South of Solitude

The cloud cover seemed low in the arctic.  It gave me the impression of being on top of the world, so high that even the sky reached the earth.  I stood on a hill surrounded by dwarfed pines and lichen in Denali National Park.  The mountain itself was shrouded in clouds.  I would not see it that day.  What I would see is a rolling wilderness that went on for 100 miles in any direction--that feeling of solitude so profound you can eat it for breakfast.  Down in the valley before me, a bull moose stood torso deep in a lake dipping his head under the water in search for sustenance. 

My mind was, as it is for many who venture out of their vehicles in the Alaskan wilderness, was the Alaskan grizzly.  Majestic.  Powerful.  Even romanticized.  You couldn't help walking in this country without thinking about the bear.  For here is their home.  They live everyday in the solitude I write about.  Here in Denali, their livelihood is relatively unchallenged. 

But elsewhere in Alaska, and almost the entire lower 48, they are challenged to the point of being endangered.  Considering that at one time, this majestic beast once roamed nearly all of America, and even dwelt in Mexico.  Today, they live in pockets of Washington, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.  South of solitude.  Their only true stronghold is in Canada and Alaska. 

And I have hiked in both Alaska and south of solitude.  There's something different about walking in the wilds of Alaska and then returning to, say, the Cascades, the Sierra Nevadas, or even much of the Rockies.  For many, south of solitude is wild, deep and impenetrable.  For me, every time I walk in what once was grizzly country, but hasn't had a grizzly for over 100 years, something is missing.  It almost feels like there is no solitude there.  It feels like I can turn around at any moment and see another person, a town, or a highway just past the trailhead.  It's a terrible feeling to undergo for someone who'd spent a lot of time in the mountains prior to moving to Alaska. 

Where there is wilderness left in Alaska, it's dwindling, just as it is everywhere in our human controlled world.  At one time, humans lived in harmony with all the animals.  Today, it's about development, revenue, and recreation.  But the more we develop, the more money we make from that development, the less solitude any of us will feel in the back country.  One day we may return to the wild places to find the grizzly completely gone.  There's a sadness to that thought.  For there too, even in Alaska, will be south of solitude.

Rain on the Peninsula

It's been raining quite constantly since my return to the Washington peninsula of Olympic.  Almost at a constant rhythm, it only quiets for a few minutes, a few hours, or maybe a day.  Then the pelting continues.

I spent my summer on the Olympic peninsula as a ranger and guide.  I look at these experiences as something more to add to my files--those things I can refer back to on occasion.  I lived by a lake.  A cold clear lake carved by a glacier.  I then drove to town, caught the route south and up to the ridge where I led guided hikes or talks.  I learned to talk about Douglas and subalpine fir, western and mountain hemlock and of  western red cedar.  I learned to add intangibles, universals and emotional human connections to that which is nature.  I connected salmon with glaciers and climate change. 

There was a lot of sun up there during the summer.  And the crowds were enormous for a place that is supposed to be a refuge from life.  Crowds, like the rain, seemed to pelt in constant rhythm that only subsided for a moment, an hour or a day.  But some days were quiet.  Usually I'd search for those quiet places for which I could retreat, take in a sight and be alone for, if nothing else a moment.  One time I stood at the edge of an overlook among tall subalpine firs.  I was at an elevation of around a mile up, but only a mile away from the visitor center for which I spent most of my time.  I felt reflective that day--searching for a spiritual sense of self.  The crowds had overwhelmed me.  As an introvert, I needed quiet.  Then something caught my eye.  A shadow above me.  I looked up to see the blood red wings of a red tail hawk.  It swooped over me as if to wonder what I was and why I was there.  Or it was to send me a message that this is a place untrammeled and I am suspect to being welcomed in his part. 

But now the summer season has moved on to fall.  A quiet descends upon my lake.  I no longer climb to the ridge for work and haven't seen it for over a month.  The sounds of the crowds have been replaced by rain.  Tears of joy.  Tears of life.  Tears of pain.  They are constant.  And long after I've gone, they will continue coming down for a few minutes, a few hours, or a few days.

