tag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:/blogs/welcome-e96e80e5-75bb-46b0-9273-8b1b8ff80b0e?p=2Welcome! 2022-10-27T21:33:45-07:00A River Knows My Namefalsetag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/70897132022-10-27T21:33:45-07:002023-10-16T08:03:25-07:00Climbing<p>Peering cautiously over the slim granite shelf we are on, I could now see all the way down to the bottom of the deep ravine below us. Rocks and large boulders are poking up through the hard crusty snow. It is a hundred feet down, easy. </p>
<p>Like me, Kenny has his back pressed against the rock wall behind us. He is staring down intensely into that ravine. </p>
<p> I whisper more to myself than to Kenny, “How in the hell are we going to get off this ledge?” </p>
<p>The day before while stacking big plastic crates of clean water glasses that he had just wheeled down from the dish room, Kenny said to me, “I’ve always wanted to climb Mt. Tallac.” </p>
<p>I said, “I’ve climbed it.” He looked at me wryly with a big smirk on his face and said, “The face?” </p>
<p>I laughed and only paused for a second before I said, “No, let’s do it!” He just nodded and went back toward the kitchen to get more clean dishes to stock before the buffet opened. </p>
<p>Kenny was a work buddy. My fellow stock boy at the Sahara Tahoe Casino buffet. </p>
<p>When I started at the buffet I got to know Kenny right away. He trained me and showed me the ropes. He had known my brother in high school because they were in the same graduating class, both of them one year below me. But what I really had in common with Kenny was that he loved to climb. Within a few weeks we had gone on a couple of climbs together. </p>
<p>Working in the same area we rarely had a day off together. So, we would do little ascents in the morning and into the early afternoon before our shift started at four o clock, the swing shift. </p>
<p> Our first climb together was up Round Hill just across the state line on the Nevada side of the south shore of Tahoe. Not much of climb for either of us but it was a good start. It took us about an hour to climb it and about five minutes to hop down, literally. We bounced from boulder to boulder all the way down like we were spring loaded. Dangerous, but fun as hell. </p>
<p>We got a little more ambitious with each climb. Next was Round Top. It was a sizeable peak but driving over Luther Pass through Hope Valley and a ways up Carson Pass the trailhead started at an appreciable elevation that made it a fairly easy morning climb. </p>
<p>The Forest Service trail went up the south side of the peak. It was a moderately gradual ascent, more like a steep hike with only a little rock climbing. But a spring dump of fresh snow had us trudging up to our knees most of the way to the top. We had no gear, never did. Kenny and I both prided ourselves on being free climbers. Ropes, ice axes, crampons, pitons, even sunglasses…those were for posers and pikers. The whole thrill of climbing for us was to NOT be encumbered with that crap. Hell, we often didn’t even take food or water on our little forays. Why? They were just short hikes. </p>
<p>Despite the snow, the climb to the peak was uneventful. It was a crystal clear Sierra Nevada morning. At the top an azure sky, thin cold air and a magnificent vista welcomed us. Looking west you could see ridge after ridge towards the apex of Carson Pass and beyond. Looking east, the direction we had driven from earlier that morning, lovely green Hope Valley was glowing in its early spring splendor. You never get tired of views from the tops of mountains. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/c91b1b61ee30c2fa6362c0041f49c53c0f5062e0/original/2000.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Round Top-Elevation 10, 374 ft. </p>
<p>After drinking in the view for while it was time to descend. Kenny and I were wet and cold. We both agreed that we didn’t want to go back the way we had come. This was partially because of the amount of deep snow and partially to explore a different return route…just because. We both liked to explore new and different routes both ascending and descending. It kept things interesting and fun. </p>
<p>Kenny wanted go down a rocky spine of rock that didn’t go straight down but edged off the peak at an easy angle, plus it was relatively free of snow. It was longer and was clearly rougher with all of the rocks than the way I wanted to go, which was straight down the steep open north face of Round Top. NORTH face…that should have registered with me but it didn’t. My proposed route was steep but not vertical. I thought if I crisscrossed the icy face in switchbacks it shouldn’t be too difficult getting to the open rocky area at the bottom. </p>
<p>One thing we both knew well and practiced was to not hike alone, especially on mountains. During our separate traverses down, both of us would be in sight on each other the whole way. We didn’t argue about it. Kenny went down the ridge. I went down the face. </p>
<p>I should have listened to Kenny. I watched him for a moment before he headed down the ridge. </p>
<p>After climbing a short distance straight down some rocks, I stood at the edge of the clear bright white north slope of Round Top. It happened so quickly I didn’t have time react. I had no sooner taken my first step on the wind-polished ice than my feet went right out from underneath me. I was air born at first and then landed with thud flat on my back. Gravity had me and I was slowly slipping down this icy chute. The hard crystalline surface provided nothing to grab on to or break my momentum. At that moment I would have sold my soul for an ice axe. To hell with free climbing! </p>
<p>But free climber hubris was going to kill me as the adage “pride cometh before a fall” was rapidly becoming literal truth by the second. I was going to die of irony. Of, course I had no time to think about these things. Panic was setting in as my speed increased. I tried to slow myself down with the palms of my ungloved hands but they were only ground painfully raw in seconds on the razor sharp ice. My speed was increasing rapidly and the rocky outcropping at the bottom was getting closer and closer. Bad combination, speed and rocks. This was not going to come out well if I didn’t do something, anything, and very soon. With all my strength I lifted my legs and then brought them down again as hard as I could grinding my heels into the crusty surface trying for some kind of purchase. </p>
<p>I got the desired effect as my heels dug into the ice all my speed was converted into a head first launch into the air. In a sort of awkward dive forward I crunched through the hard brittle snow with my head up to my shoulders. Kenny said I did a scorpion. This is where your legs arch over your back in an unnatural bend and your feet touch the back of your head. He later said that he thought for sure my back was broken. But I had stopped. </p>
<p>We hiked back to the car. Forehead scraped raw and burning we drove back to Tahoe. I actually worked that night. </p>
<p>A few weeks later things started to warm up as spring began to merge into summer. The deep winter snow pack was steadily receding up the flanks of the mountains. Every day you could see more and more of their rocky shoulders. Rock climbing season was here! </p>
<p>At the south end of Lake Tahoe you could see Mount Tallac from almost anywhere in the valley. If you ever saw a post card of Tahoe and it had a mountain, it was Tallac. Lovely Mount Tallac, with the iconic cross on its face formed by deep crevices that retained snow often even through the hot summer months. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/d219935d98aa90cd2aca2d95a083e0134af7fb59/original/2001.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Mount Tallac-Elevation 9,739 ft. </p>
<p>Kenny and I waited impatiently and watched as each day we could see more and more of Mount Tallac transition from white to gray as the granite became more and more exposed. There was still a lot of snow higher near the top and of course in those deep crevices like white veins on its face. We had been itching for this for weeks and couldn’t wait any longer. The next day we were going to climb Mount Tallac. </p>
<p>It was going to be a longer attempt both in time and distance than anything Kenny and I had done together so far. Unlike a lot of the hikes we did, there was no way to drive any closer up Tallac than its base. We had planned all along to take a route up the face, the face with the cross that you could famously see from the south shore basin of Tahoe. For some reason we thought going up the face would be quicker than hiking along the ridge that was Tallac’s western shoulder. </p>
<p>This was only the first of several things we were mistaken about that day. </p>
<p>We found a place as near to base as we could to park my blue 65 Chevy pick-up. We weren’t looking for a trailhead, we were making our way straight up the face. We looked up and worked out the most difficult (vertical) route we could contrive from that vantage. After beating our way through chest high manzanita brush and lose broken rock for a while we came to the near vertical monolith of granite that was the face of Mount Tallac. Kenny eagerly shoved his hand into a shallow crevice and started hoisting himself up the rock face. I followed just as eagerly. </p>
<p>We pulled ourselves up and up. We squeezed ourselves up chutes and narrow crevices sometimes in tandem and sometimes side by side. We picked our own individual routes. No leaders. We would pause to rest on a rock or ledge and look up to try and strategize our next move when we could see it; sometimes we couldn’t. The trick was to pause long enough to get your wind but not rest too long or you cooled down. Most importantly was to not let the adrenaline start to subside or you would start to get the shakes, which not good. On a shear rock face it is essential to stay steady not shaky, a balancing act between emotional exhilaration, intense physical effort, and fear. </p>
<p>About three quarters up the face Kenny and I pulling ourselves up side by side on a narrow sliver of a ledge almost at the same time. Flushed from the last few yards of tough climbing, we both took a few seconds to look down with satisfaction at our progress. That satisfaction quickly evaporated as we realized that our little balance beam of a ledge was topped by an overhang the likes of which we hadn’t seen before pulling ourselves onto this slender sanctuary. The ledge above our heads was like the thick brow of a stone giant. There was nothing but slick polished rock to each side of the ledge with nary a crack or hand holds to escape around the overhang. Trapped! </p>
<p> I whispered more to myself than to Kenny, “How in the hell are we going to get off this ledge?” </p>
<p>Our options were few. Try to go back down? Going down feet first you cannot see anything to grab on to. Very dangerous! We didn’t consider it for a second. </p>
<p>At one point I looked at a patch of snow between boulders about a 100 feet down and thought for one insane second, “We could jump.” I never voiced that crazy thought out loud. </p>
<p>Nope, the only way out of this was over. </p>
<p>Neither of us said anything as we stood on our tip toes to give us a few more inches of height and desperately strained to reach as far as we could over the top of that ledge in hopes of grasping a knuckle of rock or a crack we could shove our hand into and pull our weight up and over that crest of rock. We both stretched and grappled with that overhang for a while. At this point in the story I must confess that I was so hyped with adrenaline (scared shitless) that I don’t remember who got over that overhang first. Whoever did pulled the other over and we were saved from oblivion, our pride, and our foolishness. </p>
<p>We made it to the top of Mount Tallac with no other incidents that I recall. Adrenaline is a funny thing. I was so rattled by the ledge debacle that I honestly don’t remember the vista from the top or the hike back to my truck. </p>
<p>I never seriously rock climbed again after that day. It fun while it lasted but having been raised in a casino town I learned at a young age to never buck the odds and know when to walk away from the table. I also might add…don’t tempt the gods of heights and granite.</p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/70731882022-10-14T23:33:28-07:002022-10-27T06:20:21-07:00Walk On <p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/eea71145a6562aaa3a4ee1db1e76247b72867925/original/1002.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />It was a sunny day around the 2nd of October that I hiked the Chain Lakes Loop, a six mile hike I've done countless times.</p>
<p>The day promised to be pushing 80 degrees, so I loaded up Kili and headed for Artist Point. Judging by the hundreds of cars at the Mt. Baker Ski Area, I wasn't the only one with the bright idea. The night before, we went to the Mariners' game where we all witnessed a moment not only in Mariners' history but all of baseball--a pinch hit game-winning home run in the bottom of the 9th inning with a trip to the play-offs on the line.</p>
<p>I relished the contrast between being in a stadium full of frenzied fans like myself, and basking in a warm October breeze in the alpine, hearing my boots clanking on the rocky trail beneath my feet while Kili ran circles around me, nose to the ground. I was glad to be solo, as my voice was still hoarse from all the screaming from the night before. My heart beat gladly in my chest and soon I was a steady groove as I ascended the ridge to Artist Point. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/bd1acf45f5cf4a2512a1789d5e7658b01bb1fed9/original/1000.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>This is one of the most popular trails in Whatcom County, and for a good reason. It's spectacular. As I climbed southwest up to Artist Point, the sun beat down, pretending it was still late August. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/aaba79806b733b4a34e146a883a7ddc6eebadd7b/original/1007.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />By the time I reached the Table Mountain trail, I was pleasantly winded and relished the streams of sweat on my face. The upper parking lot was full, too, but in moments, I was on the trail heading out toward Ptarmigan Ridge. The stark blue black spires of Shuksan towered to the northeast and now, the perfect cone of Mt. Baker was coming into full view, dominating the skyline to the south. Dozens of people streamed by me on the trail, but it did not matter; I felt the solitude I needed.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/4a721177b79d0c52f4b2d50371bccb11945531ba/original/1006.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/09d84d292f6b0e018a265d9b873919f3bd458b86/original/1004.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>As I finish Timothy Egan's, <em>Pilgrimage to Eternity</em>, I'm struck by how common prayerful and contemplative walking has been through the centuries. Walking and running are sacred rituals, integral to indigenous culture, and to the countless seekers that pilgrimage to sacred sites across Europe and for that matter, the world. This Chain Lakes hike is a local pilgrimage of sorts, yet in spite of its brevity, it evokes yearnings that cut much deeper than sentimental thoughts about family, and how we all used to hike this trail together as my kids were growing up. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/c28882c23cda7a303184e487f6ff73edc9185f59/original/1005.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />Soon I turned west, descending toward Galena and Iceberg Lakes and an hour after that I was sitting on a rock at Herman's Saddle, staring north into the heart of the North Cascades toward the Pickets. The sun was beginning to sink toward the western horizon, but it was still warm. The crowds had thinned significantly by this point. I sat there for a while contemplating the many changes that had occurred in my life in recent years. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/8eeaec04ee453c06c8894195530a8fa9e485a561/original/1009.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>If you would have told me five years ago of how different my life would be in 2022, I would have thought you were crazy. Yet there I was, standing on a lonesome ridge in the North Cascades, contemplating a wonderous new chapter as well as the hard earned lessons I've learned about love, life, and letting go. I've logged hundreds if not more miles trying to sort it out. I don't know if I ever did or ever will, but that doesn't matter. It's the journey and not the destination that does. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/1a9e5900408be37a9e1e25589a29bbfde7c97519/original/1008.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>I returned to the car late that afternoon imagining how this colorful garden will be buried under many feet of snow in but a few weeks. For now, though, the air crackled with warmth and a yearning autumn peace. Walk on. </p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/70424042022-08-20T11:00:15-07:002022-10-14T23:31:57-07:00Old Footsteps <p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/8e22753be79c074607f2cc1a2fb8dc2874d0860e/original/baker-river-037.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>There’s something about coming back to a place you know. The place I’m about to describe is a certain valley deep in the heart of the North Cascades. I just returned from there with my two sons, now grown. It’s a place you can only access by beating brush and wading the icy swift channels of a glacial river. It’s a place my ex-wife and I took these boys when they were very young. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/30b57cfc21ab4b974bc8eb1a909bcb4e6eb7bcf5/original/baker-river-105.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>I recall shuttling packs and kids across this same river, waist deep in swift water with a toddler on my back, vacillating between feeling like I was a good dad and a terrible one. In the end, because we all survived, I suppose I felt like I was a pretty good one. </p>
<p>My sons spoke of their memories of a black bear making its way upriver, strolling past our camp while gazing at us with a look of indifference. They remembered the fish we caught, and evening campfires crackling and popping under the stars. We told stories late into those nights and somewhere deep in their memories, I know those stories still live. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/7324fb6fa339c49764e724018d7252737a44c7de/original/baker-river-127.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/17a63db643a0b87a6d4ac12fa2a2f77f92928374/original/baker-105.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>The benefits of cross-country travel ensured that you’d most likely never run into another soul up there. I recall one time we did run into a family like ours, taking their young kids upriver. They were as surprised to see us as we were of them. </p>
<p>Coming back with these boys now grown was like coming home to an old friend. She has a certain way about her. There is a certain, musty, cottonwood sweetness in the air like no other. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/d576ab3c1cf4f960cff18f36b11210301ae7ff4e/original/baker-104.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/7eee51a25c3e207ec318c340cec59f2aa3bc3d8f/original/baker-108.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>The glaciers in the heart of this vast wilderness bleed their icy streams from deep hidden canyons. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/c2e0d683733440ec66af1cf5609e32db9c9d9c6f/original/baker-200.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>The brown basalt cliffs rise thousands of vertical feet above the main valley floor, and the gray silhouettes of the Cascade crest loom in the distance as watchful sentinels. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/f469ff39d9a75bb913a4b49353b35fa1d3393b19/original/baker212.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/b9ab2e73a7c2f8245514f6b2569654e74c66c597/original/baker-201.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>The sigh of the river is a never-ending symphony of celebratory water, and the joy in the air makes you feel so alive, you scarcely notice the pack digging into your shoulders. You forget about old pain as you embrace new life.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/6793d33638b7fddef32c2effb4fb17525776dfdc/original/baker-211.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Even though the relentless winter floods had cut new channels through the forests, spreading and scattering fallen old growth trees like toothpicks across the valley floor, every bend in the valley was familiar, and beckoned us ever closer to our camp. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/b0fc8db8e024b877888df29a6714fe8801b30403/original/baker-106.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>We stopped at the confluence of a large tributary and spent a couple of days up there drinking it all in before exiting quietly, the same way we had come. Much in our lives had changed since that first trip, yet here we were, bonding not just as father and sons, but as men, stronger than ever, determined to live our best lives. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/08a687c2fbfa286b6c28785b8b4761f82e0a49a8/original/baker-210.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>There is nothing like a trip back to a wilderness that holds such sacred memories. It's like coming home to a never-ending song...the heartbeat of life itself. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/ea58fae3b63d1446cc3519e0ada37f58cf73fc83/original/baker-101.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/70350002022-08-10T14:37:39-07:002022-10-02T21:41:56-07:00Touching the Wild in All of Us<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/fcd1cf7ab15f8b3eecfbca2a0985a1280cd6cbd6/original/baker-river-moonlight.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Nothing in the world enhances a wilderness experience compares with the thrill of a wildlife sighting. Whether I’m driving through the south side of Bellingham and notice a family of racoons gathering on a sidewalk as they plot their next garbage can raid, or I come face-face with a black bear on a mountain trail, there is something about seeing an animal in its natural state that evokes a deep sense of reverence and gratitude for me. Note below, the photo of a bear I took just yesterday when on local hike with a dear friend. It was a moment that bonded us deeply with this magical place. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/31fb8dd0250eef5e6916b566809a31447885f90a/original/baker-river-bear.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Where's Waldo? (Just kidding...where's the black bear?)</p>
<p>In 1993, my father and I took a trip to Yakutat Alaska to go salmon fishing in the Situk River, a popular fishery known world-wide for its incredible returns of salmon and steelhead. We were there for a week, and every day, we would walk past coastal grizzly bears doing the same thing we were doing—fishing for salmon. If I recall correctly, at least at the time of our trip, there had not been a documented instance of a bear attack on a person there despite the high population of bears and people. This was due I believe to the protocols for hiking and fishing during bear season. That said, for some people, following the simple protocols like making conversational noise and listening to your surroundings were not enough. </p>
<p>One morning as my father and I fished, a group of fishermen walked up the valley from the parking area firing round after round of pistol shots in the air to scare away any bears on the trail. It was obnoxious. A few minutes later, they emerged from the dense rainforest directly across the river from us, and onto a beach. The river bottom between us was literally alive with the green swimming backs of Coho salmon, so many that in places you couldn’t even see the bottom of the river. This fishing was good for everyone, regardless of whether you were a bear or a person. Their fear of bears was assuaged by the presence of all the salmon that now had their attention. Right then, a brown bear emerged from the woods on our side, its great head swinging from side to side as it scanned the beaches. I realized that due to a sharp bend of the river upstream and to the left of these men, the bear was hidden at first from their sight. It glanced at my father and me with a look of nonchalance before wading into the shallows where it sat down in the water like a large dog. (The reason for my lack of pictures grieves me to this day. Every day upon returning from fishing, we cleaned our salmon while wearing rain gear, and I forgot my disposable camera was in the pocket of my rain coat. Alas, the film was ruined.) </p>
<p>I was worried these men across the river were going to start shooting again, once they saw it. I tried to get their attention by waving at them without making any noise. But my efforts were in vain as their attention was on catching salmon. The bear, not concerned at all with our presence, was now in plain sight of these fishers. Then, it laid down in the shallows, wiggling its belly on the rocks before rolling over on its back and doing the same. It had a most blissful expression on its face and the majesty of the moment was overwhelming. Then I heard the men across the river talking in excited voices, and they were pointing at it. I realized in that moment though, their fear had turned to wonder as they drew their not their guns, but their video cameras, still bantering excitedly. For the next few minutes, we all participated in the splendor of this encounter. It was wordless and profound, a moment of grace that temporarily bonded us all. Eventually, the great bear stood up, shook off before wandering back into the brush. We resumed our fishing, but long after the bear had disappeared, the feeling of exhilaration remained. </p>
<p>I tell this story because the effect this had on me was transformative and to this day, stands as a great moment of bonding between me and my father. A few years later he would die, but this moment and memory lives in me like a poem. I believe all encounters with wildlife have this bonding effect to varying degrees and some of those that have contributed to the blog, have expressed this theme beautifully. When we allow for our fear to become wonder, a miracle can occur. </p>
