A cruise boat towers over Skagway.

Originally published in the Skagway News –

It wasn’t in the original plan, but it felt pretty good to step off the ferry at Skagway next to Stroller White. Together, we made our way through the crowded street to the Skagway News. More than a century ago, when Skagway was in its founding growth spurt and news overflowed its docks and saloons, The Stroller was a newsman at that paper, though he hadn’t yet adopted the name he would make famous in his column, Strolling Around the Yukon.

Skagway, and specifically, the newspaper, had been my destination for the past two months as I kayaked the Inside Passage in a three-part pursuit of my Klondike roots. It was a quirk of timing that my mother and father, who is named Stroller after his grandfather, arrived in Juneau in time to join me on the ferry to the finish line.

The Stroller’s name has some cache. The shoulders of Mount Stroller White square off above the face of the Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau. He spent years chronicling the personalities along the way to the Klondike, served in public office and pontificated about local politics for decades.

Dad aka Stroller, Me and Jeff Brady

Less is known about his wife, Josephine Keys White. My project, which I call Travels With Josie, aims to rectify that by traveling in her spirit to Dawson.

Josie arrived in Skagway on a Tuesday in mid-June, 1898. The Stroller himself – known then by as Elmer John or E.J. — announced her arrival in the columns of the Skaguay News, where he had served as associate editor since he arrived in April of 1898.

“Mrs. E.J. White and little daughter, Lena, arrived from Port Townsend on the steamer Discovery Tuesday night, and the associate editor is now living in the pomp and oriental splendor beneath his own vine and fig tree in a 10 x 10 cabin on Fifth Avenue.”

After that brief news item, The Stroller’s news writing falls silent about his wife. She is left to speak for herself, a bit too quietly, in a slim collection of photographs, a self-conscious journal and a glowing obituary that reports she was a crack shot who kept dinner on the table with her .22, who had climbed every worthwhile peak in Southeast Alaska.s

They had worked their way around the Seattle area through the depression of ’93 and its aftermath, chasing a living, building a life. In July of 1897, The Stroller reported on the arrival of gold from the Klondike aboard the SS Portland. By the time the solstice lit the night in ’98, they both had joined the mob headed north.

“We didn’t go for the gold so much as we went for the adventure of it,” Josie wrote later.

I followed for the same reason. I imagined a three-part outdoor adventure: Over several summers, I planned to bike from Oklahoma to Washington; kayak from Washington to Skagway, and canoe the Yukon River to Dawson.

In 1891, Josie left her parents’ homestead in Oklahoma’s Cimarron Valley to visit her sister in Sumner, Wash, near Tacoma. She got a job at her brother in law’s newspaper, and ended up marrying the editor. He was an even-tempered man, 13 years her senior with a vaudevillian sense of humor, and a newsman’s willingness to travel to where the action was.

In 2010, I found the Keyes family homestead just shy of the New Mexico line, where the Rocky Mountains push up from the plains. Josie took the train to Sumner. I followed back roads, linking towns shaped by mining booms that primed the pump for the intensity of the Klondike rush: Red River, N.M., Creede, Colo., Park City, Utah; Stanley, Idaho.

This May, I rejoined Josie’s route in Port Townsend, Wash. The artsy tourist town was in full flush with the annual Rhododendrons  Festival. The blossoms were lost on me as I struggled to keep the proper balance of intention and ignorance I needed for the trip. I live in Montana, and while I had planned and trained, I had a lot to learn about tides and currents.

The Inside Passage is North America’s most iconic sea kayaking route. It is a single trip of about 1,000 miles, divisible by a half-dozen distinct personalities: the scattered islands of the San Juan and Gulf Islands with their swirling currents; Desolation Sound with dark, stone corridors; Johnstone Strait with its reliable winds; big crossings open to the full force of the Pacific Ocean; the bottle-glass green of waters fed by glaciers. Add to such natural variety the loose lunacy of the water surrounding port cities – Nanaimo, Port Hardy, Prince Rupert in British Columbia; Ketchikan, Juneau and Skagway in Alaska.

sI was surprised at the number of tiny communities I passed and the camaraderie I found with other boaters along the way.

I fought both current and wind to arrive at the map-dot former cannery of Butedale on Princess Royal Island. I arrived tired and hungry and was greeted like family by power boaters I had met earlier and by Lou, the caretaker.

“I heard you were coming and have a sun shower for you,” said Lou, in his handsome French  Canadian accent, showing me a makeshift shower on the deck of the old ice making plant.

“When you’re done, come back down,” said Deb, one of the powerboaters. “We’ll have dinner for you.”

Inviting a sea kayaker to dinner mid-trip is a risky proposition and I cautioned myself not to inhale the entire larder. Deb proved up to that challenge, and set up a bellyful of steak, chicken and peach cobbler. After her crowd pulled out early the next day I found a doggie bag with leftovers tucked into my kayak. I was much repaired, mind and body, when I pulled out of Lou’s post-industrial hillside retreat.

One pea-soup morning on Johnstone Strait I waited for the fog to lift, then launched at just a hint of clarity. I was anxious to cross a channel at slack tide. It was foolish. I paused, considering my options, then heard a voice: “Nadia. Let us give you a tow. We have radar.” It was a couple on a sailboat. I had met them weeks earlier. I took the tow and avoided playing peek-a-boo with commercial ships.

As I approached Juneau, the glacial waters introduced a chill into my bones. When the weather called for two days of 30-knots winds, I paddled hard for Taku Harbor, marked as a marina on my map. I was hoping to find a warm place to take shelter from the coming storm.