Falling Ice - A Season in Prince William Sound Alaska

Of Falling Ice

 

"No, it's just seasonal." I was responding to a common question in regards to my being a Forest Ranger aboard glacier tour boats for the summer.  I can see the quizzical look in her eyes and can already anticipate the next question.  "So, what do you do in the winter time?" she asks with sincere curiosity.  I'm sure she can see the smile start to curl at the ends of my mouth as I get ready for the punch line.  "I starve." I respond with a certain level of animation in my voice.  Her eyebrows raise.  She's an elderly woman from Kentucky.  Before she could answer I add "...But if you give me your address, I may need to crash at your place."  She smiles.  She got the joke.  After I explain that the Forest Service, or the Park Service as far as I know, doesn't give us a year round cycle of employment--that each job needs to be applied for.  Although I'm sure many seasonal rangers have secured winter gigs due to long acquired trust of their supervisors, for me it was my first season, and still a relatively unknown ranger.  In other words, feast or famine.  The woman offers me a room any time I want, as well as a free pass to Mammoth Caves National Park near her home.  I smile and give her my gratitude for the offer with the promise it may be considered.

I spent a season in Alaska, in addition to living in Anchorage, Ketchikan and Juneau.  I've been as far north as Barrow and seen the Arctic Ocean.  I've been as far south as the southern end of Revillagagedo Island where Ketchikan lies.  I've seen Tok, Homer, Seward, Kenai, Fairbanks, Soldotna, Sterling, Hope, and Trapper Creek, just to name a few.  But my season out of Whittier and the exploration of much of Prince William Sound as a seasonal Forest Ranger will likely be my most memorable. On these boats I may be guiding 50 to over 340 visitors on any given day, cruising a typical round trip of 140 nautical miles into Prince William Sound and seeing such historical places as College Fjord, Harriman Fjord and journeying through history as well as the notable signs of a land that shows effects of climate change like no other.  But nobody wants to talk about it.  So, I smile and press on.

The terrain is fascinating.  It's more like magical.  Every day I preach that this is a journey that we are on.  A historical journey.  A natural journey.  But really it's a personal journey.  I invite them early on in the cruise to open themselves up to that journey and enable the possibility of change.  For most, that change happens.  Only a remote few are too concentrated on playing cards and visiting the bar on board to notice that I'm even talking, or that there's a world they're missing. 

The weather is rainy today, so my narrative is limited to the low cloud ceiling and the windows are fogging up on the boat.  We head out of Whittier, and I pull out my introduction as a Forest Ranger and this journey we are embarking upon.  The waters are choppy today.  The mountains are shrouded in cloud.  We pass Poe Glacier to the left of us.  They can barely see the foot of the glacier as I explain it was named after Edgar Allen Poe by the U.S. Geodetic Survey in the early 1900s.  About 10 minutes later, we pass Tebenkof Glacier.  It was named for the last Russian governor of then Russian controlled Alaska Mikhail Tebenkof.   It's the largest valley glacier in Prince William Sound at 8 miles long and about a mile wide, but I don't mention it. They can't see it.  For now, the clouds will bury the glacier in unknown mystery.

A few days later, the rains have cleared and the visitors are rewarded with an amazingly sunny day with views beyond amazing.  They're profound where words cannot describe.  I emerge from my Forest Service bunkhouse, coffee in hand, and go for a walk in Portage Valley before my day's work.  I notice everything in this quiet valley.  Peaceful.  Alluring.  The fireweed is now in full bloom with a vibrant purple hue contrasting against the deep and gray greens of spruce, hemlock and cottonwood--images of plant succession in this valley.  Moose and black bear frequent around me and I consider my own ineptitude in such a holy place. 

Later I board the boat with a new introduction.  "Wow!  What a beautiful and sunny day!" I begin.  "This morning I donned my Forest Service Uniform, tied my Forest Service hiking boots, poured my Forest Service coffee in my stylish Forest Service mug--stirring it with a twig (for added humor)."  I look around.  My audience is intrigued.  Their minds are entertained with "where is he going with this?"  I continue. "And I do what any respectable ranger would do on a day like this.  I go for a walk."  They could see me pacing back and forth along the front of the boat like a standup comedian.  "The birds are chirping.  The sky is vibrant blue against the snowcapped mountains."   You could hear a pin drop between sentences.  All eyes are on me and I know my stage is set.  This was my day.   "And on days like this, my mind begins to wonder.  Those types of thoughts that keep one up late at night..."  My audience is still intrigued and I cannot wait to lead them to the punch line.  "Today's thought:  Where do rangers go to get away from it all?"  Laughter ensures.  Some of it is polite.  But most of it is in appreciating the profound thought that makes up rangers in Alaska.  Where do rangers go to get away from it all in a place a beautiful as this? 