<p>Below is a video of a cougar one of my sons and I encountered this past winter while on a local outing. </p>
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<p>The impact of wildlife on our lives cannot be minimized. I am grateful whenever I am so fortunate with an encounter. As always, I would love to hear more of your stories about wildlife encounters, and how they affected you. I know they have always been transformative if not life-changing for me. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/7f8835b082c44f0a81a902012ae13d656f0f7a3c/original/elk-river-long.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Bull Elk, Olympic Peninsula </p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/70265762022-07-29T10:50:27-07:002022-08-10T12:16:03-07:00Backpacking: Contemplating a Beautiful Misery<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/fecee56e9319aabb583f5b5ea0a25d565c8bd216/original/blog-107.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>There's nothing like the first few steps of a long backpack. You feel the straps digging into your shoulders, and the dull, aching weight on your hips makes you realize you packed too much as the summer sun beats down. The engines have been killed, replaced by the sound of wind in the trees. As you leave the parking lot, you contemplate the miles ahead and steady yourself for the requisite misery about to unfold. A few horse flies lazily circle you as they look for a place to land. Even they are reminders that the painful costs of the solitude you seek are worth the price of admission. You are setting off in the quiet air for a few days of peace and emptiness that only wilderness can provide. </p>
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<p>When you think about the miles ahead, you might even doubt yourself and why you're doing this. Perhaps car camping would have been so much easier. Yet there is also a sense of exhilaration that only comes when stepping into the unknown, taking a risk. So much can go wrong, rolled ankles, wasp stings, sun burn, hypothermia, broken bones, and worse. But what will go right always takes precedence - Silence, solitude, spectacular scenery, and a spiritual rejuvenation that only comes from an immersion in nature. What can go right should always take precedence over what can go wrong. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/444d435c58ffb8f7296b4a61fd1c20cd1e46ed69/original/blog-101.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Perhaps even words like those of Thoreau drift through your opening mind: “You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”</p>
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<p>Over the next few minutes, your body slowly adjusts to the steady rhythm of walking, and soon, you are deep in thought, and eventually, nonthought. Conversations with your companions (if you have any) have faded to silence as your heartbeat becomes the very rhythm of life and of all you see. You keep walking, advancing slowly up the hill or mountain, along the wild ocean beach and pounding surf, or up the silent river valley, maybe even through the desert. It does not matter. No matter where you are, the scenery changes slowly, as everything comes into better focus.</p>
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<p>Sometimes the pain of incomplete conversations will linger in your mind, things you wish you'd said or not said. Anger. Regret. Perhaps you relive scenes from your life over and over. Yet, those too will dissipate as the miles unfold beneath your feet. You will learn to let go again and again. </p>
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<p>Perhaps you stop for lunch or a snack and when you do, the conversations around you bring a sense of peace and well-being. You drink, and like perhaps like the icy river thundering in the distance, you feel the arrows of cool water shooting into your stomach. You drink more. And then you resume your journey. Even if you're with people, you know you are alone. </p>
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<p>Now the seconds are quickly melting into minutes and then hours. Time, however, is irrelevant. As long as there is light, you will continue your journey. Thoughts are now less cumbersome and you are living in your aching feet and legs that now feel stronger than they did this morning. The addictions of screens, and social media fade as you unplug from it all. The whole world can wait. The chaos of humanity is put on hold for you. You are a different person than the one that set out hours ago.</p>
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<p>This night after food, you will rest, and hydrate lest you wake up screaming with cramps that feel like they're tearing your leg muscles to shreds. Perhaps even a fire if appropriate will further immerse yourself in the presence of the wilderness that lives both within and outside of you. You know that when and where these two great rivers merge, you will find the peace for which you have been searching. You will have found your true home, place oddly familiar like an old friend. A place that knows you more than you know yourself. And you will remember the true reason you have come, and that you will come back, as long as your legs can carry you. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/6e6e8818db65144c5a72f5238f841969e7832fa6/original/blog-pic-100.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /> </p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/70194102022-07-21T08:19:53-07:002022-07-30T09:23:00-07:00My Zen and the Sea Lion <p>Another brilliant slice of Alaska wild by Kurt Dunbar. If you love to fish, you will relate to the meditative, transcendental experience that Kurt captures so beautifully. There is, however, a twist...</p>
<p>Dan said somebody told him the pinks were running thick at Tonsina Creek. </p>
<p>Pink salmon are also called humpies because of their appearance as they leave the sea and enter fresh <br>water. This smallest species of salmon have been at sea for two years before they return to spawn in the <br>stream, creek or river they were born in. It is a natal and a fatal return. </p>
<p>Like four other species of pacific salmon (red aka sockeye, silver aka coho, dog aka chum, king aka <br>chinook) pinks go through an astounding transformation in their early life. After hatching, the smolt will <br>shed their nutrient rich egg sack. As fry, they begin in miniature to resemble the sleek silvery adult <br>salmon they will become, if they survive. The odds of that are not good. It is in this early stage of <br>development that salmon instinctively answer the call to head to sea. </p>
<p>This is also when one of the most amazing transformations in nature begins. At a molecular level, a flood <br>of latent internal chemicals begins to build salmon a new body. Born in fresh water, by the time they <br>reach the sea they will have changed from the inside out into a sea creature. </p>
<p>After a time, each species of salmon gets that primordial call to return to their natal spawning beds to <br>perpetuate their kind. With pinks it is only two years, with other species like chinook it is longer, but <br>they all get the call. As they enter fresh water their struggle to reach their spawning beds begins. These <br>can sometimes be hundreds of miles inland replete with nearly impossible impediments and imposing <br>inclines. To compound their plight, their bodies immediately begin to decay as soon as they enter fresh <br>water. </p>
<p>The stark reality for salmon is that they get no second chance at this point. The change in their early life <br>from a fresh water creature to a salt water creature is a one-way deal, just one change too many for an <br>indifferent and dispassionate mother nature to grant. </p>
<p>Once in fresh water salmon stop eating. As they begin to lose fat reserves and muscle tissue their bodies <br>literally begins to fall apart. The clock is now ticking on their inevitable demise. Humpback (pink) salmon <br>take on a gruesome appearance as they start to deteriorate. The males in particular develop an extreme <br>arch to their back almost doubling their size from belly to back. Their jaw starts to curl into a hideous <br>snarl exposing sharp new snag-like teeth. The body itself turns a sickly green and eventually a dull gray <br>with white splotches as flesh starts to peel off and hang from the dying fish. Still, they swim on often <br>with pieces missing or trailing behind. Death for salmon is neither a pretty sight nor a quick experience, <br>unless of course they are eaten by the numerous creatures that exploit their vulnerable state. </p>
<p>But sea run pinks freshly returned are beautiful. Bright and sleek as a bullet, their silvery scales shine. If <br>caught in the sea the flesh is firm and tasty. On the strength of Dan’s comment, my goal was to catch <br>some pinks for dinner and maybe a few more to smoke up for later. I often took my daughters with me <br>fishing but they were still in school. My fishing buddy Dan had something going on and couldn’t go so I <br>forged off alone. I grabbed my gear and drove to Lowell Point just a few miles south of Seward, Alaska <br>where I lived. At Lowell Point the road ends and it is a mile or two hike of rough brushy trail to Tonsina <br>Creek. </p>
<p>I broke out of the bushes onto a long gravel beach where the creek runs into Resurrection Bay. The <br>beach was strew with numerous beached logs of Sitka spruce. Half sunk in the sand and gravel and <br>polished a smooth silvery gray they almost looked like half buried beached whales. There was a slight <br>breeze off of the water. The sea wasn’t too choppy with waves from a foot to two feet. Not too bad for <br>surf fishing. </p>
<p>I assembled my pole and rigged my gear for pinks, which was light line (3-5 lb. test) and a florescent pink <br>“pixie” spinner with a treble-hook. No bait, I knew pinks always hit on the shiny stuff. I trod into the surf <br>about to the waist of my chest-waders and anxiously made my first cast. </p>
<p>With the steady beat of the waves on my body I unconsciously fell into a rhythm, casting my line to <br>match the pattern of the waves. Flinging the weighted line out ten of twenty yards, I slowly reeled in my <br>little pixie lure in unison with force on the water as it hit my body and then the slight sucking pull of the <br>water from the beach behind me, over and over again. Waiting to cast out again timed to the wave <br>pattern moving my body to and fro, I kicked into automatic. I wasn’t even thinking about it. That was the <br>thing, I wasn’t thinking at all. The wind, the sound of the water breaking on the beach, and the steady <br>force of the water on my body put me into a meditative state without any conscious effort on my part to <br>try to do so. Artists and musicians, seers and saints, and I suppose writers call this state many things. I <br>am tempted to call it Zen but not being religious nor deeply familiar with the precepts of Buddhism, I <br>guess the best word that comes to mind is the “zone.” I was in the zone. </p>
<p>Part of the experience is the loss or suspension of a sense of time. To this day I am not sure how long I <br>was in the surf at Tonsina Creek casting my line into the water over and over again. It might have been <br>twenty minutes or a couple of hours. I do know what broke the spell. </p>
<p>I was suddenly and immediately jarred back into mundane reality replete with a jolt of adrenaline as a <br>huge mass sprang out of the water on my left a foot or two away. I nearly dropped my pole and worse <br>yet stumbled backwards almost falling into the waist deep water. That could have easily been fatal if my <br>chest waders filled up with water. I would sunk like a stone and be pulled out into the cold deep waters <br>of Resurrection Bay never to be seen again. To add insult and indignity to being startled out of my wits, <br>the Sea Lion had snorted or spit slimy gobs that spotted the upper half of my waders with some gooey <br>flecks hitting me in the face. </p>
<p>I headed to the beach shaking and laughing at the same time. If Sea lions don’t have a sense of humor, <br>they certainly have a sense of territory. I can only assume that was reason it had stomped on my bliss. <br>And bliss it had been, for a while anyway. It was one of the best days fishing ever and I didn’t get a single <br>bite…in any respect.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/0dfc5805986efd404004970b7fd0628952d7ab42/original/1024px-sealion.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Andreas Bauer tack sharp Fotoblog, CC BY-SA 3.0<https: by-sa="" creativecommons.org="" licenses="">, via Wikimedia Commons</https:></p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/70104932022-07-08T11:11:35-07:002022-09-16T06:04:05-07:00Lost Connections: Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth <p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/ac295091bbe0b0daa3c05a009a246d1d9cb9ee0e/original/7.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>The following excerpt from Joseph Campbell's timeless 1988 interview with Bill Moyers shed some light on the lost connections to nature we once shared with our ancestors and the dreams and myths that guided and shaped them. To me, this only heightens the urgency for people to reconnect with their ancient birthrights and find in nature, a pathway to the very essence of their souls: </p>
<p>"The animal envoys of the Unseen Power no longer serve, as in primeval times, to teach and to guide mankind. Bears, lions, elephants and gazelles are in cages in our zoos. Man is no longer the newcomer in a world of unexplored plains and forests, and our immediate neighbors are not wild beasts, but other human beings contending for goods and space on a planet that is whirling without end around the fireball of a star. Neither in body nor mind do we inhabit the world of those hunting races of the Paleolithic millennia, to whose lives and lifeways we nevertheless owed the very forms of our bodies and structures of our minds. </p>
<p>Memories of their animal envoys still must sleep, somehow, within us, for they wake a little and stir when we venture into wilderness. They wake in terror to thunder. And again they wake with a sense of recognition when we enter any one of those great painted caves. Whatever the inward darkness may have been to which the shamans of those’ caves descended in their trances, the same must lie within ourselves nightly visited in sleep." - Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth</p>
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<p>Bears and cougars have been a constant theme both in my waking and sleeping hours throughout the course of my life. What animals are reoccurring themes in your life and and how might you explain that significance in terms of your identity and path forward? I look forward to your thoughts. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/70059382022-07-01T11:18:26-07:002022-07-01T11:18:26-07:00Excerpt From A River Knows My Name: The Old Brewhouse <p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/879c934b3dd8ba427bc028b7b236fd5c8295437e/original/tumwater-falls.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Photo of Tumwater Falls above the Old Brewhouse Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons</p>
<p><em>One good tribute deserves another and that last tribute by Kurt Dunbar to his mother was amazing. It kind of blows my mind that one of my first introductions to the power of rivers occurred with my mother when I was a wee lad. This excerpt from A River Knows My Name contains one my my first memories and impressions of Tumwater Falls shortly after we moved to Olympia. The untold tragedy in this story is that both of my mother's original paintings were stolen and the photo shown in this posting was taken from a print. So glad I at least had that. I refer to mother as The Artist. </em> </p>
<p>The Artist was a feather of a woman and probably the only one in her family that didn’t smoke. She talked about her father being bajorai, which in Lithuanian means, of the nobility, ironic given what I knew about his work as a working-class labor activist fresh off the boat at Ellis Island. Once a peace activist herself, living the bohemian lifestyle among progressives in Post-Depression Chicago, she converted to Catholicism and eventually moved west to Seattle. She had a story about the inspiration behind her conversion, but much of her life remained a mystery to me. Her cryptic comments left much to the imagination. </p>
<p>She was a brilliant artist, and our basement was crammed full of old portraits and half-finished sketches of people I had never known, more clues to a mystery I would never solve. The eyes in her portraits were haunting, especially the one of my sibling. The Sibling’s eyes had a tranquility that none of the other paintings did, and she sat with stoic confidence, wearing her floppy hippie hat she wore in deference to her idol Janis Joplin. Perhaps the softness of the eyes was the Artist’s wish for whom she might have been. </p>
<p>The Artist never finished any of our portraits and they would only serve as irony to the incompleteness of our own lives as they would unfold in the later years. The pictures eventually became the ghosts of our basement, unfinished thoughts gathering dust in cluttered closets, restless spirits awaiting a closure that would never come. </p>
<p>Though the Artist was content to spend much of her life indoors, there was one painting she did that required her to be outside for long stretches of time—the old Brewery, a dilapidated yet noble brick building rising stoically on the eastern shore of the Deschutes River at the base of Tumwater Falls. It became a ritual where the Rock would drive her down past Bing Crosby’s grandparent’s old house in Tumwater to the edge of the river. There she would set up her easel and paint. There was something about that cascading water that drew her in. Between the roar of the Interstate 5 bridge just above, and the roar of the falls, she became lost in her work. Sometimes the Rock took pictures on his polaroid so she could paint at home, but they were never good enough. She would say, “Pictures are not the real thing. Artists paint from life.” She kept going back. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/50a255e7fc4365d9e5fc4439dae05b5e4da3dc8a/original/the-old-brewhouse.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>As her painting evolved, it lit up our basement, and I would stare at it for prolonged periods of time. I could almost feel the vibration of the cascading water tumbling down off the slick rocks. I could practically smell the mud of the river shore and hear the mergansers chattering in the reeds. I could smell the hops. When I was young, years before she started the painting, she and I would wander up and down the trail next to the falls. Sometimes we would simply stand on the bridge staring into the white foam, sharing in silence our connection to the moving water. Adjacent to the bridge was protrusion of rock, forty or so feet over the estuary leading to Capitol Lake glistening by the perpetual mist being blown back. Sweltering summer days would often find kids from all over Tumwater and Olympia creeping carefully out to the edge of this protrusion before leaping into the white froth with terrified shrieks, vanishing in the mist long before they landed, popping to the surface in the boiling foam just downstream. “Don’t you ever do that,” she would warn me. </p>
<p>“Oh, I never will,” I imagine I might have said. </p>
<p>I would marvel at her painting on the easel, and every day after school I would rush downstairs to the basement to check and see how it had changed. It shifted moods from day to day and eventually I could not imagine much more that she could add to it. Yet, she said it was far from done. I would notice over time, the subtleties that would appear. Sometimes the river corridor above the brew house seemed more shaded. Other times, less so. Over time, the painting changed like the seasons, yet she never seemed satisfied and as she neared its completion, she grew more restless, more frustrated. It was as if completing it would be a sort of death to her, a death she could not bear. Years later she did finally announce that it was done, she said she hated it. She started all over again on a new one. </p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/69976492022-06-20T07:11:34-07:002022-09-16T06:04:36-07:00Coming to Alaska<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
<p>If you've been to Alaska, this story by Kurt Dunbar is certain to evoke a deep nostalgia and sense of wonder. If you've never been, I guarantee after reading this, you will feel like you have. Ultimately, this is a powerful and poignant tribute to the amazing woman that brought him into the world. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Coming to Alaska </p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/99be64a52a9cf9eccdb5f9a52c4c668df968b8f3/original/tustumena3.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>We moved to Alaska in August of 1976. </p>
<p>Coming to Alaska had not really been a deliberate choice though I had been infatuated <br>with the far north since watching Sergeant Preston as a kid. I still remember the intro to <br>the show, "Sergeant Preston and his wonder dog Yukon King meets the challenge of <br>the Yukon!" </p>
<p>We came north out of sheer desperation and virtually no other options. As the 70s <br>recession started to kick-in, an ill-advised and ill-fated stint in the San Francisco Bay <br>Area (Sunnyvale) ended up with me unemployed and all of us homeless. With our new <br>baby girl Sarah having arrived in May and Rebekah, a toddler of a year and half, it was <br>not promising times nor a good situation to be in, to say the least. </p>
<p>First on the agenda was escaping our Bay Area debacle. We decided to head back to <br>Tahoe where I grew up. Patti and I had met there in the summer of 1972. Jobless and <br>homeless as we were, at least it would be familiar and a place we both loved. Most <br>importantly, Patti's sister Georgia in South Lake Tahoe was going to take us in until we <br>could get back on our feet. </p>
<p>Then came the call from Alaska. </p>
<p>My mother had heard of our plight and offered to fly me to Alaska. My mom and step <br>dad Max had moved to Alaska two years before after he had lost his job as chief of <br>security at Sahara Tahoe Casino in an administrative (mafia?) shake-up. Alaska was <br>booming with the building of the oil pipeline and my mother said jobs were plentiful and <br>that the money was good. My hope was that I might save up enough to fly up Patti and <br>the kids as soon as I could. It was an easy decision to go given our situation and I <br>leaped at it. </p>
<p>I began to sort things out in preparation to leave when another call came from my mom. <br>"Your dad and I have talked it over and we're going to fly everybody up," she said and <br>added, “We already got you guys an apartment.” Mom picked us up from the airport in <br>Anchorage, a two hundred and sixty miles round-trip, and brought us to our new home <br>in Seward. The sum our possessions were two suitcases, a baby high chair and a <br>bassinette. </p>
<p>But we were saved. I couldn’t have been more thankful and relieved. <br>The day after we arrived in Seward, I went with my brother Kris to the local cannery. He <br>was working there and put in a good word for me with the shop steward and I started <br>that morning mucking salmon on the slime line. Employed on my first full day in Alaska! <br>From then on Alaska was nothing but good to us. Better than good. <br>But it almost didn't turn out that way. </p>
<p>The town of Seward was situated at the foot of tall coastal mountains. Most of it was <br>built on a broad gravel plain accumulated from ages of silt runoff and gravel deposits <br>from those steep mountains. On the west side of Resurrection Bay (the bay was named <br>on Easter when the Russians sailed into it in the late 1700s), Seward faced eastward <br>towards a breathtaking skyline of ice covered peaks and hanging glaciers dominated by <br>the prominent horn of Mt. Alice. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/a5efa632abb12399e478e07a16a05e630b563e63/original/mt-alice-3.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Mostly a fishing town of around a thousand people in 1976, Seward marked the end (or <br>the beginning) of the Seward Highway on the east side of the Kenai Peninsula. Around <br>the turn of the 19 th century, the town itself had been established as the southern <br>terminus of the Alaska Railroad, just beginning its protracted construction. In 1923, <br>President Warren G. Harding (who died on a steamer at sea on the return journey) <br>officiated at its completion, the first and for many years the only president to visit <br>Alaska. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/88b2da3d60cf0f48e9f7e56c46a82d5b4c84168b/original/seward-alan-caswell-collier.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Across Resurrection Bay from Seward towards Godwin Glacier by Alan Caswell-Collier </p>
<p>Except for a string of barrier islands, the broad mouth of Resurrection Bay was open to <br>the Gulf of Alaska to the south. The prevailing weather systems came out of the Gulf <br>and hit Seward directly and often fiercely. The weather of the north gulf coast of Alaska <br>is some of the stormiest in the world...as I would soon find out. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/6c67b37bceecfbf79a9de888d7c74b8ec714bf1d/original/resurrection-bay.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Looking south from Seward across Resurrection Bay </p>
