaWorld is doing what they’re doing, or what their motives were. Today is one of celebration with potential domino effects sweeping across the globe. The end of breeding includes SeaWorld subsidiary Lolo Parque, home to four other Orcas and puts added pressure on the Miami Seaquarium, a small aquarium that is home to  Lolita, a southern Resident who has been in captivity nearly as long as Corky of the northern Residents. Without big brother to hide behind, the spotlight falls more brightly on Miami to, if nothing else, end their performance shows.

With SeaWorld’s focus on low adrenaline and educational shows, the door remains cracked for Corky to come home. After more than 45-years in captivity the prospect of Corky rejoining the A5s and swimming a hundred miles a day seems daunting. But just west of OrcaLab is a long, deep cove called Dong Chong Bay. It was here that Springer, an orphaned and lost Orca was successfully reintroduced to the wild. It would be both poetic and fitting for Corky to live out her days in the bay, chasing wild fish, hearing and associating with her family under the excellent care and attention that SeaWorld has touted for years.

As we celebrate, it’s important to remember the war is not over. Dolphins, Sea Lions, otters, penguins, and polar bears remain large parts of the SeaWorld empire. And while Orcas have deserved the lion’s share of the activism and spotlight, the time has come to tell them that more can be done. The dolphin trade remains one of the more despicable and darker aspects of human kind, with the dolphins life in captivity no better than the Orcas.

I never thought this day would come. I assumed SeaWorld would go down with the ship, beating the drum of education and quality care until they disappeared from existence. But, out of nowhere, they did the right thing. And for that they need to be applauded, commended, and encouraged to do more.

Hanson Island Winter 2

Dear Tilikum

Leave a comment

Dear Tilikum,

First, I apologize for not writing this sooner. I’m sure you could have done with some more reading material with all your down time. I mean, how many times can you read the Harry Potter series before your eyes start to cross? What have you heard about this Harry Potter world in Orlando? Seems a bit silly if you ask me. Anyway…

May I call you Tilly? Tilikum just seems too aggressive. An unfair name for an unfair life I suppose. I don’t know what they’re telling you when they drop herring down your throat, inject you with antibiotics, and do whatever horrors they must to keep an amazing animal like you alive in such horrid conditions, but it’s not your fault.

None of it. You understand?

Anyone torn from their family, abused by strangers, and penned up in the dark night with the walls inches from their flippers would do the same. Let no one tell you different. In our desperate hours we do desperate things. You, like the rest of the wild world, is best left alone. To be revered, admired, and loved from a distance. Something we want to reach out and touch but can’t, or at least shouldn’t. He who loves a flower does not pick it to watch it whither and die in a jar. You water it, tend it, keep the weeds away. You should have been no different. Left to flourish in your aquatic garden. Left to swim next to your mother for your entire life, your birthright.

From the moment you were born you had everything you needed. But humans are an unsatisfied race. We’re not a happy race. We’re angry, we’re violent, we do unspeakable things to each other just because we have different ideologies, different skin colors. And sometimes, a lot of the time, that cup overflows, the toxic water splashing onto the innocent, precious species of this earth. Species like yours. Orca’s learned long ago to live and let live. Residents, Transients, Icelandic, Offshore. No wars, no clashes, not until we pushed you all together, in a tiny pen, and told you to get along.

I know you’re not feeling well Tilly. I don’t know how dire it really is. It’s hard to trust anything that SeaWorld releases. But it seems like you’ll be leaving us soon. I hope you’re not in pain, that you can breathe easy. I wish I could say that I hope you get well. But I don’t. The release of death is probably the most humane thing that can happen. Let that spirit go. Leave that imprisoned body. At long last, be free.

Do Orca’s have an afterlife? Here in B.C they’ve documented what may have been an Orca burial. Observers saw a mother disappear near a cleft in the rocks with her dead calf and return to her pod without it. Is it a burial ritual? Or are we anthropomorphizing you? Our arrogant human egos selling you short yet again? Wherever you’re off to next, I know it’ll be better, I hope you love it. Few Orca’s deserve it more.

When you take your last breath, when you finally fade away, please remember this. You are not alone. You are loved, and there are millions of people across the globe standing up and screaming at the injustice that has been your life. Your life, your death, will not be in vain. And the day is coming when the tanks will be empty. When the Orca will no longer be a commodity but a wonder. A sentient being instead of an asset. We’re going to keep fighting Tilly, in your memory, in your honor. I pray you know that there are humans that are good and decent to all creatures great and small.

