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The New Chapter

Risk and Living

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The tender splashes over the side, and the southeast breeze tugs at the bowline. I tie it to a cleat and give the anchor a firm pull. Find me a boat owner who’s more paranoid about their anchor than me.

Boat anchorages for this forecast don’t get much better than Lemesurier Island’s Hooter Cove. Tucked on the island’s west side beneath a steep hillside, it’s insulated from all but the worst southeasterlies.

Lemesurier Island on a nicer day

I wiggle into the little inflatable and paddle awkwardly for shore. I can’t imagine the designers of the Seahawk 2 had this in mind when they marketed her. Judging by the photo on the box, their grand plans included two full-grown men squeezing into this glorified raft for a magical day fishing on their favorite lake.

The raft zigzags at a glacial pace, and I keep glancing at the trees to confirm that I am indeed making progress. Even if I didn’t have my pack, rifle, and long legs, there doesn’t seem to be room for another dude in this thing, and I have no clue where you’d stash a fish bigger than a goldfish.

I nudge into the barnacle-coated rocks. Seahawk’s already sprung a pair of leaks, and we’ve agreed it’s a good idea to always take the hand pump. Despite the comical marketing and questionable durability, Zach and I have become strangely attached to the goofy inflatable that fits neatly in the back of our 20-foot skiff. I stash Seahawk above the tideline and, for the countless time this fall, pull my rifle from its drybag.

It’d be nice to have one more deer. The weather and daylight window for the day are tight, made worse by me forgetting my deer call on the bedside table and delaying our departure another 15 minutes. The ride to Lemesurier is just bumpy enough to remind me that the evening forecast calls for 20 knots and growing to 25 by Thanksgiving morning.

It’s mid-morning by the time I drop Tanner and Zach at their hunting spots and anchor. Four hours in the woods can vanish with astonishing speed. Depending on where you find deer and the difficulty of the drag, sometimes the day is done just as fast as it began.

I pause in spite of the tight schedule and look skeptically back at the skiff.

“It’s not drifting, is it?”

“No, it can’t be.”

“In your head. It’s all in your head.”

Some grow bolder the longer they tramp the woods, climb the mountains, and cross the straits, but I am not one of them. The more time out here, the more whitecaps and steep scrambles I traverse, the more cautious I’ve become. Too many close calls. Too many stories about boats with capable captains caught off guard by a rogue wave or experienced hikers disappearing on trails they’ve hiked dozens of times. I think about some of the stuff I got away with in my 20s and wonder how many of my nine lives remain.

Yet, here I am, boating across aptly named Icy Strait in weather that could best be described as “iffy,” and tramping down the beach after buck tracks in freshly fallen snow.

“Well,” I reason as I brush aside foliage and step into the forest. “There’s a balance between risk and living. Why live here if you’re going to be inside all day?”

I blink in the dim light and look around dumbfounded. I’ve never walked these woods despite passing this island dozens of times. This is Hank’s refuge, his go-to spot to hunt and shelter in a small, off-grid cabin. I’d heard him talk plenty of times about how much bigger and open the Lemesurier forest is compared to the Inian Islands, but I had to see it to believe it.  

Stately hemlocks with just a smattering of spruces tower high above an open floor devoid of menziesia, huckleberry, and devil’s club. The trees are spread wide, a myriad of deer trails weave hither and thither.

I look up the hill. I can see forever. So many great perches. I gain some elevation and settle on the soft moss, the rifle propped on a rotting deadfall.

I scan the full 360-degree view. This may not be as advantageous as I want. I can see forever, but so can the deer, and they’re a whole lot harder to see at 200 yards than me.

The big old trees give the impression of being watched. This place feels familiar, comfortable, like I’ve been here before. Not here exactly, but on an island pinned between the British Columbian mainland and Vancouver Island. A place I’ve thought about – for better or worse – every day for more than a decade.

It is no slight to Juneau, Gustavus, or southeast Alaska to say that the sweetest moments of my life came on Hanson Island, British Columbia, where I sat up nights starring over inky Blackfish Sound while orcas called from Robson Bight.

These Lemesurier trees echo Hanson Island’s mega old growth, where wizened red cedar and chunky fir trees persevere. Instead of looking for antlers, I daydream about magical harbor seal encounters and lugging batteries.

I can’t quit this place, and when I vowed to return, I had no idea it might happen so fast.

***

I had every intention of going somewhere warm for the winter. Hawaii sounded good, and I trolled the usual “workshare” websites and pestered my Hawaii friends for job opportunities. Something kept getting in the way. Schedules didn’t line up, the timeline either too long or too short (or too expensive).

Eventually, I did what usually happens when I have a new search engine open. I typed in “orca.” I scrolled through the workshare, and my heart skipped several beats when I saw Orca Lab’s profile staring back at me. After several minutes fantasizing about going full hobo and returning for the summer, I kept moving, scrolling past several opportunities along the B.C. coast that toted the chance of seeing “wild orcas.”

I stop at an overhead drone shot of red-roofed buildings and a floating dock. Orca Lab isn’t the only site of human habitation on Hanson Island. Double Bay is on the opposite side of the island in an appropriately named bay that cuts deep into the shore. It had been an inactive fishing lodge during my Orca Lab days and snapped up by a philanthropist some years ago with the ambitious idea of bringing Corky home. While far too old to ever go full ‘Free Willy’ and return to her pod, living out her final days in a large net pen adjacent to her native habitat seemed the least humanity and SeaWorld could offer after decades of imprisonment.

Help us Create an orca sanctuary. Caretakers needed for January and February.

