Tag Archives: outdoors

The New Chapter

Rivers and Scales

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I forgot the bear spray. The realization makes me pause, mud squelching around the 2×12 boardwalk. It’s ten minutes after seven in the morning, the trailhead parking lot empty. There will be no two-legged company on the Bartlett River and I’m hoping any four-legged anglers will be okay sharing. For a wild minute, I consider the thirty-minute round trip home for a peppery can of security.

There’s no reason to fear bears, there are plenty of reasons to respect them.

Vowing to be extra respectable, I brush past devil’s club and barrel down the well-worn trail. 25 minutes to the river mouth. Another 20 to the first fishing hole. Moisture hangs in the air from last night’s drenching and the forecast signals summer’s conclusion. Inches of rain are promised in the coming days. All the more reason to get that final cast in before the river washes out.

The trail curls around shaded hemlocks and punches past thick spruce trees in their prime – subtle markers that bulldozing ice covered this place a few centuries ago. Far from stasis, the forest pulses towards old growth, patiently grinding house-sized boulders and thick clay layers the glacier left behind.

The same pattern that happened here centuries ago are now occurring in Glacier Bay’s upper reaches where silty rivers are steadily clearing as alders dig into the gravelly outwash. Salmon will find those streams the second they’re suitable for spawning. Maybe a generation of the coho battling up the Bartlett will someday stumble across those milky rivers.

The trail leaves the forest near the winding river mouth. Sweeping curves like paintbrush strokes cut through a soggy meadow of cow parsnip, willow, and the occasional spruce trees. Any semblance of path disintegrates into a slippery “choose your own adventure” of mud that never dries. Furrows in the grass lead to the woods like on ramps from the frequent forays of bears, moose, wolves, coyotes, and river otters. Fermenting pink salmon line the stream in various scavenged states, and a rising gale can’t mask the smell of decay.

Watching the cow parsnip for transiting bears, I slip and slide along the riverbank with the eagerness of Christmas morning. I’m dying to feel a probing tug on the hook of my pink skirted Kodiak Custom and hear the high-pitched whine of line as the water explodes with silvery bolts.

I pause at the final turn to wipe the sweat away. Heat rises from my wool sweater despite the thickening rain. I squat. Both knees crack once. Not bad two days shy of birthday number 38.

There are easier ways to do this. I could take the skiff out, invest in a gill net, finally figure out the paperwork for a subsistence license. Despite her family rarely wielding the “gear chuckers,” Teanna has already canned, frozen, and eaten more salmon than I will in my entire life. It’s a lot of sweat equity hauling out six fish at a time in a 100-liter backpack. Back in August, I’d picked a mountain three miles inland for an alpine hunt; lugging my tent, sleeping bag, and 45 pounds of venison back to sea level.

Two weeks ago I’d coerced Teanna into carrying fishing poles through the muskeg along Chichagof Island’s outer coast because I had some harebrained fantasy of catching coho near some tidal slough that wound up being filled with gulls, a pair of brown bears and, to her delight, dozens of eagle feathers.  

I bounce on my toes and feel my twitching leg muscles. That alpine hunt beat me up, but I’d felt like myself again after a good night’s sleep. To the shock of the high schoolers (and myself), I’d dunked at open gym last week.

Everything feels okay. Knees continue to hold up despite the beating I gave them in my teens and early 20s. The back feels alright. There’s some healthy grays coming in around my temples, but I’m not pulling it out by the handful.

I glide the final paces to the first fishing hole. Maybe that was the reason I resisted the gill net and accessible mountains. My body still gave autonomy over those choices, permitting me to beat it up in the name of deer and salmon.

I give the meadow on the far bank a glance before casting. A mama black bear and her cub have been hanging out on this stretch. Teanna, the one person not carrying bear spray on our camping trip last weekend, naturally saw those two plus a brownie and cub on the quarter mile of river she walked alone and with a backpack full of coho. When I marveled at how non-plussed she seemed, she’d only shrugged, given me the mischievous smile she saves for such occasions, and reminded me that the brown bear is one of her crests.

There’s no reason to fear bears, there are plenty of reasons to respect them.

First cast, alone on a river lined with yellowing cottonwood and watching eagles. The pink-skirted lure sinks behind a submerged boulder. Seconds later there’s a flash of silver, the line pops, and I hear the euphoric whir of line being pulled through the water.

