The Caldera and the Volcano

The lake is deep.

It's clear blue waters run deep and the reflection contrasts remarkably against the natural blue skies.

As a photo-journalist, I got to go up to Crater Lake National Park on assignment.  My job was to find out the tourist levels in a summer without smoke and extreme heat.  But it was also to find out how the mountain pine beetles are decimating the forests up there.

The winter snows held on this year keeping the park closed well into June, so the tourism had a slow start.  But the summer held mild temperatures and clear skies.  No fires reported so far (until a few days ago), so tourism was on the rise.  I could see it all around me.  Happy faces.  Families and visitors from across the world coming to see the blue.  It has been a beautiful summer so far, and things are looking up.

But climate change has set about a series of events.  For one, the summers are warmer and longer.  The pine mountain beetle has more time to infest the lodgepole pines, and possibly even reproduce more often creating a larger infestation.  The lodgepole pines have had a natural defense against the predator, but the longer summers are taking their toll.

And the white bark pines are now being infested by the pine bark beetle.  The pine, which is common around the rim of the lake at much higher elevations has never had to defend itself against the beetle. But with warming temperatures, the beetle is able to move higher in it's pursuit to eat and reproduce.

It is the sign of the times.

Tourists walk along the clear blue waters of Crater Lake.

I walk along the rim noticing the dead stands of white bark in contrast with the clear blue lake.  Everything is change.  And in geological time, we are but a blink of an eye.  Tens of thousands of years ago, Crater Lake was a volcano.   Mount Mazama.  Not much different than Mt. Shasta, Mt. Rainier or Mt St. Helens back before it blew its top.  When Mazama blew, it spewed granite and pumice for hundreds of miles.  You can see hummocks-those giant boulders from volcanic explosions in places hundreds of miles from Crater Lake--signs of a violent time.

In it's place, the deepest lake in North America.  It's called a caldera.  Supposedly, the lake does not drain at all but is filled entirely by rain and snow melt.  It's more natural and clean than most bodies of water we'll ever come across.

Change happens.  And perhaps mother nature will correct this warming climate.  Crazy storm systems are already apparent with record floods, violent hurricanes and extensive tornado seasons.

And a lot more fires.

Author taking a selfie before the lake.

The fires kill the underbrush and allow shade intolerant plants rebirth.  It also kills the pine mountain beetle.

The lake remains along with bleach white dead stands of white bark pines along a green forest that hasn't succumbed to the infestation.  And the blue colors will always bring about the beauty of nature and the illusion that the mountains, the forests and our world around us is perfectly fine.

Which is why we come.

Reflections in the Ice

Prince Willam Sound Alaska on an icy filled fjord

Something so profound speaks to me like the droplets of rain on the window of a boat looking out over an ice-filled ocean.  The clouds shroud the land in obscurity--so much so one could get lost in it.

I was fortunate to take the journey.  I was even more fortunate to get lost in the moment--to take in the landscape and embrace it like a long lost lover.  It was a summer where I was hired to be aboard glacier tour boats for no other reason than to interpret the landscape as an interpretive ranger for the U.S. Forest Service.  And from these experiences, I've begun drafting a book entitled Reflections in the Ice.  The book has 20 chapters and is reaching 50,000 words, which was my goal.  I'm now mostly in the editing process and have already begun looking for literary agents and potential publishers.

The book is about change.  Primarily about a changing climate where the eulogy is the witness of retreating glaciers in a rugged landscape.  It's also a connection to both Alaska and something deep inside of me that had been pushed down, squelched into submission only to finally erupt and blossom with the world around me.  A personal journey into the world of glaciers, snow capped mountains, close encounters with bears both black and brown.  Living on the banks of the Pacific Ocean where Alaskan ferry boats, cruise ships and float planes pass by on lazy summer days.  A place where the cracking and calving of glaciers marks the dramatic element of nature changing nature in a world few people will ever see.

Full of color imagery, personal journeys, quiet reflections and abundant wildlife, Reflections in the Ice is a book one could get lost in...like the droplets of rain on the window of a boat looking out over an ice-filled ocean.

Update #3:  I have now reached 50,000 words and am going through my 2nd wave of edits.  I've had one publisher approach me for a contract, but it was a bad one in which I declined.  I believe in this project!  I'm not selling myself short.

I'm also adding a new layer of metaphor to the work that falls in line with H. D. Thoreau and his ability of parables and metaphors.  It's a way to handle the more sensitive issues of my past, but also gives me a tool for understanding regarding nature and preservation.

I hope to have the book completed in the next few months.  I will keep you posted.

Never Cry Wolf

Reflections and Farley Mowat.

I have been intrigued with Alaska for most of my life.  I can say that now because of the year and age that I've reached.  My earliest thoughts on Alaska came from a movie that came out while I was in high school:  Never Cry Wolf.  It was a film based loosely on a book written by Farley Mowat, but adapted to be about a biologist portrayed by Canadian actor Charles Martin Smith.  Although the location is up in Canada, the world is the arctic for which I've always related to Alaska.

In the film, biologist "Tyler" goes up to study the wolves and becomes very attached and even defensive toward the world of the arctic and the wolves that inhabit it.  The snow on the mountains.  The dwarfed firs.  The clear glacial lakes.  The carved mountain ranges.  The tundra.  All inspirational to me.

My desk with the film DVD.

For a long time I contemplated that world while living in the tame confines of the Wasatch Mountains (tame by comparison only).  But I romanticized the arctic for many years after I'd first saw Never Cry Wolf in the mid-80s.  It remains to this day my favorite film.

I then had the opportunity  to move to Fairbanks Alaska for work, but decided to keep my current position and head to Europe.  Family was there and I missed them.  But while in Holland, I spoke to an American who was stationed in Alaska and spoke of many adventures.  Because of my previous job offer, I felt in some way that I had missed a great opportunity back then.  Holland was special in its own ways, but every fiber of my being longs for Alaska.  The arctic.  It's in my blood somehow.

About 9 years later, while living in California, I began a mantra to myself and some of my coworkers.    Has the job offer in Alaska come in for me yet?  One day, it did.  It was almost like providence.  It came to me as a gifted present--one I'd longed for for many years.  And so about a year later, I moved to Anchorage.  My life has never been the same since.

But life takes you on many journeys.  Even though I loved Alaska, family and circumstance pulled me away from the place I called home and I found myself in many different places:  Illinois, Missouri, Colorado, Utah, Washington and Oregon.  Has it been that many?  It's baffling to contemplate.  But I am a wanderer.  Some of those were job related via transfer, some were chosen while others were to become a ranger.  I lived and died away from Alaska and longed to return.

In 2015, I was called back to south central where the basis of my book Reflections mostly resides.

I rewatched Never Cry Wolf again tonight, mostly out of inspiration to complete Reflections.  I realize more than ever what a completely well done and written film that was.  One of the most underrated films of our time.  What cinematography!  What scripting!  What acting!  So incredibly well down with metaphors and references, philosophies and imagery--simply by words.

I hope someday to see northern Canada east of the Yukon Territory for which I'm somewhat familiar. I'd love to go see where the wolves are, up north in a world seldom seen by people.

Maybe....

Someday....