Taku Harbor was a Hudson Bay Trading Post in 1840 and a cannery into the ‘70s, but anything that could be construed as a marina has long since surrendered to moss. Now it is an Alaska marine park with a dock. My fantasies of a warm shower dissolved in the rain.

Exploring the shore, I found an unoccupied state park cabin and stepped in. As I dried my soaking gear around an oil stove, I hoped my luck would hold, that the forecast would prevent the rightful occupants from showing up. But around dinnertime, the door opened and there they were. My fortune had changed, but for the better.

After taking in the smelly, but warm, chaos of their cabin, the two urged me to stay. I protested, but the man, who proved to be The King of Tlingets for his resemblance to Elvis Presley, insisted. “We aren’t on a honeymoon, she’s here to paint.”

I tidied up and relocated to the loft. The wind came. The King, The Artist and I stayed longer than intended. We talked and laughed and shared meals.  I left at daybreak to hedge against the wind. They sent me off with an invitation to stay with them in Juneau where they introduced me to Juneau’s summertime circle of plenty as crab, salmon, berries and barbecues kept life lively.

Snow on Skagway’s mountains sparkled on the blue-sky summer day we arrived. I wondered if such days had reminded Josie of Sumner, where snowcapped Mount Rainer ruled the skyline. The Skagway News was bustling but the editor broke away to give a tour of off-Main Street Skagway and neighboring Dyea.

Driving from Skagway’s cruise boats to Dyea’s lush tidal flats, it was hard to imagine that the two coves had vied for urban supremacy. Dyea was already starting to slip away when Josie arrived, I thought. Now, there is scant evidence of the 48 hotels, wharves or breweries that marked Dyea’s glory days as the starting point of the Chilkoot Trail. Time has a way of swallowing history’s stories if they aren’t dragged out of the underbrush or away from rising waters.

As I ended the second part of my trip my thoughts turned to the final leg. Josie and The Stroller made Dawson their home at the height of the gold rush, before returning to Whitehorse where they lived for several years. Dawson was the grand destination of my three-part adventure, so when the editor suggested I join his team for the 444-mile Yukon River Quest next June I could only say, “You bet!”

Pua surveys Taku Harbor in the morning light.

Tuesday July 10, 2012
Taku Harbor
Few places are as social as a safe harbor in a storm. I cut short my planned exploration of the gorgeous, glacier-sided Endicott Arm and beat a hasty retreat through eyelash-bending fog. The forecast indicated that wherever I spent Monday night would be home for at least Tuesday as well, maybe longer. I was anxious that that place should be within striking distance of Juneau.
I’ve extended my daily paddling range, doing more 30-plus mile days in Alaska than was possible further south. Here, tidal currents have less impact because the water is deep and wide, so my schedule is not driven as much by the turning of the tides. Campsites are more abundant so I can push on, confident I will find a place to stop. And the landscape is huge, I can take it in as I paddle hard, so long as the fog allows. But those long days depend on relatively calm waters and winds, and that, I knew, was about to end.
I pulled hard for Taku Harbor, marked as a marina on my map. I had fantasies of a hot shower and hot dogs cooking on one of those Ferris wheel-like contraptions. Those fantasies were dashed as I turned into the deeply sheltered cove containing yet another abandoned cannery and two public mooring docks. No boats. No showers. No hot dogs.
Taku Harbor was a Hudson Bay trading post in 1840, a commercial cannery into the ‘70s. Now it is an Alaska marine state park where cannery buildings and some old cabins are in varying states of decay. As I adjusted to my new reality – this is where I was likely to be pinned by two days of 25-knot winds – I saw an aberration: A new cabin with a long, overhanging roof. There, at least, is where I could pitch my tent. The overhang would give me some relief from the hard rain that was forecast. I went to inspect the situation.
It was an Alaskan state parks cabin, named for Tiger Olsen, a grouchy but affable legend of the area who gave kids who visited chunks of fools gold and let them shoot .22s from his stoop. It was also unlocked and vacant. I couldn’t believe my luck. I would send the state of Alaska its $25 later. I fixed and fired up the oil stove, virtually everything from the boat was soaked through and I unpacked it, set it to dry and marveled at my good fortune. The cabin would be a perfect place to wait out the coming storm.

I arrived at about 3 p.m. and knew that my luck could change with the arrival of the cabin’s rightful reservation holders. As the afternoon ticked toward evening, I thought it might not have been reserved for the night, but at about 6, Pua and Leonard arrived like the three bears to discover their vacation home had been invaded – by me.

I was a little chagrined and stammered an explanation about my presence. I was glad to have dried out as much as I had. I hastily tidied up and prepared to relocate to Tiger Olsen’s actual cabin, which was in a state of decay and lacked a stove, but otherwise would tame the rain and wind and was a reasonable alternative to me. Pua thought otherwise.

My luck had indeed changed, for the better. If you ever encounter a benign home invader, take a lesson from Pua and Leonard: disarm them completely by adopting them and overwhelming them with kindness. Pua rejected my relocation plan and Leonard backed her up. Tiger’s actual cabin was not OK, she said, I should stay with them. When I protested, Leonard said, “It’s OK, it’s not like we’re on a honeymoon. She’s here to paint.”
Pua paints landscapes. When I awoke in the cozy loft the next morning I could see how calm the bay was by looking at the painting taking shape on her easel out under the long eave. She painted from dawn’s interesting first light, sketching and painting Taku Harbor and its funky buildings and surround. Leonard is a fisherman, among other things, an easy going enabler of this outing, three hours by boat from their home in Juneau. They had arrived with their friend Mary and her father John aboard John’s Nordic Tug. The Nordic Tug is an immensely popular power cruiser, much coveted among the long-range cruiser set for its sturdy engine and comfortable living space. John is less mobile than he once was so he and Mary stayed on the boat, while Leonard and Pua – and I – shared the cabin.

