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.
Tag Archives: animals
Finding Light
Brittney has a great capacity for love. This compassion stretches deep through the animal kingdom. Every feather, every ball of fluff. Whether they have no legs, four legs, or eight legs, she cares for them all. A couple years ago she stopped killing spiders (or more accurately having me kill spiders) and insisted that they be relocated outside. Her fear of our wall climbing, web spinning roommates was no justification for murder. She still scrolls through the Juneau Humane Society website, cooing over ever whiskered face while our cat Porter looks at her with a betrayed look on his face.
Factory farming, greyhound racing, the egg industry, and of course, captivity all have room for remorse in her heart. And while many would turn their head, or acknowledge their plight and move on, Brittney doesn’t seem capable of that. She won’t rest until every “fur baby” is safe, happy, healthy.
“Do you think they know that there’s people in the world that care? She asks as she fills out another petition to abolish greyhound racing. That there are people trying to help them?”
“I hope they do,” I say. Though I don’t know how they can.
I look at the picture on the screen, a greyhound with dark empty eyes alone in a crate, it’s head resting on a beam. It looks defeated. I feel sadness when I see this, but anger is my primary emotion. Anger and disgust. At the greed of man. Our selfishness. At the lengths we will go for profit. Our obsession and worship for the man made ideal, money. Somehow it’s become the measuring stick for our species. We’ll obliterate whatever is in our way to obtain it. Greyhounds, orcas, the very world we live in. How is it that we’ve forgotten that we cannot live without the natural world we insist on pillaging? Infinite growth in a finite world. Not the American dream, but the global fantasy.
I look back down at the picture, my mind returning to the present. The knot in my chest tightens, my heart rate increases. How could man look at this and not be enraged? Yet here is the proof that ambivalence lives.
It’s another storm ridden night at the lab. Similar Paul points out, to the night Corky was captured. It was a wave capped, howling winter gale when her family innocently swam into Pender Harbour and had their life change forever. In the name of corporate gain and human entertainment. How can we look at ourselves in the mirror?
Do you think they know that there’s people in the world that care?
Corky seems to. Why else would she withstand this torture, humiliation, and pain for so long? Does she believe there are others beside the ignorant masses that stand on the other side of the glass and snap photos with their camera phones?
“Corky’s plight makes me sad,” says Brittney, “but I feel more impassioned by factory farming, by animal testing. There’s millions of animals that die inhumanely, that live terrible lives. It’s 2015, but we’re more barbaric than ever.”
“Look what we do to our own species.” I answer, “we can’t stop murdering each other and we’re asking that same species to have compassion for other animals?”
Yet this is where we are. I pour whiskey over ice and settle on the couch. Here I am, in the middle of the natural world, and I can’t escape. ISIS, immigration, Donald Trump, SeaWorld, climate change. Running to the woods won’t make them go away.
“It’s important,” I remind Brittney, “not to get bogged down in the negative.” I’m reminding her as much as myself. “Our media, our world feeds off of negativity. It gets clicks, draws traffic in a way that heart warming, positive stories don’t. Seek these out, hang on to them. Celebrate the victories, the joy, the beauty. Because it is there. Even in darkness there is always some light.”
The chainsaw roars. I follow the ebbing tide down the beach, accepting the sacrifice of a massive Fir tree. It’s a beautiful piece of wood, undoubtedly an escapee from a passing barge. It didn’t deserve to be cut, but at least its death won’t be in vain. The sharpened teeth on the saw litters the rocks with wood shavings as I cut into the sweet smelling wood.
At the end of the log I stand and stretch the ache in my back, looking over Blackney Pass, over paradise. I drop the chainsaw and feel my heart lift. Blackney teems with life. Hundreds of gulls swarm a fifty yard patch of ocean in numbers so thick they look like a great feathered cloud. The bait ball has not gone unnoticed. An armada of eagles roar in from the trees, great black wings punctuating the ball of white. I count at least thirty eagles, shuttling back and forth between the trees near the cabin and the ocean. Again and again they swarm overhead, the silvery flashes of sand lance clasped tightly in their talons. Life, sustenance.
Brittney and I fall under their trance, the log lays forgotten at my feet. A lump rises in my throat. Why does this feeding frenzy have tears coming to my eyes? Because after everything the land has endured. Clear cutting, fish farms, live captures, predator control. They’re still here. The orca’s are still here. Is the world perfect? No. But here is a victory, here is joy. Here is a chance to celebrate.