Rest in peace Tilly. You are missed, you are loved, you are not forgotten.

Photo Courtesy of: http://kepplar.deviantart.com/journal/HELP-FREE-TILIKUM-425641192

Hanson Island Winter 2

The Garden: A Plea for our Parks, Monuments, and Refuges

Leave a comment

I wonder if Abbey ever felt this way, or Muir, or Roosevelt. A sort of melancholy joy that all of this is fleeting. Perhaps I worry too much. It’s hard not to. In a time when we need wildness more than ever, it’s never been more threatened. One need look no further than the skulking figures of the right, elbowing and jostling each other for the opportunity to be commander and chief. Debates have become nothing more than four amateur comedians, dropping punchlines and waiting for the laughs that aren’t coming. But between the childish jokes of genitalia and chest thumping, they have declared war. Not on ISIS, hispanics, the middle class, or China. But on us. On the final fragments of American history.

The Party or Lincoln has become the Party of More. Blame it on Reagonomics, the Koch brothers, Ted Cruz’s jowls, it doesn’t really matter. Regulate a women’s body, regulate marriage, but God forbid that the steam rollers of industry should be slowed. Away with the EPA, usher in the era of fracking. What goes into the bank account matters more than what goes into our bodies. Away with the public lands, those worthless wastes of space, those dollar bills hanging from the branches, just waiting to be plucked.

“If you’ve seen one redwood, you’ve seen them.” Ronald Reagan said.

“If you’ve seen one hundred dollar bill, you’ve seen them all.” I say. “The only thing more foolish than trying to drink your money is trying to breath it.”
10329274_10152863254909852_4693130274254238988_n
Herein lies the danger. Herein lies the tragedy. Ted Cruz has already tried to put an end to the miracle that is public lands—our national parks, our monuments, and wildlife preserves. America’s greatest gift to itself. It twists my stomach into knots. Take my healthcare but not the bay, not Denali, not the Arctic Refuge, these shrines to the world that made us. I’ve met several people who, on their deathbed, ran north. To Alaska. To see the land wild and free. Not to see oil wells or mining sites. But that seems to mean little. Give him a big enough eraser and he’ll wipe them all out. Those wastes of space. All those trees and bays and wolves and bears. Refuges and refugees, two concepts that fall on deaf ears. Give me your poor, your tired, your weak… nevermind, some oil subsides will do fine. Conservative and conservation, similar in spelling alone.

This is our own fault. Nature, wilderness, is mythic to some, a fairy tale to many. Something that may or may not exist somewhere beyond the city limits where the concrete may or may not end. An ideological Bigfoot. It’s somewhere our phone’s don’t work and wi-fi fades away. Many never see them. And we’ve lost all connection to how bad we need them.

Air? It comes from the air of course. Food? From the grocery store. Water? It comes from the tap. Trace the journey of these substances and you arrive at the same place. Soil growing food, trees producing the air and filtering our water. Forgetting that relationship is toxic. Ask the children of Flint, Michigan. Ask the families of Butte, Montana about the “pennies from hell.”

“Growth for the sake of growth is a cancerous madness,” wrote Edward Abbey.

Let us define mankind not by what we can extract and obtain, but by what we can leave alone. Let us not define ourselves by our consumption, but by our self control. Do we have the courage, the willpower to push ourselves away from the petroleum feast, to announce that we’re full? There are bigger things, more worldly things, and yes, more Godly things than maximizing profit on every square foot of land.
10151271_10152867795959852_442814964723618859_n
What if we stopped looking at the world like a factory and instead like a garden? A plot that must be nurtured, cared for, fed, and watered. Treated with the understanding that what we take out must be replaced. Minerals and matter must be returned to ensure that the carrots, potatoes, and lettuce of life return bigger, fresher, and tastier next year. Foolish is the farmer who doesn’t renew his soil with fertilizer, who stuffs his rows of lettuce tightly together, believing that the highest quantity planted will equal the maximum yield. Shame to the farmer who doesn’t let a field go fallow. Let the land rest, let it breath, let it be land for a year. And like us after a deep breath, it will work harder, the benefits in a year outweighing the one that was lost.