***

Deer-less and cold, I hustle back to Hooter Bay, hoping Zach and Tanner saw more than my single doe/fawn pair. Knots of anxiety bend my stomach as the water comes into view. Terrible scenarios fill my head, including a broken anchor chain, a punctured Seahawk, a shifting low front, a chilly night, and a long walk to cell phone service.

But the skiff is there, and Seahawk is reasonably inflated. I paddle out and have to admit that the wind is picking up.

“There’s a balance between risk and living. Why live here if you’re going to be inside all day?”

The anchor pops off the bottom—big pull. Reset my grip—big pull. Reset. I pause, catch my breath, and look back at Lemesurier. It’s been several weeks since I reached out to Double Bay Sanctuary, and I’m dragging my feet on my final answer. Two months isn’t a big commitment, and it’s not like sitting in the middle of nowhere is some monumental life change. There’d even be two other people there. I wouldn’t have to go full hermit this time around.

Snow swirls around my head, and my fingers go numb. The anchor comes into view, and the skiff sways in the growing chop. I stare at the anchor, considering the balance between risk and living.

“Why do this?” I ask the cove.

“Why not do this?” the forest answers.

“Because… I don’t want to chase ghosts. I don’t want to be Uncle Rico.”

There’s no question who my celebrity lookalike is. While there are times I’d prefer to be comped to Damon or Pitt, at least Napolean Dynamite got to eat tater tots and dance. But it’s Napolean’s antagonizing Uncle Rico I’m scared of becoming.

Yes, I’d dreamed of going back, of cruising up Highway 19 in time to catch the evening ferry from Port McNeil to Alert Bay. Yet, if I was going to do this, it won’t be to relive some glory day or a feeble attempt to recapture my Orca Lab magic – the rambling equivalent of throwing a football over mountains or wondering what would have happened if coach put me in during the fourth quarter. After 18 months trying to look forward instead of backward, the last thing I needed was an excuse to relapse.

***

The anchor clangs, the boat drifts free, engine in gear. Choppy waves meet me at Lemesurier’s northwest corner. Low gray light and fog hide the setting sun. Tanner is right where he’s supposed to be, a marvelous 3×3 buck resting on the boulder-strewn beach. I abandon the helm and help lug his prize over the hull, trying to keep covetous envy out of my voice.

A deer of comparable (but still smaller) dimensions.

“Where’s Zach?”

Tanner drops his pack and checks the stern for rocks before we pull away.

“Just heard him on the radio, says he’s on a beach east of here.”

I shake my head: fading light, growing waves, temperature below freezing. We may find what our skiff can do on this 15-mile run home.  

I wouldn’t have given the crossing a second thought ten years ago. Invincible and drunk on life, I took Orca Lab’s teeny boat into all sorts of weather, tying it to the rocks off Cracroft Point and hustling to replace a battery or restart a generator while the tide fell and waves pounded. I took green water over the window and felt the hull wobble under an overloaded cargo of groceries, laundry, water, fuel, and batteries.

We cruise just offshore. Water sprays the windshield, and I taste salt.

“Where’d you find’em?” I ask, trying to take my mind off the weather.

“In a muskeg just a few hundred feet above the beach,” answers Tanner, not taking his eyes off the shore. He points towards a pebbly beach below a cliff. “There he is.”

Zach leaps aboard the lurching skiff with the ocean roaring in our ears. Spinning towards home, the bow dips unnervingly in the stacking four-footers. Tanner’s buck receives a dose of salt brine.

“We could use a little more weight in the stern,” I say grimly.

We shelter behind the little windshield and bounce like pool toys. I glance west into fading light. It’s gonna be close.

The boat goes quiet as we stare over sooty seas. My fingers go numb on the wheel, and we crawl forward. Home looks far away.

“There’s balance between risk and living. Why live here if you’re going to be inside all day?”

Lemesurier disappears in fog. Glacier Bay comes into view. I replay the route again and again. Lemesurier to Point Carolus. Across Sitakaday Narrows to Lester Point. Lester to Halibut Point. Halibut to the Bartlett Cove dock. The chop subsides near Carolus. Push the throttle down. 10 knots. 15 knots. 20 knots. The outboard purrs. We’re gonna make it.

I forget the weather and cold as my mind retraces another marine route that’s burned into my memory. A path that scoots across Cormorant Channel and through the Pearce Islands before hitting Weyton Pass at the slack. It meanders through the Plumper Islands and past a sea lion haul-out before navigating the tidal islets off Hanson Island. But instead of continuing down Blackfish Sound for Licka Point, I turn into a bay with two heads cutting deep into the island that will never let me go.

Hanson Island

***

Carolus’ rocky reef goes whizzing by. Sleet pelts our faces, but it seems that the worst is behind us. We breathe a little easier, our nervous jokes a little funnier. It’s impossible to always know where the line is between risk and living. The line moves without warning. A sunny day can be overrun with fog or variable seas replaced with small craft advisories.

We sprint across Sitakaday, and comprehension hits harder than the iciest salt spray. I cannot let fear stop me from loving the places that resonate. There are challenges around returning to Hanson Island. Memories and nostalgia would wiggle into my heart and try to drag me down—that oscillating line between risk and joy.

Bartlett Cove dock pokes out of the fog. Did I let the fear of a snapping anchor line or bouncing waves stop me? No, I tied the line tight, double-checked the weather, and trusted my skiff and friends. We cannot sit at home in fear of what may happen.

I am an unreliable narrator still learning the quirks and priorities of a reborn 36-year-old who stresses about his boat and runs after every report of orcas. Some things just won’t change. For 18 months, I looked forward, reclaimed home, and fell deeper in love with Icy Strait. I want the same for Hanson Island, for it to be part of past, present… perhaps future.