“Do you know what I see?” I ask pointing out at the surging biomass before us.
Brittney looks at me, her eyes softened, the light glowing in her pupils.
“Hope.”
When The Storm Breaks
The weather breaks. The sun tears through the cloud curtain. First a lone ray of light strikes Parson Island, than another, and another as like fingers thousands of miles long, they creep across Blackney Pass until they fall on our windows. The aftermath of a 50 knot storm. Porter sticks his whiskered nose out the door. He’s suspicious and disgruntled after being confined to the cabin for two days as rain pelted the windows and the walls rattled.
We step onto a beach littered with logs washed ashore in the night. Fir bark, affectionately known as “fishermen’s coal” punctuates severed trunks of cedar and spruce. We pile the bark greedily in our arms. In a few days they would dry and capable of supercharging the fire at night when temperatures are dropping below freezing.
The bark drying on the sheltered picnic table near the cabin, I grab an ax and send splinters of wood flying. Heating by wood stove offers the luxury of warming you up twice. Once when you cut it, and again when you burn it.
I used to take heat for granted. Why wouldn’t you when for 25-years all you had to do was turn a knob, flip a switch and be rewarded with steamy warm air emitting from the magical grate in the floor? That heat, that energy had to come from somewhere. Coal? Hydropower? A wizard in the wall? I couldn’t tell you. But here I’m intimately connected to where my heat comes from, my electricity. Sunshine means the computers charge, the hydrophones switch on, Netflix is operational.
Too many cloudy days and we pay the price. Hydrophones flicker, cycle, and scream in their static voices until we turn them down. To keep the lights glowing and Orca Live streaming we turn to the massive red monstrosity in the shed. The generator, good old unleaded gasoline and 10W30 motor oil. As the unprecedented climate change intensifies, there’s a sensation of guilt each time I pull the choke, turn the key, and see pale white exhaust shoot into the atmosphere. At least I know where it’s coming from I guess. Thankfully, on sunny days, the generator sits unused, ignored. For what can be more renewable and reliable than those rays of sun beating down from above?
“When we know where our food, our energy comes from,” says Zachary Brown, founder of the Inian Island Institute in Alaska, “we no longer take them for granted. When we have an intimate connection to these commodities, we pay attention.”
Food for us is a different story. Banana’s from Belize, avocado’s from Mexico. At least the Kokanee and apple’s are Canadian. We do what we can. We grow kale, collard greens, and potatoes that are waiting patiently for Thanksgiving. It’s no different in the summer when we live in a town of 400 in southeast Alaska. A town with an award winning recycling program, where people have gardens instead of lawns, and avocado’s cost 5 bucks apiece. Avocados that arrive on the same barges that I shake my fist at in the winter time as the plod past the lab, filling the hydrophones with their roar, the air with their exhaust.
What’s the answer? What’s enough? Are my bananas and avocados ethically harvested? I’m vegetarian but should I be vegan? Maybe I should just eat the salal that grows between the cabin and the ocean.
Brittney used to agonize like this when she was in school. She’d come home from another humanities class: People and Plastics and Animal Rights courses. Nestle stealing groundwater, animals testing on rabbits, a fresh water crisis, orcas in captivity, taps running dry, corn fed factory farms. What to do, how to promote change, progress.
We aren’t superman. We can’t fight all of this. Instead we must select those injustices, those policies and acts that raise the hair on our neck. That quicken our pulse, that pull at our conscience. Whether it’s animal rights, oil pipelines, alternative energy, letting Corky come home, Syrian refugees. We must pick our battles, our medium for fighting them, and go to work.
Deep in the woods of Hanson Island lives a man. An anthropologist, a writer, an activist, a hero. He calls himself Walrus. As the forests of north Vancouver Island were leveled by the chainsaw, he took a stand by sitting down. He seated himself on a logging road that wound into the heart of Hanson Island, of Yukusam, and could not be moved. This was his fight, his passion. He won. He lives in a cabin now at the site of his barricade. “The longest active logging blockade in British Columbia,” he says.
This is the life of the activist. It’s Rachel Carson typing out Silent Spring as cancer ate at her because someone had to write it, Paul Spong camping in front of the Vancouver Aquarium, insisting that Skana go home, Michale Pollen and Food Inc, Marches for Lolita, Will Allen perfecting urban farming. Different people, different passions, huge change. May we someday be counted among them.