Tebenkof is in full view now.  All 8 miles of it.  You can even see traces of the Blackstone-Spencer Ice Field that feeds it if you look close enough.  It's going to be a good day.  Later we head into College Fjord where we stop about halfway seeing the massive Harvard Glacier, the 2nd largest tidewater glacier in Prince William Sound in the distance.  It's an amazing 24 miles long, and only pales in comparison to the Columbia glacier, which is too far for this tour boat to get to.  Remnants of fallen ice float along the shores around us.  Stripes of medial morraine contrast the glacier in black and white.  The tour boat captain announces we aren't going to get any closer to Harvard today.  They normally don't.  Other glaciers are more "user friendly" he says.  In other words, they calve ice more often.  Still 11 miles out and all the ice in the water, I'm not convinced.  But I'm not the captain.  This glacier will have to wait.

We make our way to the Harriman Fjord and I intrigue the visitors with what it was like in 1899 when the opening of the fjord before us once greeted E.H. Harriman and John Muir with a 400 foot wall of ice, and how it blocked this hidden cove from Russian fur traders.  Only during the Harriman expedition did John Muir, known as the resident glaciologist from Yosemite National Park, recognized the terrain behind the wall of ice as a likely bay of water carved by glaciers and then filled with sea water.  A fjord.  My tourists are on their feet, crowding me, all attention on the forward windows of the boat as I describe this place in history in 1899.  I have again captured their full attention.  As we round what is now known as Doran Point, they can see it.  The bay opens up.  In the distance:  Surprise Glacier.  It's halfway up Harriman Fjord.  Other glaciers also dominate the scenery.  Cascade Glacier.  Serpentine.  Hanging glaciers grasp upon the upper peaks like glue.  But Surprise is a calving glacier, almost expected to give them a show.  The captain ventures toward it and everyone is captivated.

But Surprise Glacier is quiet today.  She sits there with her blue and white glacier wall.  There are harbor seals sunning themselves on recently calving ice bergs that engulf the bay around Surprise so thick that you could hear the catamaran rails scrape and bump against the brash ice as it makes it way to Surprise.  Through a monocular, I count the seals.  I stop short of 300.  The harbor seals stress a little at the approach of the boat.  They see us most days, but we don't see them normally in these numbers.  The closest ones leave their haven of ice and seek refuge back in the murky silt of glacier fed waters.  We spend time around the face of the glacier.  The tourists are hopeful, but everything is quiet. 

I wander around the deck shagging questions.  One common question is, "Is this global warming thing real?"  I explain that over 95% of climatologists agree that it is.  In Alaska, these glaciers are receding in just a few short years in what used to take them a hundred.  Permafrost is melting for the first time.  Alpine levels are rising.  The spruce bark beetle on the Kenai Peninsula is surviving two years instead of one.  All signs of a warming planet that has significantly changed since the onslaught of the industrial revolution.  Even the American President Barrack Obama would later come to Alaska to explore evidence of these changes.  Suddenly a rumble happens.  It breaks the din of conversation like a thunder in the night.  Looking toward the face of Surprise glacier, she releases yet another scattering of ice into the water in her own summer retreat.  She would regain some of here length during the winter months when snows and cold would allow her to advance.  But it's not enough.  The writing is on the wall.  Like Glacier National Park, she too may be one of many glaciers to become extinct.  I realized that I was witnessing a part of history.  For next summer, all may be different.

My last day of the summer approaches.  I suggest to the captain of the boat that we change our route and go see Harvard Glacier up close, in all of its spender.  The captain stares off into the distance for a moment in consideration.  Perhaps...  For now, it's just another day.  The fishing boats are in full course.  Very little sign of changing seasons is notable on this last day of August.  All is peaceful.  All is silent.  But my audience is intrigued with my ranger stories, and somewhere a violent head wind is pushing hard in Harriman Fjord.  Shortly after leaving Esther Passage, the public address comes across with the familiar tone of the captain announcing that we were changing our route due to the winds, and heading off to Harvard Glacier.  The eruption of cheers began with my own and I quickly grab my microphone to announce what a rare treat this was.  The visitors are truly blest.  Little did I know what lay before us.