“Thank you, fish.” I run my hands over cold scales, the smell of river and life around me. The promise of fillets on dark winter evenings.

But nothing else grabs the Kodiak Custom. I move on after ten quiet minutes, and at the next bend again feel the line run on the first cast. The rain now falls in sheet; the heavy wool jacket I’d promised to cover in fish scales and deer hide soaked through. It’s absurd to carry fish up the river only to bring them down, but far be it for me to leave free lunch lying around.

 At my third spot, I plunge into the river until water crawls above the knees of my waders. Surely I can’t expect a bite on my first cast again. But there’s the streak of silver. A coho rockets from the water with my pink lure in its jaws. Perhaps the river is telling me something on my final trip. One fish from each hole, a chance to feal my creaking joints and say goodbye to every foot of precious river.

The narrative dies 100-yards upriver. Here I find the mythical “bite.” Coho tickle the lure on every cast. Soon I’m placing the fifth fish on the bank and feeling an ache.

One more.

My friends and I wait all year for these magical weeks. Last night at Kyle’s birthday, all anyone talked about was salmon. We chatted salmon while we ate salmon, and schemed ways to catch more salmon. Today ensures that the freezer and canning jars will be full. There’s no more reason to cast. I remind myself that the hardest word for us to say is, “enough.”

Fish number six takes the lure on the next cast. I look up from the fight and drink in the world. The rain lessens to a drizzle. Ravens call from the forest, and a squadron of seagulls waits to scavenge whatever I leave behind. I want the fish to spit my lure and give me the pretense to linger.

But is this not the day, the moment I’ve waited for? One of the pillars that has kept me rooted in this place? I picture driving home, of Teanna looking up from her weaving with a smile and a wave. How she’ll wrap her arms around me no matter how wet and stinky I am and listen to me recap the morning’s every step.

The fish slides across mud and rock, and I whisper the same benediction.

“Thank you, fish, for giving your life to feed mine. I’ll think of you every time I eat this winter. Please go peacefully into the next life.”

I open the stomach, remove the heart, and watch the pulsing nerves. The river swirls, its wisdom mixing with cries of impatient gulls and the splashes of coho swimming up, up, up.

The New Chapter

Between Ocean and Snow

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The rising sun turns the hillsides purple. My kayak cuts through the water, leaving an ever-expanding “V” in its wake. Even with a down jacket, I can feel the bite of morning cold. The low tide leaves an exposed strip of rocks and kelp, frozen and crunchy, patiently awaiting the sun and thaw.

For 72 hours the Icy Strait Corridor has endured an unrelenting snowfall. Winds buffeted the trees and left huge drifts piled along the beach meadows. I shoveled five times trying to keep up with the snow’s metronome consistency.

Boats in Juneau’s harbor sank, the land frozen in winter’s fist. Trees bend double beneath the load. Cracks echo through the forest as these proud sentinels break under the weight.

At last, we have a respite, a window of calm before the outflow returns with gusts of 40 knots.

I have waited for this day. Snug and warm next to the woodstove I would peer through the windows at the blizzard and wonder how any animal could survive such conditions. This is my chance to find out.

The benefits of old-growth forests could fill volumes of text. The contrast between the muskegs and woods is shocking. Four feet of snow fill the open areas of the island with perhaps half that amount beneath the trees. It is these big trees, their massive boughs enveloping the land in a protective embrace that give the deer a chance. These causeways give them routes to the beaches, where they can slog through the drifts and find relief below the tide line. The table is set. Rockweed and bull kelp torn from their holdfasts wash ashore and provide some of the only accessible forage when snow of this magnitude hits.

I paddle south along the island’s southern peninsula, scanning the beaches. The first one yields a doe and fawn that scatter into the woods as I glide past. Eight more deer congregate along a 300-yard stretch while a small cove no more than 50 yards wide holds another six.

I bring the binoculars to my eyes and watch, the boat bobbing in the gentle swell. The rut is over, and the bucks have dropped their antlers. It will be something of an easter egg hunt in the coming months to find them hidden in the moss.

These deer are in my parking spot. I’d planned on landing here and climbing to the other side of the island to inspect the long stretch of east-facing beaches bathed in morning light. I hover offshore and watch them through the binoculars. Five adults and a yearling. They look in good shape, still fat and healthy.