Waiting For Corky
“On no they’re not.”
“It’s true,” I answer, “they’re phasing out the circus performance bit. They say they’re going to do a more education and conservation based thing… of course, it’s SeaWorld, so who knows what that means.”
Paul and I stand on the rocks feet above Robson Bight. Two steps and we’d be free falling fifty feet to the bottom. Free whales swim here. They go right past the rocks we stand on, an arms length from shore. Every time I come here I try to will them into the bight. It’s never worked. Orcas are very into themselves.
But now our minds are not on the hydrophone resting in the kelp, or the batteries on the cliff that fuel it. They’re on a whale thousands of miles away that deserves to be here. Paul furrows his brow, there’s skepticism in his expression, doubt after decades of banging against the gates of SeaWorld, asking that Corky be allowed to come home.
“Maybe it’s just a spoof article,” he says. “Where did you read it?”
I confess that I can’t remember the source. But I’m convinced it wasn’t the Onion.
We pick our way down the rocks for the boat and the lab.
Paul lets out a laugh. “Wouldn’t that be something? SeaWorld stops performances, yesterday Obama vetoes the Keystone pipeline. What is happening?”
“Maybe we’ve been transported to a parallel universe.” I offer.
“That’s it. What’s going to happen tomorrow?”
“Donald Trump is gonna get eaten by wolves.”
“And through a loophole in his will all his money gets donated to conservation.”
“He meant to write all proceeds to the conservative party but misspelled it.”
Deep down, SeaWorld hasn’t changed. Their orcas are still commodities, big swimming black and white dollar signs. SeaWorld isn’t changing. They’re rebranding. And what choice did they have? They’ve lost a third of their visitors. Their value is worth half what is was before Blackfish. The ship is sinking and there aren’t enough lifeboats. But rather than call for help, SeaWorld has decided to bail water until they’re six feet under. This isn’t surprising. It’s still despicable. But it’s encouraging. They’re grasping at straws.
SeaWorld continues to operate under the delusion that they will be relevant and profitable a decade from now. Accepting the Blue World proposal by the California Coastal Commission would have given the San Diego park an expiration date. No new orcas. The beginning of the end.
But SeaWorld has no intention of letting Corky, the captive northern Resident of A5 pod come home. It’s a step closer to retirement for her though as human commanded tricks will not be part of the new Orca show. But Corky doesn’t have time. She’s been in that tank for four decades. Her time, and a chance at a happy ending is running out. These new, low adrenaline performances won’t start until 2017. By the time SeaWorld determines that this new marketing scheme isn’t going to save the company, it may be too late.
But as SeaWorld circles the drain, perhaps they’ll be willing to accept anything that will salvage whatever positive PR reputation they have left. What better way to change hearts and minds than retire a whale?
I don’t know if Corky can survive in the true wild. She’s been swimming tight circles for so long, I don’t think she can physically stand up to the rigors of being a wild whale. But a net pen in her native land? Where she can taste the ocean. Hunt wild fish and hear the sounds of her family. Who wouldn’t get behind that?
“They can do Corky shows live from Dong Chong Bay (the bay just west of Orca Lab on Hanson Island) and broadcast it over the internet.” Paul offers as we pull into the cove next to the lab.
He’s says it like a joke but it’s not. What it would mean for her to come back. After all these years, and have her living next door. A few hours later all is quiet. The water calm, the sun setting. Paul is back in Alert Bay and it’s just me and Brittney.
Suddenly we both sit up, our heads cocked. When you live at OrcaLab you develop this passive listening. You aren’t aware that you’re tuned into the hydrophones but you always are. And when an orca makes a noise, it makes you jump.
And there they are. What are the odds? We tear over to the lab and pull on headphones, our trembling hands adjust the dials on the soundboard. They’re in the Bight, right where Paul and I stood talking about Corky just five hours ago. Now her family, A5 pod is there. Swimming feet off the rocks I’d been standing on.
Goosebumps spread up my arms. They shouldn’t be here in early November. But here the A5s were. Back in the strait on today of all days. Keeping Corky’s bed warm for her. As their calls echo off the underwater cliffs I fight back a lump in my throat, trying not to feel guilty. After all, it’s Corky that should be here, not me.