As we approached Harvard Glacier, it's massive faced engulfed the scenery before us.  The boat turned this way and that to give each of the those still seated a chance for a full view.  I, along with many of the passengers went out on deck.  I held my phone, video camera and all, and waited.  No one wanted to ask me questions.  All eyes were on the 1000 foot wall of ice waiting in guarded expectation.  And then it happened.  A solid wall of ice directly in front of us calved in what was the most massive calving of the season.  The roar of the ice falling equaled that of total Armageddon.  The falling ice fell, cascading into the ocean in a series of release.  First the initial release, about the size of the empire state building, followed by both sides of it giving way.  It was followed by a sudden wave that rose from the water and eventually rocked our distant location.  I then realized that this journey wasn't meant to touch the souls of the visitors, but mine as well.

As we approached the sleepy village of Whittier and the end of our journey, I couldn't help but think about the special experiences I'd encountered.  I grabbed my microphone and began summarizing the journey we'd been on.  Glaciers.  History.  Humpbacks.  Dall's porpoise, harbor seals and sea otters.  5000 blacklegged kittiwakes engulf the rookery outside of Whittier.  Somewhere distant bald eagles, black bears, brown bears, and sea lions spend their days hiding from the constant onslaught of modern visitors.  I think about my opening, about where rangers go to get away from it all.  I open up with a speech that includes this incredible journey we'll all experienced.  As for where rangers go?  I paraphrase notable nature author Edward Abbey who, in the first chapter of his book Desert Solitaire, says that where we get away from it all is what lies special within each and every one of us.  It could be Yosemite National Park, the high country of Colorado, or the very special experiences of Prince William Sound Alaska.  For we will never see this place, or our lives in quite the same way again.  Everyone is touched.  I receive an applause by visitors I'll never likely see again.  And I too am touched, nor will I ever forget them.

Returning to Alaska

Returning to Alaska.  In many ways it was bittersweet.  The first thing I noticed was the lack of snow on the mountains.  I saw it from the window of the airplane.  It had been a long time since I saw my home city of Anchorage.  It's been a long time since I was able to witness the snow capped mountains of the Chugach. 

My boss picked me up at the airport and drove me the hour long Seward Highway.  Although the snow levels were much depleted in this early May, there was still that amazing contrast of white against the greywacke rock of the Chugach mountains.  Familiar territory.  Winding roads.  Silt filled rivers.  I had come home again.

I was there to start a new adventure.  Forest Ranger.  Who'd have thought?  At the end of our drive, we ended up at Portage Glacier where I was dropped off at the Forest Service bunkhouse:  my home for the summer.  Out there, there are no convenient stores.  There are no shopping centers. There wasn't even cellular service.  My only communication was the lone bunkhouse phone and a slow wireless internet connection.  And in the early season, even the lodge was closed.  The bunkhouse was nice though, with 13 bedrooms, two living areas, a double kitchen and dining area. 

The remoteness of the area told me that I was given a glimpse of what life could be back there.  Before I lived in the city of Anchorage.  Now I was given the chance to witness Alaskan life alone, with only my fellow rangers for company.  The days were mostly raining, with an occasional wind that would tear through the soul.  But I went for a lot of walks, thought of bear and moose, and looked up at the glaciers and snow capped peaks in wonder.  I was back in Alaska, and my adventure was only beginning.

 

Circle of Bears

A circle of bears.  We go round and round with wondering what to do about predators in our world.  In the lower 48, most of the grizzlies have been hunted to near extinction with only pockets in Montana and Wyoming.  And now Alaska is pushing to remove bears.  In the past two springs, they've opened up very liberal practices, including killing of all bears within a 540 square mile area in western Alaska. 

I wanted to document it.  I wanted to see what works.  Does this practice really show that we humans are stewards to the wildlife around us?  Or are we making the same mistakes they'd made a hundred years ago?  What biological approach could possibly support such a move?

To make a promotional video, I had to shoot bears.  Not with a rifle, but with a camera.  Being in Oregon, bears are somewhat scarce.  Especially the Alaska types.  However, I was able to find two Alaskan bears within a half hour of home.  Who would have thought this could be possible?  But Wildlife Images is a rehabilitation center that take in orphaned or wounded animals.  They took in two Alaskan bear cubs with the idea of getting them ready for the wild, then setting them free. 

That was 20 years ago.

Kodi, the male, and Yak, the female, have lived around humans for so long, I really didn't feel fear as I stood within 8 feet of these majestic creatures--only a fence post and two electric wires that separated us.  I ran the cameras.  Personnel got them to move around, to pose, to maybe even smile.  They went round and round--a circle of bears within a circular environment.  They alone were the symbol of what was lost in America.  They alone are what's left.  And they alone could symbolize where Alaska may one day be.