But the world doesn’t work like this. We can’t stand the thought of letting a portion go fallow. Of not maximizing our yield right now. Forget the future. The future is now isn’t it? The TV told me so. Those that see the world as a garden are shouted down. We’re labeled as extremists, alarmist, other harmful -ists, standing in the way of progress. Good old progress the shield of the conservative politician. But you’ll never hear a politician, pounding the lectern, demanding that he be allowed to frack the tar sands of Utah labeled extremist. He’s just living in the real world. A world where the economy can grow forever. Infinite growth, finite world. His birthright. If we’re not moving forward we must be going backward.
10312681_10152863254884852_4060311875310743348_n.jpg
Will our offspring a century from now look back on us with admiration or disgust? Will we be revered like the minuteman or demonized like the slaveholder? The one’s that took a renewable world and saw it only for what it could do in that very moment. At least we made some money. But is that how we want to be remembered, is that what we want inscribed upon our gravestone?

 Here lies the modern world. The bottom line looked good.

Surely even the most selfish cannot desire to be remembered like this. Let’s be remembered for our love, for our sacrifice, for our restraint. Let a tree be a tree. A refuge a refuge. A fishery a fishery.

“Any fool can destroy trees,” wrote John Muir. “For they cannot run away.”

To which I add, any fool can do something for profit. It takes a man of true character, true conviction, to see a resource, to see personal wealth, and leave it where it is, acknowledging that there are some fields that should always be fallow. We’ll survive without it. The farmers to follow will thank us.

45543_488769164851_2875335_n

Hanson Island Winter 2

A Love Note for the Raincoast

1 Comment

Everyone has a natural habitat. A place that fuses perfectly with their soul, their love, their passions. Some may spend their entire life looking for it, opening and closing doors, rambling from place to place, searching for the location that moves in rhythm to their beating heart. I grew up in Eagle River, Alaska. A town that sits at the mouth of a valley, carved out by glaciers millennia ago. I loved watching the mountains turn the color of flames every fall as the birch trees downed their autumn best. Loved the female moose that would come down from those wise old mountains every spring to give birth in the safety of our neighbors yard. I loved my family, loved my friends, loved my school.

I had to get out.

Everyone needs to get out of their hometown, at least for a little while. If for nothing else than to look at some different mountains or buildings or street signs. I went north. To Fairbanks. 50 below and blowing snow.

“Not even close,” I thought.

I have since found a land where I fit snugly in its hand. In some ways, it’s not that much different from where I grew up. Glacier’s are the architect, but the valleys are filled with water, and rain falls more than snow. For years I hung a map of my natural habitat in my dorm room. Greens and blues dominated the map, towns and settlements little more than punctuation in the epic tale that requires nothing but imagination.
The raincoast, how I love it. From Vancouver Island up her spine of islands and into the shining face of the Alexander Archipelago, through southeast Alaska, following the march of the glaciers. And it is here that I pinball back and forth. From Hanson Island to southeast Alaska. Fjording fjords. Cruising past canals. Passing through passes. I could live a thousand years and never tire of exploring the silent coves and hidden secrets of this land, never camping in the same place twice, no two sunrises the same, each Orca encounter more enthralling and exhilarating than the last.

I love Alaska, I love British Columbia. For how can I refuse the chance to sit inches above the water and stare at the glacier’s that still stand guard at the headwaters of many an Alaskan fjord? And how can I ever turn away from the rich smell of cedar infused forest in the early morning light, the fog burning off of Blackfish Sound? The world becoming whole, feeling both old and new with each passing day.
8086_10151351163234852_1520975010_n
Early on in the winter we knew that six more months wouldn’t be enough. The glacier’s of our summer home beckon, our jobs as kayak guides await. But… what can I say? Hanson Island gets into your blood, syncs with your heart and spirit the way few places can. Can you love two places so fiercely you can’t live without either?

Early December, a rare calm day along the B.C coast. Brittney and I sit in the cabin, watching the sun struggle above the mountains of Vancouver Island. Before either of us open our mouths we know what the other will say. That two winters is not enough. That we need another winter with ears cocked to the speakers, waiting for the first whisper of an Orca’s voice. Another winter watching the deer trace the shoreline, sucking up every strand of kelp that washes ashore.
11008650_10155365472945858_1720255889708099310_o
“We’re so blessed,” Brittney says. “Our biggest problem is we can’t chose between the two places that we love.”

It’s true. For all our talk of buying property, settling down, being “normal,” Hanson Island doesn’t encourage normalcy. How can it? It’s founded on the tenants of faith in yourself, conviction, and passion. Pillars that don’t lead to nine to five jobs and mortgages in the suburbs. Every day I look out the window to where the lab stands on the rocks. I think of the time, the effort, the sacrifice, and risk that Paul, Helena, and countless others poured into this place. Out of a love for whales, for quiet places and open spaces, from a belief that man still can coexist with the world we seem determined to exterminate. To be a small piece in that, what a tremendous honor, to know these people not just as passing acquaintances, but as friends and mentors. It is this above all that pulls me back.