Deer are ruminants, meaning they chew their food multiple times and have specific bacteria in their gut to maximize their caloric intake. But every food type has its own bacteria, and there’s a delay as these new bacteria colonize the stomach. Switching overnight from a diet of forest groceries to kelp can have dire consequences. A deer can eat kelp all day, but until the bacteria catch up, they may as well be eating dirt.

The six are foraging voraciously along the shoreline. How long had they waited for this opportunity? It’s easy to imagine them hiding beneath large hemlocks, watching the never-ending snow pile among them with stomachs growling and fat metabolizing. Landing will scatter them back into those snow-laden woods and I can’t bring myself to do it.

I paddle onto the next little cove.

This one too is spoken for. Three more deer graze among the rockweed. They’re so engrossed in their work they don’t notice me for several minutes. A large rock cuts this cove in two, and when they move to the far side, I ease my kayak into the beach, step out, and drag it to the snowline. I peek over the rock and see three sets of ears tuned to my frequency. Upwind of them they maintain a curious demeanor. A shift in the wind will send them scurrying, perhaps getting a whiff of the venison meatballs I’d eaten the night before.

I step towards the woods, sink through the snow’s crust, and posthole to my hip. It’s a quarter mile to the other side and it takes fifteen minutes of panting, gasping, and trudging to reach it. Sweat drips down my face and my lungs burn. How do these deer do it? By the time I reach the edge of the woods, I’m exhausted. It takes several minutes before I feel ready to climb down the cliff face to the rocks below. I remind myself to look for snowshoes when I get home.

My clumsy ascent sounds like a gong on the beach below. I watch two more deer scatter through gaps in the trees.

Whitecaps adorn Icy Strait, and Lemesurier Island looms in the distance, its forest frosty and frozen. I glass the beach ahead and see a lone deer near a washed-up hemlock deadhead.

Surprising. I figured there’d be more. I hug the waterline as I pass the hemlock, the deer watching suspiciously. On the other side of the log, another deer materializes, I stop, look up the beach, and they seem to apparate. One, two, three, four… eight. Eight more clumped in two groups of four.

I never think of deer as social animals, but they are. They may not have reliable herds, but there’s no doubt they enjoy each other’s company. Clicks and loose friendships form, safety in numbers, community. It resonates. Reminds me how alone I am.

There’s a difference between alone and lonely. I have enjoyed my solitude, the quiet, and the reflection. But there is no denying that I still reflexively reach for my phone when I remember an old inside joke, hear a new song from one of our bands, or find an Instagram reel she needs to see. Old habits, they die hard.  

The beach bends, and I creep among the boulders, peaking over the top of the last one. The 30th deer of the day has her head buried in the snow, rising every minute to slurp down another slippery string of kelp. I advance when her head’s down and freeze when it rises until I’m 50 feet away.

I settle on a boulder, open my backpack, and invite myself to lunch. As I munch trail mix and guzzle water a fawn stumbles out of the woods and joins its mother among the kelp. The scene brings an emotional response I wasn’t ready for. The pair moves to a young hemlock, and they strip the needles the way a bear forages for berries.

Icy Strait sparkles. The snow-covered mountains and hills pop. Eagles soar on the thermals. You can hear the land exhaling after the deluge of the previous days. There’s a tug at my heart, a desire to share this moment with someone. Some of House Stark’s words hover in my head.

“When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives.”

The tide is rising, and the sun setting. I leave the little family to their work, padding back down the beach past watchful eyes and into the woods. Through the trees, I see a glimmer of red. No matter how far up the beach I bring my kayak, I never stop worrying until I see it right where I left it.

The trio of deer have disappeared, leaving the beach unoccupied. I launch and enjoy the sun on my face as it begins its downward trajectory over the Pacific. I feel full and content as I paddle for home, again overwhelmed by the incredible beauty of this place. The southern end of the Fairweather Range peaks above the islands to the north, with 14,000-foot peaks, and an icefield you can hide Rhode Island in.

I stop in front of the next cove and smile. The deer are still here. No longer foraging they lay among the sunbaked rocks. I can feel their contentment, their relief. The new bacteria in their stomachs beginning to work, metabolizing the kelp and hemlocks and blueberry twigs. Feeling warmth for the first time in days. A chance to breathe, to rest and recuperate.