<p>As August waned, rain came more often and much heavier. The southerlies out of the <br>gulf got stronger and more bracing. By mid-September not a hint of summer was left. It <br>had been replaced by nearly constant gray overcast, ceaseless wind, and temperatures <br>that began to creep steadily downwards. By the end of October, the thermometer <br>hovered between the mid-30s and the mid-40s…and stayed there most of the time. <br>This was Alaska!!? The expectations I had envisioned of my first Alaska winter was that <br>of deep artic cold and lots of snow. However, to my surprise it never got terribly cold for <br>the next several months. There was rain and more rain, then some snow and yet again <br>more rain. Freezing temperatures occasionally interrupted this pattern laying down a <br>dangerous icy glaze. Then it would rain again making roads, walkways, and everything <br>else slippery as snot until it melted in into slush, which often would freeze again into <br>lumpy masses. Then it would rain again. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/1ffb9603d6e799f61a70b1d8e697865202ca21e0/original/seward.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Months and months of this began to wear on me. I had never experienced weather like <br>this. I grew up in the mountains of the Sierras where winter was winter. Cold and snowy, <br>period. I had never seen it rain in winter. The Sierra Nevada Mountains were sunny, <br>even in winter. But on the Alaska coast there is no warmth and scant solace in the <br>opaque light that filters down through the incessant gray cloud cover during the short <br>winter days. </p>
<p>I knew vaguely of “cabin fever” but had never suffered from it myself, so I didn’t <br>recognize it at first. The weather coupled with claustrophobic weight of the long dark <br>arctic nights could play hell with your mind. Cabin fever can manifest itself in many <br>forms. These include restlessness, sleeplessness, anxiety, and worst of all depression, <br>which often prompts or exacerbates substance abuse. </p>
<p>Reading (and alcohol helped), or so I thought because by April I had begun to question <br>whether or not Alaska was for me. The bloom was off the newness and sense of <br>adventure I had felt so strongly when we had arrived wide-eyed and excited back in <br>August. Those few months seemed like ages ago. Despite our improved economic <br>situation and not sure of any other concrete options, I nevertheless found myself <br>entertaining thoughts of some sort of relocation. </p>
<p>Then came the weekend that changed it all. </p>
<p>My mom told us to set aside a weekend in May to take a trip. She had gotten us all <br>tickets for the weekend sailing of the state ferry MV Tustumena. In those days, Seward <br>was the home port of the Tustumena, one of the ships of the Alaska Marine Highway, <br>aka the state ferry system. Part of the ship’s summer schedule was a roundtrip sailing <br>leaving from Seward on Friday evening to Valdez, Cordova, and other spots in Prince <br>William Sound and back to Seward on Sunday. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/14dcc9c97fa82a94cd70b839630b032141adee10/original/tusty-in-seward.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>The “Trusty Tusty” was no luxury cruise liner. Mostly a working boat hauling Alaskans <br>and their vehicles to and from various ports, it had a limited number of staterooms and <br>passenger berths. A three-stool bar and a tiny restaurant (more like a snack bar) were <br>the extent of the amenities. Most passengers in the know brought their own food, <br>beverages, and sleeping gear. </p>
<p>Like most other Alaska ferries, some of the Tustumena’s outside decks provided <br>covered areas with electric ceiling heaters. This made deck camping fairly cozy, that is if <br>the weather or seas weren’t too bad. These days with the advent and popularity of <br>stand-alone dome tents the outside decks and lobbies inside of the state ferries look like <br>campgrounds. </p>
<p>Prince William Sound is a feast for the senses. Essentially, it is an inland sea <br>surrounded by the tall arcs of glacier-covered mountain ranges to the north, west, and <br>the east. Like Seward, it is largely open to the Gulf of Alaska to the south. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/6202a42b14fd88699c84ab74fad54ef2c8d7e96a/original/prince-william-sound.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Prince William Sound Photo Courtesy of Sompop S Los Angeles, USA</p>
<p>In 1899, during the Harriman Expedition aboard the George W. Elder, the noted <br>naturalist and writer John Muir said of Prince William Sound that it is “one of the richest, <br>most glorious mountain landscapes I ever beheld-peak after peak dipping deep in the <br>sky, a thousand of them, icy and shinning, rising higher, higher, beyond and yet beyond <br>one another, burning bright in the afternoon light, purple cloud-bars above them, purple <br>shadows in the hollows, and great breadths of sun-spangled, ice-dotted waters in front.” </p>
<p>We saw many incredible and stunningly beautiful sites on that trip. Temporarily <br>departing from its duties as a working ferry, the Tustumena played the role of scenic <br>tour boat as it cruised into ice choked Columbia Bay to allow the passengers to view the <br>magnificent river of ice that is Columbia Glacier. Many of the people on board had <br>booked this trip specifically to see this spectacular sight. Known as a tidewater glacier, <br>Columbia Glacier flows thirty or forty miles from its icy origins deep in the Chugach <br>Mountains and terminates in the waters of Prince William Sound near Valdez.</p>
<p>The captain nudged the tiny ferry through the bergy bits (an actual term) and close to the <br>200 ft. vertical face of the powder blue glacier. Laced with deep azure fissures and <br>crevasses the pillars and pinnacles of ice towered above the ship. Startling us at first, <br>the captain repeatedly sounded the ship’s horn in hopes of causing some ice to fall. <br>Sure enough, much to the delight and applause of the passengers (and probably by <br>chance), a few hotel-sized pieces of ice broke off and plunged into the sea with a huge <br>splash that actually set the Tustumena rocking. A deep roar accompanied the crash of <br>massive pieces of the glacier’s face into Columbia Bay. The native word for this is aptly <br>called “white thunder.” The whole spectacle was primordial. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/d699d61da22c1fdc5e897d22d0db8a547596d08b/original/alaska-days.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">At Columbia Glacier-Me, Patti and mom </p>
<p>Shortly after leaving Columbia Glacier in our wake, we sailed north and then in an <br>arching bend towards the east into the long deep fjord that is Valdez Arm. On the west <br>side near the head of that inlet the Tustumena docked at the town of Valdez <br>(pronounced Val-deez). </p>
<p>In 1964, Valdez had been wiped out by the 9.2 Good Friday earthquake and <br>subsequent tsunami. The entire waterfront of Old Valdez had disappeared into the deep <br>waters of the fjord taking two dozen or so of its hapless residents with it, including <br>several families with children watching the unloading of the freighter Chena. <br>The buildings that weren’t knocked off their foundations or shattered altogether by the <br>shaking were subject to constant tidal flooding because the land had sunk several feet. <br>The traumatized survivors had taken a vote and decided to move the town. The new location had bedrock beneath it, not the unstable glacial silt of the outwash plain of the previous gold rush era town site. <br>When we visited “New” Valdez that first time it had been completely rebuilt only a few <br>years before by the state, mostly with aid from the federal government. It had very little <br>of the weathered look about it like other Alaskan towns. There were lots of trailers and <br>prefabricated houses and fewer businesses than you would expect of town its size, <br>which was getting bigger fast. </p>
<p>The fortunes of Valdez were changing for the better rapidly. Selected as the southern <br>terminus for the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline, it was beginning to experience a dramatic <br>transformation and a subsequent population increase. The first Alaskan crude would be <br>shipped out of Valdez within a month and you could already smell the whiff of petroleum <br>(and money) in the air. </p>
<p>Leaving Valdez, we sailed south again and did a gradual port turn towards the far <br>eastern end of Prince William Sound. The ferry was headed for the tiny picturesque <br>village of Cordova. I was especially taken with this isolated fishing town. So much so <br>that after nearly fifty years I still nurture a long-held fantasy to live here. <br>After spending several hours exploring Cordova and eating a wonderful dinner of fish <br>(we were told the red snapper had been caught that day) and chips at a dockside café, <br>we departed and sailed west and then towards the scattered islands along the entrance <br>of Prince William Sound from the Gulf of Alaska to the south. <br>The ferry came to our last destination of the weekend, the hatchery “town” of Port San <br>Juan in Sawmill Bay on Evans Island. The Tustumena gently steamed into a small bight <br>off of Sawmill Bay where a cluster of buildings was located. The water on every side of <br>the ship seemed to be boiling there were so many fish. </p>
<p>There was not much more to Port San Juan itself than the state hatchery with a few <br>bunkhouses and several outbuildings and storage houses. We took on some hatchery <br>workers who paddled out to the ship in row boats because the dock there could not <br>safely accommodate the Tustumena. As we waited for the their boats to come along <br>side, crew and passengers got out their fishing poles and started to haul in one salmon <br>after another from the thick schools choking the waters of the bay. The captain allowed <br>the cook from the ship’s galley to prepare the fish for passengers. It was quite a feast <br>and everybody had their fill of succulent salmon caught only hours before. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/f4c74bf18091a92400877f3ac7fce4c9ecc18b33/original/tustumena-route2.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>As we steamed south through Bainbridge Narrows towards the open waters of the Gulf <br>of Alaska and back to Seward, Patti came running up to me jumping up and down and <br>flush with excitement. Breathlessly she exclaimed, “I just saw my first humpback whale, <br>EVER!” She told me that the giant mass of it had leaped almost completely out of the <br>water where it was illuminated by an isolated shaft of sunlight in the midst of the <br>surrounding dark sea and gray sky, an awesome vision of majesty and splendor gone in <br>a few seconds. Now, however, etched in her memory forever. It was a wonderful close <br>to an astounding and transformative weekend. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/6d075e3850bbe74e8faaf266f9ad9ba057ff4c18/original/seward-daze.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Transformative, because during that trip I fell in love with Alaska. Never again to any <br>significant degree did the weather of sub-arctic Seward or the sometimes bleak <br>conditions of coastal Alaska ever visit me with dismal brooding. Just the opposite <br>actually. I came to embrace the adversity as a part of the place, as all true Alaskans do. <br>My prior misgivings about staying in Seward came to be replaced by a deep respect <br>and fondness, which kept me in Alaska for a long time and embedded the place in me <br>indelibly. My passion for Alaska has not diminished, not even in the decades that have <br>passed since I moved from there in 1985. My love for it abides in me still and, I am <br>certain, always will. </p>
<p>This was written in tribute to my mother who passed away this February (2022). </p>
<p>Thanks mom for the gift of Alaska and so many other things. K </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/97f8eb7e9bf2b4ea111a75704ae614fe10a81244/original/alaska-sl-2.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Alaska Steamship Company, advertising</p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/69860862022-06-03T18:06:59-07:002022-06-03T18:13:35-07:00Tolstoy's First Condition of Happiness<p> </p>
<p>“One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken.” – Leo Tolstoy </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/505ec768c61fc2fa4f6305e3d8f68fefbf4aa22e/original/casey-river.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Some may find this surprising, but as an educator, there are times I often wonder if I'm more doing more harm than good. Don't get me wrong, I take pride in what I do to promote literacy and critical thinking. But, there are other facets of my job in an institution that deprive kids of the very thing they need most - time outdoors. Now, in fairness, I teach in an alternative high school, so I do have more freedom than most teachers, and we do get outside some. Nonetheless, the very nature of my job contributes to a syndrome known as, <em>Nature Deficit Disorder</em>, a term coined by renowned author Richard Louv. </p>
<p> Louv writes: </p>
<p>“Although human beings have been urbanizing, and then moving indoors, since the introduction of agriculture, social and technological changes in the past three decades have accelerated the human disconnect from the natural world. Among the reasons: the proliferation of electronic communications; poor urban planning and disappearing open space; increased street traffic; diminished importance of the natural world in public and private education; and parental fear magnified by news and entertainment media.” </p>
<p>He cites the among the many costs of nature deprivation are diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses, a rising rate of myopia, and child and adult obesity, among others. </p>
<p>Of course, this is nothing new. A century earlier, Tolstoy observed: </p>
<p>“For what, according to the general estimate, are the principal conditions of earthly happiness? One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between man and nature shall not be severed, that is, that he shall be able to see the sky above him, and that he shall be able to enjoy the sunshine, the pure air, the fields with their verdure, their multitudinous life. Men have always regarded it as a great unhappiness to be deprived of all these things. But what is the condition of those men who live according to the doctrine of the world? The greater their success in practicing the doctrine of the world, the more they are deprived of these conditions of happiness. The greater their worldly success, the less they are able to enjoy the light of the sun, the freshness of the fields and woods, and all the delights of country life…These people, surrounded by artificial light instead of sunshine, look only upon fabrics of tapestry and stone and wood fashioned by the hand of man; the roar of machinery, the roll of vehicles, the thunder of cannon, the sound of musical instruments, are always in their ears; they breathe an atmosphere heavy with distilled perfumes and tobacco smoke…Wherever they go, they are like so many captives shut out from the conditions of happiness. As prisoners sometimes console themselves with a blade of grass that forces its way through the pavement of their prison yard…” </p>
<p>There is a growing body of research that suggests a century later, the problem has only gotten worse, and the costs are far graver than we have ever considered. We are not just talking about the psychological, emotional, and spiritual damage that occurs when penned up in artificial enclosures. We are talking about missing out on the myriad of physical health benefits that result from being outdoors. </p>
<p>A science teacher in my school takes our students outdoors almost every day be it field trips, nature walks, or community service like picking up litter. Because our small school lacks an indoor PE facility, I take my PE students outdoors most days, rain or shine. I believe the positive results of this are felt throughout our school. Nonetheless, many questions remain. </p>
<p>I wonder how we can reach consensus that being deprived of a connection to nature is not just a problem, but a crisis? How can we alter the structure of institutional life to make daily natural connections as important as any other core subject area or occupational task? Does this pandemic provide us with an opportunity to restructure our institutions in ways that make this more possible? Do kids really need the “socializing” benefits of artificial enclosures if they come at the expense of time in nature? I do not pretend to have any answers. You, however, might. </p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/69822252022-05-28T17:42:58-07:002022-05-31T05:32:05-07:00Over Our Heads Part 2 (A Continuation) <p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/4c0fb0b56e1433adab95d47feecbc9364e46982f/original/f434c365-e837-4be9-b345-a32d2e133d44.jpeg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Lowering the dogs...</p>
<p><em>This is an excerpt from my memoir, A River Knows My Name that is a continuation from the Over Our Heads story I posted on April 21st. Perhaps revisiting that before proceeding with this might be helpful. Then again, I do like just jumping into the action. Some brief context for those not wishing to look at the previous post: We were five days into our wilderness journey up the Klallam, having lowered our dogs down on ropes to the bottom of the Klallam Canyon. It was almost dark, and while we were for the time being, safely on a rocky beach, we had to cross a fast-moving stream flowing down from Mt. Tst́iláalati. We we were desperate for a camp site, and it was not looking good....</em></p>
<p>“Looks like we gotta wade the river.” But to even begin wading the river meant we had to first cross the whitewater stream gushing down from Tst́iláalati. The speed at which it fell into the river more than made up for its size in terms of the hazard of crossing. One slip could have immediate and potentially lethal consequences as we had landed on the only place there was a beach. Directly downstream below the confluence, the river fell out of sight into a foamy chasm of glistening black rock and boiling spray. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/6404f9b3a8a49302903267a9177e90346e53e005/original/70fea65a-d624-44a2-8226-8127e03a979c.jpeg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>To prevent the dogs from being swept to their certain deaths we tied them one at a time to their harnesses. Then Seth fought his way through the white foaming waist deep water to the other side and Dixon threw him the rope. Then, after each dog was fastened to the rope, Seth called. Each dog dashed into the foaming creek getting immediately swept off its feet and into the main channel. The rope and harness held, as they were pulled through the foaming water to safety on the other side. Then went Creed, Lane, and Dixon, each holding the end of the rope as a lifeline as Seth anchored himself against the rocks, holding firm and keeping a tight line as each hiker picked his way through the rapids. My heart was in my throat when it was my turn, but there was no choice. A fear, wonder, and deep sense of pride burned in me. We were coming of age. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/9cfbbedec6d7b91ad5f17f52ee38d586005e33b2/original/229189cd-ece8-4a3e-a22c-3f9680623ecc.jpeg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Finally, we stood on the other side, together. “No turning back now,” I said. The morning’s campsite seemed like weeks ago. So much had changed, not just in topography, but in me. I felt like I was a different person than the young naïve man wiping sleep from his eyes that morning. </p>
<p>Darkness was swallowing the canyon by the second, and we were now silhouettes to each other, hoping and praying that Dixon was right, that just around a couple of bends we would find the flat camp spot promised by the map. There was no time to lose. Thankfully, the river had calmed a bit, and the milky blue water sucked and gurgled around massive hidden boulders, some of which the tops were barely showing. We waded into the current one by one and began wading up the river. The current lessened, but it was growing deeper. “Look!” I heard someone yell, and as I glanced back, there were both dogs, midway across the river, stationary in the current trying without success to swim upstream. Lane waded out and grabbed Bert by the collar, and I reached Trushka right after. We continued wading upstream into the dark, holding the dogs by the scruffs of their necks. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/e946ed7b54bc0877e10cb56e84fa1aec12f486c2/original/26da2255-9bcf-4266-8b09-37d273e19703.jpeg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>I cannot begin to accurately describe the feeling of despair as we rounded the bend only to see the faint outline of the river continuing up another twenty yards, sluggish before bending out of sight again. We continued, churning through the waist-deep water. Finally, as we reached the bend, the sense of desperation only increased. The water grew deeper. Now it was up to our navels and becoming hard to keep our footing despite the slow-moving current. If it got any deeper, we would literally be sunk. Now, holding our packs over our head and inching upstream, I head Dixon’s voice whooping and hollering up ahead in the darkening gloom just out of sight. “We’re here! Come on y’all. We made it!” Sure enough, as we rounded that bend in the canyon, like a gift from heaven, there was a bank of welcoming sand sloping gently down to the river. Dixon was already standing on it, soaked up to his chest. His pack was soaked too. Ours were as well as we stumbled ashore, overwhelmed with elation. At the top of the bank was a meadow with plenty of places to easily pitch our tents. </p>
<p>In moments we had a roaring blaze lighting up the rock walls around us, and our sleeping bags and gear were steaming from the heat of the fire. We stoked it so much the flames leapt higher than any of us. We ate in celebration, recounting the harrowing events of the day before departing into our tents. I fell into an exhausted slumber. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/54ea94949e1efe08c763dd0dfda8d5371124314a/original/img-3415.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>The morning broke sunny and the birds were singing loudly in the trees. The river chattered merrily next to us, and the mood was profoundly different than the morning before. Hope and youth was springing eternal, and there was nothing in eternity that mattered more than this day. Coffee, cigarettes, and oatmeal were the fare before we doused the smoldering fire. </p>
<p>We hiked upstream through blueberries shrubs carpeting the benches just twenty feet over the river. Compared to the day before, this going was much easier in terms of gradient, though the thick understory kept the pace slow. The key for us was finding well-used elk trails and staying on them if possible. Also remarkable was the fact that none of us had hit a wasp nest. If everything went according to plan, we would be camping in Klallam Basin that night. But, since nothing had really gone according to plan thus far, it was naïve to assume it would. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/7803b0db4dceea3b9d787a808f74e2272aa06109/original/56be257e-e9f2-44c3-b650-713926413b13.jpeg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>For several hours we beat brush, climbed around obstacles, and managed to stay close to the river, constantly slowed by a myriad of small canyons and gullies coming off Tst́iláalati. We began getting glimpses of a glaciated peak rising above us just to the south—Mt. Klallam. After a few miles we reached a small canyon colliding with the Klallam. We had crossed so much terrain that our legs were scratched and raw. We could have found a way down to the bottom, like we had, so many times before, but looking at the map, and what lay directly above us was enticing. The map showed massive alpine meadows, free of brush to wander through just a couple of thousand feet higher. “We’ll still get to Klallam Basin if we go up,” said Dixon. </p>
<p>“It’s all Klallam Basin, really.” That only was partially true. </p>
<p>We climbed steadily northward and up, winding our way through blueberries, salmon berries, and alder. It was tough slogging as again, the thick brush pushed us back a half-step for every full step gained. Nonetheless we powered through and soon we were two hundred feet above the gushing white thread water rattling down the gully from unforeseen heights. Suddenly I heard a shout from behind me. “Look!” </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/988f4f45459fb8a54a7489dcbce04e33f84002a6/original/img-3419.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>I turned and stared in disbelief as my brown fiber-filled sleeping bag that moments before had been strapped to my pack frame was now bouncing down the canyon careening crazily of rocks like a pinball, getting smaller and smaller. “Fuck,” I heard myself whisper. When it hit the water, it would be sucked away downstream and into the Klallam canyon, gone forever. </p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/69772602022-05-22T15:10:14-07:002022-05-25T20:07:58-07:00Journey to the Arctic and a Plea For Solidarity in the Gwich'in Struggle <p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/ea4dcec0a8640274f323d5ee6efddb127955bff5/original/5.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>In 1991, I took what would amount to a ten-year break from teaching. I spent that summer reading Tolstoy and salvaging scrap wood from construction sites to build a cabin on a fellow rainforest activist’s land. It was to be very rustic with no running water and my oven would consist of a single burner. This would be the closest I had been to living my dream as a renunciant but when a neighbor complained to the city that I was building an illegal structure, I headed north for some high adventure with Dana Lyons who was already up in Homer, Alaska visiting his good friend Mavis Muller. </p>
<p>After flying into Anchorage, I caught a ride with a Pentecostal family I met on the plane, and that night they took me to their home in Soldotna. In the morning I attended the most charismatic religious service where people were speaking in tongues. Then we went out to breakfast and the minister insisted on giving me five dollars and drove me out to a good place to catch a ride. As I stood in a 7-11 phone booth, telling my girlfriend about this wild experience so far, a moose walked right past me, through the parking lot, and across the street without a fear in the world. Welcome to Alaska! </p>