The day unfolded as promised. Winds rose and waves steepened in Stephens Passage. Boat after boat sought the relative calm of Taku Harbor. I paced the dock, anxiously interviewing anyone with local knowledge about what these winds meant for my chances to get out and set up for the crossing to Juneau, which was 20 miles away – closer to 30 if I were to reach my intended destination of Auke Bay. No one had anything good to say. I interviewed each new arrival as though the one who thought the winds would diminish in time for me to leave that night would somehow be right and all the others wrong.

As the day wore on the size of the boats seeking shelter grew as the wind rose and the waves steepened. Seasoned boaters arrived with big eyes and stories of surfable breaking waves in the channel. A big tender came in and tied up. Tenders are the refrigerator boats that buy fish from the fishing fleet at sea and deliver them to the processing plants in towns. It came in and the family running it said there was no point hanging out in chop like that. Six-year-old Kate disembarked with the enthusiasm of a kid born to boat and raced up and down the long dock wearing a gymnastics leotard and sneakers, chased by a puppy cairn terrier who independently explored every boat at the dock. A bunch of Canadians with a guitar and tons of enthusiasm arrived in a sailboat and a full-blown party was brewing along the dock.
I was not really ready to stop pacing. Still anxious to get closer to Juneau I watched the weather and interviewed everyone about their predictions. I worried that I could get stuck with a short window of opportunity to cross the 3-mile Taku Inlet, six to eight miles away from Taku Harbor. The inlet is a windy stretch, freighted with cross currents and the flow of a mighty glacier and river system. The cruisers guide to Southeast Alaska tells power boaters the best way to explore Taku is by plane.

Finally, a power boater named Tim gave it to me straight: You’re not going to hear anything you want to hear tonight. Tomorrow’s going to be beautiful. Leave early and you can make it to Juneau in one straight shot.
I relaxed a bit. Pua, Leonard and John let me cook one pot slop for dinner on John’s boat – an expanded and dressed up variation on my kayak camp dinner. I packed the boat with everything I didn’t need for the night. It was getting light. I had little food left, but that couldn’t stay on the boat because black bear had been known to wander the dock.

My watch said 3:15 as I slid into my dry but still stinky wetsuit and clanked down the trail to the dock, singing a bit to let the bears know I was coming through the half light of Alaska dawn. The gnats were insufferable on the windless dock and I pulled my mosquito net over my head and neck By 4:10, I was paddling light and quick across Taku Harbor. Behind me, Leonard and Pua got up to watch me go. “As fast as you were going, I knew we wouldn’t see you until inside the channel” Leonard said later.
The three miles of cliff-lined channel called “The Wall” that was scoured by wind the day before was calm but for a mild tidal current against me. I ate breakfast as I went and made it to the earliest point of departure for the crossing in three hours. My plan was to work my way up the inlet more, to a narrow point, allowing for the possibility that the ebb tide that would arrive when I was mid crossing would push me the wrong way, toward the route of ferries and cruise boats entering busy Gasteneau Channel. But a burst of sun set a rainbow across the way and it seemed too auspicious to ignore.

I set a course clear of the main traffic routes and left the far shore behind – Juneau was just 10 or so miles ahead. As I went, groups of three of four loons circled me in crazy loop after loop before continuing up toward Taku Glacier. That had never happened before, yet group after group stopped to circle.

A huge Alaskan ferry passed me, inbound to Juneau. It was a half mile away, by far the closest I had been to a ferry. The wake, when it reached me, was a pair of enormous breaking waves that demanded respect. I turned and paddled into it, taking water over the bow and up to my rib cage as my bow rode up the first wave and crashed down through the second. I reset my course and continued, glad to see just one such ship on this crossing.
I entered Gastineau Channel and hailed Mary and John’s boat on the VHF. My watch read 8:30. I got no response from them, but instead was hailed by the Bunkhouse, folks I had enjoyed meeting in Wrangell. “Where are you?” we both asked, and there they were, a mile or so across the channel, headed the opposite way. They crossed over toward me and I pulled out from shore so they could see me. There was no traffic and I could bob next to the big motor yacht, chatting. Susan asked if I could land on the swim step and come aboard for coffee. It sounded lovely, and like it would be much harder to manage n the bouncing water than it sounded. We chatted, then parted ways. (Bunkhouse, I looked for you in Auke Bay on Friday, but was told you had pulled out just before I arrived. Sorry to miss you. Have a great rest of the trip. Stay in touch.)

At a wide beach in Thane I stopped to stretch. For the first time in eight days I had cell coverage, so I turned on the phone to check in. Good thing I did. My SPOT satellite message of the night before had located me three or more miles off base. When my father checked it on Google Earth, he saw I was in the middle of Stephens Passage, in the ferry route, late in the day with bad weather. He worried and late that night had gotten out of bed and called the Juneau Coast Guard, asking if any kayak accidents had been reported. The Coast Guard said No, and made a round of radio calls that someone heard – I suspect it was Lizzie on the tender, mother of leotard-wearing Kate – and reported that I was safe and waiting out the wind in Taku Harbor. It was a pretty cool practical evidence of the community that forms in a harbor. Satisfied that I was OK, Dad went back to bed, but he was pretty glad to hear my voice when I called.
I paddled through the cruise ships and the seaplanes taking off and landing that make for chaos in downtown Juneau. I tied the boat up at a marina, grabbed my essentials in a sea bag and, after stopping for a shower and big lunch, walked the few short blocks to … Pua and Leonard’s house.