The skiff slides into the dock. The motor goes silent, and I flex my throbbing fingers as the blood returns and numbness fades. Did it—a bit of risk for another day in the woods. The sensation and payoff are inescapable, makes me thirsty for more. We walk up the ramp, keenly aware that we forgot to call for a ride home.

I pause against the railing and look across the water. Lemesurier and its big old trees peak out of the fog, and I give them a solemn nod, thankful not just for home but the opportunity to live a life that permits me to fiercely love two places. There is room for Hanson Island in this new life. Room to write a new chapter and make it part of home. I clap my stinging hands, heart filling with cautious excitement.

A great blue heron lands on the railing and stares with prehistoric eyes. The same bird that flew over the Shabin on my first visit and whose vestige now adorns the kitchen. I am not one for signs and imagery, but I take his presence as positive affirmation.

“Thanks,” I whisper. “It’s good to be going home.”

Hanson Island
The New Chapter

Feed Me Twice

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Time stops when antlers fill the scope. This muskeg looked empty before I crept behind a mossy tussock, blew the wooden deer call swinging from my neck, and summoned a doe from her hidden bed. I watch her unseen; a rare privilege to see a deer that doesn’t see you. A grunt grabs my attention. Forked antlers pad up the mossy hill.

“This is how it’s supposed to work,” my brain whispers. “Blow the call, attract a doe, and watch the buck come trotting in.”

The buck disappears beneath a slight depression and reappears at 20 yards. Either he doesn’t see me or doesn’t care. He’s full-grown – five years old in blacktail society – and lord of this expansive muskeg. Mature bucks aren’t supposed to show their faces in the middle of the day, but all bets are off when the rut is on. I have tricked him by imitating the call of a fawn in distress. Bleating fawns bring does, does bring bucks. As if a bolt-action 30.06 loaded with copper-tipped shells wasn’t enough of an advantage.

***

Yet, there is no moral ambiguity. My rifle misfired an hour ago when a large buck trotted past in pursuit of a pair of does. I can still see his startled expression when he looked up the hill. I reloaded in a panic and pulled the second shot. That had been enough. He’d bolted the way he’d come, and no bleating fawn would bring him back.

Hunting is challenging, even with a rifle, Google Earth, tide charts, and hand-carved deer calls. Blacktails camouflage beautifully into the brush and rarely move when the sun is high. Infinitely better ears and noses, they melt into the woods long before our primitive eyes spot them. I had patiently waited above their trail for that exact moment. It’s hard not to feel cheated. That life isn’t fair.

***

Minerva lays sprawled on the carpet. Her expression matches mine. Limp, apathetic, beaten, and lost. I refresh the New York Times, watch Wisconsin turn a little redder, shake my head, and close the laptop. I scratch behind her ears and pick up the guitar with an apology. Her eyes widen, and she bolts for her favorite hiding place beneath the bed. If I ever think my guitar playing is improving, I can rely on her to keep me humble.

I strum the opening chords to Brand New’s ‘137,’ a song about nuclear weaponry and destruction. Perhaps still a tad hyperbolic, but it feels appropriate at 9:00 pm on November 5th.

We’re so afraid. I prayed and prayed when God told me to love the bomb.

I want justice.

I want clean water, clean air. A habitable planet. For quiet spaces and open places to take precedence over fear, greed, and hatred. I gaze out the black windows toward the invisible willow sluice where moose nurse their calves and snipes build their nests. Closeted away on this swampy glacial outwash makes it hard to articulate or understand how people could choose profit and bigotry. I once yearned to understand. To comprehend and seek common ground with a sect that claimed Christ as lord but slammed their doors against anyone who didn’t look like them. Who chose to worship manifest destiny and convicted felons over the simple edict of “love thy neighbor” and “do unto others.”

Let’s all go and meet our maker. It won’t matter whose side you’re on.

I will not get justice. Any environmental or conservation progress has been reduced to fantasy. The best we can hope for is a fighting retreat. The Helm’s Deep culvert has been breached, and I don’t know if we can count on Gandalf arriving at first light on the fifth day.

***

Zach and I silently crack beers. Two days later and he’s still sporting the camo-tinged “Hunters for Harris & Walz” ballcap our buddy Sean made. There’s no reason to rehash what we already know. No need to talk about carbon levels, alternative energy, or the sixth extinction. What hope we had at reversing them has melted like so many glaciers.

We try to cheer each other up and allow one another to be angry. To curse and chuck an empty beer can at the hemlock paneling. It’s impossible not to think about Zach’s 18-month-old boy and what kind of world he’ll inherit. I feel guilty and selfish at my childless existence but thankful my parentage extends no further than a cuddly ragdoll cat.

Our vision narrows to the world we can comprehend: Icy Strait, Glacier Bay, Cross Sound. The mountains waiting to be explored and quiet mornings in the muskegs. Living at the north end of an ecosystem that runs from Alaska to northern California has some advantages in a warming world. Southeast Alaska is projected to receive more rain in the coming decades. A bit soggy, perhaps, but better than the well running dry or having the remaining reservoirs snapped up by corporations.

Mellower winters and protected old growth will be good for deer. Perhaps the salmon runs can persevere in the rivers free from clearcutting. We yearn to escape. To go on a wilderness bender. To return to one of the few places that makes sense. We pull up YouTube and watch videos of Sitka blacktail deer, counting the days until our turn to walk in the woods.

***

The buck fills the scope. Ten yards away, yet I receive only a sideways glance. The doe meandering up the hill has all his attention. He turns broadside. Crosshairs settle on his chest just behind the front leg. My finger flexes. The gun clicks. Panic returns. Another misfire. How old is this ammo? How many times have I taken it into the field? Even bullets have expiration dates.

Work the bolt, the dud flipping through the air and nesting in the moss. I didn’t reload after the previous mishap. I chamber my last shell. The buck takes an uncertain step towards the trees. Crosshairs on his heart.