<p>Shortly after, I hitched to Homer just in time to see Dana performing at the annual Salmon Festival and upon my arrival, I learned that Daryl Cherney was part of their entourage. Daryl had just been to a hearing in Anchorage about opening the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, right in the heart of the calving grounds of the Porcupine Caribou. The Gwich'in depend on the Porcupine Caribou for their subsistence. Daryl crashed the meeting dressed up like a caribou, and apparently caused quite a ruckus. Gwich’in tribal activist Sarah James who was speaking there invited him, Dana, Mavis, and everyone else that was part of their entourage up to Arctic Village nestled on the southern edge of the Brooks Range. Lucky for me, I was now part of this wild adventure-to-be. <br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/0c0b5e12b7f701718ed0e6d998a0b35c521e3654/original/1.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Shortly after Salmon Fest, our colorful band of misfits all piled in a van, drove up to Fairbanks, and bought plane tickets on Wright Air to Arctic Village, Alaska, about 250 air miles north of Fairbank and on the southern edge of the Brook's Range. As we flew over the Yukon River, I was overwhelmed by the size and magnitude of this drainage. At this point, we were barely half-way to Arctic Village. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/a1116fe38dfd67f3bce614083b209052e77bb670/original/46.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/b2505c44fbec165e68c16cb854dd0144aa175a8d/original/32.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Arctic Village Community Hall</p>
<p>Upon our arrival, we were greeted by Gwich’in tribal members at the airport, eager to form alliances with the outside world in their campaign to save the Arctic Refuge from oil drilling. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/9501c216a459bcc7cca3d7b08cfd48b326f13569/original/25.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Sarah James was our host, and as she introduced us to people in the village and we felt as if we were being welcomed as family. The Gwich’in are the Caribou People and with the knowledge that the new film, <em>Dances With Wolves</em> had awakened deep anger over the genocide against the Lakota People, the Gwich'in rallying cry was: <em>The Buffalo Were Wiped Out but You Can Still Save the Caribou. </em></p>
<p><em><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/67e0cbcd84ed76f58231cbd95fd4a2348ac0d029/original/24.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></em></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/cb4466238467ab3085192fd8a9b9f91020686047/original/30.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">This is an old church building on the outskirts of Arctic Village. </p>
<p>After we had set up our tents outside of Sarah James's cabin, we wandered over to the community hall to celebrate a birthday, and have a concert with the legendary, Arctic Village band who absolutely shredded! They covered everything from Creedence Clearwater Revival to Led Zeppelin! We were also treated to some great fiddle music and shared some of our songs as well. It's an understatement to say that we all bonded deeply. <br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/8b199f5d06faa280e8b0e6035c6921db3f42a9ac/original/31.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/dd9048da081fe04e84ec718ef86f534a4afc799c/original/21.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Then we heard the elders speak of their struggle. After the devastating Exxon Valdez oil spill had occurred a couple years prior, the Gwich'in came together in a historical gathering where they determined that the only way to save their traditional lands from greedy oil companies and politicians was to tell the world their story. Sarah James was chosen to speak on behalf of her tribe and this would take her from her her beautiful cabin in Northern Alaska to the halls of Congress, and eventually all the way to the United Nations. To this day, she travels the world, working tirelessly on behalf of her land and people. The threat to the Gwich'in way of life is as real now as it's ever been. </p>
<p>During the two weeks we spent up there, we were shown the country in a way I never could have imagined. First, they took us forty miles up the East Fork of the Chandalar by boat to a traditional hunting camp. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/05e0a8e5d5f2dbb067152a9110f4ebc04be116b4/original/23.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">One of the most beautiful boat rides of my life.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/0b6816ce31f18f2a36c8139a4e8f16b7b694ad82/original/20.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Traditional Gwich'in Hunting Scaffold. </p>
<p>There we spent a few days listening to stories from the elders, and wandering the surreal, velvety ridges above the valley. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/695d50831677790f30d780a114faa02a65e4da51/original/13.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/358accef46a4862f00b027eef55a6801f8e9bcba/original/15.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/1d204db3bc346199e5d7542debbb0588714cbbbb/original/19.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/da3e449309b3215412804162e32dab6598c091c7/original/14.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/807970f027edf3a58a1c98117e64fc174663a7cf/original/16.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/35a9df61e5056fb2f9bc63643cc9e004fe8a5a69/original/45.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/01ee47a256fe369fe3a2b903efbda0776b34ea9f/original/8.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />It was late August, and was still well past 11:00 PM before the sun began to sink over the northern horizon. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/d13701ebda9546bc30863602a5f8983a26313bb9/original/49.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">We learned the traditional ways of drying and preserving meat</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/9fcc604ebb722534293bc3402d7f5a9a586d35bb/original/35.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/c4757597005c367722faad78d1db19bdc19ab5f8/original/11.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Toward the end of our stay, Dana Lyons, Sarah James, Sam Spidel, and I were given a boat ride across the river where we then backpacked fifteen miles into the arctic wilderness. As we wound our way up a small creek, we noticed every sand bar was pounded with grizzly, caribou, wolf, and moose tracks. We were following a major wildlife corridor. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/9bc2de795bb2da7d9ab02a7c99aed59a3f84293b/original/48.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/bd77a85ffa97da579392bbed86d1eadb4af6892b/original/12.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/0645a18cd61fc9d8ed72c90091dfd9213f8e5623/original/9.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/b2f115c5f04f3cdbbe41078de2b59dae6579599d/original/36.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/745cea3892fcea865a2579dc24fb165613798281/original/39.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/7fc09d380b14c4bd6f7082406d390f39e3542781/original/27.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/21d5d4a00170896caf6dd3c9a83ead4c6fc925e1/original/17.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Finally, we came upon a perfect camping spot in a treeless basin and spent a couple of days drinking in the silence of the Arctic wilderness. From a ridge just above our camp, we bore witness to perhaps the most stunning vista I've witnessed in my life.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/ac295091bbe0b0daa3c05a009a246d1d9cb9ee0e/original/7.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">The Arctic wilderness is vast and silent. It's a place unlike any other I have ever seen. </p>
<p>One evening Dana and I left camp and climbed a ridge. As we neared the top, we came across a large grizzly bear grazing on blueberries in peace. Its head swung up and it fixed its eyes on us for a long moment. The thrill and fear was indescribable. Then, it resumed feeding. While this picture is out of focus and dark, this is what it looked like without a telephoto lens. It was much closer than the black dot appears in the picture:</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/4d294de79d49cc56869f4a8f590f16eeb482267e/original/28.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>In the days following, we would wake up to dozens of caribou walking through our camp as if we were not even there. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/f6503e3975f68d9f41f8d5f5c6176484eca1a7f7/original/29.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>The fact that we were hundreds of miles from civilization save for a few isolated villages was a staggering thought.<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/2e2ba43ea10808d3d87689de0d2f5ed535ce1a0b/original/10.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/a887436034e0d6ca1cbe42057003bd8a6c18c2f6/original/18.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Then Sarah, Sam, Dana, and I climbed several hours to the top of peak for one of the most breath-taking vistas imaginable. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/d81f0786bd7e13cc456baaee77420c55efbd7826/original/47.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/cbbf56526ad121881d160f4cde6b8750e48b47cb/original/6.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/4924ec90920828a2c80fd94e6dcbc511efae8a6f/original/43.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/0a4c76a3be7d992ed6c7f9325ae2745fff7d251e/original/41.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/6db22cd8f51ff69b6a7c89d20edbb8f09f14e107/original/3.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>This was truly one of the most profound wilderness experiences of my life, and my love and gratitude for the big-heartedness shown us by Sarah James and the Gwich’in People would remain with me forever. Life-long friendships were born on that trip, and we would return again from time to time in the following years. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/86ecc3496ac04c3958ecca9d9c424d73fb5612c5/original/50.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/5b749b8745cd852bbd5a8b6b500b6e3ffd8afbcd/original/40.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>In the end, we returned to the states, firmly resolved to do everything in our power to support the Gwich’in Tribe in their fight to stop oil drilling in the calving grounds of the Porcupine Caribou. Most people assume that drilling for oil in the Arctic Refuge is an environmental issue. While that is certainly true, it is also the cultural birthright of the Gwich’in People that is at stake. </p>
<p>Now we must remain ever-vigilant as the oil industry continues to threaten this great wilderness, and the traditional hunting grounds of the last truly subsistence tribe in North America. The Trump Administration almost succeeded in opening the the Refuge to oil drilling. There is no compromise when it comes to preserving the Gwich'in way of life by keeping the oil industry out of this sacred wilderness. Please do your part to support them in their righteous struggle to maintain their traditional way of life. Write to President Biden and your congressional senators and representatives and let them know that you stand with the Gwich'in in the battle to keep this wilderness off limits to oil drilling. Let them know how important this issue is to your heart. Remember: <em>The Buffalo Were Wiped Out But You Can Still Save the Caribou. </em></p>
<p><em><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/08bdadb4cd2cee707006a37f7c5f71111f87714c/original/26.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">In solidarity.</p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/69717592022-05-17T06:25:28-07:002022-05-17T19:43:37-07:00Extreme Skiing and Chicken Fries<p>Here's a film my son Casey made with his friends last year up at Mt. Baker and Shuksan Arm. I was speechless when I first saw this. He's the young man in the reddish orange coat and the one in the end that somersaults over the highway. To think that this is the same wide-eyed little boy I took across the peninsula at age six...hard to believe how the time has flown. The mountains are his passion, as is testing his own limits. Love these young men who love life on the edge! Here's to youth. Carpe Diem!</p>
<p><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="vimeo" data-video-id="648399960" data-video-thumb-url="https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/1306512099-635c9b1b1efbd2861ffb498f12fc0ce674f642793cfb1e38d_640" type="text/html" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/648399960" frameborder="0" height="180" width="320"></iframe></p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/69699622022-05-12T18:14:14-07:002022-09-16T06:03:00-07:00Sights from the Bow<p>Fasten your seatbelts for an astonishing journey through Glacier Bay National Park including one-of-a-kind wildlife encounters. A feast for the eyes and imagination as well as an important lesson in history. Thanks to Kurt Dunbar for another unforgettable piece:</p>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Sights from the Bow </strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/5211fe150cd4f43f91e07529d3498a0185731202/original/blog-40.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Johns-Hopkins Inlet and Glacier (Wikipedia Commons) </p>
<p>The Ryndam had just visited Johns-Hopkins Inlet in Glacier Bay National Park. In a park with many spectacular vistas it is saying a lot that Johns-Hopkins is the most beautiful and majestic of them all. Framed to the west by several peaks over ten thousand feet in elevation, Johns-Hopkins Glacier flows at a steep angle out of the eternal winter of the Fairweather Range into the sea. At the end of the inlet where the glacier enters salt water, it constantly calves blue ice of every hue off of its face. </p>
<p>That day the Ryndam had slowly and carefully edged its way around numerous chunks of ice from the size of houses to thousands of smaller pieces of every size and configuration. Sheer mountain faces with numerous smaller glaciers rose almost vertically on each side of the inlet as the ship plied forward nudging bergs aside with its wake. </p>
<p>The entire inlet is also a special protected area where thousands of harbor seals birth their pups on icy nurseries in early spring. The attentive and nervous mothers stay close to their young on the top of bobbing pieces of ice. This, even as big looming cruise ships with hundreds of leering humans plows through the maze dangerously jostling and rocking their tenuous haven. I have seen seals swept off ice floes in a ship’s wake more than once. </p>
<p>There is an instinctive logic to the mother seals’ choice of this inlet to give birth. Orca who prey on harbor seals, especially vulnerable baby seals, are greatly inhibited in their hunting abilities by the massive clutter of ice in the water, which reduces the effectiveness to detect objects in the water with their echo-location. </p>
<p>I liked working on Holland Americas Line’s S -Class ships (named after the Statendam). All retired now, the four S-Class vessels were nearly identical in design and construction. Over several Alaska seasons, I had worked on three of the four (Statendam, Ryndam, and Veendam). What I liked most about them was the spacious, easily accessible foredeck at the bow. This area of the bow over the forecastle was decked in teak. The chest high gunnel at the very front of the bow was designed so that if you stood back about a foot or two the air flowed right over your head. Even steaming along at 20 knots (a knot is 1.15 miles) you could wear a hat at the bow without it being blown off your head and overboard. Without being scoured by incessant wind, it was a little sweet spot where I would stand watch and scan for wildlife or just enjoy the scenery. Between my time on those three ships (and the Volendam, which had a foredeck but wasn’t an S-class), I spent countless hours at the bow spotting whales and talking to passengers, which was my job. </p>
<p> <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/bdf2624f9469b4c9b3ad156568fefd75a77d1eb9/original/blog-41.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>One of the many notable and amazing sights I had experienced on the bow was coming out of Johns-Hopkins Inlet. Transiting out of the inlet entails several turns-a sharp-one to the starboard after clearing Jaw Point and then another more gradual to port, and, in quick succession, another sharp starboard bend around a rocky jut of land and into the main channel leading out of Glacier Bay fifty miles to the south. Because of the tight successive turns, the ship goes slowly close by the face of another tidewater glacier, Lamplugh. Some of us naturalists call it “Lampblue” because of its deep robin-egg blue face and azure fissures and crevasses. It is yet another spectacular sight in that inlet, and I liked to be at the bow to share the experience with passengers and answer their questions. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/66d2f320c42fe92ea30abeecc5b40c3821bb51ff/original/blog-42.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Having cleared the last rocky point, the Ryndam began to pick up speed as it entered the wide channel. I was ensconced in my plumb spot at the very tip of the bow with several passengers when I noticed something in the water ahead. Two little figures directly in front of the ship were treading water, leaving an ever so slight wake as they swam. From the wake, I could see that their present path across the channel was almost certainly going to intersect with that of the ship. I wasn’t worried at first, because I thought it was probably two sea lions and that they would halt, dive or otherwise divert themselves away from the rapidly approaching ship. I had seen sea lions do this countless times. I pulled my binoculars up to my eyes and immediately gasped. It was a mother grizzly and her cub. She was frantically swimming across the channel straight across our path, too panicked to change direction. Worse, she halted occasionally so that the little one could catch up with her. What a good mom. But the ship was going to plow right over her and her yearling cub on its present course. I turned to look up at the bridge waving my arms and pointing ahead of us to get the attention of a watchman, an officer, anybody! I saw the pilot give me the high sign. The bears had been spotted. Whew! At that moment, the ship tacked slightly to the port just enough to pass very close by the bears right off of the starboard bow. I was so stunned by the event and concerned for the bears leaning over the bow to make sure they had made it that I hadn’t taken a single picture. What a great opportunity lost. I was sick. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/610dce470ec8602eff31a240bd7f99b98e6aec4b/original/blog-43.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /> </p>
<p>A passenger next to me had a very fancy camera and I asked him, “Did you get that?” He said, “Yeah, I got a couple of good ones” as he turned the camera screen towards me revealing the pictures shown here (note the distinctive blue color caused by suspended fine particles of rock ground by glaciers). It was the first time I had ever seen a digital camera, and I remember thinking how slick it was to be able to immediately see the picture you had just taken. I asked him if he would send me copies. He said, “Give me your email address, and I will send them to you.” I had never heard of that before either. He was good for his word. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/5a49ff8fca88549337d372adcad00146596d94c5/original/blog-44.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">_________________________________________________________ </p>
<p>Another time in Glacier Bay, nearer the broad open waters of the mouth, we had just started our day-long voyage north into the park. As usual I was on the bow. These waters were often a very good area to spot humpback whales and sea otters. There was also a large sea lion rookery nearby, and depending on the captain and the ship’s schedule we sometimes diverted to cruise by it, treating the passengers to the sights, sounds, and jarring smells of a crowded sea lion colony. Today however, we plied north without veering or slowing. </p>
<p>Off the starboard side maybe a hundred yards off I spotted…”something.” It wasn’t a whale or an otter and it wasn’t a sea lion either. Puzzled, I peered through my binoculars and couldn’t believe my eyes. Without saying a word, I pointed in the direction of the sighting and handed the binoculars to my wife Patti who was on board with me this cruise and frequently shared my watches at the bow. She looked and almost dropped the eye glasses in shock as she exclaimed, “That’s a moose!” I grinned and said, “Good eye and good call.” It was a moose, a big bull with huge antlers. And it was swimming in the middle of a huge area of open water miles from dry land. I had never seen anything like it. The ship was probably doing between fifteen and twenty knots and we lost sight of it rather quickly. We both worried that it had to be in big trouble this far out in near freezing seas. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/77176efb5d2f1373fb804c0be501cb369c8c38a0/original/blog-45.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>One of my duties when the ship was in Glacier Bay was to see to the needs of the Park Service Rangers and the Tlingit native interpreters who accompany them. They all come aboard by shuttle from the park headquarters. The rangers do a presentation and broadcast commentary from the bridge about the history, geology, and biology of the park. The Tlingit from the nearby village of Hoonah share their culture and stories with passengers. They speak of their ancient ties to the area before the park was completely glaciated. Stories passed down dozens of generations recount the flight of their people from the approaching ice and their settlement across Icy Strait in the present location of Hoonah. They still consider Glacier Bay their home. Much to the credit of the Park Service, the deep connection of that grand place to the Huna Tlingit expressed in their own voice enhances the experience for all onboard. </p>
<p>I got know several of the native interpreters fairly well and always tried to have lunch with them. They always had such great stories. Today, I was lucky that James and Carrol, a married couple from Hoonah whom I had befriended earlier in the season, had come on board today. I had a burning question for them about that moose. </p>
<p>After describing what I saw, James told me and Patti, “Oh I have seen that before many times.” He said that sometimes wolves or bears will chase them into the water and that they just keep on swimming until they get to some land. He told the story of a moose swimming across the strong tidal currents of Icy Strait near Hoonah when he witnessed it being attacked by a pod of Orca. The poor thing obviously never made it to shore. Like I said, great stories. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;">_____________________________________________ </p>
<p>Something at least as surprising as a bear or a moose at sea, occurred in Prince William Sound. This beautiful inland sea is surrounded by tall coastal mountains and strewn with lush green islands large and small. </p>
<p>This body of water is mostly known by those outside of Alaska as the place where the supertanker Exxon Valdez went aground on a reef causing a massive oil spill and one of the worst environmental disasters in American history. </p>
<p>The sound is home to innumerable inlets and glaciers. None are more stunning in scenic beauty than College Fjord. Tucked into the northwest corner of the sound, College Fjord has more glaciers mile for mile than anywhere else in Alaska. Off of the major shipping and ferry routes, it is a scenic destination for day tours out of Whittier and like today, an occasional cruise ship. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/89fada5193dcb92c65c583090391dcf94d878d54/original/blog-46.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>College Fjord was given its name by the Harriman Expedition of 1899. Everybody on board the expedition’s steamer the George W. Elder had been hand-picked by the leader, benefactor and expedition’s namesake, the wealthy railroad magnate Edward Henry Harriman. Most of the all-male company of scientists and notables onboard were esteemed men of letters from the East. Consequently, they named the two largest glaciers at the end of the inlet Harvard and Yale. Either out of a sense of fairness, or perhaps compelled by the spirit of women’s suffrage, all the rage at the time, they named the half dozen glaciers on the west side of the inlet after women’s colleges and universities. </p>
<p>There may be more sea otters in other parts of Alaska, but I never seen so many in the shortest period of time than in College Fjord. And they do something there I haven’t seen anywhere else: they get up on the small low icebergs that calve off of Harvard and Yale, the two large tidewater glaciers at the twin head of the inlet. </p>
<p>The smallest marine mammal, there are sometimes as many as a dozen otters on a single berg and dozens and dozens more on bergs up and down the last several miles of College Fjord. Otters have the thickest fur of any mammal. Unless disturbed, say by an oil spill, it keeps them quite cozy in frigid waters. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, died as a result of the spill in 1989. The lucky little otters of College Fjord were spared due to favorable winds and tides, which kept the oil out of that northwest corner of Prince William Sound. But throughout the rest of the Sound, hundreds, perhaps thousands of otters perished of exposure when their coats became completely ineffective after being soiled by the thick black goo that had poured out of the belly of the Exxon Valdez after striking Bligh Reef. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/e22b90b9c43d20a65dba36df31f1909ef016c177/original/blog-47.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>The glaciers on the west side of the inlet flow out of the icefields of the Chugach Mountains and into College Fjord. The naturalist John Muir, a member of the Harriman Expedition wrote that, “They came bounding down a smooth mountainside through the midst of lush flowery gardens and goat pastures, like tremendous leaping, dancing cataracts in prime of flood.” </p>
