Tag Archives: travel

Chop Wood and Haul Water

January 23, 2025 David Cannamore 2 Comments

You don’t hike through salal; you swim through it. Buried in an acre-sized grove, I stand on tiptoe, gazing at the island of hemlock ahead. In my mind, salal was just a hybridized version of discount alder. A nitrogen fixer thriving wherever sunlight poked through the clouds.

I breaststroke another few feet, struggling against the plant’s willowy but strong branches. The individual plants weave together like plywood, forming dense barriers that feel like drowning. I try a few more desperate strokes, pause, and look around. There’s supposed to be a trail somewhere.

I plunge beneath the surface, crawling under branches instead of through. Things look clearer down here. Something resembling a deer trail cuts through the maze. More tunnel than path, it’ll have to do. I reach for my phone and stare at the little orange triangle. GPS tells me the Hanson Island summit is just a few hundred feet ahead. I wiggle a few more feet, wondering why I didn’t do this long ago.

I’d be lost without my phone. It’s hard to admit, even by myself, without so much as a raven to judge me. The salal thicket blindfolded me, the small drainage spun me, and the few windows of sky reveal nothing. I follow the crutch in my hand, allowing it to guide me up one more embankment. A trio of big cedars with intertwined limbs shade a clearing festooned with deer beds. I push through one more wall of salal and gaze from the summit at Vancouver Island’s distant ridges. The hillside steepens, leaving just enough room for a viewshed and a clearing of rocks and lichen. I squeeze fatigued legs to my chest and stare at undulating greens and blues.

***

Harlequin ducks squeak in protest as I paddle by. They take to the water, necks bobbing forward and back as if to give themselves the illusion of more speed. Their rubber ducky chatter conceals their daredevil hobby of surfing southeasterly waves seconds before they break on the rocks. They dive like seals and fly like puffins, frantically beating their wings centimeters above the water. Every tidal rock holds another cluster of them, chattering away and admonishing the yellow kayak gliding past.

Hanson Island crawls by. Every beach beckons to be explored, and twice, I slide into cobbled shores and poke into the woods. I’ve boated these waters dozens of times, always in too much of a hurry to pause. Always hustling either to Alert Bay or back to Orca Lab, usually in fading light or racing the next low-pressure system barreling up Johnstone Strait.

I’m hell-bent on savoring; I linger in non-descript woods for no reason other than they exist. At last, I swing into a narrow bay with steep shores plastered with ochre stars. A lone white buoy bobs at the head, and I pull into a small beach pockmarked with softball-sized rocks.

There’s the trail, just as I’d left it, through stands of alder and up a single-lane logging road recolonized by hip-tall hemlocks. I follow the steady incline under fallen trees and around puddles. A smattering of fish cut from plywood marks the trail with engraved names like “Bobby ‘Sparkplug’ Joseph” that demand exposition.

Past a slippery “bridge.” Clear-cuts glare at me—old ghosts rotting in choking shadow from dozens of same-aged hemlocks racing for sunlight. I stop at one such graveyard and try to remember. Had I noticed these old fallen trees in 2015? ‘16? ‘17? Had I been too naïve and unencumbered? Did the umbrella of protection now stretching across the beloved island somehow nullify the millions of board feet already removed?

I continue past spindly young cedars and gurgling streams, stopping at a fence woven with alder and salal. The gate swings open at a touch and the rusty old bell rings. A cedar shingle sign with weathered words welcomes me to “Earth Embassy.”

Trees sway in the wind, but it’s peaceful in the small courtyard between the old ramshackle buildings. Amongst the weathered old shingled walls, fraying tarps, and a bulletin board tacked with water-stained pages stand two new metal signs.

“Respect this property,” the first sign commands, going on to recognize the site as the home and resting sight of one, David “Walrus” Garrick.

I wait for the creak of a wooden door and Walrus’s long gray beard and mischievous eyes. I listen for the echo of his dog Kessler’s booming bark or the rattle of the steller Jay fed peanuts every morning. But it’s just me in this quiet shrine with the work of one man’s lifetime.

The closest thing we had to a neighbor, I frequently made the hour-long hike from Orca Lab to Walrus’s. Equal parts Gandalf and Dumbledore with a liberal sprinkling of Original Trilogy Obi-Wan, Walrus would crack beers and tell stories he’d undoubtedly told a million times.

Wide-eyed, I’d listen to this living oracle talk about the founding of Greenpeace, protesting seal hunting in the Arctic and working as a cook on the first anti-whaling vessel before the Discovery Channel and Sea Shepard mainstreamed it.

The stories culminated in this place. His final act. The one he’ll be remembered for.

“The longest active roadblock in Canadian history,” he boasted, gesturing at his uninsulated cabin with a leaky vapor barrier, no insulation, and a smoky woodstove.

As Swanson, Cracroft, Parson, and Vancouver Island were stripped clean of timber, Walrus crawled sans-GPS through the salal to document the one thing that could spare the island known in the Kwakwaka’wakw language as Yukusam (‘shaped like a halibut hook’).

***

Red cedar is more than a sweet-smelling, rot-resistant wood that burns hot. Christened the ‘Tree of Life’ by the B.C. Coast’s First Nations, the tree was both canoe, house post, clothing, and basket. Centuries before the idea of forestry was an Anglo-Saxon fantasy, a natural ethos of conservation was a mainstay in Indigenous culture.

Life may have revolved around salmon, but cedar was the tool. Young cedars growing straight and true were set aside. They could be a basket today but, in a few generations, may be large enough to become a canoe, totem, or a corner house post.

Other trees were selected for bark harvesting. Outer bark was collected by making long, skinny incisions, which could then be dried and weaved into water-resistant clothing, baskets, even hats. The same oils that make cedars rot exceedingly slow even served as a natural bug repellent.

Instead of killing it, the harvesting increased the growth rate as the tree covered the exposed area. A cedar could rebound, survive, and even thrive if not too much was taken. The most formative and compelling case for conservation. The best argument that sometimes the word “enough” is the most important.

Prospective logging companies brushed aside the importance of Yukusam’s, “culturally modified trees” (CMTs), claiming that their in-house research showed there were only a couple hundred. Walrus and his team lived out of their active roadblock and pushed into every unlogged nook and cranny, documenting over 2,000 CMTs. For a region and people that had endured disease, assimilation, fish farms, potlatch imprisonments, and the heinous era of residential schools, CMTs are one of the remaining cultural touchstones. Carpet bombing Yukusam would be akin to nuking one of the few remaining strongholds.

Lawyers lawyered. Judges judged. Juries… juried?

And in the end, the remaining Yukusam old-growth was set aside. Walrus continued to live on his active roadblock, building gardens, cultivating shiitake mushrooms, and befriending the local steller jay population. The next generation of Kwakwaka’wakw filtered through the homestead, where elders taught cedar bark harvesting techniques.

These same Alert Bay residents pushed fish farms out of much of Kwakwaka’wakw territory, spurring returns of chum and pink salmon not seen in decades. It would be foolish and irresponsible to credit Walrus with this local revolution, but I wonder if seeing the power of a small team of forest-dwelling activists was another dry piece of kindling on an already growing fire.

***

For three winters, Walrus told me to climb the trail to Yukusam’s highest point. I’d smile, nod, and instead would walk back down the abandoned logging road for Orca Lab, unable to ascertain why. As my final winter as caretaker came to a close, I hiked to Walrus’s for the last time with a backpack laden with groceries. A nasty cough was making it harder and harder for him to lug supplies from sea level to 350 feet. Every couple of weeks, I’d arrive with a loaf of bread, eggs, and a couple beers.