“Please, please, please, please.”

The barrel recoils. I don’t hear the shot or the dull pain in my shoulder.

The doe glances over. There’s no fear in her face, only polite curiosity. Acrid smoke fills my nose. My heart pounds and my hands tremble. I’m no longer cold. No longer wet. A red mist envelops his chest as he collapses on the moss. Blood stains his soot-colored coat. His final breath escapes through the exit wound. The cloudy vapor hangs like a whale’s spout. But there is no arching back, no flipping tail, no pronouncement of life.

I collapse into the moss with ringing ears. My breath comes in tiny gasps, feeling relief more than anything. It’s only a few strides to his resting place. I grip the thick fur. My forehead touches his. Empty eyes, a pale tongue pokes from his mouth.

The doe saunters away, oblivious to the exchange that has taken place. Not comprehending or not understanding. She blissfully nuzzles at a the moss and comes up with a strand of something green and leafy.

I want my whole world to be this steep mountainside clinging to the north end of Chichagof Island, for every need and desire to be filled in the spaces between treeline and tideline. To watch the seasons come and go until the day I can no longer rise, and the snow gently covers what remains.

I guess I want to be a deer.

My knife slides across the belly’s white fur. His fading heat warms my fingers and steadies my hand.

I whisper my Deer Prayer, “You are the forest made flesh. I promise to think of you whenever I eat. To honor your memory. May wherever you are be peaceful and free of pain.”

I cup his heart in hands covered with blood and slippery with fat. My bullet pierced the aorta and pulmonary vein, but some of it may still be edible. The organ goes into a Ziploc along with the liver. Our hunting culture has few commandments, but one is to eat the heart and liver that evening while the story is told.

Field dressing complete, I sit on my heels and rub my hands clean. The doe has finally moved off, but I can still hear her rustling in the brush. There’s something eerie how, once a shot has been fired and a deer has fallen, how tame they become. In normal circumstances, the doe would have fled when she saw me. Now, she lingers. Paying her last respects? That sounds better than being oblivious.

There is contradiction in my hunting. Snuffing life from the very creature that represents all I crave and value. Their innocence and gentleness, self-sufficiency, and quiet beauty. The desire to get closer and closer, to reach out and almost touch this forest talisman and then decide which dies and which survives.

I stare into the dark eyes, already glassy with death.

“This isn’t fair,” I tell him. “Little in this life is.”

The muskeg faces the Fairweather Mountains. The Inian Islands and Hobbit Hole bow before them like fiefs declaring fealty. I grip the broad antlers and take a few unsteady steps up the hill. How can I feel enthralled and guilty at the same time?

Perhaps that’s why these muskegs and animals enthrall me but insist that I carry a rifle. The contradictions force me to examine my connection to place and attempt to comprehend it.

To understand how an easterly breeze catches my scent and how a northerly outflow bites the skin and sends deer running for cover. To examine the fairness in my own life and, most of all, escape. To connect with a part of me that pumps with vigor independent of elections, divorces, and frayed friendships. Because out here, deer or no deer, things make sense in a way they don’t where there’s cell phone service and wi-fi.

They say heating with wood warms you twice. Once when you split it and again when you burn it. If so, then deer feed me twice. Once in the woods and again on the plate. We depart the muskeg and dip into a small ravine. Sweat drips, and quads tremble. Hoof tracks crisscross snowy patches, ravens call on the wind, and squirrels chatter from hidden towers. Across another muskeg and down the mountain I wish I called home.

The New Chapter

Why Do This

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Ice. It always comes back to ice. Jagged, narrow inlets filled with saltwater hundreds of feet deep. Hills and mountains sculpted and rounded thousands of feet above the lapping waves. Humpback whales feed near the inlet’s shallow moraine, where the currents of Icy Strait and South Inian Pass meet. All because of glaciers that churned through thousands of years prior. The icy deserts have been replaced by a bounty of life that feels limitless in the calm August sunshine.

Our skiff glides down Idaho Inlet, cruising mid-channel and on course for the dogleg turn a couple of miles from the head of the inlet. Our heads crane upwards, eyes probing glowing green ridgelines and the hypothetical routes that lead to them. A few of these green fingers run towards sea level, a deceptive and alluring path that, in reality, is thick with salmonberry and alder. Better to take the wooded (albeit still thick) forests to reach that seductive alpine ridge.

Zach noses the boat towards a salmon stream and Seth leaps from the bow with a nod as he gives the boat a hearty shove. He disappears into the grass before the forest swallows him. I take the wheel, and Zach shoulders his own pack and rifle.

He points at a long rocky beach. “That one.”

I glance at the ridgeline. Sure. If I blink, squint hard enough, and imagine enough switchbacks, I can see a route through the trees to that coveted alpine. If Zach has any questions about the validity of his chosen mountain, he’s decided not to show it.

The keel scrapes the rocks, and he leaps clear.

“Good hunting.”

He waves in response. “See you tomorrow at noon.”

With a shout of, “Hey bear!” He vanishes into the trees.

I spin the skiff towards a small cove on the other side of the inlet. It’s an ideal anchorage in the shadow of another 2,000 peak that culminates in a long, straight ridge glowing in the setting sun.

For a third time, the skiff bumps the rocks. Out goes my pack and rifle before I putter away to lower the anchor. The anchor strikes bottom at 20 feet, and I spoon out several more feet before sliding the boat into reverse and feeling the anchor teeth dig into the soft mud. I brush my teeth and spit over the side, suddenly feeling oh so small.