<p>However, it wasn’t otters that were the highlight that day. </p>
<p>Leaving College Fjord, the ship crossed the broader waters of Prince William Sound as we plied south towards the Gulf of Alaska. The morning fog had burned off and we were greeted by an absolutely beautiful cloudless day. The previously veiled white capped chain of mountains that encircle the sound on three sides were now revealed in stunning grandeur. The seas were uncharacteristically calm, the surface of the water as flat and shiny as a polished mirror. It was a perfect day to be in my accustomed place at the bow. </p>
<p>The favorable seas and pleasant weather drew several hardcore birders I had met earlier to the bow hoping to spot some sea birds to add to their lists. Free of waves, the clarity of the deep blue water presented almost perfect conditions for sighting anything on or in the water. Right away we starting seeing salmon sharks. Swimming near the surface, at first they only could be seen as a moving bump on the placid water, their dorsal fin not quite breaking the tension of the water. As the ship passed near them, looking down you could see theirsix foot long bodies silhouetted against the dark blue of the deep. We all got pretty good at spotting them and saw several more in quick succession. </p>
<p>Salmon sharks weren’t the highlight of the day either. </p>
<p>After a time, one of the birders asked me, “Where are all of the birds?” We had seen a few gulls and a couple of eagles far off, but that was it. I told the disappointed birder that Prince William Sound was still so devastated by the oil spill that ground nesting sea birds like puffins, petrels, and shearwaters had not really recovered. I told him that we naturalists call this area a “bird desert.” He nodded glumly and asked, “Is it still THAT bad?” By a sad coincidence, at that very moment the ship crossed a line of sea detritus and bits of flotsam where tides crunch together. Along that tideline you could easily see the rainbow sheen characteristic of oil in the water. I pointed to it and said, “See for yourself.” I later looked up drop-jaw in the dictionary, and there was his picture. It couldn’t have been timed better. </p>
<p> <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/5f07c44accaa90af6870d796848c621f2980642e/original/blog-48.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>The sour mood of that moment was broken as I pointed towards something dead ahead straight off of the bow. The ship was headed towards a bright green spot in the dark blue waters of the sound. Green I tell you. Florescent green! It was the color of a crossing guard’s safety vest and about size of a football field. We all watched mystified as it got closer and closer. We were going to go right through it. What the hell was this? </p>
<p>As the ship passed over it, I peered over the bow and down into the now clear green water and almost lost myself in the wonder of the sight. A phantasmagorical green canyon opened up winding its way down into the abyss and out of sight. The walls of the chasm were comprised of countless blisters or bubbles. I had the sensation that the ship was suddenly airborne, suspended as if flying above a surreal landscape of green bulbous hills and valleys. After an eternity that probably only lasted a few seconds, I realized what I was looking at: millions and millions of moon jellyfish. There were so many of those Frisbee sized creatures reflecting and diffusing the light through their lens-like bodies, it changed the color of the lapis colored sea into a florescent wonderland of green. Astounding! It was truly one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen in over twenty five years at sea. Of all things, Jellyfish! </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/169f5e8ebf5ff7cd3135a1b9ecd40daf7694c7a4/original/blog-49.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">A photo of moon jellyfish-color not enhanced.</p>
<p> </p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/69542622022-05-07T11:46:52-07:002022-05-10T21:16:34-07:00Bogachiel 2005 - A Unique Rite of Passage<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/8d8dcf5dd8a13ff487d30466b1f78a3f4d364e42/original/bogachiel-22.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>When we talk about rites of passage, we often think of some ritual or experience that commemorates the passage from adolescence to adulthood. But, there are other rites of passage that involve transitions no less important. These are rites-of-passage that can commemorate the transition from toddlerhood to childhood. </p>
<p>When my children were very young, I was of the belief that the best way to instill a passion for nature was to let them experience not only the joys of wilderness, but also the miseries that often accompany these same trips—mosquitos, wasps, heat, rain, thick brush and so on. I was of the belief that this would instill a passion for the outdoors that would bear fruit for the rest of their lives. </p>
<p>In 2005 when Casey was barely six years old, he and I hiked across the northern edge of Olympic National Park. We started at the Bogachiel and finished at Sol Duc Hot Springs, thirty-three miles from start to finish. </p>
<p>The trip started with his grandfather hiking with us to our first camp, five miles up the valley. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/3e3cf88c2943e564f994d28e9c8836fbe5625644/original/bogachiel-2.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>We said goodbye to him there, and from then on, we were on our own. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/fbaf81a0bba7ad55e410aee6c176a7856f905742/original/bogachiel-14.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>The sun was hot. We continued up the river often stopping to swim and fly fish. I had brought goggles with us, and the summer heat had brought the river to a tolerable temperature. Beneath the surface of the crystal waters was a whole new world of sculpted rocks and sleek, silvery fish. It was pure magic.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/4a2d93847fedf38d9e050d0dfad3990bdc5e7cb3/original/bogachiel-3.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/63c85553a7da6364565339403b1aa98fc3b861f4/original/bogachiel-13.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Eventually we left the trail and for several miles, we followed the river.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/d4cc20146ae2f1e58cb4c0c41298029b46846989/original/bogachiel-4.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/d0ab9fb66f7383ff64d8aa63c13cb06fd145d8a7/original/bogachiel-1.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/6840661cfbe03686dd5e6eb78edc2e0afe40a0de/original/bogachiel-23.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>We finally reached the junction of the South Fork and camped on a sprawling beach. The whole time I was setting up the tent, we chatted about dinosaurs, trains, fish, and whatever else was on his mind. I built a fire, and we were so enraptured in conversation we almost forgot about the swarms of mosquitos tormenting us. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/dad30e842cd75e9ead0a8dfa1fbeb95334eea2f3/original/bogachiel-17.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />In the evening, we fished some more.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/c78eb0f46adfe9c187c0c540e020488d771b17c5/original/bogachiel-7.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>At night my shoulders ached from my heavy pack, but I was thrilled that we were ten miles in, and it was clear we weren’t going to be turning back. We conversed excitedly, and I was spellbound by Casey's imagination and inspiration. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/7e314b4ee9930f82e89719a86beeabe8a0da4319/original/bogachiel-12.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>I did have to backtrack a couple of miles for a little pendant he’d brought with him that he’d forgotten a couple of miles back at a water stop as when he realized his mistake, he became almost despondent. That's what fathers do, though. Without question. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/2962062d35031248edb955422cfa873864c50408/original/bogachiel-28.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>The next day the trail grew very faint as the valley narrowed. Mosquitos continued swarming us, and the only thing I found that worked as repellant was to ask him questions and get him talking. It worked. That night we camped near Sixteen Mile Shelter, and as I set up our tent, clouds of voracious mosquitoes chewed on us without mercy. Casey chattered away, oblivious to the misery and the red welts that were covering his arms and face. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/20fdbb50535510c6f8c6d65b9c0625cef5fe4e23/original/bogachiel-21.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/cb2f6098e24a8f9e7fa4a146ea76de80d9ef5728/original/bogachiel-20.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/d4a17a9800cc7b14a16d24d7edefa617b21d412e/original/bogachiel-9.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>The following day we worked our way up along a small canyon, and eventually we came to another fork in the river where we bedded down. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/17da3c3cf01c380bb9e5e0c2381f9a1ed5815126/original/bogachiel-16.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>My lower back was very tight at this point, and when we awoke in the morning, it was worse. Casey’s face was even more covered in mosquito welts, and no doubt mine was too. But, coffee and breakfast always make things better. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/d36967e9c8504f975b72b65a3a2b53d8565f153f/original/bogachiel-11.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>We crossed the river on a wooden bridge and slowly started climbing steadily away from the river and up onto a high ridge. Soon we began to get peek-a-boo glimpses of Mt. Olympus to our south, and Vancouver Island to our north. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/63499231a6398047e937048c81a8d2e42d625a88/original/bogachiel-26.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>After several more hours the gray spires of Mt. Olympus and Mt. Tom became more prominent, poking the sky just to the south of us. The glorious silence was intoxicating. We were all alone and had not seen a soul in days. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/032438c1e58ea381da658dffdc376af0388dbddf/original/bogachiel-6.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>For miles the trail skirted the sides of ridges so steep that the consequences of a fall were unthinkable. I hooked Casey's pack to me with a rope, just in case. While he was stout, his six year old legs were on the clumsy side at times, and he tripped often. I was glad I had a leash on him.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/a06e162de48ff88564d3a8ae26283f32ab15fe4f/original/bogachiel-30.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Then it happened. We were cruising along when I tripped, the weight of my pack driving me into the ground. I felt something in my back pop and it wasn’t a good sound or feeling. In moments, it was seizing up and I could not stand up straight. "Are you okay," he asked. "Of course I'm okay," I said, rifling through the first aid kit for ibuprofen. I popped a few, shouldered my pack and we continued on again. Walking was almost tolerable, but I knew once I took off the pack again it was going to be rough. We continued and Casey was a great distraction as he chatted on about the beauty surrounding us.<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/27a447993b5705accf410d0e9c3f5cd4bc16a3f9/original/bogachiel-5.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>After several more miles, we finally descended toward Deer Lake in the Sol Duc watershed and shortly before our arrival, we were greeted by one. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/909484e7301f1a96f52f2ea37342697e44fa2391/original/bogachiel-8.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/787fc0fa1c9461641d4658fb953b4639fc0cb2c7/original/bogachiel-25.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>After taking off my pack, I realized I couldn’t stand up straight, so I crawled around as I set up our tent for our last night. We were four miles from the car. After eating we retired early, and Casey asked if I was okay. “Of course I’m okay,” I replied, knowing nothing was going to stop us from finishing our trip. </p>
<p>The next morning was rough, but I was able to crawl around, throwing together some breakfast and coffee. It took quite an effort to get dressed, and packed up. I took more ibuprofen and carefully put on my pack. After a long moment, I could feel my body adjust to it, relieved we’d be able to hike the four miles down to the car. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/18a4bc9f1286dba529b83470d183472eddca542c/original/bogachiel-24.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>We made it back to the Sol Duc trailhead in the early afternoon, and I knew I had a hiking buddy for life. I told Casey I was proud of him. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/466ac52cc3fdc0c684319924fe4eb50b34f395e8/original/bogachiel-31.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Completing a 33 mile wilderness adventure at age six was a big deal. This remains to this day, one of my proudest moments as a father. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/90ecfc95e73185a11a4c6a67f3c3f4a51b81ee14/original/bogachiel-10.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/69083042022-05-02T20:44:04-07:002022-05-03T08:08:28-07:00 Natural Connections Lead to Real Curiosity<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/05d678ebfef7389b953dd6b33392a90539324218/original/27a9116c-73b7-46a6-ae15-581e6efa0aa8.jpeg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />Any teacher can attest to the fact that students have a lot to say about their education, and I have heard repeatedly from my high school students, that much of their frustration lies in being cooped up indoors listening to people like me talk. While I do recognize the importance of talking, especially when teaching an English class, I am sure at times I over-do it. I talk too much. Perhaps in my zeal, I encroach too much on their own literary experiences. </p>
<p>You get me going on an idea though, and boy can I talk. I get it. I know as a kid, when I was in school, I usually found myself wishing I was outside in the fresh air, going fishing, bike riding with friends, or just trouncing through the woods. I empathize with my students. School robs us of much of that critical alone time in nature that we need to forge our identities. </p>
<p>That said, my school has made concerted efforts over the years to get young people outside. We go up to Colonial Creek Campground every spring for a school hike, and in the past, we have taken our students on overnight excursions. </p>
<p>In fact, several years ago we took some students up to Baker Lake for a weekend field trip courtesy of a local environmental nonprofit. It sounded like a very promising weekend with lots of outdoor time for our kids. One of the caveats for free lodging and food was that our students (many of whom already lived in rural settings in Skagit Valley) would go on a guided hike with the leaders of this organization. This seemed like a great idea, but before our first day was over, we (meaning the teachers from my school plus an administrator) were informed that several of our students had been seen walking in the woods without permission. We talked with them and reminded them that we were guests and needed to be respectful of our hosts' wishes. </p>
<p>The next day was our hike and students were excited about this. They had listened patiently to a couple hours of slideshows and lectures about flora and fauna, and they were ready to break out. I will never forget the enthusiasm as we stepped out of the vans onto the East Bank trail. Some kids already knew of the massive trees, and glorious scenery that awaited them. After a morning spent indoors, they were ready to break out. </p>
<p>Starting down the trail, the mood was upbeat. Then, every couple of minutes our hosts stopped the hike to point out cool forest features. It was well-intended, but the mood quickly soured, nonetheless. A student complained that he just wanted to hike and move his body and was reprimanded for being disrespectful and loud. It quickly spiraled from there as a power struggle and a rebellion ensued. </p>
<p>Shortly after, we returned to the vans, flustered, and discouraged. We were later informed that we would not be invited back but I already knew it was not a good match. As well-meaning as they were, these teachers were not recognizing the needs of their audience. I believe the best way to inspire the love of the outdoors and curiosity is to just let kids "be" in nature. That was and is my approach as a father, and it seems to work well in terms of inspiring long-term passion for the outdoors as well as for developing lasting environmental ethics. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, in their zeal to prepare our students to fully experience nature, our hosts that weekend over-did it and missed a terrific opportunity to instill a deeper connection to the natural world by letting kids be free to experience nature on their own terms. </p>
<p> </p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/69595632022-04-28T19:43:48-07:002022-05-09T21:50:24-07:00Killing and Hunting<p>Sometimes our behavior and experience brings us into direct confrontation with our value systems and we're forced to make a choice. Here's another gem by Kurt Dunbar. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/88b4700d85b2634521de98b517bd04ef2c289dac/original/geese.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>“You are right about the poor badger. I blew him up. I left that out of the story because to this day I regret it and am ashamed. Killing an innocent creature for no reason is awful and I used to do it a lot.” </p>
<p>These were the words I wrote my little brother Kris after I sent him a story I had written about a memorable bird hunt we went on when we were kids. He didn’t need to remind me of the badger murder, I remember that all too well. </p>
<p>Pensive, I further replied to my brother with an abbreviated version of the following expanded stories. They are the lessons that taught me the difference between killing and hunting and what cured me of both. </p>
<p>____________________ </p>
<p>What stopped me killing things just to kill? </p>
<p>It was a tiny little gold finch. </p>
<p>I was camping out over the weekend by myself in the woods of Tahoe where I grew up. It was probably around my senior year in high school. I always took my Ruger 10-22 with me camping, not to hunt or for protection but because I loved that gun and enjoyed plinking. I practiced my aim shooting pinecones off of branches and taking aim at anything that moved, be it hapless squirrels or chipmunks or any of a variety of Sierra Nevada birds that filled the branches of the stately pines and shimmering aspens. </p>
<p>There was still a lot of light in the early mid-summer evening. Somewhere at the top of a tall ponderosa pine near my impromptu camp I heard a little bird singing its heart out. </p>
<p>I thought to myself that it was an impossible shot. I raised the rifle anyway and placed the cross-hairs more on the sound than anything else because it was so tiny and high up that I could barely see it even through the scope. I pulled the trigger and that lovely song stopped. A beautiful yellow bird plopped down right at my feet. I stood staring at it for a very long time. I felt deeply saddened. What had that little thing done to me other than fill the air with its happy melody? After that I still hunted but I never shot anything I didn't eat, ever again. </p>
<p>__________________________ </p>
<p>It would be quite a few years later when I stopped hunting altogether in, of all places, Alaska. </p>
<p>Two of my hunting and fishing buddies in Seward, Randy Knopik and Jim Daubney, decided to hire a float plane for a fly-in moose hunt and asked me to come along. I jumped at the opportunity. </p>
<p>We drove the one hundred and thirty miles from Seward to Anchorage and found our plane docked at Lake Hood, the largest float plane facility in the world. </p>
<p>We unloaded our gear from my blue Chevy pick-up and started stuffing the sleeping bags, a large tent, several boxes of food, and our rifles into the hold in the fuselage and the cargo area behind the back seat. Then, we crammed ourselves into the seats as the pilot turned over the aged engines of the De Havilland-Beaver. It sparked to life with a deafening roar that hurt your ears and bounced off your chest. I have flown in many a float plane over the years and there is nothing more nostalgic and reminiscent of Alaska to me than the distinctive, deep-bellowing sound and feel in the core of your body when a Beaver’s engines are fired up. I have heard that bikers get the same fond and comforting sensation from a Harley Davidson engine. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/eed6de210f2f7643020c50ff38f46f9ba8bd366a/original/plane.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>After leaving Anchorage behind us to the east we crossed the churning and muddy tidal channel of Knik Arm at the northern end of Cook Inlet. It was a fairly clear day and in the distance hundreds of miles to the north we could see the long sting of high peaks that comprised the Alaska Range, anchored farthest north by the gigantic imposing white dome of Mount McKinley, that name not yet officially changed to Denali. </p>
<p>The Susitna Delta was now spreading out before and below us to the west. We could see thousands and thousands of small lakes that dotted the confluence of several major drainages of the Alaska Range. These culminated in the massive delta of the largest of these, the Susitna River. We were going to be dropped off on one of those lakes. I know Randy and Jim had to be thinking the same thing as me, “how in the world will the pilot ever find us again in that watery maze? </p>
<p>The pilot shouted loudly over the engine, “That looks like a good one.” Landing a float plane is fairly easy, it’s finding a lake with enough room to build up the speed to take off that mattered most in picking a place to set down. The pilot said he knew of several novice “boneheads” who had landed on lakes too small who had to leave their craft as permanent monuments to inexperience and bad judgement. The pilot began a slow turn to the left coming about almost 180 degrees in the direction we had just come from. He throttled back the engine and began a steep descent. Soon the plane smoothly coasted to a landing on a long deep blue lake. The pilot taxied the sturdy Beaver to a small stretch of gravely beach by a small grassy clearing he thought might be a nice place to set up a camp. </p>
<p>We unloaded our gear and started to set up camp as the plane taxied off coating us with a fine mist from the backwash of the engine. Clear of us, the pilot gunned the engine to the maximum. The plane lurched ahead and scooted across the length of the lake aiming straight for the line of trees at the far end from us. Then, the faithful Beaver lifted off of the lake water streaming from its floats and easily cleared the stunted black spruce and tall cottonwoods on the far shore and was gone from sight. We could still hear its engine for several minutes until it finally faded in the distance. Quiet now, we set up the tent, stuffed our sleeping bags inside and cooked up something to eat before settling in early. We intended to get up at first light and make a full day of it. </p>
<p>It was light, but the sun hadn’t come yet when we all wormed out of our sleeping bags, poured out of the tent and got dressed. We ate some fruit and crackers but didn’t want to waste time starting a fire and cooking a hot breakfast. We were anxious to meet the moose out there waiting for us. </p>
<p>Jim had brought a rubber dinghy that barely fit the three of us safely. We all hopped in the tiny raft anyway and started paddling across the lake. Yesterday as we flew in we had seen what we thought might be prime moose country. In the direction across the lake from our camp were several smaller lakes and what looked like broad open glades. Our plan was to head in that general area. </p>
<p>Low puffy fog covered the lake in patches about ten or twenty feet high. We paddled in and out these patches as we headed across the lake. As we crossed the mirror calm surface between the open patches of fog the rising sun began to break the tree line. It illuminated the fog in a soft pink hue as if it was lit from within. That was pretty enough but we were completely knocked back by the next unexpected sight. A flock of five or six trumpeter swans came floating out of the pink billows like they were choreographed for a nature film. We stopped paddling and took in a few moments of sheer beauty until the swans disappeared into another patch of pink fog. </p>
<p>We spent that first full day mucking around and trudging over muskeg and through thick brush trying find a moose, but to no avail. With the sun starting to wane, we headed back to camp hungry, footsore, muddy, and tired but with our enthusiasm still intact. </p>
<p>Over the next two days between traipses beating the bush, we fished the lake we were camped on. It was filled with countless grayling that hit our lures with every cast. We ate our fill of these tasty little fish our entire time there. Grayling meat is white and sweet, not fishy at all. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/1f66b069cbf769e24e500e015ef2057fff4998a9/original/kurt-grayling.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Me with a grayling </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The fishing was great but our moose hunting was turning into something of a comedy of errors. </p>