“Did you get up the hill?”

I shook my head, feeling his disappointment, before grasping his hand and wondering if I’d ever see the sweet, eccentric Jedi Master again.

The cough forced Walrus to leave the longest active roadblock a few years later. In 2023, he took his final breath, finally able to breathe deep again.

***

The trail back to Walrus’s is easier to follow on the way down. I tour the old garden and study the pages clinging to the bulletin board. There are maps of the island showing the arterial trails he used to get from one CMT grove to another. Pictures of trees in mid-harvest and cross-cuttings of felled cedars, their age measured in centuries—quotes and documentation of Springer’s homecoming (another story for another day).

Near the front door is a notebook tucked safely in a Ziploc. Inside the little guestbook are the words of those who have visited this place since he passed. I clutch the little memento and stand before his resting place.

Before enlightenment, chop wood and haul water.

After enlightenment, chop wood and haul water.

I open to the next blank page and stare for a long time at the empty lines beneath my scribbled, “Dear Walrus,”

It is somehow lifetimes and seconds since I was here… the longest active roadblock remains intact.

I finally made it up the hill. You were right, it is beautiful. I should’ve done it sooner, but I’m thankful I could return and make it happen.

I’m not who I am without Yukusam. It was orcas that drew me, but that’s not what brought me back. This place is green because of you. Cedars stand because of you, though I’m sure you’d brush that aside with a laugh and a cracking beer.

Chop wood and haul water.

The phrase catches my heart; no five words better summarize my post-Orca Lab life. Wood for a fire, wood for 2x6s, and rafters and plywood. The promise of a warm house.

But the words are not simply literal. I repeat them like a mantra, a meditation, a reminder that some things must not be forgotten, no matter where in the journey we are. Ways of life that tether us to place and home and earth. Edicts as sturdy as a cedar house post.

Chop wood. Haul water. Climb the hills. Get dirty knees. Paddle the beaches. Drink the beer. Smile quickly. Laugh loudly. Forgive easy. Let go of anger.

A raindrop hits the page. I bend over and try to say goodbye.

Thank you for all you taught me. It took a while for some of it to sink in; I’ll never be done learning, never be done making mistakes, but I’ll never stop trying. I chop wood and carry water because of you. Rest easy, my friend. The beer is on me next time.

I return the journal to a house built by trees to protect trees and retreat down a forgotten logging road that will never continue, forever stymied by a fence woven with sinewy salal and shaded by cedars growing in dignified defiance.

The New Chapter

Sights and Smells

January 13, 2025 David Cannamore Leave a comment

I wonder what’s different.

The transportation for one. Greyhound no longer brings their gargantuan buses this far up Vancouver Island, and as we careen down the narrow two-lane road with six inches of shoulder, I can see why. The playlist blasting in my ears has changed, though I brought back some classics like Death Cab for Cuties’ Bixby Canyon Bridge and Snow Patrol’s Make This Go on Forever.

A myriad of greenery blurs outside the window. I watch these forests differently, too. Oh, my heart still flutters at the boughs of red cedar hiding secret pathways to 6,000-foot peaks. But I also see acres of young hemlocks scrunched together like matchsticks in neat little packages. Phrases like “stem exclusion” and “30-year harvest cycles” whisper with sullen voices. Countless watersheds line the east side of Vancouver, but the Tsitika River I just rumbled past is the only one that hasn’t been logged. Tsitiaka winds through the tallest mountains on the Island and reaches saltwater at a little place called Robson Bight.

Orcas. It always comes back to orcas.

For two days, I have ferried, flown, and ridden from Gustavus to Juneau to Seattle to Victoria and am now just an hour from Port McNeil. Despite my evolving playlist and old-growth forest opinions, it still feels impossible that my first trip to Port McNeil was 17 years ago. Surely it was just a couple of weeks ago that I hopped off the Greyhound. Wasn’t it last weekend that I drove a Nissan Pathfinder up this road with a cat and rabbit in the back seat?

These roads, islands, and waterways hold a lot of the stories and experiences that explain the evolution from basketball boy to kayaker, guide, naturalist, bum, redneck-hippy, writer, conservationist, and whale aficionado. I’m counting on it providing a few more.

Ferried. Flown. Ridden.

I count the number of petroleum-driven vehicles that propelled me from Gustavus to the footsteps of Port McNeil, Johnstone Strait, and my precious Hanson Island. All to go on one more monkish retreat in the woods and waters of my youth. All to catch one more ride on a boat powered by an outboard motor or go paddling in a kayak made of, you guessed it, fossil fuels.

Too small to tip elections in favor of Mother Earth, I run to my favorite hiding place, sheltered by, you guessed it, Mother Earth.

If the trees are passing judgment on my life choices, they keep it to themselves. If those replanted hemlocks are packed like matchsticks, what happens if one of them lights? I woke to the news that California was burning during the wet season. A world getting drier, warmer, crazier, more unpredictable. Surely, it would be the earthquakes that doomed southern California. We beat San Andreas Fault to the punch.

***

Don’t cry. Whatever you do, don’t cry.

All those old names:

Blackfish Sound, Pearce Passage, Weyton Pass, Blackney Pass, Queen Charlotte Entrance.

Bold Head and Cracroft Point. Blinkhorn Peninsula and Kaikash Creek.

I know them all, have stared covetously at their little faces for eight years, promising I’d see them again. I’m sure they’ve been getting on just fine without me.

I confess I left my guilt on the Port McNeil dock, catching one more 45-minute ferry ride to Cormorant Island and the town of Alert Bay—the end of public transportation. I wait two days for a weather window that finally comes as low pressure turns to high and the wind pivots from southeast to northwest.

Every town run from Orca Lab to Alert Bay took me past Double Bay, its long boardwalk, floating dock, and cherry red rooftops. I shoulder my pack and follow the other caretaker, Laurene, up the dock. She directs me to a cabin on the right side of the horseshoe-shaped boardwalk, perched on the rocks with a view of Blackfish Sound and the first layer of the Broughton Archipelago’s islands.

The door opens, and the pack thumps from my shoulders. The cabin is bigger than my Gustavus design, with a half-loft upstairs, a functional shower, even a flush toilet. I would have settled for half-a-shabin and a cot. It’s not the high-end amenities that made the pack fall.

Don’t cry. Whatever you do, don’t cry.

Next to the kitchen table is a shelf. On it rests a radio receiver that looks all too familiar. Whether donated or purchased from Orca Lab, the ocean blares from the speakers—water gurgling, a distant boat engine, crackling shrimp. I swear I hear A pod.

“We have a hydrophone at the mouth of the cove,” Laurene explains, unaware I have been transported back in time. “There’s a volume knob on the right—”

“I know,” I interrupt. Not the best first impression.

I cross the room and crank the volume. How many nights did I fall asleep to this? She leaves me to unpack. I move quietly across the floor as if I’m in church. Clothes upstairs, tortillas and cheese in the fridge. Curry paste in the cabinet. I open the wood stove and smile. A pile of ash has calcified on the bottom and shrunk the stove’s space in half—a chronic problem with burning wood soaked in saltwater.