I knew today was coming, had the 16th circled on my calendar even as the snow continued to pile up. The deer have no such luxury. What concept of time do they have? How long had the last three days felt for them? For those little fawns experiencing the first truly hard moment of their life? But now, the sun was out. More storms are coming, another foot of snow is expected in a few days.

Why worry now? With bellies full and warm rocks to rest on.

Storms come and storms go. We can’t always forecast when they’ll begin, end, or start again. Some may never end. Some may never come. I saw myself in these deer, huddled beneath a big hemlock, waiting for the blizzard to end, not knowing when. Clinging to the faith that the clouds will lift, the sun will return. There will be warm rocks and bull kelp for everyone.

I begin to feel that sun. Stepping out of the woods and powering through the drifts, knowing relief is near if I plunge forward just a little further. I can feel their eyes on me. And through the distance and isolation, sense the eyes and love of my own pack. The winds may howl, but I am not alone. The bow spins, the water parts around the keel and points for home, grateful that when the sun sets and the tide touches snow that I don’t have to retreat to the woods for shelter.

Inside the cabin, I pull out my notepad and consult my notes. 12 miles traveled in total, and somewhere between 38 and 45 deer depending on how confident I am I’m not double counting.

Minerva coils around my legs, reminding me it’s almost dinner time. I step outside and am greeted by a crescent moon. The hills are bathed in purple again. The winds have begun to rise, and the trees start to bend. I wrap my jacket around me, step back inside, and whisper thanks to the neighbors hovering somewhere between ocean and snow.

Gustavus 2016

Rolling the Dice

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Every guiding company has them. A page of carefully worded phrases meticulously written out by a lawyer in some office, far removed from the natural world. The infamous risk waiver. A bucket of ice water at the start of the trip. A necessary reminder that the world we are traveling to is unscripted. That it can be harsh, dangerous, and unforgiving. That even the best of us, the most prepared, the most cautious, are not immune.

For those of us that live it every day, we have our own, unwritten risk waiver. Every time we go out our doors and into the woods, up the mountain, or onto the water, we sign it. It’s our unspoken agreement with the world we love. An acceptance that it can betray us at any moment. For if it can happen to Forest Wagner, it can happen to anyone.

Forest lives in the woods. There isn’t a mountain he can’t climb, a fjord he cannot paddle, a situation he can’t handle. Two weeks ago he was attacked by a bear while leading a group of students near Haines in southeast Alaska. He wasn’t been foolish or careless, disrespectful or arrogant. You roll the dice enough with Alaska, and sometimes it comes up snake eyes. What are the odds that there’s a mama bear with spring cubs over that blind ridge? 1 in 100? 1 in 1,000? How many blind ridges do you hike over before the odds catch up?
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Forest’s influence and inspiration stretches across the state, across the globe. He’s taught thousands how to survive in the back country, inspired many to follow their passions as mountaineers, kayakers, river rafters, and skiers. From all accounts, even after he’d been attacked and bitten along his side and leg and fallen off a cliff face, it was he who spoke to the medivac on the cell phone. Calm, clear, and collected, he talked his students through the whole process. His own Wilderness First Responder.

“I can climb down if you need me to.” He told the medivac. As if he’d done nothing more than sprain his ankle on a morning run through the suburbs.

Why him and not me? Two days ago I hiked the mountain ridge behind my parent’s house. Bear and moose sign coated the game trail. Again and again I rounded blind corners. Bear bells jingling and bear spray bumping against my leg offered little comfort. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about Forest around every corner. Wrong place, wrong time. Our unspoken agreement, our signed risk waiver with the natural world.
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I wouldn’t have it any other way. Beneath the sugary, frosted coating that reality TV has given Alaska, nothing has really changed. To truly experience this land, to know it with genuine intimacy means to throw ourselves at its mercy, and accept that we may not receive any. Forest knows this, I know this, Brittney knows this, and so does any other guide or outdoor enthusiast that climbs her mountains and paddles her shores. For if the wilderness was always safe it would not be wilderness. With risk comes appreciation and respect. How charismatic would the bears and wolves be if they were harmless? Would we love them, photograph them, even their tracks worthy of our marvel and imagination? Would glaciers be sublime if they didn’t send blocks of ice as big as buildings into the water to crush and reshape everything in their path?
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So this summer I’ll strap on my boots and push my kayak into the water. I’ll grab my fishing pole and walk the salmon stream, knowing that I share the land with bears, moose, and whales. I’ll grab my dice, take the odds, and see what happens. The alternative is a life that is fraught with other dangers. Forest wouldn’t have it any other way.