“I came for the place, I stayed for the people,” wrote Kim Heacox in The Only Kayak.

Ironically he was writing about Glacier Bay, the other place that pulls at our heartstrings. A place filled with beautiful people. A community defined by the bay, the Beatles, and bluegrass.
37367_467283714851_8103409_n
But we’re not ready to chose, not ready to force it. I want to drag myself out of bed at three in the morning because there’s Transients in Robson Bight. I want the tide and weather to determine when I go grocery shopping. I want to hear Paul’s smiling voice on the other end of the phone. When we walk away, we’ll never live like this again. Never have sea lions as neighbors, or have Harlequins knock on our front door. We are unique, we are blessed, we are insanely lucky.

Every day in the summer we’re asked the same question, “what do you do in the winter?”

And when we answer the follow up question is always the same, “what do you do there?”
292906_10151433415214852_720328661_n
How to explain that it is not what we do but why and for who we do it  that makes it so special. I watch the sun rise, listen to the ocean, talk to the trees, bond with the mink, and glorify the Orca. And above all, give thanks that I can have both places for another year.

Hanson Island Winter 2

Overcoming Doubt and Listening to Abbey (Not the Road)

Leave a comment

It’s hard to imagine having a mid/early/late life crisis here. In a place where on any given morning the ocean turns sapphire, the forest yields every shade of green imaginable, and Orca’s call in the dead of night. But it happens. We’re reminded that our unconventional life is a societal outlier. 27-year old’s are supposed to have reliable mailing addresses. Maybe a mortgage and a baby room. Quaint, bustling, hard working, picturesque. It’s the American dream, the American way. At least it was until it wasn’t.

But this doesn’t stop us from considering that maybe we are doing this all wrong.  Seeds of doubt can germinate and grow quickly if we allow them to. Swimming upstream can be tiring. A writer? Who reads anymore? What makes you think that what flows from your mind and through your fingers will capture a world that would rather scroll Facebook than turn pages? This is all well and good, but shouldn’t you shelve the dream, move on, get a real job.

As an uninspiring “mentor” from my church going high school days told me, “you can’t ride the skateboard forever.” He admonished when I told him what I was doing with my life. “Have you ever seen a 60-year old on a skateboard? You’d think something was wrong with him.” Every now and than his voice gets in my head. My fingers tremble, my words seem trite, uninspiring. I pour another cup of coffee, sit with the Harlequins in the cove, take a deep breath, refocus.

Our fear and self doubt manifests itself in different ways. I bang my head against the writer’s block, Brittney scrolls through house plans. She looks at property, checks the bank account, shakes her head, and refreshes the Real Estate page. We have a target now, a landing strip. Gustavus, Alaska. 400 people, 400 moose, one life changing national park. Now if we could stop flying long enough to land. A body in motion stays in motion, one at rest stays at rest. After five years together, we’re still in motion. New Zealand, Juneau, Gustavus, Seattle, British Columbia. I love it. I’ve pushed past my fear, my self doubt, at least for now. Be a writer or starve to death trying. Brittney says she’s ready for the house. My little tumbleweed wants roots. I can’t blame her. Gustavus fits us as good as we do each other. A warm sweater on a crisp fall day.  I love sweaters, I’m wearing one right now. But at some point in the next hour I’ll want to take it off. I’m not ready to wear it forever.

I could have it all right now. The house, the mortgage, the lawn in need of trimming. But I wandered off that road a long time ago.

“Petroleum is Alaska’s present and future.” I was reminded throughout high school. The gateway to, if not fame, certainly fortune. On the backs of industrial giants, we will ride Alaska into an age of wealth and opportunity that we can only imagine. We’ll dig the spurs in deep, push her into a gallop. For nothing should stand in the way of growth, monetary opportunity. All this, I was told, could be mine.

“If you want to make money, live a comfortable existence, petroleum engineering is your best choice.” Grab a straw, stick it in the ground, suck that sweet nectar until it’s empty. Life, liberty, oil subsidies, and the pursuit of happiness.

 What if I don’t want a comfortable existence?

No one talked about what those that wanted to sit on the rocks and count Orca’s should do. Or if you loved the philosophy of fitting everything into one rusting Pathfinder that you prayed would start.  If it doesn’t fit? Give it away. You don’t need it. There was one definition of success, and it could be found in your bank statement.