It’s approaching 9 in the evening, and the mountain looks steep and foreboding. It will be disorientating in the woods. I pray for a game trail devoid of fallen trees and devil’s club. Idaho Inlet cuts into the north side of Chichagof Island, home to one of the largest brown bear populations on earth, and I left my bear spray sitting on the counter at the Hobbit Hole. I’d sooner wrestle a bear than rely on a round or two from a 30.06. It only makes me feel smaller.

I squeeze into a pack raft and splash for shore, shoulder the pack that feels too heavy, and crash into the darkening woods. Sweat soaks my sweater, and my breath comes in gasps as I hop from one deer trail to the next, yelling for the bears to keep clear every couple of minutes.

Why do this?

I pause and look at my GPS. 400 feet above sea level. 1600 feet to go. I’m not going to make it tonight. I look at the forest’s collection of blueberry, skunk cabbage, false azalea, and rotting tree trunks. Nothing looks remotely campable.

“Hey, bear!”

The words disappear with nary an echo. I am over my skis. A wanna-be Alaskan cosplaying as a hunter and homesteader. Discomfort wiggles in my mind, and whispers of self-doubt grow a little louder. I glance at the thickets below and, for a moment, consider retreating. I can camp at sea level and try for the alpine in the morning.

Why do this?

I tighten the pack’s belt and bush upwards. I can’t answer my own question, much less discern where I’m going to camp or how I’ll bear-proof my food while I sleep. Something keeps me climbing, keeps me gasping and sweating and pushing.

Tomorrow is Christmas morning. The allure of fat deer foraging on the cabbage that bears their name. The never-ending ridges of the island in the background. To stand where no one has stood for years (maybe longer). A reminder of the joy of public lands and wild places. The good health and fortune that lets me push higher and higher, one sweat-soaked step at a time.

At 800 feet, it’s too dark to climb any further. I cast around for anything resembling a campsite. I cram the tent against a hemlock perched on a ledge. At least the tree will catch me before I tumble should I roll over in the middle of the night. I’ve worn too many layers, and the bottom one is soaked through. I crawl into the tent without bothering to put on the fly. It’s been a soggy summer, but the last few days have been hot and dry, a forecast projected to continue tomorrow. I hear a stream tumbling down a gorge and murrelets returning to their nests. I brace against the hemlock and fall asleep.

Alarm at 4 am. I don’t bother packing the tent and hustle up the mountain with just the essentials: trail mix, rifle, extra shells, hunting knife, plastic bags, and Wild Berry Skittles. I pop out of the woods and into a mix of muskeg and yellow cedar, greeted by the rasping call of a doe.

My muscles tense as I slide rounds into the Springfield and watch the last one lock in the barrel. I squish through the muskeg, eyes trying to see everything at once. I am faced with the hunter’s dilemma, forced to choose between covering more ground or moving silently. Despite the doe’s call, the ground around me is sparse on sign, only a few trails and dry piles of scat. Discarding stealth, I bolt for the summit, already feeling a warm breeze as the sun inches towards the shady peaks. Idaho Inlet spills beneath me, a sinewy waterway that looks no bigger than a river. A jolt of anxiety runs through me as I imagine a poorly set anchor line and what it would be like to step out of the woods and into an empty cove. That’s a problem for Sea Level David hours down the road.

I bring the scope to my eye and work the ridges and meadows with as much patience as I can conjure. Two deer pop against the ridge 200 feet above. They weave through the rocks and grass, velvety antlers evident on the one in the lead.

My heartbeat quickens, but another peculiarly warm gust brings disappointment. The pair are traveling downwind, and the only approach for a biped is upwind. With no other deer visible, I begin to climb, hoping for a change in the wind.

I pause at the summit. The Fairweather Mountains explode from the other side of Icy Strait. Even from this distance, the 14,000-foot sentinel’s tower over my quaint little hill, blinding white peaks stretching north. Again, I feel small, but not in the diminished, intimidated manner of the day prior.  The wildness of my home reverberates in my chest, and I barely mind when I realize the deer have disappeared around a steep and wooded point.

There’s no chance of following them without creating a ruckus, and the wind won’t stop blowing their direction. The ridgeline is a deceptive mix of mountain hemlock and yellow cedar the consistency of a hedge grove. I quietly push through them and feel the temperature drop. Minutes before 6 am, the promise of a sweltering summer day is already palpable. Too much sun means sheltering deer and poor hunting. The clock is ticking as I step out of the hedge on the west side. If I were a deer, this is where I’d be. Three mountains rim a bowl of alpine and sub-alpine habitat still sheltered from the rising sun.

I give the distant muskegs a scan, but a lip in the hillside keeps me from seeing the ground beneath me. I re-enter stealth mode, every step deliberate as I try to watch my feet and the emerging muskeg. I glance right, take another step, look down, and freeze.

A deer’s winter coat is grayish-brown and melts into the old growth, but its burnt orange summer one pops against alpine green.

The rifle jams against my shoulder. My god, he’s huge. A belly full of summer forage swings back and forth. He stands broadside to me, but when he raises his head, I can see broad, illustrious antlers culminating in three points on each side. The sort of deer Zach and I talk about after our fourth whiskey while snow falls on a gray January evening.

I take a breath, squeeze my eyes, and am overjoyed when the buck is still there when I open them. My mind freezes, and time slows to a halt as exhilaration mixes with the pressure not to blow this. He hasn’t seen me, but at this angle and distance, I’m not comfortable taking the shot without a brace. I can’t lay prone on this steep hill.

The pack slides from my shoulders, eyes on those antlers. The safety clicks. When I first started hunting, I anticipated some sort of moral conflict to play out inside me during these deliberate, pre-mediated actions. But there’s never room in my head for that. Once the safety is off, I’ve made my choice, my brain and heart acknowledging that we’re taking a shot. To take a life to sustain life. My inner monologue is filled with the same trite phrases:

Don’t blow this. Don’t blow this. Don’t blow this. It’s too hot. This is your one chance. The next 30 seconds will decide this.