I pry the ash free and grab a handful of piled kindling. With eyes closed, I bring a stick of red cedar to my nose and inhale like an addict, listening to the hydrophone as my head spins and heart palpates. Our sense of smell pales in comparison to most mammals. Yet its ability to conjure memories is undisputed.

There is a smell to Hanson Island I have found nowhere else. Something in the ground, the water, the trees. Perhaps it’s as simple as it remains one of the few islands in the region that has not been clear-cut. Old-growth smells for a land that measures lifespans in centuries and seasons in seconds.

***

I weave between cedar and fir, balance on fallen skyscraper hemlocks, and plunge through salal undergrowth. I squish deer scat between fingers and spy on harlequin ducks perched on rocky beaches. Rumor has it a wolf has taken up residence on Hanson Island. I scan the hills with blind optimism for hazel eyes, ears cocked for the howl that proclaims that there are still things green and wild and true on this burning planet.

The rising northwesterly brings the forest to life with creaks and cracks. I settle against the hollowed-out trunk of a cedar, its innards charred from a long-ago lightning strike. Yes, even here, there can be fire from time to time. The stubborn cedars simply refuse to rot and fall, standing even in death in defiance of the decay and rebirth that comes for all.

I scratch at the charred bark and sniff. Any smell of fire is gone. The forest around me vibrant and healing. I watch the treetops, content to let the afternoon crawl away. There will be time tomorrow to check in and learn what is expected of me here, how I can give back to this place that dreams of becoming a sanctuary and educational retreat. It took enough petroleum to get me here. I will live, write, and eat in a shelter made of wood. I’ll try to leave this place better than I found it.

Wet earth soaks into wool pants, a pleasant shiver travels up my spine. Ravens cackle, eagles retort. Somewhere, an orca explodes to the surface. I feared two months wouldn’t be enough time to find what I was looking for. But as eyes close and my soul rises to the island’s tallest canopy, I know it’s already been found.

The New Chapter

Risk and Living

December 9, 2024 David Cannamore Leave a comment

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.

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.

***

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.”

The New Chapter

Why Would I Watch

October 15, 2024 David Cannamore 5 Comments

Smoke pours from the double doors. A fire lights up the dim interior of the Alert Bay Big House. A pair of totems adorned with thunderbirds glare from the far wall. Cedar logs crack and sparks lift skyward toward the hole in the roof.

I step away as the doors close and the thunderbirds disappear. I know what I’m missing: 60 minutes of the Northwest Coast brought to life through the songs, dances, and regalia of the Namgis First Nations. To the shock of no one, my favorite is the “Salmon Dance,” complete with a carved wooden orca that chases sockeye across the dirt floor with remarkable authenticity while nine community elders pound in unison on a booming drum.

A steady mist falls. The muffled voices inside the walls go quiet. I turn and walk across a vacant soccer field and down a dirt road. I can see the islands beyond Cormorant Pass. All those names that make my heart pound and ache.

Plumper Islands. Weyton Pass. Robson Bight. Blackfish Sound. Hanson Island. Johnstone Straight. I am back where it all began.

I was born on the northeast coast of Vancouver Island, where the tides bottleneck through archipelagos and ancient fjords. Alaska may be home, but my dalliances with this place will never end.

Blackberry bushes infest the roadside ditches and stretch to the beach. Stacks of cedar and fir abandoned on the full moon tide guard a pebbled shore. I navigate the logs and turn left. I doubt what I’m looking for will still be there. I can’t decide if I want it to be. I glance at the note on my phone dated two years previous. Something kept me from exterminating this little artifact.

End of the road. Turn left. Approximately 100 paces. Look for a cedar tree with a split top. It’s a large piece of fir bark resting on the trunk.

“98… 99…100…”

There it is. The tree must be half a century old. The most precious commodity on the coast was and is an old-growth cedar. House posts, canoes, hats, clothing, baskets. It can be lived beneath, paddled, worn, and carried. No wonder Indigenous cultures revere it. I try to imagine a world older than this cedar. When the banks of the nearby Nimpkish River swelled with sockeye and the Namgis butterflied their fillets before cooking them over open fires. It must’ve felt like a miracle: food arriving at the front door every summer as the Tree of Life grew abundantly. The resources seemed limitless until we tried to feed and house the world instead of a community.

I put a hand on the cedar and stroke the sinewy outer bark. There aren’t many 500-year-old cedars left. This tree was a sapling when Columbus sailed the ocean blue. The forked trunk split as Washington crossed the Delaware. It listened to the chainsaw’s ceaseless roar as the forests of Cormorant Island fell in the name of siding and firewood.

I peer around the trunk and feel the familiar tugs of anxiety and longing. My teeth dig into my lips until I taste iron.

Pick it up. You’ve come this far.

I bend over and grab the slab of fir bark I placed here two years ago. It holds memories, just like everything on this coast. I can’t look at a fir tree and not remember combing Hanson Island’s shorelines for this bark known as “fisherman’s coal.” Stacked on top of a woodstove’s roaring flames, a couple of large pieces kept our cabin at Orca Lab toasty at night.

Memories domino: padding down the dark, narrow stairs to check the fire. The rabbit cage in the corner tucked beneath the windows. Penny nestled in her litter box, soft brown ears twitching. The hydrophone speaker above the bed and the ocean sounds bubbling through the cabin. Wind and rain on the roof. Deer on the beach. Harlequin ducks in the cove. The boat runs to Alert Bay to resupply. A hot bath. A sandwich and beer with my hero Paul Spong.

I pull myself from the past like a diver breaking the surface. Stalling, I look across the water at the islands I hold dearly. Hanson Island hovers on the horizon. Orca Lab, that cabin, is just a few miles away. I could be there in a few hours if I stole (excuse me, “borrowed”) a kayak.

The hypothetical brings me back to the slab of fir bark. I flip it over and run my fingers across the smooth brown surface. Someone has scrawled an untidy message into it. The penmanship is mine, but that’s where the similarities end.

I had vowed we’d return here and finish what we’d started. The Orca Lab caretaking era was supposed to be nothing more than a kayaking trip until it grew into so much more. But we never did get that paddle trip. Two years ago, when I returned to Alert Bay for the first time in five years, I scribbled this vow that we’d paddle here. I’d imagined finding this piece of bark and celebrating before we walked the familiar road to Paul and Helena’s house to laugh and reminisce.

The unfulfilled message has stuck in my mind like a sliver. Something insisted on finding it, making peace, and sending it on its way.

“Now what?” I ask the falling tide.

There’s no answer. No divine sign, magic rainbow, or miracle dorsal fin. I don’t expect one. I don’t need one. I flip the wood into the water and walk down the beach without a second glance. Not everything needs a proper burial.

***

Three hours later, the National Geographic Venture cruises east in Johnstone Strait, Hanson Island’s shoreline gliding past. I am giddy. My eyes ping pong between the spotting scope and my phone. I’m cheating. Thanks to Orca Lab’s streaming camera, I know orcas are swimming south towards Blackney Pass from Blackfish Sound. I watch them on my phone’s tiny screen before pushing my eyes to the scope. I find them at the east end of Hanson Island. Dorsal fins. Right where they’re supposed to be. One, two, three, four, five. I reflexively catalog them. Three females, one juvenile, and one adult male.

I should say something. It’s the only reason I’m on this boat. But I savor it a beat longer than I should. For 60 seconds, it’s just me and these five whales. They split the surface, the male raising his tail and slapping the surface. I permit a moment of anthropomorphism and tell myself he’s waving at me. Perhaps I am looking for that divine sign.