Now? Oil is going for under $2 a gallon. The state is bankrupt, people panicking. The kids that grabbed their straws are realizing the glass is emptying fast. If the money disappears will they still enjoy what they do? I sincerely hope so. Will the industry rebound? Maybe, probably, I don’t know. Ask British Petroleum, Shell, or a state senator and they’ll say it has to. Alaska needs it, can’t live without it. The voice of the addict. Without oil, Alaska will be like Maine. A nice place to live but not a great place to make money.

As my friend (and writer) Kim Heacox says, “what’s wrong with that?”

I hold Brittney’s hand, squeeze it softly, pull the computer away from her. I know that look, know that fear, understand that desire to have a place to call home. She wants to build an apothecary, bring natural healing to Gustavus. She wants open mic nights, a vegetable garden, the slow bike race on the fourth of July. But she also wants Hanson Island, the open road, the freedom that we enjoy that we’re debt free. She admits she’s not ready to give that up yet. Maybe in a year or two, or three, or thirty. I want all those things too. But we can’t have both. Maybe if we invest those Permanent Fund checks our bankrupted state keeps giving us we can…

Not everyone is meant to live like this. That’s fine. That’s a relief. There aren’t enough Hanson Islands  or Gustavuses to go around. I ferried and drove to Orca Lab on the miracle of petroleum pulled from the ground and refined in a factory that pushes more carbon into the air than the globe has seen in millennia. Does that make me a hypocrite? Maybe, probably, I don’t know. Edward Abbey said the job of the freelance writer was to criticize and inspect the country in which he lived. Consider me his disciple, just trying to do what he expected. Good old Abbey. Doing what he loved until the very end. His buddies snuck him out of his death bed in the hospital he hated more than roads through national parks and let him say goodbye in the desert.

They inscribed on his tombstone: Edward Abbey. No comment. I like that.

Where do I want to say goodbye? Gustavus or Hanson Island? I can’t decide. Mercifully I don’t have to, and God willing, I won’t have to for a long time. We’ll see how far our skateboard carries us.

Hanson Island Winter 2

A Thousand Years

2 Comments

You can’t find a wolf carcass every week, the boat engine can’t betray you every crossing. There are days, most days actually, when Hanson Island moves slow. Nothing is ever hurried around here unless we make it. The Harlequin Ducks do not scramble from cove to cove, trying to maintain their schedule. The Sea Lion does not quicken his pace just because the sun is setting.
“What’s the rush?” Asks the Cedar, “I’ve been here a thousand years.”
“Why hurry?” The tide says, “the boat will float when it floats. Sit on the log, breath deep feel the bark beneath your palms, the rain on your face.”
I lay on the log and close my eyes. The sun moves out from behind a rain cloud.

Mid-February, but it feels warm. The rain relents. From somewhere in the forest a raven calls, adding its voice to the melody. It’s a deep throated cluck, like water dripping from a faucet. The brain’s of the forest, the trickster. The genius. What secrets they must hold.
Brittney brings the boat into the back of the cove. My little student driver. Her jaw is set, her eyes don’t blink but stare at the log we tie the boat off to. The boat swerves under her direction. Too far left, than too far right. But each time she corrects a little better, until the boat glides on a straight line, bow pointed straight for the cleat.
“Cut the engine and bring’er up.”
Something brown and white emerges from the wood shed, tail vertical, curving at the end like a furry question mark. He opens his mouth in greeting and a series of rapid fire meows reach our ears.
“Hi Porter,” Brittney coos out the window.
We tie three lines to the boat, one off the bow, two on each side of the stern, and pull them tight. Despite the rain that has begun to drizzle, Porter follows patiently. The slightest drop used to send him barreling for cover. Now? There are days he comes in soaking wet.
But the rain doesn’t seem to have the work ethic to soak the ground today. It peters out as we tighten the lines, and the three of us sit on the logs again, not ready to go inside.
The tide drops slowly. The kale grows infinitesimally. The whales have been gone for weeks. Everything on its own time, its own schedule. Maybe that’s why we don’t spend as much time outside anymore. From our phones, our computers, the world is at our fingertips. Anything we can ever want or need is just a wi-fi connection away. Why go into the woods where everything is on its own schedule? We want control, crave it, lack patience. I have no room to criticize. I pull the ear bud out, the sound of my music fades away, replaced by the soundtrack of Orca Lab. Water lapping, ravens clucking, eagles disagreeing, Porter chittering.