<p>The second day, all of us stuck together most of the morning roaming the woods and marshes anxious to spot something. After we stopped and bolted down a quick lunch of sandwiches, we decided to split up thinking the chances of somebody seeing a moose would increase with three of us looking separately. We were breaking a cardinal rule of hunting, fishing, hiking or any activity in the wild. Never go it alone. </p>
<p>Soon we were out of sight from each other and following our own clues as to where we thought we might find our elusive quarry. I had no idea what I was doing. I had never hunted moose before. The wet terrain and triple canopy subarctic forest was completely alien to me compared to the much drier and sparser pine forests of the Sierra Nevada Mountains where I was raised. As a kid I had trudged over rocky, boulder strewn ridges chasing mule deer through knee-high sage brush and manzanita with my grandfather. But this country was so different. I was about to find out just how different and it would nearly cost me my life. </p>
<p>Not really knowing for sure where moose were to be found, I remembered a long-time Alaskan I worked with, George Zimmerman, say that moose liked the succulent plants along the shore of lakes and in shallow ponds. He had also said that they liked the plentiful vegetation of grassy openings. George bagged a moose every year so I figured he knew what he was talking about. Breaking out of the thick woods there was now a wide rich green opening in the forest in front of me probably a couple of hundred yards wide. </p>
<p>I started across the clearing and felt the soft green vegetation give way under my boots, like walking on a foam pad. As I walked a little farther there was a very subtle bounce and give to the ground, almost like walking on a trampoline. Several yards farther along there was a distinct roll and ripple to the ground, as if I was standing on a giant water bed. I could actually see the “ground” undulating like a wave. </p>
<p>This was getting really weird. I stopped, puzzled as to what to do. Should I keep going or trace my steps back? Looking down at my boots I noticed water was up to my ankles and it was steadily rising up my legs. At the same time the ground was actually sinking and to my horror I was sinking with it. Before I knew what was happening I was standing in the middle of a green crater with water now up to my waist. At this point I panicked but before I could react, the increasing weight of the water with me in it broke open a hole at bottom underneath my feet. I was now floundering and flailing around in a green watery trap! </p>
<p>I had already slung my rifle. My extended arms to each side was the only thing that kept me from falling through into certain death beneath me as the water was now almost up to my neck. Completely waterlogged, my struggle became even more desperate and I grasped at the sides of pit seizing handfuls of turf to slow my descent. Instinctively, I tried to spread my body out as best as I could so that the center of gravity was less concentrated at my feet; gravity that was slowly pulling me down into an abyss I was too terrified to even consider. </p>
<p>Inch by inch I started to crawl out of the bottom. Flat on my belly now I squirmed up the slope of the water filled crater. After what seemed like an eternity, I finally made it up to the rim and up to the flatter terrain of the meadow. On my hands and knees and dragging my rifle in the muck (amazingly I had managed to save my Ruger .338 magnum), I finally felt firmer ground beneath me. I leaned back on my elbows breathing heavily from sheer exhaustion, glad to be alive. I started shaking uncontrollably from the crash of massive amounts of adrenaline coursing through my body that kept me jittery all the way back to camp. </p>
<p>Later, sitting around the fire with roasting graying in several pans I told Randy and Jim about my escape from the green pit of doom. Randy roared with laughter. He was from Minnesota and he told me that what I had tried to walk across was called a floating bog. He shook his head and said, “Nobody in their right mind back home would ever try to walk across a floating bog” and added, “Hell, people disappear into those things and they never find their bodies.” A shudder ran up my back at the thought of it. </p>
<p>Our failed efforts thus far to find a moose had us frustrated and a little desperate. Even split by three, we had all spent a lot of money for this trip, which we hoped would be compensated with a winter’s supply of moose meat. </p>
<p>Good ideas sometimes spring from desperation, so do bad ones. </p>
<p>I don’t remember which one us came up with the scheme. Since nothing was working for us during the day, we all agreed to head out after dinner in the still pale light of the evening and park ourselves in ambush on a night hunt. We would paddle across the lake in the dinghy and wait until dark at the edge of big clearing on the other side for a moose to walk into our trap. Well, that was the plan anyway. </p>
<p>As we paddled across we heard a sound we had been hearing for days now only this time it was close. Though closer and louder, we still couldn’t figure out the source of that sound. It was like somebody on the shore had picked up a big rock and thrown it in the water with a sort gushing thump. Odd, but we shrugged it off in our excitement as we hit the shore, unloaded ourselves and our rifles from the raft and headed to our rendezvous with a big fat bull moose waiting for us to shoot it. </p>
<p>We settled into a nice spot that had a good view of a clearing just as it got dark. After a while, we started getting sleepy and decided to keep watch in shifts. One of us would keep an eye out for anything, while two of us would try to catch a little sleep. It was a moonless night and dark as pitch. There was a slight overcast so there was not even starlight for our eyes to adjust to. It was getting cold and a heavy dew was settling on us chilling us to the bone. We persisted in our rotating watches for several more hours until finally Jim exclaimed, “This is ridiculous, I am going back!” He said Randy and I could use the dinghy and that he would walk around the lake to get back to camp on the other side. Grumbling to himself, he disappeared into night as he headed off into brush towards camp. </p>
<p> After a while Randy said something that up to that point hadn’t occurred to any of us the whole hapless evening, “What if we do heard a moose?” He didn’t say “see.” I lifted my rifle up and looked down the barrel to align the sights. I couldn’t see the first sight yet alone the second sight at the end of the barrel. Feeling a little stupid and sheepish we both laughed at ourselves and said in unison, “Let’s get out of here.” </p>
<p>At the lake shore we found the dinghy, plopped into it and pushed away from shore with the paddles. We had paddled for only a minutes or so before we heard that plop in the water we had been hearing for days, but it was REALLY close. “What the hell is that,” Randy whispered. When it happened again right next to our little rubber island we nervously picked up the pace. </p>
<p>That lake like the night was jet black and both us had visions of a punctured raft and a cold watery death. For me, after the events of the pit of doom it was like a reoccurring nightmare. Splash! This time so close the ripples rocked the dinghy. Abandoning all calm we started paddling frantically, both us scared shitless. We flailed at the water like madmen, soaking ourselves in the process. Water was beginning to collect on the floor of the raft, which panicked us even further. I felt like my heart was going to leap out of my chest it was beating so hard from sheer terror. Several more slashes tormented us before finally reached the far shore. In the dark we tumbled out of the raft shaking with fear but laughing our asses off in nervous relief. </p>
<p>I thought Jim was going to pee himself he laughed so hard when we recounted the hair-raising story the next morning. Then, we all got a good laugh a little later when, as we were fishing for grayling on the shore of the lake in front of camp, a beaver casually paddled by right in front us and whacked his big flat tail on the water. THAT SOUND! All along, he had been whacking his tail on the water as a warning to us interlopers that this was his lake and that we were not welcome. </p>
<p>After three days of tracking and wildness hijinks we hadn’t seen any sign of moose, not a single hoof print or a pile of moose nugget scat to lend us the slightest hope of success. Time was running out. The float plane was going to pick us up early the next morning. All of us by now had pretty much resigned ourselves to having to brag about a really great fishing trip instead of a victorious moose hunt. </p>
<p>Latter in the day, Randy and I decided to make one more serious foray, hoping for the best but not really expecting much. </p>
<p>After beating a trail widely circling around the lake for several hours, we were ready to call it quits and pointed ourselves back towards camp. Then, we both spotted a brown hump just slightly above the tall grass on the other side of a broad glade. It was a hot, late summer day and we figured a moose had made a wallow to rest from the heat of the day and was laying in it with its tall back exposed. We were both certain it was a moose. It turned out we were right. </p>
<p>Bent in the hunter’s pose, we quietly crouched across the meadow, the safety on our guns off. We were both ready to raise and sight our rifles at any moment as we drew closer to the brown hump. Soon enough we would stir a big moose and get it to raise up so we could get a clear shot. The thrill of the hunt, the rush from the adrenaline jolt that all hunters crave was on us. But we had to be careful. We didn’t want to flush it too soon. Moose are much faster than they look. If it bolted towards the nearby forest edge into thick black spruce and scrub alder before we could draw a clear bead it would be gone for good. There would be no tracking anything is that tangle. </p>
<p> At first, Randy and I congratulated ourselves on our stealth. We both felt lucky that we had gotten this close and that it hadn’t yet detected our approach. As we got even closer it still didn't move. Things were beginning to feel odd. Something was wrong about this. </p>
<p>As we slowly and quietly reached the edge of the wallow we could clearly see the whole of the round matted area of grass where the moose lay as if sleeping. It took a few seconds to register and then Randy and I both gasped as we realized what we were looking at. The big bull was completely intact except for the gory gap at the top of its skull where its antlers should have been (the largest of any deer species). An impressive rack had no doubt crowned this magnificent animal. Now, it just lay there rotting, minus its antlers. It had been killed so recently that there was no detectible smell of putrid flesh or decay. Randy startled me when yelled, "FUCK!" I shook my head and muttered angrily, "Goddamned trophy hunters." Stunned, we both fell back on our asses in the grass and tried to process the despicable travesty and waste before us. After a while, we both glumly pulled ourselves together. Sickened and disgusted we silently trudged back to camp. </p>
<p>Something in me broke that day, maybe changed is a better word. Whatever it was, my heart was no longer in it and I knew that there would never again be joy in hunting for me. </p>
<p>It would be the last hunting trip of my life.</p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/69317942022-04-21T21:54:21-07:002022-04-23T11:03:23-07:00Over Our Heads<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/40115517b1dd361a1440ea84bc14a879ab1633b2/original/img-3410.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />Here's another excerpt from my upcoming memoir, <em>A River Knows My Name. </em>Sometimes in life you just have to believe that the way forward will only appear after you step out of your comfort zone. <em> </em>I hope you enjoy: </p>
<p>It was getting on toward evening now, and the late sun had lightened the sky a little, but dusk was not far off. We trudged along the darkening slope, broken continually by large rotting trees that now created often insurmountable obstacles due to the steep contour of the slope. Going up or down several hundred feet was exhausting and progress, slow. The day’s effort had taken its toll and I was nearing a state of exhaustion. We were a mile from the slide and as our tired legs worked their way over the uneven slope, light was growing ahead and before we even reached it, a dejection came over the group. In moments we were standing on the lip of another canyon, and this time there would be no crossing it as vertical rock fell from our feet to the floor of the canyon easily a hundred or more feet below. Even with fresh legs and lots of light, this looked impassable unless one was a mountain goat. Dixon pulled out the map and we sat down. The descending slope was so steep there was no feasible way we could see setting up even an emergency camp. “We gotta go down,” said Dixon studying the map. </p>
<p>“You sure about that?” </p>
<p>“No.” </p>
<p>“What about up?” </p>
<p>He pointed at the dark contour lines. The gorge only deepened and impassable cliffs lay above us. We slowly started picking our way down the slope. The sonorous roar of the river deep below us grew louder and as it did, the way became steeper. Eventually we could see a bead of white and blue water about a hundred feet below. On the rim of the canyon to our left flowed the creek that was blocking our way as it rushed down to meet the Klallam canyon below us. Down, down down we descended, ever so carefully finally stopping on a ledge at the intersection of the two canyons about thirty feet directly over the Klallam. The beach was littered with torn logs and jagged broken boulders. To downclimb to the river would take great care as one slip would send a person tumbling to his death. But there was no choice. I felt my heart beating in my throat. “I’ll go first,” said Seth. “Lower the packs down to me.” </p>
<p>“What about the dogs?” </p>
<p>“We’ll have to lower them too.” The dogs were subdued as if they sensed the gravity of the situation. They wagged and trembled on the ledge as Seth descended, using saplings, and hand holds as he down climbed toward the beach below. What seemed like an eternity later, he had made it and was looking up, laughing. “It’s not so bad,” he yelled. </p>
<p>We began tying the packs and lowering them down one by one to the canyon floor as he untied them and sent the rope back up. (The rope turned out to be a godsend and the reason we avoided catastrophe.) </p>
<p>Finally, it was time for the dogs and thank God he also brought a harness. We put the harness on Bert, and the dog whimpered as he sensed what was about to happen. Then, with the rope around a tree, Creed, Lane, and I held tight while Dixon pushed the terrified animal into space as he clawed wildly at the air, shrieking and whimpering. Immediately we loosened our grip as he slid a few feet below the ledge with nothing more to attach his paws to. Hanging there, the writhing animal tested our stamina on the rope, but we held firm and down he went foot by foot until Seth was able to hold him in space and set the grateful dog gently on the beach. “Good job!” He untied the rope and sent it back up. Trushka was next. It was all I could do to hold her and keep her from running after Bert. Somehow, we managed to get her in the harness before she could fall. She made the rest easy as she ran off the ledge and into space all on her own. Down she went all the way down into Seth’s arms. Now it was up to the rest of us to each get down to that beach without injury. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/4c0fb0b56e1433adab95d47feecbc9364e46982f/original/f434c365-e837-4be9-b345-a32d2e133d44.jpeg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>There is something about watching someone engaging in a hazardous activity like cliff climbing that makes it far more stressful than engaging in that same activity yourself. The rest of us descended one by one as Seth called out instructions about where to place feet and hands. It was absolutely nerve wracking, and the feeling we were entering a trap grew as the light from the sky faded. It was dusk with darkness coming fast when we were all finally on the beach together at the bottom of the Klallam canyon. We filled our water bottles and stared in awe at where we were. The canyon walls rose all around us and out from the canyon coming off Tst́iláalati spat a thundering creek. As we looked upstream from the intersections of the two canyons, our hearts sank. With the vertical canyon walls rising from the river, it disappeared in a darkening chasm ahead with no beach on either side. Dixon looked up from the map, then pointed to it. “About a quarter mile upstream there’s a flat area, see?” He pointed to the place he described on the map. </p>
<p>“Looks like we gotta wade the river.” But to even begin wading the river meant we had to first cross the whitewater stream gushing down from Tst́iláalati. The speed at which it fell into the river more than made up for its size in terms of the hazard of crossing. One slip could have immediate and potentially lethal consequences as we had landed on the only place there was a beach. Directly downstream below the confluence, the river fell out of sight into a foamy chasm of glistening black rock and boiling spray. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/6404f9b3a8a49302903267a9177e90346e53e005/original/70fea65a-d624-44a2-8226-8127e03a979c.jpeg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/69505112022-04-17T19:01:18-07:002023-12-10T09:09:26-08:00Crazy Ivan<p> </p>
<p>I wasn't far into the story before a familiar feeling of dread welled up in me. I knew that this hunting trip in the desert with Crazy Ivan was not going to go according to plan. I'm glad you survived to tell about it and see why it's so clearly etched into your brain. Thank you Kurt Dunbar for the wonderful read: </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/5123b72cdb6e9c1fec6b29d48afd74832a0e44ed/original/horse-pics.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>My mother worked as a waitress in the showroom at Harrah’s Casino in Lake Tahoe. Occasionally, we would meet her co-workers who came over for dinner or to the many BBQs they hosted in our big pine strewn back lot of a yard. </p>
<p>One memorable character was a Hungarian expat, a refugee from the failed 1956 revolt against the Soviets. Loud and larger than life, Ivan drank too much and never stopped talking. His thick Magyar accent only got thicker the drunker he got. My folks, both casino workers, were partiers and drinkers themselves and seemed indifferent to their drinker friends’ antics, including and perhaps especially Ivan. My brothers and sisters all got a kick out of the guy and loved his visits. </p>
<p>One Friday, Ivan showed up at our house. After talking to my mom for a few minutes she said, “Who wants to go hunting with Ivan for the weekend?” My brothers and I all looked at each other and almost in unison said, “I do!” </p>
<p>Apparently, they had struck a deal. Ivan could borrow our trusty four-wheel-drive International pick-up IF he took us. I don’t know how happy he was that all of us brothers had thrown in to go but if he objected or was disappointed he didn’t show it. My mom said to grab our sleeping bags and some food from the kitchen. We raided the refrigerator for some apples and the cupboard for a couple of cans of stew and chili and, serendipity, a bag of marshmallows! </p>
<p>Ivan had fewer provisions: a can of beans and a package of hotdogs. A wool blanket was the extent of his camping gear. No tent. </p>
<p>What Ivan did have was a beautiful Italian-made automatic 12 gauge shotgun. I had never seen such a fine gun in my life. All of the guns I was familiar with were run of the mill (literally) shotguns and rifles that were scarred, scored and worn from age and frequent use; serviceable but not showy. Ivan’s gun was a work of art by comparison. The blued metal, which looked like oil on water was etched with fancy scroll work and intricate swirls of oak leaves and acorns. The butt had a layer of inlaid ivory between the thin green felt layers of padding. The tip of the barrel had a tiny bright red glass bead for a sight. </p>
<p>We only had one shotgun, a beat up and weathered side-by-side double barreled Stevens 12 gauge. Loaded with rifle slugs instead of shot, many times I had hauled that thing up mountainsides, along ridges and through the woods hunting deer with my grandfather. I had a love-hate relationship with that gun but it was all we had between the three of us brothers. Kris was too small, probably seven or eight, to handle it anyway. My brother Karl and I would have to switch off and share it. </p>
<p>We packed everything into the bed of the International and headed off with all four of us stuffed into the cab. </p>
<p>It was later in the afternoon and Ivan gunned the truck down the road at break neck maximum trying get some distance before it got dark. I don’t know why he was in such a hurry because he never stopped that night. To this day I am not sure where we going or where we ended up. All I remember is that the sun was setting when we passed through Reno and all of its bright neon casino lights. From there I am not sure if we went north or west. I had no frame of reference because I had never been north or west of Reno before. </p>
<p>I stayed awake most of that night too. At first it was from excitement and a sense of adventure but later it was from dash-gripping terror. Ivan was not only a speeder, he had some sort of grisly vendetta against rabbits. Every time he would spot a jack rabbit in the headlights ahead on the road or even on the gravel shoulder he would swerve to run it over. A couple of times we fishtailed dangerously throwing up dust and pebble in our wake as he tried to plow down some hapless hare on the edge of the road. Crazy Ivan my brothers and I started to call him, quietly and among ourselves of course. </p>
<p> It was a frightening and exhausting night and we were all glad when the dawning light stated to illuminate the desert sky. After it was fully light, Ivan, almost certainly at randomly, turned off a narrow dirt road and plunged the truck deeper into the sprawling country-side of tall sage. To our relief he had to slow down quite a bit to negotiate an occasional washout, pothole or a rock in the road. Still, he was pushing our sturdy pick-up to the limit as we bumped and jerked our way down that dusty track. I was certain that something was going to break before too long, though it never did. That International could take a beating. It would be our first vehicle in Alaska many years later after my step-dad used it to haul a large camp trailer up the Alcan Highway to Seward, Alaska during the heyday of the oil boom and pipeline construction. </p>
<p>We drove for hours until Ivan seemed satisfied with the country and started searching for a suitable place to stop and set up camp. He settled for a nice but small patch of grass next to a little mountain brook. </p>
<p>It was enough of a haven to park the truck and lay out four sleeping spots for the night. I figured it was probably around noon by the time we had finished unloading the truck and laying out our sleeping bags on sage and grass mats. We even built a lean-to of willow boughs and a tarp we found that had already been in the truck. Combined with a couple of large rocks as primitive tables this set-up served as our improvised camp kitchen. It was starting to get hot as the morning progressed into the early afternoon. This plus being overheated from setting up camp and lack of sleep us boys were ready for a rest and maybe even a nap. As I prepared to bed down for a while Ivan announced that we were going hunting, now. My experience told me that you don’t hike, hunt or beat around on foot in desert country in the prime heat of the day. Had this guy never been in the desert? Clearly a rhetorical question. </p>
<p>My brother Karl and I filled our Boy Scout canteens in the cold steam and handed them to Kris. Too little to hump the gun around, he was going to be the water boy. Ivan of course didn’t have a canteen so he used an old green Coca Cola bottle that he found under the seat of the truck. He filled it in the creek and stuck it in the back pocket of his denim jeans. I grabbed the shotgun and a pocket full of shells as we headed out into the bright day and glaring heat. </p>
<p>We were looking primarily for chukar. Sometimes referred to as partridge, this little game bird is actually part of the pheasant family of birds. It is similar in size to a quail. Like the golden pheasant (introduced from China), chukar has been introduced from its range in the Middle East and South Asia to the American west by elite bird hunters. They had flourished. Nevada was teeming with them or so Ivan had been told. </p>
<p>Not following the dirt road or even a rough game trail, Ivan led us across country, hill and ridge into one thicket of sage and willow after another hoping to flush the birds out of their mid-day repose. Unlike the mad Hungarian ahead of us, chukar knew enough to stay out of heat of the afternoon. He would occasionally lean down and scoop up a rock or stick and throw it ahead of him into the brush shotgun posed at the ready to bag a feathered prize as it took flight. </p>
<p>After an hour or so of this fruitless routine my brothers and I were hot and sweaty, dog-tired, and hungry. We glowering and brooded with the impatience of young boys. We hadn’t seen so much as feather. </p>
<p>In Ivan’s mania to shoot some birds, the last thing he wanted was to drag around three sullen red-faced boys. “Go back to camp,” he said. He didn’t have to say that twice. </p>
<p>I think more than anything, we were worn down by Ivan’s frenetic pace. He didn’t walk as much he speed-walked, interspersed with a full jog at times. In the heat, I don’t know how he did it. He hadn’t slept or eaten either but it didn’t seem to affect him in the least. I don’t even recall him sweating. </p>