“Hey guys…” I radio to the bridge team. “We found them.”

A flurry of activity. An excited announcement rings through the boat. An orderly rush of binoculars and baseball bat-sized lenses arrive on the bow. But as the Venture turns into Blackney Pass, the orcas turn toward the Hanson Island shore.

I gaze across the pass toward Cracroft Point, remembering the dead wolf pup we found there. Off the bow is Parson Island, solar panels and remote camera visible on the cliff where I lugged eight backbreaking batteries, savoring every step and stumble.

We round the point… and there it is. From here, Orca Lab looks just as it did when I pulled away in April 2017. I think of that piece of fir bark floating in the current, reconciling memories, joy, and grief. How does one savor memories without drowning in them? And if those memories lead to stark regret, why would I watch?

The clicking of cameras fades into the ether. It’s still just me and those orcas. The Lab in the background with its observation deck and recording studio where I spent sleepless nights staring across a black ocean with chattering whales in my ears.

I step away from the scope, and my spot is immediately filled. The soothing bass of breathing orcas pirouettes across calm water and floats over the bow.

“If we’re quiet… we can hear them,” I say to no one in particular.

Why would I watch? Why do I watch? How long will I continue to watch?

The calf rockets from the water and hovers briefly before sending white water geysers high. I couldn’t stop watching, even if I wanted to. Couldn’t look away if my life depended on it. And if these animals, these places, these memories… if they bring a twinge of heartbreak syndrome from time to time… then that’s the bargain I’ll strike.

My fingers twitch, grasping at an invisible kayak paddle. The fir bark promise doesn’t need to go unfulfilled. The only thing keeping me from retracing these shorelines is the person rooted to the deck.

The New Chapter

Heart Medicine

September 6, 2024 David Cannamore 1 Comment

“Anyone here going to Gustavus?”

We cluster around the Carhartt-clad pilot, ballcap pulled low over short brown hair. He glances at a single sheet of people – the closest we get to a boarding pass around here – and calls last names like it’s the first day of school.

“Taylor, Taylor, Higgins, Parkins… Cannamore?”

We acknowledge our presence with nods. The paper disappears into a back pocket, and a key card opens the sliding doors. This is what amounts to security at Alaska Seaplanes. No TSA. No separate bag for your four ounces of liquids. No random bag checks or standing with arms above your head. Hell, you can carry your rifle onboard and barely get a second glance. It is almost moose season after all.

We ramble across the tarmac and squeeze into a plane with plywood floors and one giant propeller.

“Safety kit is in the nose hatch,” he calls over his shoulder as seatbelts click. “The back door has two latches. Open the top door by flipping the latch and turning the bottom handle like a car door. There’s a fire extinguisher under my seat.”

Flying to Gustavus costs as much as flying to Seattle. A fun piece of trivia that delights tourists until it’s time to drop their credit card on the table. After three weeks ping-ponging across southeast Alaska on the National Geographic Quest, I’d pay just about anything to be home.

The prop catches and roars to life—earbuds in my ears, volume up. The Lonely Forest belting out an anthem that speaks of home.

“Give to me miles of tall evergreens, the smell of the ocean, and cool mountain breeze.“

Juneau disappears beneath my feet. It has been several lifetimes since I called this place home. I still want to love and cherish it, for it is a beautiful place. How many other communities have more miles of hiking trails than paved roads? My stomach gives a little lurch that has nothing to do with the turbulence and confirms I still have some healing to do with that particular place.

The plane swings west, and Admiralty Island rolls past, wingtips level with the 3,000-foot peaks clad in September fog. Hank has teased the Admiralty Island alpine for years, describing an alpine so lush that the deer cluster in numbers too tantalizing to comprehend. I trace ridgelines, nose pressed to the glass.

Next year. It’s always next year.

Fatigue creeps in. I am tuckered and worn out. How many days off have I had since May? I replay the summer as Lynn Canal whitecaps replace Admiralty’s muskegs. The season’s workload looked reasonable in February. I said “yes” to everything I could, locking up weeks as a naturalist for Lindblad and multiple kayak trips. I added the paychecks in my head, stared at my bank account, shook my head, and added it again. I wanted to reach November feeling financially secure(ish) with the freedom to run somewhere warm if the opportunity allowed. Mission accomplished. I think.

Point Couverdon. Past the south end of the Chilkat Mountains. Porpoise Islands. Pleasant Island. The runway beckons. A little community hidden in the trees. Millions of tons of glacial clay beneath our feet and crisscrossed with the prints of bear, wolf, moose, and crane. Come January, a sunny beach may be preferable, but right now I want to drink coffee on my couch and watch the rain fall.

“I just wanna live here, love here, and die here… Give to me miles of tall evergreens…“

Breanna left the house spotless. I didn’t know a sink could be that clean. Minerva scurries down the ladder, and for a wild moment, I think it’s because I’m home. But it’s 5 pm, and niceties can wait until after dinner. I toss my backpack upstairs and collapse on the couch. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. This space hasn’t felt haunted in a while. I hear faded laughter echo off the walls and can feel that the space has been lived in and loved. Minerva licks her lips and permits me the honor of scooping her up and putting her on my chest. She purrs and nuzzles, wet food breath in my nostrils.

“You’ve had quite a few tenants this summer,” I tell her.

A consequence of the packed schedule has been I’ve been gone more than I’ve been home, and a rotating cast of house sitters have rolled through, spearheaded by Breanna, The Shabin’s current caretaker. Minerva has been the star of Swamp Castle Estates as Breanna and I have christened these four soggy acres.

“I didn’t know I liked cats.”

“I don’t like cats, but she’s the coolest.”

“Can we reinstall the Shabin’s cat door so she can come visit?”

I squeeze the ball of fluff. Three months together at the Hobbit Hole certainly knit us together, but it’s sweet to see her growing fan club and watch her adapt to the rotation of people who have occupied this space. We lay there for a long time, savoring the absence of anything pressing: no questions to answer, no hikes to lead, no presentations to give. My mind drifts to the potatoes in the garden, the cranes winging their way south, and the buzz of a fishing reel’s drag as spritely coho zip across the Bartlett River.

***

We tramp the familiar trail in a steady rain. If Gustavus held a fantasy football-style draft for the best Bartlett River angler, I might take my hiking companion with the first overall pick. Kyle Bishop’s chest waders are stained with mud, clay, and fish blood. Every year, we promise to spend more time together and carve out room in our schedules for dinner, drinks, and Mario Kart tournaments.

Next year. It’s always next year.

But come September, we’re inevitably drawn to this trail, this river, those coho. We can go months without exchanging a word or text and then chatter like squirrels when the cottonwood leaves turn yellow. We badger each other for life details and snigger at the passing out-of-towners lugging a five-gallon bucket to hold their theoretical catch.

Fifty minutes to the first decent fishing hole, but the place we really want to hit is further up. We weave past a well-mannered brown bear and drop our lines into a long, deep channel the coho favor. My rod tip bends, line runs out, and I see the beautiful flash of silver for the first time. The salmon breaks the water and thrashes. The hook sinks deep—elation skyrockets. I guide him to the shoreline, and the fillet knife ends the fight. I run cold, wet fingers down the scales, marveling at the miracle that is home.