He’ll be back, it’ll take more than a bear to pry him away from his natural habitat. I have no doubt he’ll summit Denali again, climb the alpine, and return stronger and more confident than ever. The wilderness needs ambassadors like Forest and the mountains of Alaska just wouldn’t be the same without him.

Hanson Island Winter 2

Living “Rustically”

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Spring on Hanson Island is bittersweet for us. As we celebrate the sun crawling higher and higher above the mountains of Vancouver Island, we trot outside, palms and heads held skyward. We lay out on the south facing deck all afternoon, soaking up the sun and getting the greatest outdoor bathtub in the world up and running. After a long, windy winter that was defined by the height of the waves and the thunder of the wind, these sunlit days are nothing short of Nirvana.

But in the back of our minds, we know the countdown has begun. That these days are fleeting, and the days of cleaning, organizing, and packing are fast approaching. We have less than a week remaining before, like the geese flying above, we flock north.

Didn’t we just get here? Weren’t we just winging our way south, watching the the islands and inlets crawl by? Winter always seems to slip through our fingers like sand. Blink and its April. This is our life. Every six months we pack everything and shove a resigned kitty and rabbit in the car, our penance for loving two places that are far from easy to reach.

But before we return to a land with bigger glaciers and smaller trees, we reflect on another winter that has taught us much. It’s hard to think of Hanson Island as rustic. Sure, there’s no warm running water or indoor plumbing. But we have a full size fridge, wireless internet, and the ocean at arms reach. In many ways, living in a New York apartment would feel more oppressive, more difficult. The constant artificial lights, the blaring car horns, the masses of humanity. More restraining than the borders of this little island. Where I walk into the forest and hear a Thrush and Woodpecker, or sit on the deck and hear the breath of an Orca a mile away. Things like warm water and flush toilets feel unnecessary. Give me creatures over convenience, stars over street lamps.

Which is all well and good, until the generator won’t turn over on a cloudy morning, the lab batteries failing and the lights flickering. Or the boat engine suddenly refuses to start as the water’s churn in Blackney Pass. Or you wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, the window panes rattling the waves pounding, and your fear of the boat getting swept away in full swing. Than an apartment with running water, reliable lights, and a corner store sound pretty good.

So I remind myself of what these inconveniences do. They pull me back to my roots. Remind me that the things we take for granted we shouldn’t. That it’s important to know where our electricity, our fuel, our freshwater come from. And even more, it gives you a personal stake when the only one that can fix it, is you.

A month ago, the generator, died. Not an old generator mind you, but a brand new one. My generator knowledge began and ended with: “turn the key, push the choke in, go back inside.” I went inside, found the dusty owners manual, and marched back to the generator shed without the faintest idea of what I was doing. I opened the maintenance door and stared at its innards. I traced the fuel line, opened the spark plug compartment, and shook my head. If I lived in a city, I’d call the power company and wait impatiently for someone to fix the problem. I had no one to complain to, no one to lean on but me.

Thirty minutes later, my fingers coated with fuel, oil, and grime, I slammed the maintenance door shut. With a knot of apprehension, I filled the generator with gas, pulled the choke, and turned the key. Fifteen seconds later, the blasted thing came to life. I walked back to the cabin with a sense of accomplishment. I love having our source of fresh water, our power, our food squarely in my control. As hard as it can be, it gives me an emotional investment in their sources. Inconvenient or not, I’m grateful.

I want that sort of control, that responsibility when I have my own place. I want solar panels, ground water, a garden, and a wood stove. I have Hanson Island to thank for that. For giving me an intimate connection to the services that it’s so easy to take for granted. After 27-years of turning taps and opening the fridge with little knowledge of where their sources originated, I don’t think I can ever live that way again. Maybe I’ll just have to be rustic forever.