<p>Once parted from the mad Hungarian we slowed our pace for the first time since we had left camp. We paused to rest occasionally, sip some water, and take in the desert quiet and solitude. The sky was so blue it hurt your eyes. In several directions giant behemoths of rolling thunderheads towered high into the stratosphere. We could even see far off, gray cloudbursts falling from their flat undersides to the desert floor. Flash flood country I thought to myself. </p>
<p>Once we cooled off a bit, we decided to not go directly back to camp. Pretty much giving up shooting anything, we explored a few canyons and arroyos while meandering our way back to camp. </p>
<p>We walked out of a narrow rocky canyon that opened up into a somewhat broader canyon, almost a valley. Out sneakers kicked up dark orange dust as we walked among the endless clumps of sagebrush. It was beautiful country. Then all of us at once heard it. No clouds were near us but it sounded a lot like thunder, and pretty close at that. But the sound was constant, getting louder and it seemed to be getting closer. Thunder doesn’t do that. </p>
<p>Then, far down the canyon we spotted a dust cloud. The dust cloud was getting bigger and the thunderous roar louder by the second. It looked like the old photos I had seen in school when we studied the Dust Bowl. I remembered because I thought it cool that the Okies and Dokies called them black blizzards; massive dust storms. But the sight down that canyon was smaller and moving really fast. And that roar! It was heading straight for us. We stood transfixed. Then we spotted movement in the swirling tumult of the dust cloud. </p>
<p>Horses!? </p>
<p>It was a herd of mustangs, and a fairly large one at that. Still heading in a beeline right towards us we began to make out more and more moving shapes in the dust as the living maelstrom approached us. It was too late to run for cover or high ground so we huddled together as tight as possible with little Kris between Karl and I. The noise now was deafening and we could feel the earth tremble beneath our feet. </p>
<p>It had been my turn to carry the shotgun so as we crowded together I raised the gun into the air almost vertically. Just as it seemed the herd was going to bowl over us and trample us under their hoofs I fired both barrels in quick succession. The din from the herd around us was so loud that I only knew the gun had gone off by the jerk of the recoil. I never heard the report of those blasts and neither I am certain did the mustangs. </p>
<p>Just as the wild horses were on us and our doom seemed assured, the herd parted and went around us close on each side, but never close enough to harm anything except our nerves. Before the dust even settled, the dozens of horses were around us and gone out of sight taking the thunder with them around the bend at other end of the canyon. We were covering with a thick rusty colored coating from head to toe. We patted the canyon floor off of our clothes and out of our hair as we laughed hysterically at having dodged certain death. </p>
<p>It seems like a dream as I write of it over fifty years later, one those incredible random moments that will forever remain seared into my memory. </p>
<p>By the way, we never did bag any chukar, much to Ivan’s disappointment. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/b882e175b7b4f72b5ed6d304d3e611ab7b892d92/original/picture3.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /> </p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/69478792022-04-13T20:44:31-07:002022-04-18T06:17:20-07:00One Last Look<p> </p>
<p>The following story is a great reminder to always look back (unless you're running for your life I suppose). You never know what you might otherwise miss. Thanks to Beth Redman for submitting this: <span class="font_small"> </span></p>
<p><span class="font_small"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/ea4a7e13e9c3885d0909f2a8174af03ee3072b50/original/mammal-whalegray-closeupsnout-depoebayoregon-april2nd2022-330pm-stevendredman.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></span></p>
<p>I hiked the estuary loop at Sitka Sedge today. They had fixed the trail that had been closed since last fall, and I am happy it is now open. I hung out at the bench at the estuary, watching for possible eagles. A young eagle, a juvenile but old enough to have a white head, had got real close to me the year before at that same spot. Then I hiked onward to the beach. </p>
<p>Feeling light and happy I found a nice log just within the dunes watching the waves, hoping I might catch a glimpse of the migrating gray whales on their journey northward. Before long, it was time to go. I started hiking out, before my intuition told me I should take one last look at the ocean. I took off my pack and set it down in the sand.</p>
<p> <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/f0664b3c3fce5ffcab163b30abe72cd53868c65e/original/mammal-graywhale-2-sdredman-depoebayor-4-2-2022.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /> </p>
<p>I was immensely rewarded to see the blow of a whale! Getting out binoculars, I kept looking. Then I saw more gray whales in the same location! I confirmed these were indeed whales, at least two, as I was lucky enough to see the fins! </p>
<p>I will always remember to take one last look whenever I return to this magical spot.</p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/69441772022-04-08T13:29:19-07:002022-04-12T06:12:51-07:00Trip to Neah Bay<p>My kids and I camped for two nights at Hobuck Beach, where the wind howled nonstop. The beaches were empty, and beside a few dogs making the rounds, there was not a whole lot of activity. In other words, it was perfect. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/088093c7e3f2471dd77e087d054b5b23d9ba5af0/original/flattery-15.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />Gazing southward through the mist at the ghostly spires past Shi Shi Beach known as Point of Arches, I felt the subtle yearning for a full pack and three or four days to wander those desolate beaches south to the Ozette River or beyond. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/e45f83c7eb5187d3f6998dd637a1c1b1e65e0556/original/flattery-17.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /> </p>
<p>Gazing Northward from Cape Flattery, Vancouver Island was a blue dreamscape seems to stretch infinitely to the edge of the earth. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/856b2dab8f9c8c971869322522f5786c4cec56b9/original/flattery-4.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/dd93f426bc0daca345f18bb71b5e980c738f5346/original/flattery-5.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>We explored the area, played some music around the fire, and did a little fly fishing off the jetty. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/983047cb3948e072cf24fccec1b2bf3b58e0c943/original/flattery-23.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/87308ba7b3b8987702d3ec88c08d279edab0cb53/original/flattery-20.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/3ebf0e9de3c75c856eae8ca0b11e6ebd7e2c53b8/original/flattery-19.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Casey caught a beautiful rockfish we added to our dinner. I cannot adequately express my gratitude to the Makah People and how they welcome us whenever we visit their their sacred lands. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/6b211c7b66e3506e5e71d4f51b23d51d8fd81bcf/original/flattery-1.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/91d6c52cea92a5470405355f131e78bba9076cdf/original/flattery-16.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/0562d02ddd60dcfce633a3113cc0fbd428f6c5b3/original/flattery-3.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/ab3646e5d64e290d65871c7bccc82d513d2e4136/original/flattery-6.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/9ff3c28cb5cf99b9bd7382acbb5bca7cf6cfa893/original/flattery-9.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/29a70ea9f5da58907e1b02286fcb7e5ca1198955/original/flattery-2.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>It was a privilege to visit this special place, and something I will always cherish. </p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/69390692022-04-03T09:53:28-07:002022-04-03T18:43:37-07:00Springtime Gratitude<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/f2510824f11a12fcd331fd232b251c26164566cf/original/kili-on-top.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>As I come into the spring of 2022, I am grateful. My life is much different than it was four years ago, with changes I could not possibly have imagined. Yet, here I am with a heart full of gratitude as I reflect upon the many blessings in my life. </p>
<p>I have three of the most beautiful kids a father could ever want, and I could never find words adequate to describe what they mean to me. I get to play music with these same people, who have grown into incredible musicians and singers in their own right. I have a wonderful dog and a couple of silly cats. I have a peaceful life in the country, a meaningful job with great coworkers, and I know the riches of friendship. I often wake up to the sound of Canadian geese, and always to the song of the Nooksack. Just a few minutes ago, there was a heron outside my window, staring at me. Yes, I am rich. </p>
<p>I’m also very fortunate to live close to the foothills where I can walk almost daily in solitude with my dog. In some ways, this place might not seem that special—a logging road that bears the generational scars of overcutting, but it’s special to me in that I’m able to embrace a measure of solitude if even for a brief moment almost daily. It’s a place that I have come to know on a very intimate basis. Sometimes when I have my daughter, we go together, other times I might go with a friend, but most often, I’m by myself. The road ascends along a gushing creek for a mile or so before climbing steeply through both forest and clear cut. Sometimes I climb high, but most often due to time constraints, I only go for a couple of miles before turning back. Every season there has its magic, and the view down the Nooksack toward the lowlands of Whatcom County is astonishing, the higher you go. Whether I’m walking through sheets of driving rain, or climbing in shorts and a t-shirt, it’s always beautiful in its own way. I've seen some of the most incredible sunsets and have been up there in the dead of night. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/d8d894d85cd73b9c2fbfdd16bbcc2f4e38ed4942/original/nooksack-sunset.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>I do a lot of thinking when I’m out there pushing up the hill. I’ve also seen lots of wildlife, too. Deer, opossums, cougar, and bear are among the animals that have crossed my path. I once felt my very life depended on those uphill rides and climbs, but not so much anymore. I've found the rhythm of walking to be a healing act. Nature is a powerful medicine. </p>
<p>My wish for you this spring is that you relish as I do, the simple joy of walking, the treasure of family, the wondrous songs of returning birds, and the first trembling green shoots of new life bursting forth from the earth. </p>
<p>I have gratitude for you, and am richer for the stories you have shared with me. I hope they continue. May this time of year be a time of renewal for you and may peace prevail on Earth. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/7b4562bf93d7b77ab28429748ce80b59b3f86a3c/original/spring-nooksack-valley.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/69377982022-04-01T05:48:56-07:002022-04-01T13:24:15-07:00The Trees - Superior Court Judge John M. Wilson 1868-1962<p>Thank you Derek for this poem by your great grandfather. This is so rich and stirring:</p>
<p>.<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/83120c3b85809138f6f5c2dac45af7ed83f42a51/original/judge-john-m-wilson-1918.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>The Trees (circa 1919, Olympia) </p>
<p>I live in a land of trees, </p>
<p>And it is as much agony </p>
<p>As joy </p>
<p>To live there. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>For though the trees are mighty, </p>
<p>Crowned with their evergreen chaplets of the centuries, </p>
<p>Yet they are helpless </p>
<p>Against indifference and carelessness. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>For men with rat-like natures </p>
<p>Gnaw constantly at their strongholds, </p>
<p>The forests;</p>
<p>Those forests, </p>
<p>That should be flourishing </p>
<p>For our children’s children </p>
<p>Now lie prostrate </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Gnawed by the rat-teeth of saw and axe— </p>
<p>Eaten alive </p>
<p>By the insidiously creeping red rats of fire— </p>
<p>A horde let loose </p>
<p>By our generation’s carelessness and indifference. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>O trees— </p>
<p>My soul shrinks back in agony and remorse </p>
<p>Into your dim, pleading shadows.</p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/69348102022-03-29T05:47:49-07:002022-03-29T08:02:10-07:00A Lesson in Simplicity <p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/281219c7b58e840a2c975fbc592825f4425764c9/original/buddhist-monestary.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Thanks to Derek Platt for this gem. This is a stirring reminder of life's richness and potential when we set off on a journey with an open heart: </p>
<p>A number of years ago, I embarked on a solo bicycle trip crossing Sumatra through Indonesia to Bali and then from Singapore to northern Thailand. During the Thai leg of my journey, I stayed in Buddhist monasteries whenever possible, partly because I found them unbelievably friendly and accepting, but also because they had beautiful compounds with Buddhist gardens that allowed me a base to camp. </p>
<p>At the apex of my journey in Thailand and the Golden Triangle in a town called Chiang Dao, I stayed at one of these monasteries. As had become standard, these gentle souls in their saffron robes welcomed me into their world and showed me to the Buddhist garden in which I could camp. All this verbal communication happened through the only English speaker among them, a monk named Thanongsak. Every utterance from this humble man was accompanied by a large smile. He wore heavy rimmed glasses, and I discovered very quickly they had no lenses—merely rims. My thought was that he had been there for quite a while in relative isolation and had become a bit, shall we say, “eccentric.” </p>
<p>My plan at this apex of my trip was to stay there for several days which would allow me time to climb Mount Chiang Dao and then head back to my then current home in Taiwan. </p>
<p>Each morning, as I awoke, I would hear the laughing of the small novices who were learning to become monks, and over their carrying on, I could hear Thanongsak saying, “Mr. Derek, coffee, coffee!” And down the hill he would come to my tent as I stuck my sleepy head out to see him in the small sea of grinning novices, holding high a Thai pewter cup filled with coffee. This was nothing I had asked for, mind you, and I knew that they got up at the crack of dawn and had responsibilities to circulate in the community to gather alms to support their monastery. Still, he had thought to get some coffee for me as well. </p>
<p>On the second day of my stay, I climbed to the top of Mount Chiang Dao, surviving untold assaults by clouds of insects. On the third day, it was time for me to depart. Thanongsak mentioned he would like to present me with a Buddhist string talisman of sorts and would tie it on my wrist for me with the lucky knot. As he smiled and tied it on to my wrist, I just had to ask him about those glasses, “Thanongsak, I just have to ask you about your glasses—they have no lenses.” </p>
<p>He beamed at me, raised his hands up and out from his sides and said, “Oh yes, I know, but you know, when I wear these, I am happy!” </p>
<p>Two revelatory thoughts occurred to me then. One was humbling in that I realized I was bringing my own judgmental view toward anyone that would wear glasses like that; a Western view that perhaps he was a little loopy. The other thought was that if something so simple worked for him, what was wrong with that? And damn, I wanted a pair of those glasses!</p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/69333102022-03-27T11:27:33-07:002022-04-18T23:04:52-07:00Nibi: Spirit of the Water<p>Thanks to my niece Bridgid Roney for sharing this story of her encounter with an ancient water spirit. Read on:</p>
<p>Years ago, I carried my infant down a secret forest path from the cliffs of Tulalip down to the bay. In those days, I had no money, no car and nothing much to do but wander the rocky shore. I used to approach this trail with hungry eyes, resenting the fact I was stuck there, yet intrigued that I had landed in such a magical place. Last week I revisited this place. My life is much different now. I have a full belly, healthy children, and a car with a full tank of gas. As I approached the sea, I felt as if I was coming to meet an old friend, in a ceremony of acknowledgement and respect. </p>
<p>I sat on one of the many inviting driftwood logs and stared out at calm waters, the peninsula in the distance, fluffy clouds, and soaring eagles. It was good to be back: strong, healthy and appreciative. Breathing deeply and taking it all in, I became aware of a large, towering figure in my mind's eye. A vibrant grandmother sort of being, rooted in the Puget Sound, her head 100 feet into the sky. </p>
<p>I saw her, she saw me. I heard a deep melody coming from her and I was humbled. A singer myself, I attempted to parrot back her song. Doing so gave me a strange feeling.... a bit like an accidental trespassing. She didn't seem pleased or encouraging of it. So, I stopped and contemplated. I asked for guidance on how to respond. The grandmother stood with patience. I don't know where it came from- but I suspect it was my own guiding musical spirit who gave me a higher song, completely different from the one I had just heard. I was called to pick up two rocks from the beach (I had asked for rocks to bring home before, but never felt permission to take them). I clicked the rocks together in a cheerful rhythm while singing the higher song I had just heard. The grandmother seemed to smile down at me and sway gently. When I was done, I felt that I had begun something of a mutual relationship with an eternal being. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/678a531f0614b208e3e4c0c6825f0c1142448857/original/spirit-of-the-water.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>I told an Indigenous friend about this experience, and she said, "Oh you met Nibi!" Nibi is the feminine spirit of water. I hadn't learned about her before. I then recounted to her that I heard her song and had difficulty singing it back. She didn't seem troubled about it- she told me it's customary for different tribes to greet each other in their own language, but not to use the language of the person they are greeting. So Nibi wanted me to sing my own song, I thought. </p>
<p>After a lifetime of grueling work to prove myself worthy of a grade, a job, a friendship, a seat at the table, respect for my very being- it’s much simpler now. Nibi wanted to hear my song. I didn't come to her with everything figured out- I'm not done with the trials of raising children, making a life with my partner, and honing my contributions to the world. But I did come to her with something I hadn't before- a calm sense of myself and enough serenity to be still and listen with gratitude. It wasn't until I approached the water in this way, that I could see this gorgeous ancient being who is so powerful and generous. Now that I know she is there, I will have a lifetime of devotion, lessons, and nourishment to share. And I know that my unique voice means something, however small it feels at times. Nibi likes it.</p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/69273112022-03-25T06:08:26-07:002022-03-25T10:55:39-07:00Raven Bait<p>Again, thanks to Kurt Dunbar. for this exceptional story! Ravens are truly wondrous birds, so full of mischief, and mystery. Read on: </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Certain days just come together in an unpredictable and magical pattern. We all have them and they are all golden. </p>
<p>I had lot of them in Alaska but some were more “golden” than others. </p>
<p>Such a day was in store for me as the Ryndam steamed up Lynn Canal from Juneau. It was mid-August, bright, sunny and hot for Alaska, probably in the low to mid-70s. The sky was crystal clear and azure blue, a rarity for Southeast Alaska with its endemic rain, coastal fog and constant marine haze. Even on the water as we sailed north the air felt dry. It was as summer-like as summer ever gets in this region. Weather-wise, it was a perfect day. </p>
<p>Autumn comes early in the northland. Having lived in Alaska for many years, I sensed the slight feel to the air that hinted at summer’s wane. The long days of solstice and the slant of the intense mid-summer sunlight had shifted ever so slightly in the past few weeks. The change of the seasons was literally in the air. </p>
<p>Near the end Lynn Canal, one of the longest and certifiably the deepest fjords in Alaska, was the ship’s destination for the day, Haines, Alaska. Picturesque and surrounded by stunning coastal mountains to the west and the starkly beautiful Chilkat Range to the East, the town of Haines had sprung up around the time of the Klondike Gold Rush being a terminus of the Dalton Trail (today the Dalton Highway), which connected the interior Alaska and the Yukon to the Inside Passage of Southeast Alaska. </p>
<p>Just as the frenzy of the Klondike Rush began to wind down, Haines found itself a focal point in a growing political crisis between Canada and the United States. The boundary between Alaska and Canada had always been somewhat vague and undetermined. For hundreds of miles the border stretched along from highest peak to highest peaks in the remote coastal mountains of Southeast Alaska and the Fairweather Range. When Canada and its protector Great Britain made serious overtures to claim disputed areas in these areas the United States reacted with the “Big Stick.” The US Army was ordered to build Fort William H. Seward in Haines and station a garrison there. In typical fashion, Theodore Roosevelt was essentially daring the antagonists to, “come and take it.” The crisis passed when an international tribunal of arbitration settled the conflicting claims in favor of the United States. Before long, having no real purpose, the facility was decommissioned and largely abandoned. After many years the well-built and stately houses quartering officers and soldiers were restored as a historic site as was the large grassy parade ground. Many of them are bed and breakfast establishments today. </p>
<p>Haines had an adequate Alaska Marine Highway dock for the state ferries that transited up and down Lynn Canal but it was inconveniently far from downtown if you didn’t have a car. Haines residents after passing a weighty capital infrastructure bond had recently built an impressive new dock closer to town, which extended far enough out into the water to accommodate large cruise ships. The voters, civic leaders, businesses interests, and local tour operators gambled that the new dock would sway the cruise lines to make Haines a destination for their floating hotels and free-spending clientele. </p>
<p>Enjoying some coffee in the forward observation lounge I could see that Haines and its new dock were now coming into sight. I knew it would still be a while before ship slowed enough to align itself to dock. So I relaxed and enjoyed some more coffee.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/cea6158f08658c2837e74e86c5428ea47f028f89/original/ms-ryndam.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> MS Ryndam at dock in Haines, Alaska </p>
<p>Once the thrusters had nudged the Ryndam sideways to the concrete pier the deck crew and longshoremen went to work securing the lines. With the docking complete, the rush for the gangway commenced. My habit was usually to hold off going ashore for a while to avoid this ensuing stampede. In every port it was the same. A thundering herd of hundreds of passengers scrambling towards the gangway anxious to get ashore to catch their tours or buy the made-in-China genuine Alaska souvenirs stocked to the brim in the local shops. </p>
<p>While the paying customers emptied out of their staterooms and restaurants to head ashore, this was usually my signal to hit one of the perpetual buffets (sans lines) to grab a bite to eat, purloin an apple or a banana and some cookies to slip into my daypack and wait for the crowd to thin out. </p>
<p>Today however, I wanted to get ashore and extract as much out of this beautiful day as possible. Knowing better, I soon found myself in a cramped stairwell jostling and shoving my mountain bike ahead of me. I plowed down through the teeming mass of passengers all jockeying for access to the gangway on the lower deck. Crew were supposed to let passengers get off of the ship first. I could get in trouble for this stunt but such was my mania get off the ship with rest of the horde. </p>
<p>I had bought a few Jägermeisters (awful stuff) in the OB for the security officer checking everybody off at the gangway. I stepped up to the check station hoping he remembered me as I flashed my crew ID at him. He looked at me sideways, smirked and gestured towards shore. Haines here I come! I mounted my bike while still on the dock and let fly. I peddled towards town as I dodged and weaved through those who had disgorged from the ship ahead of me. </p>
<p>I liked Haines. I had been here before many years before. In 1980, Patti, the girls and me had driven our little brown Subaru 900 miles from Seward in the middle of winter to catch the Alaska ferry to Seattle (the southern terminus has been in Bellingham, Washington since 1989). </p>
<p>Haines reminded me a little of Seward and was about the same size in population at roughly 2000 people. Rustic and weathered, it had not yet transformed itself to accommodate the cruise trade as had Juneau and most garishly Ketchikan. Its simple store fronts, plain shops interspersed with the ubiquitous bars and taverns would no doubt soon be replaced by souvenir shops, espresso stands, fancy restaurants, taprooms and craft brew pubs if the town’s planners turn their hopes of being a cruise ship destination into reality. Nothing against Haines but I hope that doesn’t ever happen. </p>