Josie first passed through Juneau in 1898 on the way to the gold rush. She returned with her husband and two kids in 1916. He ran a weekly newspaper and print shop, was in the legislature and involved in local politics. She was assistant curator at the Alaska State Historical Museum for many years. They lived out their lives in Juneau, working to create the things that make a community a home.

As my trip draws to a close at Juneau, I was swept into the safe haven of an affable Hawaiian artist and a powerful Tlingit man who embodies a native tradition of extraordinary generosity infused with a deep sense of what it means to be live as a Christian. A home that was a true haven after more than 50 days of paddling.

It felt clear to me that while Josie continued through Skagway, Juneau was the true terminal for this phase of Travels With Josie, and so I declare this phase of the adventure a success and hang up my paddle. For now. I’ll post a couple more wrap up posts, but for now, thanks for following the high seas portion of Travels With Josie 2012: The Inside Passage. Blogging the trip wouldn’t be half as fun without the readers.

A humpback in a feeding frenzy.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Entrance Island, Hobart Bay

The water ahead of me began to bubble and spin and I threw it in reverse. This was getting crazy. I was hemmed in between a kelp-draped rock pile and a couple of energetically feeding humpbacks. My right paddle blade was literally on the rocks and my bow, well, it was retreating as fast as I could make it. The whale surfaced on its side, leading with its long, white and grey striped  pectoral fin held high, then it let the fin flop onto the water, rolled to expose its blow hole, took a gulp of water and slid under the surface. It was about 10 yards away. I could see into its blow hole. That’s more intimate than I need in my life with whales.

“Come on, you two, take it to deeper water, will ya?” I asked. They had been in deeper water when I started around the point and I figured they would pass on by. I had gotten a late start. I had lain in  the tent, wishing it would stop pouring rain. When I got up I saw the tide had left and all I had to show for it was a long drag over sharp, slippery rocks.  I had camped on a mossy shelf near a spring and the rain and spring rose up into a sop of tea-colored water around and under the tent. It was an awkward and soggy morning and now I had whales to contend with.

It had been shaping up as a whale weekend.

Friday might have been my longest mileage day so far. It started with a heavy breathing at dawn that sounded like a cross between a lion’s roar and an anchor chain being raised. I thought the circus was in town. It was 3:30. I got up at 4 in time to see that the ruckus was a bunch of humpbacks doing some wild breathing and barrel rolling along the shore to stir up critters they eat. The sea was an eerie calm, the proverbial “red sky in morning,” with pink glowing from the glacier. It had been choppy when I’d landed and windy when I went to sleep. Anxious to take advantage of the calm, I was on the water by six.

The calm never ended and by 10 I had vertigo from seeing the sky reflected so clearly ahead of me. I stopped to stretch and eat at an island I had considered my stopping point for the day. Clearly, the day had more miles in it. I had pulled to shore over the richest tide pool of my trip, completely filled with urchins and sea cucumbers and anemones that look for all the world like breasts. I tried not to squish too much sea life as I landed the boat, and, after a brief tour of the tide pool, went about making peanut butter and Nutella roll ups, the standard. I had heard whales breathing as I entered the bay, but they were behind me and I couldn’t see them. Now, I scanned the broad water and was surprised that I still could hear but not see them. They sounded close and were breathing so frequently that there had to be quite a few. Their splashes were so loud that some of them echoed, but I couldn’t see their signature forked tail or smooth grey back rolling through the water. I got my binoculars.

Orcas eat on the run.

There! I was looking for the wrong thing, in the wrong place. A pod of orcas had followed me into the bay and were coming around the corner making a huge racket. I had almost despaired of seeing any killer whales, and here, they had searched me out.

The pod comprised a male with a huge dorsal fin, at least two young of the year and three medium-sized whales. They spent much more time on the surface than the humpbacks generally do. The male was hunting with vigor. A third to half of his body broke the surface when he lunged. They didn’t blow with as much force as the humback, instead, the seemed to breathe more frequently, less deeply. They circled around, working steadily past me, coming about 50 feet from the beach where I stood.

After a while, I wondered how long they’d be. I had to get going. They seemed to be on a mission to get somewhere themselves so I just left and aimed for where they were. I paddled well behind their path for a few minutes, then they went their way and I went mine.

My way called for rounding Cape Fanshaw. “Take it wide, you’ll be fine,” the woman in Wrangell had said. “Pass at least 600 yards from the light,” my book advised. I had been paddling well off shore all day, trying to get a boost from a flood tide. It never came and I searched further and further off shore until, approaching Fanshaw light, I must have been at least two miles off. That put me within listening distance of a whale-palooza going on on the far side of Fredrick Sound (which is a huge body of water,) but the whales were leaping and splashing with such vigor that I could clearly hear them and even see their splashes. I’m sure I drifted closer to that action, getting even further from shore. By the time I realized that I was in danger of missing the point all together and just going forever forward, the wind, of course, had picked up. I had to paddle hard for about an hour to close the gap. At one point, a humpback simply surfaced, blew and dipped back down just off my right side. It was encouraging, which I needed.

I rounded Fanshaw, which proved to be no big deal, and tucked into the shelter of Whitney Island to scout for a campsite. After rejecting a few long-abandoned cabin sites as too creepy, I did some remodeling with my saw and carved a nice place on the moss. It started raining hard as soon as I got the tent up, so I ate in a moss-covered forest as the rain ran off my hat.

Fast forward a full day’s paddle. I camped on a sandy (oh, ick!) beach and got another early start, this time aided by a quick launch off the sand. I hopped from cove to cove, knowing the crux of the day was a three-or-so-mile crossing of Windham Passage.