I rest the barrel on my pack and kick my legs to the side. It’s awkward, but the rifle feels manageable with the pack holding the weight. I shift, and the buck looks up the hill. He fills the scope, and I stare covetously at his antlers. Ten minutes earlier or ten minutes later, and I would’ve missed him. I’d never claim to be a good hunter, but luck has been with me more often than not the last couple of years.

Deep breath, let it out. Wait. Wait. He keeps staring. Crosshairs split those beautiful, perfect antlers. Downhill shot, 200 yards. The bullet’s gonna drop. Compensate. I raise the barrel slightly just as the buck turns away to look at the alpine bowl beneath the mountains. The clock hits 6 am. A finger twitches. The blast echoes off peaceful peaks.

I unbolt the shell and catch the spinning casing. Another slides into place. Before I can stand, I know another shot won’t be necessary. His twitching slows as the nerves fire.

“Yes,” I breathe. “Oh, thank you, deer. Thank you.”

The safety clicks on. I fall more than run down the hill. The adrenaline letdown means everything is shaking. Balance and hand/eye coordination have become optional. My knees and hands tremble as I grip the fuzzy antlers that so filled my mind.

I mumble platitudes, take a deep breath, and get ahold of myself. As crucial as the last five minutes were, the next couple of hours are just as vital. The buck is too unwieldy to drag to sea level. The meat will need to be harvested here, the bones and fur left for scavengers. But not yet. I let the contradictions of my life run wild.

I’ve grown to fiercely love deer, finding them beautiful, gentle, charismatic, and, yes, delicious. To introduce violence and death upon a creature I treasure is something I fail to fully comprehend. Nothing is stopping me from climbing a mountain and simply watching these animals. No one would think less of me. I am not participating in some blind race for masculinity and affirmation.

Why do this?

I bury my fingers in his fur and bow my head. Because to eat of deer is to eat of the forest and mountains that make up my home. Because few things bring more pleasure than sliding a burger across the counter to a neighbor or loved one. Because there is something prehistoric and feral braided into my DNA that wants to hunt, catch, gather, and grow instead of blindly tossing deli meat in a shopping cart.

“I won’t call this a sacrifice,” I whisper, forcing myself to look into his empty eyes. “Because you didn’t wake up this morning set on giving your life. No, you were in the right place at the right time.” I pause, “or the wrong place at the wrong time. I hope your passing was as painless as it could possibly be. I promise to honor this gift and use as much as I can. I’ll think of you and this day every time I eat. I don’t know what the afterlife is like for a deer, but I hope it is peaceful and quiet and free of pain.”

I press my forehead against his. Velvet antlers rub my temples. The flies begin to buzz. No words can excuse the violence and bloodshed. But if my gratitude and respect can find a way into the calories I harvest… it matters how an animal dies. How it is treated even after it draws its final breath.

The muscles in my leg cramp, the plastic bags steadily filling with meat bound for canning jars. When the bags are bulging, and the work finished, I drag what’s left of the buck to a large rock, spreading the pelt across the top and resting the head to overlook the mountains he’d been watching. From behind, he could be sleeping.

I shovel Skittles into my mouth and wrestle the pack into position. My knees ache as I reach the ridge and appear in blinding sunshine. I glance back at the burnt orange fur and give him a final nod.

Why do this?

Idaho Inlet waits below. The Inian Islands and Hobbit Hole obscured from this angle. There will be stories to tell, beers to drink, a life to thank and remember as the pressure canner rattles. Tradition dictates that the heart of the deer must be eaten that night. The sort of meal that needs to be shared. Must be shared.

I take an uneasy step down the ridge. 1,998 feet to go. I may not be able to articulate how or why this has become the most integral part of my year, but there’s no going back . Home lays before me, rolling ridges behind, the biting straps of the pack a blessing in disguise.

The New Chapter

Ravens and Deer

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Snow coats the hemlock boughs like icing. At sea level, we’re oscillating between sleet and snow on a minute-by-minute basis. From South Pass, the Gulf of Alaska is visible and foreboding. The constant swell an undulating steppe that bottlenecks through this passage that in many places is just a half-mile wide.

My double kayak is sheltered by the biggest of the Inian Islands, the bow rising high in the air with each swell. Instead of another paddler, the bow seat is occupied by a rifle and dry bag. If all goes according to plan, there will be a four-legged occupant in that seat on the way home.

The Inians are four watermark islands at the west end of Icy Strait, a breakwater between the inside waters and open gulf. They’ve been designated as wilderness by the U.S Forest Service, with one exception – The Hobbit Hole.

How to describe the Hobbit Hole? It’s a picturesque homestead. Five acres of old growth nestled in an ideal harbor accessible through a narrow cut. A mile west can be some of the most dynamic, challenging, and downright dangerous waters on the coast. It’s the last harbor. The last shelter. The last hearth. And it has become a tradition to spend Thanksgiving here in the name of fellowship, deer, and gratitude.

I have a spot in mind. A little pocket beach near the south end of the island. It’s too shallow for a boat, but a kayak can squeeze in there when the swell allows. The kayak catches the surf and slides up the pebbled beach. I jam my paddle into the rocks and the boat holds fast as the ocean retreats. I scramble free and drag the kayak to the pile of drift logs at the feet of the forest.

I tie the kayak to the logs and step out of my raingear. I’m wrapped in wool. Not as dry, but quieter when creeping through the forest. Five shells slide into the magazine of the 30.06, the last one clicking into the chamber with a deathly click.

Safety on. Backpack shouldered, GPS tracker on.