<p>I had heard about a new wildlife center that had opened in Haines recently, the American Bald Eagle Foundation. I was curious to see what it was all about. It had come about as yet another local attempt to attract and “pluck’ the anticipated flood of visitors from the cruise ships. </p>
<p>I peddled the mile or so to the site of this attraction and parked my bike outside the large handsome log-style structure. I paid the admission fee and as I walked into the spacious lobby I was immediately disappointed, stuffed animals were displayed everywhere. Bald eagles, golden eagles, ospreys, and an assortment of hawks, and a ptarmigan (the Alaska State bird) all hung frozen in flight from wires bolted into the cedar ceiling beams. Along the walls were various dioramas. There were puffins, murres and other seabirds on fake rocky seascapes and equally fabricated forest scenes showing an arctic potpourri of caribou, moose, lynx and Alaska’s three bear species (polar, brown/grizzly, black) all lifelessly staring back at me with dull glass eyes. </p>
<p>But for a few other hapless humans who had been skinned (pun intended) out of ten bucks (no pun intended) there was not a living creature in the place except the buzzing black-flies on the inside of the large plate glass windows. </p>
<p>I had seen enough. I exited the depressing taxidermy exhibit just as two buses packed with cruise ship passengers pulled into the dirt parking lot in a cloud of dust. I wonder to this day how anybody could go all the way to Alaska and then pay to see stuffed wildlife. It seemed terribly ironic and not a little comical to me. </p>
<p>My brush with musty faux nature had taken the edge off of my enthusiasm and I needed that bike ride in the fresh air and sunlight more than ever. Nevertheless, I was so close to town and I decided to check that out first and save the bike trek for the afternoon. I was glad that I did. </p>
<p>I skipped the Hammer Museum (yes, a museum full of hammers-I swear!) and headed to the Sheldon Museum and Heritage Center. </p>
<p>I love small town museums. The docent volunteers are always friendly, extremely knowledgeable about the local history and are anxious to tell you all about it. As a historian I mean it when I say that they are my heroes. </p>
<p>I was not disappointed this time. </p>
<p>Sadly and not uncommonly I had the place to myself and the woman who was attending to visitors that day gushed with enthusiasm as she shared her stories about local history and interesting details of Tlingit native culture. It was charming and refreshing to see someone so unabashedly proud and willing to tell you about their hometown. No ambassador of goodwill ever represented a town to visitors more enthusiastically. </p>
<p>Getting ready to go on my way the docent noticed the Holland American Line logo on my ball cap and asked if I was from the ship. I told her that I was the ship’s naturalist. Excitedly she gave me a stack of rack cards all about the museum and asked me if I would distribute them onboard and maybe even encourage passengers to visit the museum. I assured her that I would and stuffed them into my day-back. She then reached into a box near the register of the tiny gift area and grabbed something. She walked over and handed me a rock about the size of a golf ball but it was much heavier. She said, “That is a piece of magnetite from the area and it is fairly rare. I hope it reminds you of your visit to Haines.” It frequently does as it sits on the bookshelf above my desk at school. </p>
<p>It was time to hit the trail I been itching for since I had left the ship. </p>
<p>From maps I had aboard I had plotted an adventure over to Mud Bay, a long shallow tidal inlet (thus the name) that roughly paralleled Lynn Canal. On the map it looked like a couple of easy miles. However, I soon discovered a ridge separated the two bodies of water, a very steep ridge. It was not so bad getting to the top of the paved road that wound down to the water. Frequently touching my rear brakes ever so lightly I coasted all the way to the shore of the bay. It was going to be a helluva pump back up that road. I’d worry about that later, right now I was ready to do some beach mountain biking. </p>
<p>At first, I found a stretch of hard black silt exposed by the low tide that was almost like riding on a sidewalk. With that wonderful funky scent of low tide filling my nostrils and the sun on my face I tooled along on that for a mile or so until it turned into course gravel mixed with small rocks. </p>
<p>It was still fairly easy going for another mile or two and then came the soft gray sand that had dried out during low tide. Soft sand was not good for biking, not even with big fat mountain bike tires. It soon felt like I was peddling with both front and back brakes clamped down. A few hundred more yards of this and my lungs started to ache from the exertion. A profusion of sweat was stinging my eyes and my T-shirt was completely soaked. My faithful pony finally stopped cold as if seized in a vice. I maintained balance for a few seconds and then let the bike tip over as I crashed harmlessly onto the soft warm sand. It felt nice to just lay where I fell until my lungs recovered a bit and I started to cool down. </p>
<p>I looked up from the beach and a few dozen feet away I spotted a huge flat boulder of smooth gray-black shale. A perfect spot to rest. I literally crawled on hands and knees in the sand and curled up on the massive rock. The surface was comfortably warm having absorbed the afternoon sun. Exhausted, I feel asleep instantly. It was probably one the best and most refreshing naps I have ever had. </p>
<p>And without a doubt the most surprising awakening. </p>
<p>Warm and cozy from the heat of the stone, I was stirred to consciousness by a shadow that cooled my face. I struggled to brush away the heavy fog of my nap. Without opening my eyes I sensed that something was moving around and that it was very close to me. What was that slight scratching noise on the rocks? </p>
<p>I cautiously opened an eye to find myself face to face with a large shiny black beak and two piecing coal black eyes. A raven. I stirred a bit and my feathered friend immediately hopped back a few birdy steps. But it didn’t go too far away. I don’t think it was willing to give up this new prize, not yet anyway. It still filled most of my view as I lay there on my side squinting up at it with one eye. When I slowly started to prop myself up it hopped back a few more feet keeping those little black beads firmly fixed on me the whole time. </p>
<p>That was when I noticed the whole gang. I slowly turned my head from side to side to see that I was surrounded by a dozen or so brooding black figures, none of them more than five or six feet away from where I lay. I finally straightened-up and they scooted away a little farther. I couldn’t help but laugh, which seemed to spook them, but only a little. They mostly remained at their stations, ready to execute whatever nefarious plan they had no doubt been hatching while I slept. I wasn’t quite sure what they had hoped to expect but I could guess. </p>
<p>I stood up and looked around at the dour Congress that had convened. They in turn all backed up a little more and stared right back at me. It was a standoff. After a solemn pause on the part of both parties I said to the ruffled gang, “Sorry, not today guys, not today.” </p>
<p>I gingerly reached into my pack, which immediately drew the attention of my new found friends. As I took out a handful of the cookies I had pilfered from the buffet, the gang in unison began to caw excitedly. I crumbled the goodies and cast them about. Distracted for a moment as they scrambled for the cookie bits, I grabbed an apple and after cutting it into small pieces on the rock with my pocket knife scattered the juicy bits among the famished tribe hopping around me. </p>
<p>Satisfied that my charity had soothed any disappointment over dashed plans, I tipped my ball cap and said my good byes. I pushed my bike out of the sand and headed back to the Ryndam. </p>
<p> It had been a very good day indeed...for all concerned</p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/69273102022-03-23T05:58:57-07:002022-08-16T05:22:20-07:00Cougar Encounters <p>These cougar accounts were submitted by Beth Redman. Cougars are to me one of the great mysteries of the wilderness. Stealth, reclusive, and curious. Read on:</p>
<p>I am not so young anymore, but then I am not so old yet, either. But I have observed or had an encounter with a cougar four times in my life so far. Most people have not even seen one in the wild their entire lifetimes. Many would consider themselves lucky not to have, but I consider myself fortunate to have witnessed such profound wildness and beauty. </p>
<p>In the early 1990’s camped near Pearrygin Lake I woke up early and went fishing. As I was waiting for a bite I see across the shore movement, so I watched and saw the cougar traversing a trail high on the hill above. I felt safe since it was across the lake and watched until the magnificent mountain lion disappeared out of view. </p>
<p>Spring of 2003, my friend and I were horseback riding near Duval, WA. The guides cautioned us that a cougar had been sighted in the area and proceeded to pack a pistol. My friend and I looked at each other with some concern and wariness. Sure enough along the trail ride I hear a loud landing sound of a large animal dropping from the tree above me on my horse. I hear rustling as the large creature, presuming to be the cougar the men were referring to, rushes away from our group. That time I did not actually see it but felt the presence of the great wild one escaping into the forest thankfully, with no shots made. </p>
<p>Fall of 2012 our family was hiking on the Metolious River, Oregon when my daughter, 6 years old then, says, “Mom, what is that large animal?” I turn to look and see just on the side of the trail a cougar waiting in the brush! Grabbing my daughter, I scream in alarm and stomp my feet loudly as the cougar in a split second runs up the hill. My son, who was 8 at the time saw the cougar scramble up the hill, their father does not see any of this as he was ahead of us on the trail. Some anglers who were fly fishing did see the cougar and thought it just wanted a drink from the river. They did not feel threatened and hoped no one would report it, which we did not. </p>
<p>June 15, 2021: I hiked the estuary loop trail near Pacific City, Oregon and visited the beach. I had the entire beach to myself! On the hike out, just as I was crossing the dike, I looked toward the estuary and spotted something in the field near the water. I thought, “This is probably a nothing” but thought I would check it out with my binoculars. Just before I could focus, I saw it move! OMG, It is a cougar! My thoughts were “I am so glad I am this far from it, but, yes, this most definitely is a cougar!” It turned, seeing me, and promptly exited to the forest. What is scary is one hour prior I had hiked remarkably close to where the cougar now was. Upon exiting I read a sign warning about possible cougar or bear encounters in the park. The sign also read, avoid hiking alone.</p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/69273082022-03-21T06:10:28-07:002022-03-27T15:45:22-07:00A Day To Remember by Kurt Dunbar<p>Thank you Kurt for submitting this story. This is thoroughly riveting with a shocking twist! Enjoy:</p>
<p>I was jarred out of my sleep by the knock on the front door. Through groggy eyes I looked at the clock thinking, “oh shit, I’ve over slept.” Late for work again. My shift started at 8:00 am. The clock on my bedside table showed 6:00 am. 6:00!? “This better be an emergency,” I grumbled to myself as I threw on my robe and went to see who the hell was knocking on my door so early. </p>
<p>Pulling open the front door, I winched as the bright sunny morning light hit my unaccustomed eyes. Squinting through the slits of my morning vision I saw the red bearded and ruddy face of my neighbor Bill Glenn smiling back at me. “Jeez Bill, what’s up?” I mumbled still shaking the cobwebs of sleep from my brain. </p>
<p>“Let’s go on the bay,” he said. </p>
<p>It took a second to sink in. Bill was my neighbor across the street and I liked him fine but we weren’t buddies. We didn’t share beers or go fishing together. And though neighbors, we had never had him and his wife Karen over for dinner or a BBQ or anything really. I knew he had a nice little Zodiac inflatable but he had never asked me to go out with him in it, until now. </p>
<p>I weakly replied something to Bill about having to go to work today but was simultaneously thinking to myself what excuse to give Ivanka when I called the switchboard at AVTEC where I was a janitor. Headache, stomach problems, cold? I only hesitated a few seconds before I said to Bill, “I’ll call in.” </p>
<p>After calling in “sick” I got dressed in a flash. In no time Bill and I were headed to the boat ramp at the Seward harbor in his truck with the little Zodiac in tow. As we drove the few blocks to the bay I could see why Bill wanted to get out on bay. What a day! Crystal clear blue sky and warm for early summer coastal Alaska. Best of all there was not a hint of even the slightest breeze. </p>
<p>When we got to the beach to launch the boat we looked south across the bay towards the open waters of the Gulf of Alaska and saw the rarest of rare conditions on Resurrection Bay, flat calm. I know it is a cliché but the bay that lovely June day looked like the surface of a horizontal mirror, it really did. It was gorgeous. Sublime. Except for a sail boat it was the best of all possible boating conditions. I could see why Bill had scrambled to get out on it and why he had knocked on my door. You NEVER go out on the water alone, especially on the frequently and suddenly stormy waters of Resurrection Bay. </p>
<p>It would end up being a singular day I will never forget. </p>
<p>Once out of the harbor and the no-wake zone, Bill gunned the outboard full throttle and the little gray inflatable was jetting across the glass flat water. I shouted to Bill over the noise of the motor and wind, “where we going?” He just pointed south towards the broad mouth of Resurrection Bay and the open Gulf. “Okay,” I thought. His boat, his call. I don’t think either of us cared much where we going as long as we were out drinking up this incredible day with these amazing conditions. It was beautiful! </p>
<p>After clearing Caines Head, we got an unobstructed view the gigantic river of ice that is Bear Glacier. It winds its way down towards Resurrection Bay from its source, an “accumulation zone” called the Harding Icefield, which is about the size of one of the smaller eastern states. </p>
<p>The Harding Icefield is named after the lack-luster President Warren G. Harding (1921-23). He was the first American president to visit Alaska. Harding had traveled to the territory by steamer to drive the symbolic golden spike into the newly completed Alaska Railroad, which today still runs from Fairbanks to Seward. I have done entire length of it. Famously, Harding died on that steamer on the return trip. Some historians say that by doing so he avoided certain scandal and possible impeachment for blatant corruption. We moved to Alaska in 1976 and I met several locals who told stories of an affable Harding waking around town without a secret service detail talking to merchants and citizens on the streets of downtown Seward like a regular every day person. Different times indeed. </p>
<p>As Bear Glacier came into view Bill made a gradual starboard turn west towards it. I guess we were going to Bear Glacier. This was getting exciting. I had never been out into the bay this far except on the state ferry the MV Tustumena, which passed by Bear Glacier on its weekly summer run to Valdez, Cordova and Prince William Sound. Scooting around the big blue sea on a tiny inflatable was certainly a lot more intimate. And it was about to get more intimate as Billed pointed us toward the increasingly looming Bear Glacier. </p>
<p>I could see the long strand of a gray pebble beach in front of the glacier and thought Bill would make for that so we could land and pull the Zodiac up away from tide. However, I was mistaken. Bill had been here before and instead he made his way to the far right end of the beach. Down at that end was the mouth of a small river. This was the major drainage outlet for the lake in front of Bear Glacier. You can’t see the lake from the bay but I have seen an aerial picture of it. The lake is quite large, perhaps a mile wide between the face of the glacier (its source) and the narrow beach strand and patchy island meadows that separates the lake from the sea. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/2b989ec416ea7827aaed68c89bf9ac61451f2746/original/bear-glacier.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /> </p>
<p>Bill carefully putted our little craft up the shallow river a bit until we found a nice grassy landing with a driftwood stump to tie the boat to. I couldn’t contain my excitement and hopped out before Bill had even secured the Zodiac. I immediately began to explore the broad meadow of low sedge and grasses that lay between the pebble beach and the glacial lake itself. </p>
<p>Then it kind of hit me. I was really hungry. In our haste we had neglected to bring any food or even water. With the river and the lake, water wouldn’t be a problem, but food? Damn I was hungry. Then, at almost the same moment that I noticed I was hungry I spotted little red specks nestled down and partially obscured by the delicate bright green leafs of, could it be? Yes it was, wild strawberries! Thousands of them. </p>
<p> Before I knew it I was down on my hands and knees gobbling up the sweetest tastiest strawberries I had ever eaten, or ever would. I remember mashing the little red jewels with my knees and leaving stains in my blue jeans that never did quite come all the way out after washing them. Oscar Wilde said, “hunger is the best condiment.” That is true but I have to say that wild strawberries are infinitely tastier and sweeter than their cultivated and civilized cousins. Bill joined me in the berry orgy and we feasted on those little things until we just about popped. I have never seen wild strawberries in such abundance nor eaten all that I wanted until full. It was glorious! </p>
<p>After slipping into a gorge-induced nap in the sun for an hour or so we both stirred and returned to the Zodiac, which had been stranded by the ebbing tide. We carried the light little boat several yards to the water and were again gingerly putting down the now shallower river towards the sea. You do not want to snag a hole in a Zodiac way out here. </p>
<p>Bill and I were pleasantly surprised to see that the bay was still glass flat and calm. Very unusual. Normally, in the summer by midmorning and into the afternoon the wind kicks up as southerlies from the Gulf are sucked inland by the terrestrial heat. But not today. This day remained truly amazing and it wasn’t over yet. The biggest surprise was ahead of us, literally. </p>
<p>Reveling in the memory and sugar rush of the berry orgy we zipped across the water at full speed without having to contend with chop or waves. Soaking in the sun and salt air with the wind in my face I was at the bow looking forward when I spotted a rock just ahead. I hollered at Bill to cut the motor and he did just in time. </p>
<p>Oddly, the rock right in front of the little boat was getting larger and larger. Then I spotted the dorsal fin. It wasn’t a rock. It was a whale! In one continuous motion, its glistening gray back kept arching out of the water as it slowly slid into the deep blue water. Suddenly, like dark sail unfurled, a gigantic tale fluke filled the world right in front of us. Water ran off of it like showers of heavy rain. It hung there looming, suspended for what seemed like an eternity so that I could see every nick, scar and barnacle. In slow motion the tale sleekly slipped into the depths with nary a splash and almost silently, except for a deep sucking sound something like a coin thrown edge-on into a pond. Then it was gone. It had sounded and we didn’t see it again. </p>
<p>In a little tiny inflatable we had come within a few feet of a Fin Whale, the second largest thing in the world after the Blue Whale. The only ripples in the calm waters were from our inflatable as it gently rocked side to side in the swirling current the whale’s tale had created when it dove so close to us. Stunned, awed and humbled Bill and I just sat quietly in that little boat until the bobbing stopped. Neither of us said a word as we both tried to take in what we had just witnessed. </p>
<p>I don’t known about Bill, but I was moved. I still am as I write of it more than forty years later. It would have been a wonderful and amazing day without the whale encounter. Instead, I was gifted a beautiful timeless epilogue to a golden day that I will never forget…ever.</p>
<p> </p>A River Knows My Nametag:ariverknowsmyname.com,2005:Post/69253392022-03-19T11:18:30-07:002022-04-17T14:21:09-07:00Nothing Prepares you for an Experience Like Experience Itself<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/1c79debad8db0fd4bc168a107ec6dbc208f86c38/original/99d43696-0ce5-4e0b-acb7-1495a62b4456.jpeg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/017e45702803f212fc4a546207a0c9f2bcc1b8e1/original/79437c2c-d23b-43e4-87e6-3ed8211f5ad3.jpeg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />I can't emphasize enough how important it is to be prepared with the essentials needed for survival when venturing into the wilderness. A fishing pole makes a poor substitute for an ice axe, and dogs do not belong on glaciers. But, we were young during this rite-of-passage, oblivious to our limitations and inexperience as we navigated treacherous wilderness terrain, fortunate to have escaped serious injury or worse. That being said, I discovered that sometimes a lack of experience in high-stakes situations can be exactly what a person needs in order understand their true capabilities. </p>
<p>It is thus appropriate that I start the launch of this site with an excerpt from <em>A River Knows My Name</em>. I’m sworn to secrecy as to the whereabouts of this place, so I’ve changed or removed any obvious geographical references. The photos above accompany the scene described below. I hope you enjoy. </p>
<p>“It was as if we had suddenly passed through a portal from a place of life and color to that of a different planet. Sparkling rivulets of water bled from the bottom of the great ice sheet. The shock of such raw, primal beauty overwhelmed me. The mood was somber. By climbing up the creek instead of crossing that canyon earlier that morning, we had put ourselves several miles northwest of our day's destination, and now our path was ominously clear. We were going to have to cross the glacier. We had no other choice. </p>
<p>We stared in silence contemplating the task ahead. A steady wind off the ice field cooled the sweat in my shirt. I shivered. An hour ago, we were elated. Now, as we stared up at the crevasse-riddled frozen mass towering overhead, we were again reminded of how small we really were. A quarter mile across the terminus, the ice sloped back down to a jagged spine of rock following the contour of ice. Beyond it, distant ridges were becoming shrouded in late afternoon mist. It was time to move. </p>
<p>As we started up the frozen ramp with nothing but fishing poles in our hands, the ice vibrated from the thundering river beneath our feet. There was no telling how thin or thick the ice was, but the running water was loud enough to cause Trushka to stare down at it, and whimper in fear a little. If we broke through it was over. One by one we climbed up the dirty ice and after a hundred yards of careful navigation, we were standing on a vast, frozen pancake, sprawling up and out of sight toward the summit. We slowly trudged across the glacier, leaping over small crevasses, and zigzagging around the larger ones with nothing more than our threadbare boots to give us traction while the stark towering rock walls above screamed the fury of angry, impersonal gods, ready to send us tumbling to an icy death if only for our sheer audacity. </p>
<p>In the distance we could see glorious, flower-filled meadows with babbling waterfalls above which stood the barren talus fields of Heather Pass. It was a picture of freedom and purity. Beauty was truth, the truth I had always dreamed of—a truth that made more sense to me than the mumbling, black-robed men of my youth. </p>
<p>I did not know much about mountaineering, but I knew what an ice axe and crampons were, and how critical they were to glacier travel. We did not have them and our boots on the ice gave us traction the equivalent to walking on ice cubes. It was slick, and one wrong slip and a man would slide into a crevasse. I am not sure why, but our rope stayed buried in Dixon’s pack. A quarter mile away, the black spine of rock beckoned, and it was slow, treacherous going. We worked together, calling out instructions, encouraging each other and taking our time. This was the recipe for getting across. </p>
<p>Finally, after 45 minutes, we topped a rise in the ice, close to the relative safety when our hearts sank. The ice below us sloped sharply down about fifteen feet revealing a great black cavern where the ice had melted away from the rock. There was no telling how deep it went. There was no way we could down climb to safety. To even try would mean losing our footing and sliding helplessly over the lip of ice and into the black depths. There was only one way off the glacier—we would have to slide down and at the last moment, jump from the ice and onto the rock. There was no other way. The gap between ice and rock was several feet, and the key to survival would be not falling backwards once we landed. We jammed our fishing poles into our packs. It was time to move.” </p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/600122/eeb9331a4cd272b877e868a8c64b500a2688b1c2/original/911fbfa1-0e33-4290-8583-7e78f32fc2b8.jpeg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /> This photo of me was snapped just after we were able to slide on our butts and leap off the glacier onto solid rock. I would not ever recommend doing this. We were extremely lucky. </p>A River Knows My Name