I had the place to myself. It was an ebb tide, so I worked my way up the shore for a mile or so, reducing the distance of the crossing and giving myself a buffer in case I got halfway across and discovered that the current leaving the big passage was carrying me to toward the mouth faster than I could manage. That proven not to be a concern, so I angled my crossing at the halfway point to the point.

A good-sized ship came around the point moving pretty fast. It was at least a half mile off and I thought, “Nice looking ship.” I thought we were on a collision course, so I changed course to more directly aim for the islands I was approaching. The ship changed its angle, too, still headed directly at me. I flipped on my VHF radio and hailed the ship. No answer. I padded hard. I hailed. Nothing. The ship seemed intent on passing between these islands and the land. Surely it would run aground. I hailed it about a half dozen dozen times, an increased sense of urgency in my voice. My goal was to say, Hey, I’m down here. Do you see me? But no one was home. Then, the boat did a U turn and left the way it had come, slowing almost to a stop as it rounded the point, right where I was headed. What the H? It had given me a bit of an adrenaline boost, which I used to gain ground on the boat, which seemed to have stopped for tea. It was 9 a.m.

Not until I was right up on it did I realize there were a dozen people with fancy cameras on tripods on the top observation deck. Only then did it strike me that this was a tour boat. And only then did it strike me they had turned around to watch a whale … and the whale was right in front of me.

Again, the head tossing, fin flopping, krill stirring, low-tide kelp bed feeding frenzy was going on right in front of me. This time, there was a nice ledge of rocks between me and the whale and I could loosen my grip on the paddle and take some photos. But first: “Northern Song, Northern Song, Northern Song. This is the kayak directly off your bow. Please respond.” And finally, its helm found the transmit key and assured me they would not run me over as they maneuvered for better viewing. And I waved at the whale peepers and they all waived back with vigor, watching me, watch the whale, at eye level.

A parade unlike any other.

July 4, 2012

Wrangell to Le Conte Bay

I could see the parade from a half-dozen miles away. In bright contrast to the silty, grey-green shallows of the Stikine Delta they appeared in a line, bobbing to their own rhythm. At first, I thought they were white power boats, sleek and low to the water. That was strange. I hadn’t seen a boat since leaving Wrangell; virtually everyone was in town for the festivities. Then it struck me. Icebergs! The white shapes were icebergs marching out of Le Conte Bay. It was true! The southernmost tidal glacier was a prodigious calfer of bergs! There was no stopping me now, I thought, and I started the sweeping seven-mile crossing to the bay.

Word had it that it was important to swing in a big arch around the delta. I would know my arch was wide enough when I encountered crab pots, as crabs don’t like brackish water and so would be dropped in the deeper waters off the edge of the silty, delta, shallow enough to ground a kayak. So I went wide, paddling on water smooth, green and cloudy as an old Coke bottle. The air was still and my eyes were glued on the iceberg parade that marched steadily out of the bay and pushed its way northwest up Frederick Sound.

Soon, festive crab pot markers colored the view, dozens of them, closely packed, like a curbside audience. The crab pots were near and the icebergs still fairly far off so I picked a pot marker and pulled purposefully toward it. As I passed the first pot, I noticed the pronounced V of a strong current  streaming around it. All the crab pots showed the same, streaming V and I realized I was barely making ground toward the icebergs without losing ground to the shore! The surface of the water was glassy, but a strong current was moving me and the bergs northward. The sea, the icebergs, the crab pots and I were on a vast conveyor belt moving northward.

Looks like a bird, right?

People who write about currents like to use the word “laminar,” as in laminate, to describe a current that is not choppy or turbulent. It always trips me up. Why not just say smooth? Well maybe, just maybe, this conveyor belt, this moveable smoothness is part of a laminar current.  I needed to outpace the pedestrian mover of the sea or I would soon end up in the D Terminal of some landlocked airport. I set my sight on the next crab pot, and kept sharp watch on the one behind me, to make sure it wasn’t gaining on me. It had not occurred to me to ask what was powering this parade of bergs or I might not have been so surprised at the fight on my hands. But I hadn’t asked, and so I continue to learn navigation one object lesson at a time.

After trying a number of things – swinging into the delta, heading for an the lee of an island – I finally just picked an angle and headed for the near shore, losing some ground but gaining the eddy I knew would be there. Now I was on the other side of the berg parade and free to gawk. The air and water were much colder than they been across the sound and I paddled against the stream of bergs, heading into the bay they were leaving.

It was a noisy parade. I had been hearing crashing, but I thought it was the sound of icebergs dropping off the glacier, which was several bends in the bay away, but not terribly far as sound travels. Then, a fairly large iceberg near me dissolved in a sharp crack and a long hiss. It crumbled to bits like a snow cone in the rain. Now I realized most of the cracking and splashing was coming as chunks of icebergs dropped off, or as whole bergs rolled over.

I kept my distance, sneaking close for photos, then, slipping away. These were not Titanic sized, but they were certainly big enough to sink my boat. Most were the size of a cabin, or two or three really big SUVs clumped together. A couple were huge, the size of a three-bedroom house. With a garage. That’s the part above the water. Some had been stranded on shore by the receding tide, and it was clear how much more there was to them than met the eye.

Even away from the glacier, many of them retained their otherworldly blue. Some were as blue as the water in Bahamas, like a robin’s egg, others were paler, a baby shower when you know it’s a boy, and some were just white or clear. Seals, many of the quiet young, it seemed, swam among the bergs calling out to each other or their mothers in a marine world game of Marco Polo.

