The Pacific Northwest seems to recur in my life. This summer, for instance, I spent a week in southeast Alaska for a field project on Prince of Wales Island. I’ve been asked to repost this blog entry from 2004, which recalls the first time I set foot in the region, and the impression its vastnesses made on me.
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Vancouver. We drove up the coast, flanked by mountains. Arriving at the first ferry, we waited in a long line of parked cars, and Paul and I ran down to the park to throw a frisbee back and forth and, a few minutes later, to stare down from the dock into the dark water, where fish and jellyfish swam just under the surface. We ran from the park to a corner shop to buy me a journal, harried because we knew the ferry would arrive any moment, and picked through the available options until we found a beautiful little black one, spiral-bound, its cover shiny, just the right size. Then we heard the ferry toot its resounding note over the water, and tore back along the streets to the ferry station, where my mother had already come partway down to look for us.
The ferry rides, every one during our four days of driving, took us past spectacular scenery. On either side, snow-capped mountains reared above the green hills that sloped down to the sea. To our right, sailing north, the mountains of the continent; to the left, and further away, the mountains of Vancouver Island. We wove around the green islands rising from the sea, and trained binoculars on the birds that even a casual eye couldn’t help but notice everywhere. Sometimes we’d see seals, their round heads lifting from the water to gaze our way; they’d disappear in a sinuous, shining curve in the sunlight. Rain is common in the area around Vancouver, but soon after we left Whistler (where we’d spent the first part of our trip), the clouds cleared and we spent days in the sunlight.
One ferry trip I remember particularly, and did not have time to write about in the nature journal where I kept notes all trip. We spent our last two days in and around Victoria, at the southernmost tip of Vancouver Island, and in the evening of our final day boarded the ferry to the mainland. We’d traveled around the western side of the island that day, near Sooke, exploring tidepools and a long barrier island-like spit, and Paul and I had rented bicycles and gone on a ride through the cedar woodlands. We’d planned to catch the nine o’clock ferry, but through a mixture of luck and my parents’ worrying that we’d miss the ferry altogether, we arrived in Victoria just in the nick of time for the 7:00 ferry. It turned out to be wonderful that we had. As we departed, the sun sank slowly toward the mountains behind us, and around us the low green hills rose from the water. A diaphanous haze filled the air; all turned pink and gold, and the sun crept among the clouds. High snowcapped peaks stood proudly on the island, remote and inaccessible. My father and Paul and I stood gaping at the forward edge of the boat; my mother, frightened off by the cold sea wind, flitted back and forth from inside to our side. Valinor, I thought.
As the boat maneuvered patiently through the water, the light failed, and my binoculars became increasingly insufficient to identify the tiny black birds that rested on the water. They looked so solitary down there: one tiny pelagic bird at a time, or sometimes a small raft of six or seven, sometimes littler even than the crests of the waves. It grew colder, and we swung slowly past the last of the green islands, leaving the protected passageways between them. On the open sea between Vancouver Island and the mainland, we could see sheets of rain falling far off over the water. Vancouver glittered faintly on the continent ahead. The few people that had lingered on the deck went inside, leaving me sitting on a big tacklebox, my back against the wall and knees drawn up, huddled into my jacket. I didn’t want to lose even a moment of that air, that solitary, salty, independent air, the sea blowing it mercilessly into my face, the water and sky one great single grayness.