I follow the drainage, letting the sound of crashing surf and running water muffle my footsteps. I am not a quiet hunter. If there’s a stick to crack or a rock to send down a hillside, I will find it. The deer I’m looking for can hear better, smell better, and probably see better. They have home-field advantage, and the myriad of deer trails tells me that there are multiple escape routes if they feel the need.

But the Springfield slung around my shoulders does a hell of a job at leveling the playing field. I prefer to sit and wait. Find a perch, try to get comfortable, and exercise some patience. It’s that last bit I struggle with. But the human eye doesn’t see well when it’s moving, and the odds of me seeing a deer before it sees me when I’m in motion are slim.

I find a small rise looking up the hillside. It’s reasonably open for the Inian Islands where the forest is defined by thick groves of blueberry, devils club, and muskeg. I bring a wooden deer call to my lips and give a few bleats. I’ve been wearing it every day since July. It’s become something of a talisman, a worry stone I can hold onto when the feelings get big. But I finally get to use it for something besides startling my cat when she falls asleep on my lap.

I settle in. All my tramping surely scared everything off, time to let the woods go quiet, to melt into the moss and pretend I’m not there, to give the – there’s a deer.

Top of the hill, to my left, moving right. Weaving along a well-worn trail. I bring the scope to my eyes. There are antlers. I’ve been in the woods thirty minutes, and I’ve found antlers. I blow the call. He keeps disappearing behind hummocks and thickets. But he’s moving towards me. My heart pounds and I’m embarrassed by how much my hands are shaking. Halfway down the hill, he vanishes behind a fallen spruce. I bring the scope to my eye, aiming to the left of the blowdown, and wait.

But a sound further down the hill distracts me. The raspy call of a doe echoes through the woods. The buck isn’t coming towards me. He’s heading for her. Can’t blame him. She’s much cuter than I am. But she has no interest in what he’s selling. For a moment I have them both in the scope, but the view is fleeting. The doe scrambles back up the hill and the buck vanishes. He doesn’t take the rejection very well.

For a while, I try to follow their tracks in the scattered snow. But they’re downwind of me and the trail is hard to follow. The wind blows from the southeast, so I turn around, still feeling the exhilaration of the sighting. The relationship I have with deer is often met with raised eyebrows and skepticism from those down south.

It’s hard for me to imagine deer as pests piling up on the side of the interstate or rummaging through petunias. They are the perfect forest emissary. Quiet, fragile, and mysterious. Beautiful and delicate. Surefooted and swift. Able to sprint straight uphill without making a sound. Simply finding deer in these woods can feel like a miracle. It makes every encounter intimate and unique. Hours of inactivity followed by seconds of exhilaration.

30 minutes later I find two more deer. This time a doe and a fawn rummaging through a muskeg. They paw at the snow and bury their noses in the earth. From my vantage point, I wait for something with antlers to wander out of the woods. A raven croaks from a branch above me and the doe’s head snaps up to scan the tree line.

What did that raven say? The bird takes off and lands on another branch closer to the pair. The call fits this place like the intertwined fingers of lovers. For centuries ravens and wolves have found deer together, ravens calling out locations like a beacon, drawing the pack in while the ravens get the carrion.

As we spend more and more time plying the forests of the Inians, are local ravens picking up on this? We don’t leave the scraps a wolfpack does, but a big gut pile is nothing to sneeze at. Whether it’s the call of the raven or the deep snow in the muskeg, the pair wanders off into the woods. I munch on a sandwich and watch the empty muskeg, still hoping a buck may appear and follow their trail. My patience disappears with my lunch. I shoulder the pack and rifle, continuing along the ridge.

I vaguely remember a hunt last fall in this area. There’s an open section where I saw a doe and fawn. I drop down another hill, acutely aware of the sound of crunching snow beneath my boots. I find a deer trail and follow it along the side of the hill. Lots of blueberry in the valley below and trees clustered together. I pause near a potential perch that offers a better view. The hill bends to the left ahead of me, and a raven calls around the corner. If a deer is the forest’s soul, then a raven is the voice. I must keep going, something insists on it. I stand and follow the croaking raven. The view is a little better around this bend, and a downed spruce makes a perfect brace.

I slide off my pack and look up at the branches for the raven, the forest quiet again. I bring the deer call to my mouth and look back down at the little valley. The call falls from my lips without making a sound. A deer. Walking straight towards me. Scope to my eye. Antlers. He’s what we call a “spike.” His antlers haven’t forked yet, they’re just two rigid pieces of bone sticking out behind his ears.

He continues to move towards me, and I hear the raven again. The buck seems unconcerned with the calls and continues to work toward me, nose to the ground. He reaches a small clearing 40 yards ahead. Now or never.

I miss.

One would expect a deer to bolt at the sound of a gunshot. But the sound is so sudden and foreign, that they often pause. That’s what he does, staring right down the barrel. The second shot is clean.

I sit near the deer and lay my hand on his chest. I stare at those little antlers, and he looks so tiny. Spikes tend to be two years old, and with a swell of guilt, I wonder if this is the fawn I saw the previous fall. Did he work this hillside his entire life? Walk this drainage countless times? It’s likely I’m the first human to set foot in this spot in a year.

That old mixture of gratitude, grief, and yes, pride swell up inside.  

Wings beat above me. The raven perches along the bough, the call filling the empty woods that I have just filled with violence. As I prepare the deer for the half-mile drag to the beach, I listen to the raven. He sounds impatient. Can’t you do that faster? He’s soon joined by another, they touch beaks, and take turns calling through the woods. Not content to reap the bounty of the impending gut pile, it must be shared with their friends.