A portable iceberg.

I had intended to camp at the mouth of the bay, but it was muddy and buggy there, so I pushed inside. It was approaching low tide and I needed a place that would accommodate the 24-foot tides that came with the full moon. I found a ledge about 80 yards from the water across a broad dry, cobblestone cove. Stranded ice bergs sat on the shore, melting too quickly to float on the next high tide but slowly enough to remind me how high the tide would come. I all but emptied the boat and hauled it on wet logs across the cobbles. The mossy ledge was at the end of a maze of game trails, but I saw only deer sign, no bear. There was a slot for the boat about four feet below the tent ledge, between two logs clad in green plush and jammed sharply up on rocks. I tied the boat in well and ate my usual one-pot dinner, pacing the shoreline both to see what bergs were coming next and to keep the bugs at bay. I might be able to watch icebergs forever.

I fell asleep to the booming of bergs calving from the glacier, and the sharp crack, splash and hiss of big bergs becoming smaller. A huge one broke and sent a wake that overlapped the kayak and echoes that chatted back and forth along the bay. Later, I woke to strange animal noises keening and crashing in the forest. My food was hung with care, but my heart pounded, unsure what could make such a mournful sound.

I awoke again in the depth of night when high tide had filled my broad bay to within a foot of the boat. The parade of icebergs had overflowed the main channel and the space below my tent had become a side stage of smaller bergs brightly lit by a full, Independence Day moon.

As I fell back asleep, I could hear the grand finale of the big Fourth of July celebration in Wrangell – the best in all of southeast Alaska, they say. But those Wrangellites might take for granted the show they have in their own back yard. Then again, what seemed muffled far off  thuds might have been my heart beat .

Girls take on the boys in the garnet wars before a ferry arrives in Wrangell.

Wrangle

July 4th

If the ferry comes in at 7, the garnet stand is open. If another’s right behind the first, the garnet gang delays breakfast. Competition for ferry business is tough at the crossroads at the ferry ramp. Since most people walk off, sales opportunities are plenty, predictable but brief. In Wrangle this morning, there are two things for sale: Coffee, and coffee only. And garnets.

Garnet gathering is a family hobby for some Wrangle families. There are rocky fields near the mouth of the Stikine River rich in the angled marbles, which come, I am told, in all colors but blue.

This morning, it was boys versus girls at the corner. There’s are a little nicer, one girl admitted. But, she countered, mine all have price tags.

The ferry crowd is a predictable, but short lived sales opportunity at garnet corner.

Warriors used to wear garnets for strength, so I got a little one for myself, and one to replace the holstein rock that traveled with me from Port Townsend to Alaska, where it mysteriously jumped ship. Sorry, Mark. I got you a nice garnet from the sweet, smart alec salesman.

The log rolling competition draws a crowd as Fourth of July contests kick off.

July 3, 2012 Wrangell, Alaska

Layover day

Independence Day is a four-day fling that builds in intensity here in Wrangell as soon as June is history. I arrived two days ago to the log rolling contest; sadly, I watched the canoe races start while I was at the chiropractor; now I hear live music from downtown while I watch skinny kids fling themselves off the dock, off the cargo containers on the dock, into the mid-rising tide at the center of town. Celebration, hoc and ad hoc is in the air. This morning, I listened to women discuss their Fourth of July outfits – one if it’s warm, one if it’s not. There is much discussion of how long it took to warm up after last year’s parade when a hard, cold rain relentlessly fell. Everywhere, people greet and part with, “Happy Fourth!” and “Have a safe and happy Fourth.” Wrangell is a funny blend of bruised knuckle working town and tourist stop, and it has been since Josie passed this way. George Vancouver cruised through in the 1790s. Then the Russian’s came in the 1840s and erased his names and plunked down their own, engaging in a bit of a mini-great game over control of the mighty Stikine River, which empties here and gives whoever controls it – Tlingit, Russian or Brit – a sense of merchantile control over the unreachable but rich interior of British Columbia . Josie may have stopped here. Many of the Klondike crowd did, sleeping in tents pitched in a clearing near the church. Thousands of them took a forced rest here as steamships stopped for fuel and supplies at a town so richly situated that it has served as a supply stop for more than 1,000 years. They were a scary crowd to some, who told their daughters not to stray across the mid-line of town because you never knew what ne’er do wells were among the gold rush crowd. For awhile, modern Wrangell was a town that timber built. As I type, two guys are on the dock, turning big logs into big discs with extra long chain saws. It seems to be part of the Fourth, but there is no crowd. Maybe they’re chunking up the podium for the Queen of the Fourth competition, which is hotly contested, judging by the posters in windows and the number of contestants and their emissaries who have asked me to buy raffle tickets, the sale of which seems to be a measure of one’s royalty. As timber faded, and the Stikine fishery was put on a greatly reduced limit, tourism grew. The couple at the table next to me sound British, and are very seriously instructing their children on the importance of seeing wild animals in nature and not a zoo. Apparently they took a tour of the Annan bear reserve, just around Wrangle Island from the town itself. Bears are big business on Wrangle, and an even bigger presence on the mainland just a short blast away. Bear Fest comes in two weeks. It’s hard to imagine how it measures up to the Fourth, but it has quite a buzz and attracts bear experts from all over the world and hungry bears from as far as bears care to travel. It’s all tied to the salmon run, of course, but you can’t buy a bite of salmon in town. The salmon have started running late this year. I’ve spoken with many anxious trollers on my trip, hoping the salmon at least pay for the effort to catch them. But now, the kings have started to run and people are bragging about big hauls and going back out. The salmon that slip through the fishing fleet and make their way back up the rivers, those are the salmon that bring the bears that bring the fest that fuels the tourism edge of Wrangell after the Fourth is done. I will leave these kings and queens behind and spend my fourth where the sparks that fly are ice chips. I’m going to ride high tide over the broad Stikine River delta at mid-morning tomorrow and head toward the LeConte Glacier, which is known for such prodigious calving that I won’t try to see the face itself but be satisfied, I hope, if I can just glide among some icebergs and camp where the bears would rather not go.