Valentines Day. No Hallmark cards, no box of chocolates, no chalky candy hearts. Just us, an ebbing tide, and a bit of sunshine. How to celebrate? It’s been two months since a 50-knot wind teamed up with a 17.2 high tide. The waves pulverized the top of the rocks in the cove, sending the bathtub off its rock stands and threatening to leave us forever. We dragged it five feet higher and it’s sat there ever since, diligently collecting rain water. Until today. Today we’ll drag it back into place, fill it with water, light a fire, and bask in the most luxurious bath tub in the world. Bath’s are an all day affair. Even on days where the temperature crawls above 10 (Celsius), water has little desire to raise its temperature. That’s ok. We’ll sit on the rocks, sip coffee, and feed the fire with driftwood. Maybe the Harlequins will join us, or an eagle or two. Perhaps a raven will serenade us with the medley of song that only they can sing. The trickster. The imitator who cannot be imitated. Today I’ll try to really listen. To soak it all in, revel in the silence of mankind’s busy hands and enjoy nature’s patient ones. Relax, breathe deep, the water will get warm when it gets warm. What’s your hurry? The cedar’s have been here a thousand years.

Hanson Island Winter 2

Enhancing Your New Hampshire Primary Viewing Experience

Leave a comment

Just nine, more, months. I don’t know if I have the stamina to make it that long. But for now, my soul still feels light, my good humor remains, and I will be tuning in tonight to watch the results from the New Hampshire primary. But three plus hours of political banter, discussion, and argument can be exhausting. So, to enhance your viewing pleasure, may I present the New Hampshire primary drinking game.

Disclaimer: The underqualified writer does not condone, nor encourage drunkenness, “the spins” or pounding hangovers. Please play at your own discretion and limits.

Please note this is all in fun and not meant to insinuate political warfare or become another internet battleground for total strangers. Feel free to add your own additions in the comments.

1)Bernie Sanders’ electability is discussed. – one drink

2) CNN reminds you that, “these numbers are not official” – one drink

3) The largest county is referred to as “the most important one.” – two drinks

4) Ted Cruz gives the glory to God. – finish your beer and start another one. Cause he probably just won New Hampshire.

5) A Republican candidate refers to the last “seven long years.” – three drinks

6) A candidate’s camp “declares victory.” – three drinks

7) A candidate lauds the great state of New Hampshire. – one drink

8) A video of volunteers counting ballets is referred to as “exciting” or “democracy in action.”- two drinks

9) Donald Trump smiles. – finish drink

10) A republican candidate vows to fight climate change. – drink the whole case, celebrate. Hell hath frozen over.

11) A commentator or candidate discusses taking on the establishment. – roll your eyes… and take a drink

12) You feel like punching Marco Rubio. – a carefully measured sip.

13) You feel bad for Jeb Bush. – pour one out for the poor guy

14) Trump says something sexist – two drinks for the guys. One for the ladies.

15) An indie rock song is heard at Bernie Sanders headquarters. – one drink

16) Democratic socialism is discussed. – one drink

17) Hillary Clinton’s Wall Street speaking engagements is mentioned. – one drink, pray for all mankind.

18) Ben Carson announces he’ll be returning to Valhalla to slumber and feed for the remainder of the evening. – Fill your pyramid silo with grain

19) The media is blamed for not covering/over covering a topic or candidate. – Denounce the liberal media and/or the conservative media. Begin getting all your information from the Onion.

20) A candidate brags about how little their “average donation is.” – Finish beer, give Bernie Sanders $50.

Cover photo found at: http://www.newseum.org/

Hanson Island Winter 2

The Wolf

3 Comments

I am not a brave person. At least, I don’t consider myself one. I rarely feel bold, or filled with valor, or the innate desire to take risks, and stick my neck out. I get nervous walking through the woods in the dark, even here, where there’s been exactly one bear sighting in decades. My imagination, which is often my ally betrays me in these moments. I feel the hair rise on my neck, the goosebumps spread across my body, a spasm of fear running down my legs.

I don’t believe in spirits floating among the living. At least, I think I don’t. But the lab is built on the same ground that was once a Namgis summer camp. A small grave was found in the rocks, somewhere near here, the body of a young girl entombed within. That’s what Walrus says. I never asked him where the grave was. I don’t want to know. But it’s much easier to believe in restless spirits, the thrill of the supernatural, the magnification of fear when the dark surrounds you with creaking and swaying trees. Glowing eyes in the dark. Deer, they have to be deer. But what if they aren’t?