The one place that offers the life I want happens to be where I can afford to live. Rain runs down my face, and the river’s cold presses against my waders. Kyle hoots, and white water materializes 30 feet in front of him. The season’s just beginning. The first of many pilgrimages to this spot. The first of many benedictions and prayers to the animals that feed us and bring us together.

I place the coho in the grass, reset the line, and let the hook sing across the water.

The New Chapter

Deeper Water

November 8, 2023 David Cannamore Leave a comment

The zodiac skims across the water, the wind whips, and the disturbed water leaves a frothywhite “V” behind us. Another fjord. Tall stately mountains border a wide drainage at the head of the bay. Squint your eyes and it could be Mud Bay, Idaho Inlet, or any number of classic southeast Alaska drainages lined with bears awaiting the salmon. But those rivers are 8300 miles away.

I have gone to the other end of the globe… to see glaciers. To see a land defined by ice and the frenetic and beautiful artwork they had carved. There are no bears here in the fjords of Patagonia. Though there are rumors that a puma or two occasionally makes its way down to the island of Tierra Del Fuego. Nor are there spruce or hemlock forests. Instead southern beech trees coat the shorelines and stretch up toward the alpine.

Despite being at roughly the same latitude as north Vancouver Island, the fjords of Patagonia feel more like the Aleutions than they do the Pacific Northwest. It’s the price paid for a ceaseless wind that whips across the south Pacific with nothing between New Zealand and Chile to slow it down.

Despite being 200 yards from the beach, the zodiac slows. I glance down to see mud beneath a couple feet of water. The long tide flat stretches deep into the fjord. Our landing may be more of a “storm the beaches” situation.

“Uno, dos, tres, quatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho…” sings out Javier from behind me.

I scan the shoreline. What’s he counting? I bring the binoculars to my eyes and train them on a massive boulder just above the waterline. That’s no rock. That’s an elephant seal. But… it can’t be. It’s too big to be anything that lives, breathes, and moves on land without being crushed uner its own weight.

The zodiac can’t go any further. We splash over the side, holding bins for life jackets and other pieces of gear over our heads. In 30 minutes the guests aboard the National Geographic Explorer would be deposited on the beach, awaiting the quirky, entertaining, and informative knowledge of these skilled and capable naturalists that know the land so well.

A little secret, I’ve never been here before. Hadn’t set foot in South America, let alone Patagonia before a couple days ago. And there’s only so much one can absorb from books and documentaries before your Xtra-tuffs hit the beach. I’d joked about Patagonia just being “Alaska with penguins,” but it wasn’t.

This was a wild, crazy country. A place humans had no business living. The wind. It blows constantly. Not a gentle breeze, but 40, 50, 60 knots with storm tossed waves that make the boat pitch and roll on every ocean crossing, sending me bouncing out of my bunk and water bottle clattering off the table. The plants were unfamiliar, the mountains held glaciers, but the inlets and bays were foreign. Even the dolphins and porpoises felt like strangers. With a pang I realize I’m homesick.

I lug the bins up the beach. The boulder turns, a grotesque snout flopping over its open mouth. It lets out a bellow that echoes off the mountains and thunders up the valley. The male elephant seal is massive. 4500 pounds easily. And we’re walking right past it. My fellow naturalists barely spare it a glance. Decades in the Alaska woods has trained me that anything this large should not be approached under any circumstances. Yet here we were. Trying to fit in I follow in Javier’s footsteps but can’t resist giving the monster a wide berth.

I have stepped into Jurassic Park. The elephant seals are scattered across the mile wide beach. Females and pups cluster in groups while males wallow closer to the water, allowing the flooding tide to cover them up until only their snouts are exposed. The roars of the males and barks of the pups sharply ring out on the still, clear morning.

In theory I should be “scouting” the three-mile long hike up the valley I was tasked with leading. But I can’t step away from the elephant seals. I perch on a rock and look down on a small cluster of females and pups. My eyes land on one pup pressed against his mothers belly and vibrating gently. He’s nursing, latched on tight and chugging away.

A nearby male gives another roar. How on earth could this fluffy gray thing turn into that Jabba the Hutt wannabe? I hadn’t given much thought to elephant seals when I was offered the two week Patagonia contract. But now that I was here… there was something so peaceful, so grounding about these massive animals. I slip into a meditative state and let the world and everything in it slip away.

These seals spend 90% of their life in the ocean. It was special to catch them on the beach like this. In their tenderest, most intimate moments they make landfall to give birth and nurse before setting out for months of traveling and foraging. The pup has no idea that his blissful little existence has an expiration date. In just a few short weeks, mom will leave him at the mercies of the ocean. No more milk made up of 40% fat to sustain him. He’ll have to head for open water where food dives deep and orcas lie in wait.

He doesn’t want to leave this beach. As homesick as I am, neither do I. For five weeks I have explored the deep woods of British Columbia and fantasized about kayak trips that varied from weekend getaways to starting in Seattle and not stopping until I saw Margerie Glacier. I’d flown to the other side of the world to see some of the most beautiful and dramatic fjords on earth. Alaska is gorgeous, but it doesn’t make glaciers the way they do down here.

Things would change rapidly for me and that little pup. But at some point, we’d have to wiggle over those drift logs, hit the water, and keep on swimming.

The sound of an outboard wraps around the point. Right, there are people coming. I was supposed to find a trailhead. I scurry off the rock, leaving the pup to suckle and enjoy the sunshine that has finally crawled above the highest peak. In my mind I review the list of plants, birds, and stories I have learned. The list was growing every day, and luckily most of the flora and fauna had, “southern, Antarctic, or Magellanic” in its name. One could simply point at a clump of grass and declare with some authority that it was “Antarctic grass.” Not that I would ever.

The zodiac approaches, the elephant seals roar in greeting, and an Andean condor rides the thermals far above. The southern wind slams against my face, I close my eyes, taste salt, and revel in the unknown, the unexplored, and the prospect of following that pup into deeper water.

The New Chapter

Rivers and Roads

October 27, 2023 David Cannamore 4 Comments

Finding relics is hard on this coast. The rainforest is tenacious, hungry, and unrelenting. It devours anything made of wood, eager to absorb it back into the ground and turn it into mulch so the next generation of trees can grow, topple, and repeat. Abandoned houses quickly crumble as their metal roofs rust and fall away. Even cast iron and the alleged “stainless” steel can only resist the pounding rain and ever-present dampness for so long.

So, walking through a place like the U’Mista Cultural Center in Alert Bay feels like something of a miracle. Referred to by the Namgis First Nations elders as a “box of treasures” the museum is chock full of regalia, masks, and artifacts, some of them of pre-contact vintage. Some are so precious that they have been given a special room where photography is forbidden. Stepping into this space with the same layout as a traditional Big House feels akin to walking into any holy place.

The big house in Alert Bay, British Columbia.

You can feel the age. Hear the whispers, the songs, the banging of drums on a stormy winter night while the wind howls up Johnstone Strait. For decades, potlatch ceremonies were forbidden by the Canadian government. The gatherings led to arrests and the confiscation of artifacts, language, culture, a way of life. It wasn’t until the Cultural Center was built that the regalia and masks were returned.

I kneel in front of an ornately carved orca, done in the classic form line design of the Pacific Northwest. The calls of the northern residents ring in my ears. Oral histories tell us that the “blackfish” swam in pods so thick that you could leap across their backs from one side of the strait to the other. Guess who likes the sound of that?

Black and white photos of old village sites, many long abandoned, run along the hallway. I know a lot of the names, or at least the ODWG (Old Dead White Guy) names of these islands and channels and coves.