Why We Have Pets
Anyone who reads raincoastwanderings knows that Porter and Penny, our pet cat and rabbit are prominent characters in our life. No boat is too small, no car ride too long to prevent us from dragging them up and down the Pacific Northwest and to places no sane person would try to bring a rabbit cage. We do this, because to us, they’re as much a part of the family as we are. With all the inconsistencies and upheaval that our wanderlust driven lives create, they have become our anchor, stabilizing. Wherever we are is home. It wouldn’t be the same without them, there personalities, and the mystified looks of border guards and ferry passages exclaiming, “you have a rabbit?”
For me, this philosophy originated in my youth. We didn’t have cats or rabbits. We were dog people. Golden Retriever people to be precise. I learned to stand by pulling myself up on the hair of our dog Niki. She would stand patiently as I pulled out chunks of hair and tried to balance on wobbling legs. When I was about nine we got another retriever. We named him Buddy after Air Bud fame and he became my shadow. Sleeping on my bed, pulling me on my scooter, and catching the pancakes we balanced on his nose.
As sad as it was when Niki finally passed away peacefully in her sleep at 13, Buddy was the first real loss in my life I was old enough to comprehend and feel. Being far away and unable to say goodbye made it even harder. Between my tears, grief, and frustration, the concept of owning pets felt so pointless. I was angry that my dog had been taken after less than ten years. Why pour all this love and emotional attachment into something that you’ll outlive by decades?
Because when the garage door opened when I got home and there was no rusty red blur streaking from under the growing crack, I realized it was no longer a home. It was too empty, too quiet, too easy to walk across the backyard without the fear of tripping on tennis balls. Because Buddy had brought out the best I had. Unconditional love, acceptance, trust, a never-ending cauldron of joy. So with heavy hearts, we got another one. We never stopped missing Buddy, but we couldn’t stand a house without a dog.
We got a puppy. A rescue from a shelter a few miles north. We named him Jake though I can’t recall how we chose his name. I write all this because Jake passed away last night in my mother’s arms after fighting gallantly against Lymphoma for five months.
It’s not fair. It’s cruel. It’s a broken world. Jake was the unofficial third son. My brother and I nicknamed him Buster after the Arrested Development character. And in some ways he was Buster. He was a mama’s boy with two older brothers, and would go into fits of sorrow whenever Mom left the room. But you couldn’t deny his heart, his enthusiasm, and the patience that made him a wonderful service dog at Providence hospital. It was at the hospital that he shined brightest, touching the lives of countless sick and hurting people. He was everything you wanted your dog to be. And after seven years that went far too fast, there’s that painful emptiness in the Cannamore house again.
Why? We know we have to say goodbye before they do. There will be a last time I hold Penny in my arms, a final scratch behind Porter’s ears. There will be pain, there will be tears, there will be a hole in our life. But it’s better to recognize the hole than to walk around for the rest of my life pretending its not there.
The last thing Mom is thinking about today is another dog. It’s time to remember Jake. His bark, his irrational fear of heating grates, and those long gangly limbs that took up Dad’s side of the bed. But when the time comes to make the house a home again, there will be four more furry legs with floppy ears and golden fur. Armed with tennis balls and love. Rest soundly little brother. I’ll miss you.
Same Destination, Different Path
The sun breaks through, faces turning upward, mouths open, drinking in the sunshine. A respite, finally. No better way to leave. We’re on the Alaska Ferry’s equivalent of the milk run. The grand tour of southeast Alaska with little concern for time of day. Juneau at 4 am, Hoonah at 9, Sitka in the evening, in and out of Kake under the cover of night. Weaving through the mouse maze. West, east, and slowly, tantalizingly south.
We’re not alone. High school volleyball and wrestling teams are bedded down in every lounge when we stagger aboard in the early morning twilight. It had been my idea to stay up until our 4 am departure from Juneau, a decision I’ve been regretting since midnight. Through bleary eyes, sleep clinging to our eyelids we maneuver the minefield of snoozing adolescents, looking for any gap on the floor for a pair of sleeping pads.
Mercifully teenagers aren’t early risers, and most of us are still asleep when the purser’s desk begins to scold us over the intercom in a voice reminiscent of Mr. Feeny. “It’s time to turn these lounges back into lounges! Chaperones, get those lounges cleaned up!”
He must get a kick back every time he says lounge. But as I look around the room at the draped arms and legs protruding out of the corners and between seats, I’d say the room is living up to its name the way it is.