The water’s rough. The waves roll up on themselves, ringed with foam and frothy white caps like pearls on a necklace. Rain falls as a fine mist. In our tiny boat, the waves roll by at eye level, the boat pitching over the crest and through the trough of each swell. Up and down the hills, again and again. Why does it seem like we’re always going into the wind? The water is deep, churning, cold, dark. This seems like a lot of work to go through to run a generator. But such is our assignment today. To cross Blackney Pass for Cracroft Island. To add the magic of unleaded gasoline to help us maintain power at the lab.

It’s the same body of water we were crossing when the boat engine died a few weeks ago. And for an hour we were at her mercy. Enough to make you think twice when the land fades away off the starboard side and you begin the mile wide crossing. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t in the back of my mind, with the waves growing and the ocean soaking our windshield. No boldness or valor or bravery here. Loyalty and dedication maybe. I’m more Hufflepuff than Gryffindor.

What would it be like if we lost the engine here? If the boat filled with water? If we had to jump clear, life jackets clinging grimly to our necks? To come face to face with our greatest fear? I’ve never had a near death experience. At least not that I remember, and I’d like to think I would. How terrible and thrilling, to come face to face with my own mortality. Would I be cognizant of my final breath? Aware that it was the last one this body would ever draw for me? Would I watch this grim physical home for my soul drift into the depths as I floated above, great wings growing out my shoulders? Or does everything just go blank? A reel of film that’s reached its end, spinning pointlessly on its spools.

But today is not that day. Across Blackney Pass. In the shadow of Cracroft Island, the water is calm, a soothing emerald color. It’s far too rough to land on the rocks by the shelter. So we motor into a quiet cove on the opposite side, out of the wind. Was it really just a year ago that we blazed this trail? Just me, Paul, a couple of hacksaws, and a general idea of what direction to bushwack. By some miracle our zigs and zags led us straight to the CP shelter. We climb onto the bow and tie the boat to a massive log draped across the rocks.

I step into the woods and stop. I’m not alone. Something lays on the ground at my feet. A jigsaw of vertebrae and ribs and fur. It’s been dead awhile, the body barely recognizable. The skull lays just off to the side, neatly picked clean as if it were a name tag, identifying the creature to which it had belonged.

“There’s a carcass in here!” I shout.

Brittney shoves the ferns aside and stops next to me, mouth agape. The smell wrinkles our noses, but neither of us step back. For a long while we simply stare, a silent vigil, disturbers of the animal’s peaceful sleep.

“What is it?” Brittney asks. She’s kneeling near the clump of fur and vertebrae, awestruck. She’s neither squeamish nor disgusted but fascinated. Even in death, her compassion for things furry continues.

I break off a stick and flip the skull over to reveal the jaw. The mandibles and lower jaw bones are gone, but the unmistakable canines of a predator remain. We let out silent gasps.

The wind rattles the tree tops. It’s going to get worse out here before it gets better. I leave Brittney with the departed, and vanish into the woods. The whole way to and from the shelter, I think of nothing but the creature. I’d never seen anything like it, on the day that I’m contemplating my own mortality. It can’t be a coincidence.

I return to find that Brittney hasn’t moved. It was a wolf pup she announces with conviction. I agree. What else has teeth and claws like this? We sit in silence, my mind trying to put the wolf back together.

“How do you think it died?” Brittney asks.

Like the girl’s tomb, I don’t want to know. The ocean is not twenty-feet away. Is it possible that one of my own species is responsible for this? Was this cub the victim of some human’s potshot with a rifle? A vigilante dedicated to predator control? Maybe that’s unfair, but I can’t think of any explanation for how he chose right here to lay down and die. We leave him where he lays, to continue his noble work of returning to the soil, feeding the web of life around him. A sacrifice that won’t go unnoticed.

One more stop. Parson Island. The water has settled a bit while we were in the woods. And the journey across Baronet Passage is a calm one. I disappear into the woods and up the hill, one more generator to go. My mind returns to the wolf cub and I feel pity for the little creature, that his life was taken so early. I pray he died right, with honor, dignity. Perhaps he just didn’t want to be a wolf anymore. Was ready to be something bigger than himself. Isn’t that what I want? What we all want? For what is more fulfilling than giving of ourselves to something bigger. To make the world a better place.

The land where the wolf lays resting was clearcut some thirty years ago. The land stripped. Every. Single. Tree. No more squirrels, no more birds. No wolves. No cougars. No life. No character. But the land is recovering, like it always does. And will flourish with magnificent old Cedar trees again, if we allow it. Maybe all he wanted was to speed up the process. Infuse the earth with his carbon and nitrogen, accelerate the growth of those great trees so that the generations to come can run and hunt and howl beneath their great branches.