Even after years exploring this coastline and probing the beaches, I know nothing about this place. So many remain just names on a map and nothing else. I thought that my wandering would be satisfied with that. That I could leverage my new life and travel wherever Lindblad was willing to send me.

A Patagonia contract looms. What are southern hemisphere glaciers like? Or humpbacks? Orcas? Do penguins smell as bad as everyone says they do? I’m intrigued, excited, thankful. But there’s a bungee cord tied to my heart. Any time I step too far from the B.C. coast, the cord goes tight and springs me back.

It has been six years since I hugged Paul Spong on the Alert Bay dock, promised to keep in touch, and boarded the ferry. 12 years since I first shouldered my pack and boarded a bus in Vancouver for the region that is my birthplace. The symmetry is not lost on me. All it took was U’Mista, an orca carving, and some black and white photos, to tell me that I don’t need to travel the globe to find myself. To be fed. To heal.

There are places where I have left beached my kayak, stepped into the woods, and felt a presence. Without fail, I would find evidence of human life.

A scarred tree where pitch has been harvested for fires. A strip of bark peeled from a red cedar. The miracle tree that could be lived under, paddled, and worn. A flattened divot where a house once stood. Wooden poles of an ancient purse seiner.

I step outside and look over the water. A southeast squall is rolling up the strait, but the rain has stopped and the sun bleeds through. I can see my wooden kayak rolling in those waves, battling the passage from Port McNeil toward Alert Bay.

This place is full of memories. Many beautiful, a few painful, others bittersweet.

But something it is abundantly clear. This place isn’t done with me. In what capacity or function I don’t know. The time has come to migrate back. To step into these woods I want to know, to feel that presence and sleep on that moss. Hear the wolves and watch the seals. Rivers and roads led me north, but at some point, in some capacity, I always knew they’d lead me back here.

Gustavus 2018

Standing Still

July 14, 2018 David Cannamore Leave a comment

The April sunshine should feel good. I should be sprawled in the grass soaking up the rays like a hungry plant that’s been inside too long. But I feel none of it. What a picture I must make, a whiskey bottle hangs loosely in one hand, my gait awkward and uneven on the rocks. A cool ocean breeze floats through the hemlock but inside I’m stifled. I can’t breathe, a weight presses down on my chest that the liquor can’t alleviate. I stumble and collapse against a washed up log, long ago it was left high and dry, left to rot at the whims of the universe. I feel a kindred spirit with the rotting wood and crumbling bark. I savor another sip of the brown stuff, close my eyes, try to breath. How did I get here?

For most of my adult life I have rambled. A modern hobo with a 75 liter pack in place of a branch and tied handkerchief. I reveled in it. Up and down the coast. Again and again. British Columbia, Juneau, Gustavus, the Inian Islands. Surely this was the way to live; free and uninhibited. From one wood cabin to another. Again and again I scoffed at the “every man.” The poor saps in their cubicle jails. Shackles of security holding them down. Worker bees. Drones. The nine-to-fives. A pity.

If only more lived like me. Could find the bravery to cast aside their fears and leap into the unknown.

The ramblings of a young man.

A knot from the log presses into my back. It does little to alleviate the fear that clutches at my chest. For the past two months we’ve operated under the illusion that the Hobbit Hole would be our home for the next three years. Full time caretakers at last.

It would come with stinging consequences. Eleven months a year here meant precious little time with our tribe. We dreaded the conversations we’d have to have with our dearest friends. That we felt called to be here, to help the Inian Islands Institute get off the ground. That a growing desire to be educators had taken root. But there’d be no denying that three Gustavus-free years would change the bonds that we had tightly forged. Was it really a sacrifice we wanted to make?

This would be our last hurrah. The job as caretakers promised to pay well. Enough that we could return in three years and get the house built that existed only in SketchUp. We’d at last admitted that building a house on a guide’s wage wasn’t feasible.

But two hours ago Brittney walked down the stairs, terror and pain in every syllable, “we didn’t get it.”

***

Zach Brown and I sit in the garden. An afternoon sun playing over the water. He’s one of my best friends. I thought he’d be my boss for the next three years. But there was someone better. I’d heard the resume of the couple that got the position over us. They were what we had feared. They deserve to be here. The time has come to confront my failure, acknowledge that Zach and his board made the right decision. That Brittney and I never expected preferential treatment. That we still love him, Laura, this place, their vision. That we’re still in. But it’s hard to keep the bitter taste of disappointment out of my voice as we work through it.

Hank Lentfer, student of cranes and supplier of beer appears from the house and hands us each an IPA. It loosens our tongues, we say what needs to be said. It’s time to move on. It’s time to let go. I turn and look at the house, the deep green paint melding into the forest. The open lawn, the shop with the pool table on the second floor. It isn’t mine. It never was.

In the moments after we learned we hadn’t gotten the job I flew into a rage. I pounded the floor, screamed, and terrified the cats. Selfish words poured from my mouth. Phrases like, “we deserved this,” and “it was supposed to be ours” came fast and easy.

I didn’t deserve this. I didn’t earn this. Zach did. By hiking a thousand miles and paddling a thousand more. By fundraising and dreaming and believing. He may not have physically built the structures of the Hobbit Hole, but he has earned every stud, beam, and piling that they’re composed of.

***

Our final week at the Hobbit Hole. I’m back at the fallen log, my brain clearer and the pain a little easier. It still hurts, still in mourning, but I’m confronting the world with clear eyes and sound mind, perhaps for the first time.

If only more lived like me. Could find the bravery to cast aside their fears and leap into the unknown.

I long for the days in our rusted Pathfinder. Waiting for the next ferry in the parking lot of a Prince Rupert Tim Hortons. The warmth and comfort of knowing that everything I need is in the car with me; Brittney, the cat, the rabbit, a laptop to write on, what more did I need? How liberating, how comforting, how… safe?

The realization slowly sinks in until I must acknowledge it. I’m not the risk taker I pretend to be. What exactly were the chances I was supposed to be taking? For most of my twenties I could have bailed out at any moment. Our careers and choices could zig-zag across the world if we wanted to. There was nothing stopping us. We could change our stars on a whim.

But we fell in love with 4.2 swampy acres of glacial Gustavus outwash and decided we were ready when I knew I wasn’t. Perhaps life’s greatest risks isn’t running but standing still. What if those worker bees were the brave ones? I was always running, moving. Becoming a full time caretaker would have provided the security I had denounced for so long. Now, with a mortgage and uninsulated cabin, I crave it. I’m more scared now than I’ve been in 10 years of rambling. The irony bites hard on the ego gland, devours it whole.

***

Home. Four corners, the Shabin, Excursion Ridge, nightly beers with Patrick Hanson. The Fairweather mountains still punch holes in the clouds, defiant white peaks blockading a blue sky. When you miss out on what you thought was a dream job—the coronation of your twenties— and still have Gustavus, it’s time to give thanks.

For years I have coasted on what other’s have built and earned. Paul Spong’s Orca Lab, the Hobbit Hole, places I have occupied and never fully deserved. This spring the universe has grabbed me roughly by the shoulders and looked me square in the eye.

“David, it’s time to stop running. It’s time to build something of your own.”

Dear lord does that scare me. I just learned the difference between a stem wall and a slab-on-grade. Now I’m building something? Deep breaths, they come easier than they did a month ago. What do I need to do first? Foundation, get a good foundation. I open the construction book, a notepad on my lap and read about concrete pilings, my pencil scribbling notes with the fervor of a procrastinating grad student.