I remove the heart and liver and drop them in a Ziploc. I feel the same. Back at the Hobbit Hole, we’ll eat the organs tonight. Together. Sharing stories around mugs of cold beer and a sizzling blueberry crisp.

I am home. With soaked pants and a gentle rain melting the snow. The deer, this place, this life, it’s a miracle. Everything else falls away. I would not trade this moment, this sensation, for anything. Some hunter-gatherer DNA has its claws in me and will not let go.

The deer is ready. The ravens are too. 700 feet of elevation and a nasty drainage are between me and the kayak. But I’m not ready to leave the glen just yet. I lean against a tree and look at the birds, waiting so patiently.

“Did you know he was here? Did you know I was close?”

Black eyes stare. Revealing nothing.

“I’m going to pretend like you did. That we have this bond. That you watched me hunt this hillside a year ago, that you remember me. Things are different now. Things once in order now seems so strange. But this, this is my constant. This is my heartbeat. I hope you eat well. I hope this sustains you. Let’s waste nothing of this miracle. I’ll see you two soon.”

I shoulder the pack and grab the line tied around the neck. The rifle bangs against my hip, the deer slides across the snow. With a final caw, the ravens descend, and the forest goes silent once more.

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A Terrifying Fascination

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Game 7 of the world series has ended and I lay on the couch listening to the wind outside, contemplating going to bed. Another strong gust hits and the windows begin to tremble, the town run we have planned for tomorrow isn’t looking very promising. I stretch and yawn, glancing across the room at our rabbit, Penny. She’s already curled up on her bed, 12 hours of sleep clearly wasn’t enough for her. I’m ready to do the same when the speaker on the shelf above the sink changes everything.

Usually when orcas start calling it’s distant, subtle, a mere whisper as they enter the range of the hydrophone. That first call makes you pause, stop, and listen, unsure whether you really heard something or just imagined it. This time of year there’s always the debate of whether it’s a humpback or an orca calling, especially at night when the humpbacks do the majority of their singing. Tonight there was no debate, no passive listening, no questioning whether I had actually heard something or not. Calls erupt through the speaker, loud and excited, overlapping one another. It’s definitely not a humpback, and I’ve never had a residents call make my blood run cold. It’s transients, the phantoms, masters of stealth, who never utter a sound and yet concoct elaborate and ingenious methods of tracking and hunting down their prey; seals, sea lions, dolphins, and porpoise. But for once they’re aren’t quiet, whatever they’ve just eaten must have been delicious and they’re calling just as loud as their resident counterparts do.

By the time I reach the lab and punch the record button the calls have reached a fevered pitch, maybe it’s knowing what these creatures are capable of, what I’d seen them do in the past that made them sound so eerie. But to me, their happy calls will always remind me of the laughter of some villain in a movie. Sadistic, high pitched, the type of joy you can take no pleasure in, that nothing good could come out of them being so happy. I’m sure the sea lions and harbor seals would agree with me. But their calls, were not altogether unfamiliar to me. I’d heard this before.

I was supposed to be studying the humpbacks of Glacier Bay, but my orca obsessed reputation had long ago preceded me. So when the orca whale biologist, Dena Matkin recorded and documented the first known sea otter fatality by a transient in southeast Alaska, she graciously shared the recording with me. As she hit play and the calls begin to reverberate off the walls of the office, everyone froze, maybe its because we knew what the whales had just done, maybe it was something else, but it gave us all goosebumps. Now, four years later they elicited the same response from me. Fear, horror, and fascination, everything, after all, must eat I reminded myself the same way I had gently told my passengers that day on the whale watching boat.

The sky is blue, the ocean of Icy Strait incredibly flat. Two hours out from Juneau, our 33-foot whale watching boat, the Islander, cuts a slow and methodical path east towards home. Off our port are six orcas, calm and relaxed they too, make their way east. I stand at the bow relieved, ten excited passengers on the boat with me. But right now I’ve transformed from tour guide to burgeoning nature photographer. A splash right below the bow pulls my attention away from the pod. A group of Dall’s porpoise materialize right below the surface, riding our wake. The resident or transient debate ended. Surely, if they were transients over there, the porpoise would not be so willing to ride the waves. I glance back at the orcas, staring intently at the dorsal, trying to decide if they were pointed enough to possibly be transients. I look to check on the porpoises, they’re gone, and a scream comes from behind me.

The orcas had closed the distance to the boat in two heartbeats and rocketed out of the water on the other side of us. The porpoise were already gone, streaking away from the hard charging orcas. With no hesitation, our boat captain throws the boat in gear, trying to keep pace with this daily dance of the food chain playing out right in front of us. The boat barely bounces on the calm seas and I hold the camera to my eye, trying to follow the action. The Islander’s going 32 knots, and both species are outrunning us. The whales bear down on the fleeing porpoise, spreading out, trying to flank them and cut off their escape.

On the boat there’s chaos, the engine roaring, passengers screaming, the voice of my friend and boat captain, T, screaming at me, “get the shot, David! You better get that shot!” Without warning, the two orcas in the middle of the chase leap high into the air, their white bellies reflecting in the high summer sun. They jump again and again, trying to pin the porpoise beneath their massive bodies. The strength, power, and speed with which they reacted was amazing, awe inspiring. As quickly as it began, it’s over, the orcas suddenly milling, flashing back and forth over the same spot, the surviving porpoise still swimming as fast as they can. We come to a stop and bob at the surface again. Adrenaline pounds through my body and my fingers shake as I scroll through the photos, a few of them showing one of the whales frozen in time forever above the surface of the ocean.

“The sheer power of the scene amazed me….. I had until now, never realized the true power of the killer whale. I sat there feeling amazed and blessed that the orcas never loosed this power on humans.” – Alexandra Morton521617_10152100638914852_1036290620_n