I reach the cliff. From here I can see past Cracroft Island and into Johnstone Strait, up into Baronet Passage, out into Blackfish Sound and Queen Charlotte Strait. Pristine silence. Quiet places. Open spaces. The little cove on Cracroft is indistinguishable. The wolf’s resting place invisible, his sacrifice anonymous from here. But I know. Brittney knows. The tree’s know. Sometimes the greatest sacrifice is the one not recognized.

I say a little prayer before I pour gasoline into the generator. Before the war cry of my species infects the land.

“Thank you,” I say, my voice drifting across the water. “For making this world a better place, for reminding me of what is good and pure and wild. For infusing the earth with your spirit. I hope to leave this place better than I found it too.”

I bend over and pull the cord. The generator roars to life. Without a backwards glance I turn and vanish into the woods. The Cedar and Salal covers my tracks. The growl of the generator echoes in my ears.

Hanson Island Winter 2

A Summer Sampling

Leave a comment

The wind roars so hard the windows creak and strain against their frames. Rain pelts the walls so hard it sounds like someone is hurling handfuls of pebbles at them. Every few minutes we can hear a dull thud, first on one side of the cabin, than the other. I’ve never heard anything like it before, and I’m not feeling brave enough to go out and investigate. I’ll chalk it up to an ornery log refusing to settle on the rocks. By the time we crawl beneath the blankets—the cat nestled as he always is on Brittney’s pillow—the storm has reached a crescendo.
Periodically throughout the night we rise and feel our way down the dark stairs to the living room. Penny’s house is nestled in a corner, a blanket thrown over the top to insulate her. We’re not sure how cold is too cold for a rabbit, so we throw wood on the fire periodically throughout the night to keep it comfortable. She barely moves as I poke my fingers through the bars and rub the soft spot between her ears. She opens one eye indignantly, her pupil reflecting the dancing flames behind us.
“Sorry,” I whisper, and creep back up the stairs, under the blankets, and into the warmth.
By the time the first tendrils of dawn are creeping above the mountain’s of Vancouver Island, the storm has exhausted itself. The tree branches tremble in a weary sort of way, the ocean placid and innocent. All it takes is a few hours to go from 45 knots to five, the low pressure system skidding to a halt.
I open the front door. The air feels surprisingly warm on my face. The life of the island looks out cautiously. A cluster of Harlequin ducks emerge around the point, bobbing on the tiny ocean ripples. They’re spunky little things, but where they go when the ocean roars like a lion is beyond me. But every morning, here they are, wholly unimpressed with the storm.
Out of the woods steps a deer. It’s not just any deer. This is Frodo, and he’s the most social of his kind I’ve ever met. Our porch overlooks a little cove, and Frodo has taken to trolling back and forth along it on every low tide. He’s scavenging for kelp fronds, and as he hears the boards creek he looks up. His expression is benign, a piece of kelp hanging ridiculously out the side of his mouth, looking at me. Every other deer I’ve encountered would turn and run at my approach. But Frodo moves casually toward the porch, nose glued to the rocks, sniffing for breakfast.
We have our morning routine down to a science. Feed the pets, brew coffee, drink coffee/ Brew more coffee. But this morning as we pull open the curtains and look over Blackney Pass, something feels different. The sun burns off a thin layer of clouds, and light floods the living room. And for the first time in months, the fingers of sun feel warm. This is not the biting cold of an easterly outflow that clears the skies and buries the mercury. This feels good. And we walk out onto the deck near the lab where the late morning sun heats the porch and turns the cove emerald.
It’s the first sign of Spring, and we stand dumbly for a few moments, soaking up the warmth. Even the building afternoon breeze feels welcoming, and we exercise outside for the first time since last summer. Porter watches with a concerned look on his face. What could possess them to behave in such ridiculous fashion?
We move about in shorts for the afternoon, the sun beating down on the solar panels, the generator quiet for the first time in days. It’s days like this where nothing beats Hanson Island. The cove swollen with Harlequins, deer, and harbor seals. The salt air filled with the arguments of sea lions, the debates of eagles, the giggles of gulls.
But it’s still January, and as the sun disappears in the late afternoon the wind intensifies. The temperature drops, and we cut up another round of cedar, because the temperature in the cabin has dropped several degrees in just an hour. Soon the wind is shaking the windows again, the night air cold and biting. Regularly scheduled programming. We load the wood stove and Brittney gets the tea kettle whistling. Summer may be getting closer, but winter’s not done with us yet.