***

Down one of Gustavus’s many dirt roads is an art gallery. On some weekend evenings it doubles as a music hall. Tonight it triples as a potluck complete with free beer. The place is packed as one musician after another comes to the stage and belts our their best. This town has to have more musicians per capita than anywhere on earth. But as the evening begins to wind down, one man in particular makes his way to the stage.

Justin Smith has collar length hair, a ball cap pulled over his head, skinny torso, and a long gait that helps him cover the aisle in a few strides. A buzz fills the crowd, when his name is announced the place erupts. I’m crammed onto the floor next to Patrick. We’re both clutching a beer. It’s not our first or second, I don’t think it’s our third. We share a wild look.

“Dude, he’s gonna play.”

Open-mic nights go way back in the annals of Gustavus lore. As much a part of our culture as deer hunting on Pleasant Island and picking strawberries. Eight years ago, at my first music night I watched spellbound as Justin and Kim Heacox belted out Cream’s, ‘White Room.’ Kim pounded the piano keys so hard his fingers bled. Justin made his guitar do things I didn’t believe possible.

But as the years have gone by, Justin hasn’t played as much in public. He’s raising a son that is the apple of the Goode River Neighborhood’s eye and just moved into the house he and his wife Jesse built. Another in a long list of role-models and heroes. He speaks quietly into the microphone, his voice soft and understated. Humble eyes and a sheepish smile pan the crowd.

But those that have heard him play know what is coming. Patrick and I bounce on our knees like it’s Christmas Morning. And for the next fifteen minutes he plays. Three instrumentals of his own creation. Listening to Justin play guitar is like reading the climax of a novel. The crowd leans forward, hanging on every note like turning pages. And for the first time, I’m relieved we didn’t get the job. This is home. In the good times and bad, sickness and health. Whether I’m ready or not, this is where we need to be.

Gustavus 2018

Westeros

January 20, 2018 David Cannamore Leave a comment

The Inians are splayed out like a handful of watermarks. Inians. Such an odd name. Even Zach isn’t sure where it came from. Like someone started to write Indian and lost interest halfway through. But we know where Hobbit Hole comes from. Zach’s mother Carolyn christened it long ago because “The Pothole” was just too secular, and Hobbit Hole is a much better name.

The little archipelago is sandwiched between some of the wildest water on earth. To the west is Cross Sound, which should be renamed “Small Craft Advisory Pass.” Even on days where the wind blows from the east ten knots or less, the ocean swell sends six foot waves crashing against the westernmost islands.

Icy Strait lies to the east, an indomitable stretch of wild water in its own right. Bracketing and connecting these two bodies of water are North and South Inian Pass. The nautical map we’re studying holds a warning both exciting and intimidating.

“Tidal currents in north and south Inian Pass can reach 8-10 knots. Mariners should use extreme caution.”

Extreme caution? Who knew there were categories of caution. What exactly would constitute minor or moderate caution? Staying home would be exercising all the caution. But if that was the case, there’d be no reason to be here.

We load a pair of double kayaks. Brittney, Zach, Laura, and myself have the hair brained idea of exercising minimal caution and paddling to the westernmost island in the Inians, an unnamed chunk of land stretched vertically as if the very pounding of the oceans storms had flattened it. It’s an island that, as far as we know, hadn’t been walked on by Xtra-Tuffs in a long time.

We name it Westeros, which sounds like a rejected Middle Earth landmark, and set off. From atop the main island yesterday, Zach and I saw an exposed peak on Westeros. A peak that would offer a 360-degree view of open ocean, Chichagof Island, the Inians, and the Fairweather Range/Glacier Bay. We cross the half-mile wide channel between Westeros and the other unnamed island in the Inian cluster. This channel was nicknamed “the laundry” by commercial fisherman because trying to cast nets in the channel on the flood was like being in a washing machine. A rock cliff on the east side is covered in graffiti, the signatures and dates of the boats that had anchored here. A good luck charm they said, at least until a boat sunk the day after scrawling their name on the granite.

We find a beach to land, tie the kayaks to the alder, and disappear into Narnia. There is a sense of wildness here that is not captured many places. A sense, some sort of intimate knowledge that man has not treaded here. And if he did, he did so with a light touch, without staying long enough to leave a mark. We scramble up a hill covered in the loose shale of the island. Atop sits the bones of a fawn. The tiny scapula and ribs bleached, the white stained with the green of the forest that is consuming it. The ribs are the length of my middle finger, delicate and innocent.

Trails criss cross the hills and cliffs. The deer are here. Zach looks slightly disappointed at leaving the rifle behind. After our big Coho day in September, harvesting a deer seems like the next natural step.

We follow the trails whenever we can, trusting they know the easiest way up steep cliffs with loose rocks, rotten tree trunks, and squirrely roots. The vegetation is not what I expected. Banzai shaped mountain hemlock and shore pine dot the island, grasses grow on the south facing slopes, muskeg gives off the impression that we are walking through a frozen Serengeti.

“How many people,” I wonder aloud, “can say they have walked in a place where no one else ever has?” The percentage has to be less than 1%. For the frontier is no more. Google maps has plastered everything, for better or worse. But here one can escape this discouraging fact. Here there is just us, the deer, and a Rock Ptarmigan in winter plumage. White as a ghost it sits beneath a banzai hemlock, it’s head twitching back and forth as we creep past and above it for the summit.

It has been 24-hours since I stood on the peak of Westeros and it is that summit that has made me appreciate John Muir all the more. For Muir wrote beautifully of course, but his amazing ability to capture the natural wonderment of this place and convey it in words is second to none. I am simply not gifted enough to do it justice. But imagine a 360-degree view, each 90 degree turn offering a completely different vista of breath taking beauty. An open ocean view that spans to a horizon that is almost dizzying. Horizontal vertigo, it pulls in and pushes away at the same time, like the swell that pounds at Westeros.

Chichagof. Tall hills covered in snow, unpassable thickets of devils club. Streams thick with salmon eggs. Brown bears slumbering in caves and beneath deadfalls. The Inians and the Hobbit Hole, the last of the homesteads. And the Fairweathers. Oh those big snow coated mountains, shining so unashamedly bright they hurt the eyes. Brady Glacier flows at the feet of La Perouse and Crillion. Peaks that are over 11,000 feet high. All hail the glacier makers. What would the leaders of this world think if, just for an hour, they could sit here and do nothing but slowly spin. Would development, profits, winning, still feel tantamount? What if they ate the most delicious sandwich ever made? Ate the carrots of the victorious and guzzled the tea of salvation.

“I feel like this peak needs a name.”

“Not everything needs to be named.” Brittney says. True.

The wind whips from the east. Clouds form in eastern Icy Strait and begin to come our way. Laura points out a Lenticular cloud forming like a hat atop La Perouse. Zach wanders about and finds his favorite Alder tree. It’s chilly up here, it is January after all. It may snow tomorrow. I hope it does.

With a reluctant final glance at La Perouse and its headgear, we begin to make our way back down toward the kayaks. Past the Ptarmigan and along the trails of the deer. Returning the island to its rightful owners.

“This forest is old,” Zach quips, quoting Legolas’ description of Fangorn.

“How old is it?” I ask.

“Very old.”