Looking north up Zimovia Straight, yellow pop weed provides contrast in a landscape of grey layers.

Saturday, July 1

Zimovia Islets to Wrangell, Alaska

I mentioned earlier that self-perception takes two forms out here. One has to do with scale and where I am on the landscape. The other, which I pondered earlier, has to do with internal references and where the landscape settles in my brain.

The former has to do with maps. Choosing what scale map to use on this trip is an interesting exercise for life. It asks a pretty deep question: How much detail do you need to know about what your future holds?

Most people in boats use charts, which show buoys, lights and water depth. They tend to use the 1:40,000-foot scale, which fold up to the size of a checkers board and cover one or two days’ progress. At that scale, carrying the 40-plus large maps required for this trip becomes a logistical challenge. They don’t all fit at once, so people send them ahead in resupply boxes. That obligates the paddler to stopping in a given town during post office hours. It also means you change maps in the map case more often and have more clunky maps to lug around when you’re done with that part of the trip. Clearly, knowing my future in greater detail is not my style.

After talking to people who have done this trip, I chose to use maps, not charts. These have less detail about the sea, but more about places I might camp – such as topography, which shows flat spots for tents, and streams for water. I use the quarter million scale, or 1:250,000. They fold up to the size of an Uno game and it takes 16 of them to cover my trip. I chose not to send resupply boxes. I have all my maps with me, and am free to stop as I want. But I sacrifice a fair amount of detail in the maps. Which is to say, I may be more surprised by what my future holds than a chart user, but I’m more nimble getting there. Or, as I joke to myself during moments of hyper vigilance brought on by steep anxiety of what’s to come: Ignorance is the backbone of adventure.

This compromise of detail has not been much of a problem. By and large I can see what lies before me. If I can’t, it’s too foggy and I stay put. But there have been a couple of days when I’ve been just baffled, threading my way through divergent passages, each decorated with their own archipelago of islands. In short, there are days I am totally surrounded by islands that don’t show up on my maps.

The lead in to Wrangell Island was that way. I leapt across a series of big crossings – two, three, then four mile wide bays and passages. By happy accident, I was on the water at 5:15 (I forgot to change my second watch back an hour for Alaskan time.) This gave me a full, very calm morning with a rising tide to carry me to my destination. When the wind did come up, it was at my back and gently helped me along. So I took the bays close to their wide mouths rather than paddling in deep for protection, and I took a running tangent skimming the broad southeastern edge of the X formed where Ernest Sound and Zimovia Straight intersect. And it was that flying leap that left me in the middle of I knew not where. The wind came up and I beelined it with some intensity to the nearest sheltering island.

I thought I was headed for Deer Island, and I got there in time for a totally unprecedented burst of sunshine, complete with the lowest rainbow I’ve ever seen. It kept raining, don’t worry. I ate lunch and pondered the map. The north western half of Deer Island filled the lower right corner of my map. Its south east edge, what came before that, or what led up to that flank, was not on that map but on a map I did not own. I really couldn’t tell where I was on Deer Island, or even if I was on Deer Island. Assuming I was, my next step was to find an island called Found Island, which my map showed was a couple of miles across the afore mentioned intersection of straight and sound. But where, exactly, had that intersection gone?

I compared the map with what I saw. I looked down and up. Map, reality, map, reality. Things did not jibe. I saw only one big body of water. Which was it? Ernest or Zimovia? It seemed clear during my crossing, but now I was not so sure. I checked the compass and contemplated the always fascination question of magnetic declination. (If magnetic declination, the difference between where a compass points north and where a map points north, was 29 degrees in 1960, what is it now, and does that mean true north, 360T, map north, is more east or less east than the 360M that the compass reads? I have this conversation when I run out of other things to talk to myself about.)

Finally, I dug out the GPS and turned it on. Plugging waypoints into the GPS prior to my departure almost cost me my sanity, and I owe it to the guys at Montana Hunting GPS out on Russell for nudging me ahead. Go see them if you want the pros to program your next hunt into a GPS. Anyhow, I’ve only used the GPS a few times, usually to confirm my precise location at the end of the day. But a few times it has confirmed that I was off base. Once before, in the Gulf Islands, it helped me weave through a similar labyrinth of tiny islands. When I need the GPS, I’m sure glad to have it.

Searching for Found Island was the first time I’ve had to use the Go To function and just follow the purple line. I was not on Deer Island but was two tiny islands removed from my target. Ignorance: Gateway to ah-ha moments. I put my faith in the purple line although it seemed a bit counterintuitive until I could see the two parting waters and my destination. I crossed to Found Island and in doing so, more completely onto my map.

Everybody but Maria: Bill and his family out fishing

At Found Island I ran into Bill Sr., Bill Jr. and Caroline out fishing with the kids and Dogzilla, who, like all dogs, found the half-woman, half-boat figure of a kayaker very disturbing. Bill Sr. worked on fishing boats in these waters for years and harbors an unfulfilled dream of paddling the Inside Passage himself. These days, he scratches that itch by inviting kayakers in for dinner and so he gave me directions for weaving into the secret tidewater sanctuary that shelters cabins off Zimovia Straight.