By the time we’re squeezing through the minuscule pass between Baranof and Chichagof Islands, the sun is burning through the fog, the day turning from Late October to June in minutes. With the shore just yards away from both sides of the boat we curl up on the solarium and let Alaska dazzle us for the countless time. Ravens chatter in the woods like invisible sentinels. A pair of Kingfisher’s chase each other above the treetops, their punk rock haircuts matching the throaty screeches perfectly. A humpback surfaces. The hemlocks grow tightly together. Every now and than a flash of red among the green, a Cedar. An outlier, we’ll be surrounded by them soon. As if magnetically drawn by the sun’s cameo, the high schoolers filter to the open deck.
Electronics are sparse among them. In the cafeteria playing cards appear, they talk, joke, laugh, are kids. Not drones with their head’s pulled down to an HD screen with the world around them invisible. It makes me smile. No cell service, unplugged from the world but not each other. When phones do appear it’s to take pictures of the scenery, often with them and their friends in the foreground.
Selfies are the new currency of flirting. All a boy must do to receive the attention of his chosen girl pack is leap into the photo, eager to participate in the immortalization of the moment through the magic of sim cards and 10 GB hard drives. Can’t say I’d so anything different if I was them.
The water stays calm as we leave Ketchikan in the evening and push into Canadian waters. Once again, we leave under the cover of night as the ferry pulls into Prince Rupert at 4 in the morning. This means crossing the border and explaining what the hell we’re doing in this country will be done through two sleep deprived and bloodshot eyes. We’re fourth in line getting off the ferry and I scarf down our remaining two apples for breakfast in lieu of turning them over. We reach the customs lady and I roll down the window. Usually Porter sees any open window as a gateway to his god given freedom. And after two days confined to the car I expected Brittney to have to pin him down to keep him from crawling up the lady’s uniform. But he sits politely on Brittney’s lap, the perfect gentleman, as if understanding the gravity of the situation and our history with cranky and stoic border guards.
But they seem as groggy as us. The only loss is the little pink can of mace Brittney has had on her key chain since she worked mornings at a coffee shop. Bear spray, we’re told, would’ve been permissible, but since her mace was designed to use on humans, we were a threat to the unsuspecting Canadian citizens.
The inhabitants of Prince Rupert spared a terrible mace induced terrorist attack, we drive into the sleeping town. It’s too much to hope that our pet friendly hotel would leave their door unlocked at 5 am. So we grab coffee and hole up in the parking lot, waiting for the sun to rise and the lights to come on.
It feels good to be transient again. With our bags piled up behind Penny’s house in the back of the Pathfinder, the cat on our lap. Home is the four of us together. Two hours later the door unlocks and we record history’s earliest hotel check in, dropping our bags on the floor and collapsing onto the beds. Penny leaps euphorically as she hops into every corner, free of her house for the first time in 48 hours. Everything must be smelled, tasted… and chewed. With a $200 pet deposit we watch her like a hawk.
Brittney retreats to the shower, our hot water days numbered, and I watch Porter try to keep his eyes open as he curls up on the bed. The simplicity of my joy, my contentedness, brings peace. We search for happiness everywhere, sometimes demanding much, sometimes little. Sometimes, it’s as simple as an early check in, a sleeping cat, and the knowledge that no matter where I go with these three, I’m already home.
Porter Supertramp
Porter stares longingly out the sliding door. Like a kid with his face pressed against the glass, watching the rain fall in sheets for the second straight week. Frustrated, he paws at the door until we open it. Outside he stops short of the soaked grass, rain pelting the tin roof, reminding him, all of us, that summer is over. With a dejected look he walks back into the warmth.
It’s been that sort of fall in southeast Alaska. Sometime in August the heavens opened the floodgates and it hasn’t stopped raining since. Puddles litter the dirt roads and driveways like little lakes. Rivers flow between them, connecting them, turning the road into a washboard, car shocks moaning in protest, CDs skipping.
And once again, we’re on the move. Packing this, debating that, Porter and Penny wide eyed with alarm. Moving again? At least this time the posters can stay on the wall, unneeded clothes can hang in the closet. Last summer every box and duffel had to return to the exact same spot in the Pathfinder or it wouldn’t fit. Not this time. We have a whole year of our lives meticulously planned. We know where we’re coming back to. Where our next paycheck is coming from. Sell outs.