Gustavus 2015

The Spirit Walker III

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In the tent his eyes opened, a slimy sensation filling his mouth. He spat and saw scales and tail burst from his lips and spray the tent. The dead herring fell to the floor, its oily scent filling the room. The image of her remained burned into his retinas, vanishing slowly with every blink, the warmth of her head on his chest still tangible in the cool morning air. He hugged his legs to his chest, desperately trying to hold the sensation that spilled from his memory, the touch of her feathers… hand, against his. The pride in his chest as he handed her the herring, the way she called his name. And for the first time since they’d said goodbye, he didn’t feel alone.
The pain in his chest was worse today, his breathing only possible in brief, sharp gasps. His paddle strokes felt ragged, uneven, and awkward. The viscosity of the water seemed to have increased ten fold while he slept, as if he was paddling through syrup. The tide was flooding however, the bay itself pushing him onward, offering one last prod north, as determined as he was for him to reach the glacier. He passed, “beach where the bear caught the moose calf” and thought of the innumerable prints still sitting in his house snapped in desperation at the fruitless prospect of capturing the intensity and power of the scene.
For the first time, there was no camera strapped to the deck, there was no point in documenting, no future in which to flip through the album, no time to reminisce. From ahead he heard the ice before he saw it, cracking, groaning, and falling, Margerie and Grand Pacific Glacier bustling about their construction site, never satisfied with their work, never content to leave the land stagnant or utter the phrase, “it is finished.” They demanded constant remodeling, to reexamine what had been done and what remained to be altered. He had grown to emulate them, never settling, never stationary. Constant motion, constant change. Even in his retreats he opened new ground, new landscape for his own personal growth.
With a final stroke he rounded the corner where they stood in all their glory. Perched upon their thrones, overlooking the kingdom they had been carving for more than 200 years. He cruised past scores of ice bergs comprised of snow centuries old. Their journey like his was almost over, this stage of it at least. As they were pulled south they would shrink, evaporate and melt, until even the largest and proudest  were liquified and sent into the atmosphere or the ocean currents, pressing onward to their next voyage.
A reckless abandon overtook his spirit, and despite his labored breathing he paddled for the glacier’s face. Each stroke was savored, each twinge in his back exalted, never had the hard plastic seat cutting into his back beneath his life jacket tasted so sweet. His life jacket. With cruel decisiveness he unzipped it and stuffed it between his feet, letting his chest expand as far as it would allow.
His arms trembled as he neared his chosen beach that stood just to the left of the great icy throne. The serac steeples and arete cathedrals towered above him, beckoning him closer. But as he rode his own tiny wake into the shallows he hesitated, the finality of his journey descending upon him. For a final time he disentangled himself from the boat that had been his livelihood and salvation. Companion and confidant.
He pulled the forest green vessel above the rocks, tying the bow line to a boulder, assured that someone would be along for it eventually. The last thing he wanted was to tarnish the place whose unblemished face he’d fallen in love with half a century ago. So long ago by human measurement, and yet… he looked up at the wall of ice comprised of snow that had fallen before the nation had even existed. And even that registered as nothing more than a geologic heartbeat in the creature of deep time.
Arms still shaking with fatigue, he began to climb, his legs steady beneath him as he scrambled up the steep ridge, his fingers clenching tightly to whatever offered purchase, his boots digging into the tiny crevasses carved by the great glacier. Sweat poured in torrents, his chest seared with every breath, but he greedily insisted on inhaling every molecule of the rich, chilled oxygens savoring. Drinking more than breathing.
Reed heaved himself up the ridge’s peak and level with Margerie’s surface. “Margerie,” he thought, “such a domesticated name for something so powerful and wild.”
The bay held glaciers named for men and universities. Men of European fame and institutions. Named for the imprint of man, to prove that they had been here, gifted with the opposable thumbs that had made us judge, jury, and executioner. But not here, this would not be tamed. No matter how many cruise ships, tour boats, and kayaks stood in her shadow, cameras aimed at her massive face, waiting for her to sing. To tell us what we longed to hear even if we weren’t listening. Margerie didn’t do it justice, in his mind he renamed her, “glacier where I say goodbye.”
Reed placed a shaking foot on the ice, the first time he had stepped on any of the glaciers that he had idolized for so long, that had made his home. On his hands and knees he caressed her, his shadow stretching across as the sun peaked through the clouds to say its farewell. His vision swam as his breath caught in his throat, his lungs struggling valiantly against all odds to obey the command to breath. Nature has little interest in theatrics.
Curling into a ball Reed wrapped his arms around his legs, tucking his chin into his chest, the beloved wool hat tight around his head, green rain jacket zipped beneath his chin. His brain called for the oxygen that his lungs could no longer provide, neurons firing as he said goodbye. He had made it, in a small way he had won. A final flash of inspiration crept through his mind, John Muir’s words ringing in his ears as his body relaxed, “what chance did a low grippe microbe have up here?” and a weak smile melted onto his face.
A final tendril of breath escaped his lips, caught the breeze rushing down the glacier and rose into the sky. Higher and higher his final breath climbed, spinning in tight circles around the peaks of the Fairweather Range, catching and percolating with the warm, moisture laden air blown east from the Alaskan Gulf. Caught in the clouds it returned, suspended a thousand feet above the head of the glacier where the temperature plummeted below freezing until the cloud’s bounty was overcome by gravity. Reed’s final breath fell as snow, a single flake that tumbled and twisted in the great gusts of wind nurtured by the ice.
Soundlessly it settled high above the bay, falling among its brothers and sisters, compacting and pressing tightly together, forming ice so dense it reflected blue. And together they surged. Millions, billions, trillions of their brethren fell, piling higher and higher. And the Glacier Where I Say Goodbye charged south. Within twenty years it had swallowed up Tarr Inlet, pushing the Murrlets still bobbing in the deep green coves elsewhere. A century later it had decimated the west arm and pulsed past the middle bay. Unsatisfied the ice continued down, destroying what had been his home, the canvas becoming a pure white, a landscape of endless possibility. With a final thrust, the glaciers reclaimed the last of their bay, a tower of ice two thousand feet high smothering the land. Reed’s snowflake hovering on the pinnacle of an arete, suspended above Icy Strait which once again lived up to its name.
The glacier groaned, cracked, and hollered, the great chunk of ice broke free and fell end over end, leaving a massive crater in the strait that filled with great towers of white water that broke against the ice. Slowly the medial moraine fell away and the glaciers relented and retreated once again. The land reborn, uncovered, untouched, untrammeled. Two hundred years after his arrival, Reed finally floated away. The bay to which he belonged beginning to grow once again.