May it always be that way. We linger on the bones of the fawn again before we slide down the final hill and return from our commune with the gods of Cross Sound. The reality of sea level. There is a shared sorrow at the passing of the little deer. The unspoken irony that Zach wishes to go hunting tomorrow. That we hope he gets one. The painful reminder that to live is to die. And to die is to feed another. I remember Laura landing her first Coho. The grim look on her face as it lay at our feet. Her hand reaching out for the fillet knife.

“I want to do it.”

Brittney repeating the same action a week later. Patrick running his hand down the lateral line of a Coho. The one Coho I landed, stared into its eyes, and then returned. Because for some reason I couldn’t swing the pliers, couldn’t cut the gills. This is life out here. How life should be. Forgive my arrogance.

We paddle out from shore and ride the swell like a couple of murrelets. A sea otter with its pup bobs in the chop. And I am grateful, profoundly grateful that my life includes these people, those mountains, this ocean. The opportunity to come home with dirty Carhartts, numb fingers, and red noses. Zach and Laura’s mission is to ensure that more young people can do the same. That this island cluster would change lives. And as we turn the corner and into the wind, I know it already has.

Gustavus 2018

So This is the New Year

January 3, 2018 David Cannamore 1 Comment

I still wake up hearing them. I still catch myself stopping on the creaking stair, ears cocked, listening to a speaker that’s hundreds of miles away. You don’t quit Hanson Island, and it doesn’t quit you. How can you?

It’s the only place I’ve ever looked up from a stove to see a dorsal fin emerging from the water. It is the place that breathed life into me. That held me close and let me go. That told me that I could do and be whatever I wanted to be.

Gustavus, Alaska feels tame. The biggest hardship is our cistern froze last week and the liquor store is open just six hours a week. Where’s the challenge in that? Where’s the thrill of grocery shopping knowing that if you forget it today you’ll go without for the next two weeks?I’m not entirely serious. Last week I interviewed for a job and the interviewer asked me what my favorite part of Gustavus was.

“Well having a 5,000 square mile national park right outside my door is pretty neat.”

It’s just… different. Not better, not worse. Hanson Island will always be where I cut my teeth. My introduction to the blue and green world. In that way it’ll always be significant. It still astonishes me that we spent three winters there. Approximately 20 months that feel like little more than a blink. Time close to the earth always seems to go fast. You sleep better, eat better, laugh harder, and scream louder. And the time slides by until you’re looking out the window at the rain, know Paul Spong will be there with the June Cove any minute, and wonder where the time went.

I’ve spent most of this winter reading “how to build a house” books, learning the difference between joists and beams, and why 2x6s make good frames (it’s all about insulation). I’m editing a novel, preparing to send it off, and praying that someone out there digs it. It’s exciting. It’s just… different. Not better, not worse. The roots are sinking in, and most of the time it feels good. For the first time since leaving Juneau we’re surrounded by the people we love. Dear friends who like us have found sanctuary in the outwash of glaciers. But every now and then I walk the beach and stare south, beyond Icy Strait and Chichagof Island. My eyes see past the Myriads and Baranof, through Ketchikan and Bella Bella to rest on a little cedar cabin on the edge of the tideline.

And I see Harlequins bobbing in four foot chop. I smell the rich wood finish of the lab. I hear the ocean’s voice through the speaker next to my bed. I taste salt. I feel the waves pounding the little boat in Blackney Pass. And for a moment I can’t stand it. I’ve got to move, I’ve got to go back. Past one more bleary eyed Prince Rupert border guard and through the Great Bear Rainforest. Part of me will always be 17, crouched on the rocks of Cracroft Island in the dead of night, listening to the A4s swim west.

***

Kim Heacox is a writer, an activist, and will dance and sing at every available opportunity. He’s also my next door neighbor. And he has plans. Like most of us who give a rip about quiet places and open spaces, 2017 was not a pleasant experience. But that’s not stopping him. He and his wife Melanie have a beautiful house and a fantastic library. All their buildings are connected by boardwalk, the road to their house weaves through the forest to spare the largest trees.

They have no intentions of keeping it for themselves however. At some point it will become the John Muir Wilderness Leadership School, the house (one of the few in Gustavus built to code for this very reason) will become a flashpoint of young writers, activists, and leaders. In my head I imagine the place becoming for someone what Orca Lab was for me. A place to find yourself. A place of epiphanies and euphoria. A place of inspiration. A place where perhaps one day I can play the role of Paul Spong; teaching that if cold science doesn’t work, if you look into the world and see something looking back, the best thing to do is grab a flute and play a song. I’m not a scientist. I learned that long ago. But I could be a teacher.

Gustavus is full of people like Kim. Zach Brown is 31-years old and in three years raised more than a million dollars. Now he has the Inian Island Institute, an old homestead an hour west of Gustavus. The perfect place for young people to lose themselves of find themselves, whichever one they need. Because if more people could find their “Hanson Island” the better off the world could be. Reach’em while they’re young. Before the allure of profit margins and mansions can sink their teeth in.

***

It’s Christmas Eve. Gustavus is wrapped in snow. But over the last few days the temperature has plummeted toward 0°F. Just a little way out of town is the only uphill trail, on the flanks of Excursion Ridge. Patrick Hanson and Jen Gardner pick us up and we kick off our “orphan Christmas.” The sun peaks over the top of the ridge as we climb. The Fairweather Mountains, the tallest coastal range in the world lords over our little hamlet. Glacier Bay is just visible, crawling up to the mountain’s feet.

The freezing temperatures have coated everything in crystalline hoarfrost. Snow flakes stand out, perfect little gems. Delicate but incredible versatile. Recent research suggests that at the center of each flake is some sort of microorganism, some microbe the frozen liquid could glob onto. At the center of Gustavus is the people. Something that everyone that has arrived here can attach to. It’s not always easy, but if you allow this place to form you… what can you become?

We reach a shelf on the ridge and Patrick, as he always does, has snacks. A sip of coffee, a bite of gingerbread, a shot of whiskey. It is Christmas after all. From here Gustavus doesn’t appear to exist. Nothing but trees, mountains, and that bay. More than 100 years ago, A.L Parker climbed this same ridge, but from the other side. And when he looked down on the Gustavus plain, he knew that he had found his home.

I can understand why. Something in that smooth, flat plain surrounded by mountains screams at our most human instinct. I look out over the strait and south. I X-ray through the archipelago and Queen Charlotte Entrance. I still see that cabin. I always will. I’ll be back. Patrick cracks a beer and hands it to me. It is Christmas after all. And if I have my way, I won’t be coming back alone.

	David Cannamore on Chop Wood and Haul Water
	Chris Gabriele on Chop Wood and Haul Water
	Risk and Living \| Ra… on Waiting For Corky
	Risk and Living \| Ra… on Why Would I Watch
	Risk and Living \| Ra… on The Parson Island Relay

	David Cannamore on Chop Wood and Haul Water
	Chris Gabriele on Chop Wood and Haul Water
	Risk and Living \| Ra… on Waiting For Corky
	Risk and Living \| Ra… on Why Would I Watch
	Risk and Living \| Ra… on The Parson Island Relay

Raincoast Wanderings

Tag Archives: travel

Chop Wood and Haul Water

Sights and Smells

Risk and Living

Why Would I Watch

Heart Medicine

Deeper Water

Rivers and Roads

Standing Still

Westeros

So This is the New Year

Trying to Stay Dry in the Pacific Northwest