But for now it’s time to wander. To cheer silently when the beat up old Pathfinder coughs to life. The cat taking his position in the driver’s lap, Penny poking her nose through the gaps in her house, always looking forward. It’s time for ferries, lunches out of plastic bags, for Prince Rupert to have hotels with lenient pet policies. Most importantly, it’s time for Hanson Island. For quiet coves and sleepy sunrises, Harlequin ducks chittering good morning. For silent walks through the forest, listening to the whispered messages of the cedars. It’s felt like a lifetime since we were there, or maybe just yesterday, it varies.
How much longer do we want to do this? Whenever we talk about what we’re going to do “going forward,” the subject settles on buying property, settling, wrapping ourselves in Gustavus’ warm embrace. Hanson Island stops us cold. Reminding us of town runs, sea lion haul outs, and transients on Critical Point at 3:00 in the morning. And we know we’re stuck. That houses will have to wait. We have the rest of our lives to be domesticated. To fence ourselves in. We’ll be ready someday. Ready to drop our roots among the birch on the glacial outwash near the bay we love so much.
But not yet. We understand that what we have on that little island is a once in a lifetime opportunity. That a chance like this will never come around again. How do you willingly give that up? I don’t think we can. So when people ask if this is our last winter there we smile and shake our heads.
“Probably not.” We answer. “Paul and Helena may have to kick us out.”
When do you know that you’re ready? What if we’re destined to bounce between two places that we love forever, unable to commit? What a beautiful problem to have. Some winter it’ll feel right. We’ll stay put. We’ll go to every Gustavus potluck, every fundraiser, make new friends, discover what we never knew we had. But Hanson Island will forever be a part of us. An essential nutrient in our life. A place we’ll always long for, always love.
Right now I can’t wait to get back. To wrap myself in that island as long as I can, to enjoy it for as long as possible, knowing that our time there has an expiration date. That worrying about it won’t make it any better. Nothing to do but take as deep a breath as I can, savor every sunrise, every 50 knot storm, every night hauling the boat up the beach on the rising tide. Because we’ll never get to live like this again.
Sea World, Blue World, Where in the World do we Go From Here?
After much posturing, debating, and protesting, the end of Sea World is in sight… kind of. Last week, the California Coastal Commission approved Sea World’s new “Blue World” expansion which would nearly double the size of the orca’s pools at the San Diego location. Approval comes with an enormous catch, Sea World would be forbidden from breeding orcas of wild lineage or housing more than 15 orcas in the new pools. We’ll bypass Sea World’s bleats about depriving the whales of their right to breed as “inhumane and unnatural” (nothing more natural than artificial insemination) to avoid the risk of choking on irony, and discuss where Sea World, and its opponents go from here.
“It’ll all be over in a few decades,” I thought. But rereading the Commissions vague restrictions I had more questions than answers. Sea World can build the tanks, but it cannot be populated with whales containing genetic material from wild whales or whales captured in the wild. Every Sea World orca, at least that I can find, has at least a grandparent of captive origin. The DNA of free whales runs through the veins of every whale in those pools. Technically, no one qualifies for the Blue World pool.
What the commission is implying I believe, is no offspring whose parents were born in the wild can reside in the new enclosure. No sons or daughters of Tillikum or Corky. Second generation, captive born whales would qualify for the new enclosure is my understanding. Which raises even more questions. For example, what does Sea World do with Corky, the northern Resident female from A5 pod who was captured in 1969? If wild caught orcas don’t qualify, Sea World would be looking at transporting her across country to Orlando or San Antonio. As would her tank mates Orkid, Ulises, Kasatka, Nakai, Ikaika, Keet, and Shouka. A massive whale shuffle would be on Sea World’s hands to move captive born animals to San Diego.
But the ruling also prohibits the trade or transfer of whales to and from the park. Does this include transfer of whales between San Diego and the other two locations? No article that I could find specifies. But if you cannot move any whales in or out of the San Diego location, why the stipulation on the genetics? The ruling needs more specificity before Sea World or animal rights activists can truly claim victory.
We have tragically reached a point where most of these whales cannot go home. For many, Sea World is the closest thing they’ll have. A cocktail of Icelandic, Resident, and even Transient have been stirred into the genetic cauldron leaving many of the park’s inhabitants with no identity. Refugees of the natural world. While the argument can rage about how Corky or Tillikum would fare if they were returned, there is no such case for the majority of Sea World’s prisoners. Where does an Icelandic/Resident mix go? And what pod would even consider accepting this man made whale Frankenstein?