Hanson Island Winter

Hanson Island Life Lessons

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Every week and a half the fridge begins to look bare, the tortillas are gone, the beer and wine but a distant memory. The marine weather report is lit up in crimson, gale warning in Queen Charlotte, storm warning in Johnstone Strait, rain, wind, small craft advisories. On a good day Alert Bay is just thirty minutes by boat away, weaving through the Plumper and Pearce Islands, sending torrents of frothy white water over the deep green waters is nothing short of cathartic. It’s just finding enough of those days that can be the struggle.

And so we look for “windows.” Six hour blocks where the wind dies, the rain lessons, and the boat floats. As the storm inhales for another blow you run for town before the next exhalation. But after eight months of this game, pulling the boat up and down the beach so water lifts it off the rocks at just the right time, it feels commonplace. The fact that we once lived half a block from a Rainbow Foods absolutely absurd. We’ve traded the convenience of stores, bars, and restaurants for the simple tranquility of wilderness.

In a few weeks we’ll be gone, on our way back to civilization. At least our definition of it which entails residing in a town of 350 people. But right now that feels more like a metropolis than hamlet. Certainly there are things we’re looking forward to, I mean, we’ve talked to just a handful of people face to face this year. No longer having to correlate tide height and wind with fresh lettuce will be convenient. And I really do miss Alaskan IPA.

But more than anything, I’ve learned a lot about myself over the winter. I landed my first paid writing gig, wrote thousands of words for a novel that I’ll probably let no one ever see, and am just a season and a half away from watching the show, “Friends” all the way through.

Brittney loves the website, mindbodygreen.com and there are some great articles and information to be found. She hates me for pointing out however that the site is often flooded with “top 10” lists. Top 10 ways: to know your man has a good heart, yoga pants, fat burning foods, etc. Now it’s all she sees… she may never forgive me. But I’m going to conform, and walk through the ten things that I’ve learned this winter on Hanson Island.

1. How ever much time you think you have until the boat is aground, subtract by ten minutes. You’ll save yourself a lot of disappoint, frustration, and expletives.

2. Mice will find a way into your house. Steel wool, blockades, and a cat will only do so much. Accept the inevitable, keep the counters clean, and check under the propane stove frequently.

3. It is perfectly acceptable to wake up in a cold sweat because you just dreamed that you could hear orcas and aren’t recording.