Kodi went after a thrown piece of cantaloupe.  The wild stuff they usually find in the wilds of Alaska.  Yak stands on her hind legs and puts her paws together.  She eventually ends up with a rib bone and wanders off the gnaw on it.  Laying down in a grove of pines, she looks back at us with a look one might find if we were to actually see a wild bear.  Distain.  But why?  After all, food comes at relatively the same time every day be a group of volunteers.  And today was special.  Some goof with a camera was allowed in her pen to do some video and photography.  I was that goof, and I was having the time of my life.  Still, when I look back at her expression, I wonder if it was distain for lack of freedom.  If she were in the wild, she would be leading her own life among the glaciers and mountains of Alaska rather that succumbing to the heat and occasional smoke fires of southern Oregon. 

Still, if we could save one bear, then maybe we could save a hundred.  Then a thousand.  And perhaps our world would be a little richer as we wander out into bear country feeling that fear--that wildness that makes the backcountry unique. 

And perhaps then, and only then, would this circle of understanding be left to the natural lifecycle of seasons that have allowed man and bear to endure for thousands of years.

Looking for Anchorage

It's been a long time since I've lived in the arctic north.  Although it's been 9 years, it feels like centuries.  A distant memory.  A faded dream. 

When I first moved to Anchorage, it was late September when I arrived and already the termination dust was half way down the Chugach Mountains, announcing winter was a short distance away.  The sun came up lower on the southern horizon already giving the illusion that I was on top of the world.  It snowed within the week, although the real snows didn't come for almost a month. 

The northern lights would become a familiar friend, almost a constant companion in the winter months.  They would dance, swirl, appear to send shards of crystal glass down upon me, and fade.  Sometimes I wouldn't see them for weeks.  Sometimes for months.  Sometimes I'd travel to Healy to spend some time looking for them.  But I always knew they'd return, somewhere.

In 2001, the snows came early and by October 11th, the city would remain covered until May.  That same winter, on St Patrick's day 2002, I would witness something I haven't seen since.  It was late evening when I first witnessed the moose tramping and stamping across the street.  She was agitated about something.  When I stepped out onto my deck, I could hear her unnerving noises.  She quickly disappeared into the darkness between the houses that was shadowed from the streetlamp.  Within 20 minutes, the snow would start falling again, only this time it wouldn't let up.  By morning, I awoke to a alien world.  24" of fresh snow fell overnight.  Nothing outside was recognizable.  Most of it was simply gone.  It would take a week before many could venture out of their homes again.

My last summer there was steeped with tradition.  Being alone at that time, I found myself looking for solstice from the tragic life I had come to know.  I would wake up on any given Saturday morning, buy a white mocha from the local coffee stand, and drive out Northern Lights boulevard past the airport to the point.  I would park, walk down to the sand along the inlet, venture north about the bend until I could see downtown Anchorage and the Chugach's beyond in the distance.  The moments there were steeped with a spiritual sense that touched the heart and healed the soul.

I left Anchorage in 2004--a decision I had no control over.  My work and my life was leading me elsewhere.  I would find myself struggling, fighting, and wandering.  I would see new places and meet new friends.  I would end a career, and go back to school for another--that dream part of me that once discovered couldn't be let go.  And every so often, I would sit down on any given day with my white mocha, pull up my laptop, wander through Google Earth, and see the city that once cradled me.  I would write, dream and wonder.  And everyday that I'm far away from the city I call home, I always feel like I'm missing something.

One day I will return.  I look for Anchorage all the time in the deep imaginings of my mind, dreaming and wandering.  When the day comes for my return, it will no longer be that distant memory.  That faded dream.

Reflections

It was a time of reflection. 

It was the typical story of leaving a horrible situation in search for yourself.  Having been pinned down with Elton John's "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" running in my mind and relating to it for the first time in 30 years, I soon found myself having escaped to a magical land of cascading mountains, illuminating rainforests, and glacier fed lakes that seem to reflect within one's own soul.

I had come to Ketchikan, Alaska not just because I had finally landed a job but because I needed a solstice--a certain solitude from the chains that once bound me.  I found myself wandering through a forest trying to find reason and independence and contemplation on the things of my life that just didn't make sense.

I came upon McConnell Lake.  The mist seemed to shroud the lower elements of the snow capped mountains, as if hiding something sacred within their hem.  Broken and dead spruce peeked up through the stilled waters reminding me of the relationship that was no longer living. 

The lake itself reflected back on me, showing me the person I never thought I was, and  never could be again.  Or perhaps never was.