The Commissions ruling is a ray of hope. It may not lead to the quick death of orca exploitation, but it’s a step in the right direction. I would love to see a more concise ruling on what Sea World can and cannot do with the additional 4 million gallons of tank they wish to build. If it means that those eleven whales in San Diego are the last ones that have to endure captivity on the west coast, fantastic. Maybe Sea World would even try to save face and agree to a net pen retirement for Corky. But if all it means is that Sea World has to shuffle whales a little more across the country, than little has been done but increase the number of mom and calf separations.
Sea World is slowly fading, but they’ve made it clear that they will not go quietly. An appeal will probably emerge, we’ll hear more about how wonderfully they treat their animals, and ticket sales will continue to drop. Let us continue to diplomatically educate those that buy tickets and boycott those that sponsor them (No Budweiser till Corky’s out!). The animal rights movement has moved at an exponential pace the past few years and I can’t wait to see where it leads next.
The Last of the 36s
Every four years or so a new catalog comes out. Not a clothes catalog or card catalog but a whale catalog. A yearbook of sorts. Every whale in the Northern Resident Population represented. Their face is their dorsal and saddle patch, organized into neat, orderly matrilines that define their lives.
The previous catalog came out in 2010 and was never out of reach on the Hanson Island observation deck. Its pages tattered and folded, annotations and revisions scrawled in black ink noting deaths, births, and disappearances. Over time the ringed binder that held the thick pages together began to fray and tear until the page holding the A5 pods tore at the plastic binding. Surge, Fife, Havannah, and the others threatening to tumble clear of the book and onto the wooden planks.
The time to retire the 2010 catalog has arrived. The updated 2014 edition sits on my computer now, hogging a considerable amount of disk space, documenting all 298 of the northern resident orcas. The first page of the report has always been reserved for the A36s. But as I scroll to the matriline a hollow emptiness fills the page. There’s just one whale left. Kaikash, A46. The tell tale cut on the top third of his dorsal. I can hear his calls echo through the white, unblemished page where two other six foot dorsals used to stand. His brothers Cracroft and Plumper have passed on, leaving Kaikash as the lone surviving grandchild of A1, better known as Stubbs.
Having a bond to an individual whale may seem silly. But when you know them all by name, their history, their voices, it’s hard not feel a connection. Even though they have no idea I exist. But those three brothers; Plumper, Kaikash, and Cracroft kicked my anthropomorphism into overdrive. Kaikash and Cracroft were the cool ones, the lady killers. Plumper, with his less imposing name, the awkward middle child. But they stuck together. Plowing up and down the strait, massive dorsals held high. The boys club, not a female in sight, persevering without mom. That’s how they looked to me on a rainy August day in 2007. I didn’t know who they were yet but it didn’t matter as they swam past me and my kayak, making me forget all about basketball shoes and hardwood glory. Turning my life upside down. Leading me to OrcaLab, to whatever it is that I do with myself.
Cracroft past away in 2010. And last August Plumper struggled against the tide in Blackfish sound, gave up, and drifted back the way he’d come, his brother following loyally. Which left Kaikash to fend for himself. The death sentence for most orcas, unable to survive without mom, brother, sister, and cousin. But here he is. That dorsal still defiantly displayed on page one, the final relic of the A36s, of my rebirth, of my story. I can’t imagine there’d be a blog without those three.
Last summer I hammered away at the chopping block near the lab. As the tide rose and the sun beat down a kayak group pulled into the back of the cove. I stared in amazement. Hundreds of miles of beach and they have to pick the one that’s inhabited? I keep swinging, halving and quartering the rounds, wooden shrapnel flying left and right. After lunch an older man picks his way across the beach and boldly walks up to the wood shed.
“Excuse me.” He calls, waving his arms.
I pull out my headphones, sweat running down my face. “Yeah?” He better not be asking me to wait until they leave to keep chopping.
“This is OrcaLab right?”
I nod, “sure is. I’m not sure where Paul is right-”
“Oh that’s ok. I know you’re all busy. I just wanted to ask one question. Years ago my family adopted a whale through a foundation, I think he swam around here. He was A5.”
“That was Top Notch.” I answer.