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4. No matter how much you hoot and holler at them, Stellar Sea Lions will not give you the time of day.

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5. Orcas love to call at dinner time, so you stuff your plates into a plastic milk crate box and lug it all over to the lab and have dinner with headphones on.

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6. Bath Days are a gift from God and should be worshipped as such.

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7. Mink will live under the house, they’re cute but smell terrible, your cat will want to make friends, the mink will not acquiesce. 11081015_10155300238395858_6083581184589343527_n

8. Porch baths in December are a necessity. Treat them like a Nascar pit crew changes tires. If you’re not out and back inside in under five minutes you are a) doing it wrong and b) probably borderline hypothermic.

9. Bring pets. You’ll need someone to talk to when your wife gets mad at you for ruining her favorite website.

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10. There is nowhere on earth like this place, nothing can replace it or come close. So enjoy every moment you have here regardless of the time of year.

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Juneau to Seattle

Crawling the Last Few Miles: My First Trip to Hanson Island. Part: 3

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The engine sputtered, coughed, and died as the June Cove glided slowly to a stop on the calm water, bobbing in the channel between Alert Bay and Hanson Island. From my seat atop the cabin I spun around and peered down at the stern deck. There was no smoke or flame, nothing that would indicate we would need to start practicing a frantic dog paddle. The door to the helm slid open and Paul opened the engine hood, looking down into a maze of wires and metallic mystery. He pulled his wool hat off, running his hands through his thinning, long dark hair. Years later Paul would describe the Mercury engine as a, “big bloody monstrous thing.”

But right now the monster was pissed, we were almost exactly halfway between the lab and the Alert Bay boat harbor, and the sun was setting. After performing what he hoped would be an accurate amount of mechanical wizardry Paul moved back to the helm and the engine coughed and sprang back to life. The four other volunteers and I smiled as the June Cove slowly picked up speed. Less than a minute later though the engine quit again.

Again Paul marched onto the deck, this time glancing up at me and the kiwi, Shane who was perched on the roof of the cabin with me, “how well can you boys paddle?” he asked, a little laugh in his eye. Shane and I exchanged uneasy grins and I smiled back nervously, imagining how my mother would feel if I was lost at sea my fourth night in Canada.

Three more times the June Cove roared to life and died. A pod of Pacific white sided dolphins had begun following the wounded vessel, giggling no doubt at mans’ vain attempt to conquer this aquatic medium. Finally Paul threw up his hands and told us to get comfortable, the engine would run as long as the RPM’s were kept painfully low, and we slowly puttered to the lab, I swear a kayak passed us along the way.

An hour later we rounded the final point, and there, perched heavenly on the rocks just above the cove was the lab. Tucked back and nearly invisible among the fir and cedar trees was the house. Big bay windows overlooked the cove and Blackney pass, a tiny chimney sat on top, silt gray smoke pouring out, it was the picturesque homesteaders cabin. A board walk ran just above the jagged rocks of the intertidal to the “lab.” Much smaller, the lab had a wraparound porch that overlooked the pass giving a 180 degree view of the water and anything that moved up or down it. On the board walk was Paul’s wife Helena, her slender frame and flyaway white hair visible even from the water, a large husky at her side sent booming bark after bark flying across the cove, a marvelous welcoming committee.

Six years later there is still so much that vividly stands out from that first night. The mac and cheese and garden salad we had for dinner. Watching the sun set through those big beautiful bay windows, and just how easy the conversation was.

There were seven of us around the table that night representing five countries and different walks of life. Shane the New Zealander, slowly traveling around the world. Tomoko and Momoko, two girls from Japan where Paul was revered by many for his anti-whaling stance (and obviously hated by some). And Evan Landy, who, like me, was a biology major with an orca fascination that, like me, boarded on obsession. Helena was, interestingly enough, the only Canadian born citizen among us, who had been a school teacher in Alert Bay before meeting Paul.

I fell asleep that night not in the tent I had lugged all those miles, but on the wraparound porch overlooking the ocean, the occasional waves lapping at the rocks and the soft underwater noises emitting from the speakers connected to the six hydrophones strategically placed around the lab. Passively listening for the orcas to come into range.
I dozed off almost instantly, reveling in the smell of salt on the air, the intimate sounds of the ocean, both above and below, and the magnificent realization that I was finally, actually, here.