“Was?”
“Yeah… he died, quite awhile ago, shortly after his Mom. That’s how it usually happens unfortunately.”
He bites his lips, eyes on the ground like he’s dropped something. “I figured,” he mumbled, “thanks.”
So it goes in the Orca world. Friends we barely even know saying goodbye. Vanishing. No wakes, no farewells, just an empty spot on the page, and a greyed out square.
I move past Kaikash’s lonely spot and keep flipping through the catalog. “298 is a lot of whales,” I think, “more than there’s ever been since the study started.” I reach the page with the A4s, and my melancholy vanishes. There she is. Springer, A73. The miracle whale. From death bed to motherhood. Her baby Spirit’s picture just below, a strong black line connecting them. Nearly every pod has young calves, a good sign. More stories to be told, more memories to be made. Death just as much a part of living as birth. They all start out like Spirit. I smile and close out of the catalog.
“They’re just like us,” I think.
A Year of Transition
Dear God, I’m 27. I’m not sure what I thought I’d be when I looked through the crystal ball a decade or even five years ago, but this wasn’t it. I thought I’d have a steady job, a respectable career, and would be staring unblinkingly into the headlights of fatherhood. The reality couldn’t be more different. I’m a seasonal job hopping, wanna be John Muir apostle and nature writer who still spends far too much time playing this game. But for the first time since I walked off the UAS campus and had my respectable career tossed back in my face, I have direction. Or as close as my life comes to direction nowadays.
Last summer I went golfing with Brittney’s uncle in Washington. While we waited for the ferry home, I laid in the back of the car and my heart started pounding.
“I’m gonna be 26 this year,” I thought. “I’m closer to 30 than 20.” I had my first mini panic attack. “What am I doing with myself?”
My crisis followed me up the B.C coast, to Hanson Island, and hovered in the back of my mind like a dark fog. What are you going to do? I’d scoffed at the question when people asked me that. Loved the stunned look on their face when I’d airily toss back, “whatever I want to.”
But seriously, what was I going to do next? I was all too aware that our bank account was drying, that the coming spring would bring some serious questions and answers that would magnify like ripples on a lake.
The warm July sun worked its way across Orca Lab’s observation deck warming the weathered cedar planks. I sat cross legged on the deck, arms on top of the lowest railing, chin on my wrists, staring blankly out at the water. I was supposed to be counting humpbacks, noting sea lions, looking for the tell tale scimitar shape of a prowling orca. But the landscape swam before my eyes and I pondered the same persistent worry.
The breeze fluttered, I thought about how much I loved it here. Loved being on the water, near the whales, the cedar forest, and the people. That was what made Orca Lab what it was. Paul, Helena, the never ending parade of volunteers from every corner of the world that gave Hanson Island its unique flavor. Where else had people touched my spirit like that? What place had the potential and power to do it again and again?
Gustavus.
I sat upright, my head banging against the middle railing, a dull thunk rattling down the cedar. I let the bruise go unnoticed as I begin to pace from one end of the deck to the next. The breeze whispers in my ears, “Gustavus. You’re going to go back, you’re going to be a kayak guide, and you’re going to write.”
Moments later the stress and fear that had taken up residence in my lower stomach melted away, draining through my pores to be caught on the westerly breeze, never to be seen again. Was it God? The universe? My own fevered mind racing through the card catalog of the brain for something that would satisfy?
I grabbed my phone and with shaking hands, tapped out a message to Brittney. “We should go back to Gustavus.”
Minutes later I had my answer, “yep.”
People pay me to write now. Not a lot, in fact I make peanuts or less than peanuts most of the time. But my computer and note pad are never far away and I scribble down ideas for novels, blog entries, and ridiculous limericks I don’t let out into the daylight. This summer, with a ball of anxiety, I sent the first 3,000 words of my wanna be memoir to Kim Heacox.
“There’s work that needs to be done here.” He wrote back, “but there’s some good stuff too. Don’t get discouraged, everyone needs to rewrite…. except F. Scott Fitzgerald. There’s a lot of writers out there who don’t have the fire, keep writing.”
“I want to have the fire,” I answered.
I share my life with a beautiful women, two fantastic (fur) babies, and split my life between two places that pull at my heartstrings, demanding my eternal affection. Just fourteen months ago I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life. Now, I’m worried that I won’t have time to do it all.
Raincoast Wanderings 