I wound around tiny islands, up shallow notches where the end of the ebb tide created a rushing current, and found Bill’s getaway cabin. The tidewater pockets dry almost completely at low tide, leaving a basin of mud colorfully ringed with uniformly yellow pop weed, a sliver of sharp, slate grey rock, then bright grass, then trees. It was pouring rain and the mud underscored everything in a way it hasn’t elsewhere.

Maria was cooking inside and dashing outside to enjoy her new deck whenever the rain cleared. We talked kayaking and rightly so – with these backwaters and the broader Zimovia, this place makes for terrific exploration by kayak or canoe. Maria is a retired teacher from Monterey. That she married Bill and moved to Wrangell shows the depths of Bill’s charm. The cabin in the popweed was a long way from Monterey.

Bill and the fishing boat had punched their way through the narrows and returned. My presence in the little cabin meant it was packed full, making it lively and warm. We feasted on roast chicken and quinoa and – the greatest luxury of all to me – a crisp salad. Then I was off to bunk down on the couch at a neighboring vacant cabin. Maria and Bill slept on the bigger boat, which made room for Bill, Caroline, the girls and Dogzilla in the cabin.

Wrangle Island is bear central and Bill helped me attach my kayak to the dragline and pulley it, like the laundry, out to the middle of the lagoon. I had been wrestling with the bear question since entering these lagoons. It was too rainy, too muddy, too far, too late for me to willingly unload the food from the boat, too obviously a bear haven not to. I mean, the cabin next to me belongs to one of the Craigheads, bear researchers known throughout beardom, including Montana and Wyoming.

No sooner had a snuggled into my sleeping bag and turned to look out the cabin window then a roly-poly black bear sow appeared, slowly grazing the far bank of the lagoon as her three cubs of the year followed behind. They ran and tripped  over each other and every wrinkle in the ground as they scrambled to keep up with her and still explore the wide banks. My kayak floated, secure, 20 yards from every bank.

Dawn was at about 3, low tide at about 5. I woke up and things were as I had secretly known they would be: My kayak, alone on an expanse of mud. Further now from water than it had been from shore. Luckily, these bears had better things to eat than Pateel’s curried lentils, or they just don’t like the feeling of mud between their toes.

I got up, slid into slick and smell neoprene and slid the boat to water to make a silent exit. I didn’t need a marine chart to find water deeper than this to paddle.

Gratuitous note from guest author, Right Hand: We are both much better but get water logged very quickly.

A tired soul in front of the spirit tree.

Friday, June 29

Niblock Hollow to Vixen Harbor, off Earnest Passage

The logs and twisted stumps become ancient, contorted skeletons lunging from the bank. They become Sasquatch and innumerable seals and whales tails that never move. A kelp ribbon is an otter. A new fangled high rise boat is coming at me fast (Oh, no, that’s the current, picking up and carrying me fast straight at that … buoy).

Today, a log bobbed up ahead of me and I thought: log. Then it rolled on its back, gave a hissing bark and bared its teeth. I braced and turned abruptly. Geez! Stellar sea lion. Then it did it again, alongside me: rose up, rolled over to show its long snout, its little dog ears and all of its teeth. And it snorted.  Yikes! That’s a drowning bear! I took off and didn’t look back for a while.  Probably, it was a sea lion.  But it had such a long, dog-like snout and seemed to be struggling so. But no, a drowning bear would be a very strange thing. Still, clearly, I’ve got bear on the mind. This landscape, huge, long drawn and cluttered, puts the psyche on stage.

There are two sorts of dizzying self-perception that go on out here. One has to do with scale and where I am on the landscape. The other has to do with internal references and where the landscape settles in my brain. I’ll tackle the issue of scale later. Today, the question is what things are and what they seem and what maybe a question of the energy they emit.

On the water, floating logs assume all sorts of disguises. Most often they seem to be benign sea mammals: seals, otters, whale parts, or, just once, a real sea lion seems to be a drowning bear. Then they go back to being logs, or the sea lion and seals slip beneath the surface. On shore, however, the dark, moss draped woods are so clearly inhabited by spirits that it is impossible that they should not manifest themselves visibly.

The shoreline has opened up north of Ketchikan. Although there are still miles of the impenetrable shoal-cliff-tree combination, now there are landable beachs every couple of miles. The forest rims the beach, and appears to offer refuge. Step behind the drift logs and up, into the spongy muskeg, and it takes the mind time to adjust. Refuge is not always the first thing that comes to mind.

My eyes refocus, from the long reaches of water to the looming, present woods. What seems solid, is not. A mossy log gives way to a spongy gap, a branch twists silently into moist crumbs. Shapes loom. As I evaluate a campsite I look for bears. They leap out of the trees: mossy bears, dancing bears, corpulent bears. I haven’t seen an actual bear at a campsite since I left the Vancouver Island end of BC, but I see bear shapes everywhere.

Yesterday, winds and surf booming on offshore shoals in Clarence Straight eventually encouraged me to stop at noon, after a blissfully calm, early crossing of Behm Canal. At this spot, the woods were dense and unforgiving, filled not only with ghost bears but with evidence that the real thing call this home: Piles of shell-fragment filled poo.

A well-worn trail connected two coves of slurring surf and low tide pools that are fast food stops for hungry bears. That trail went steeply up and over a cedar-filled hump connecting the coves and the only clear spot for a tent was just along the poop path, next to, I swear, a bear den. I spent the better part of and hour heaving my bear line high above the trail, getting it tangled in the mess of branches overhead, and pulling it back down on my head.

Done with that, I went to check on the boat and realized the winds had dropped and the sea was calm. I reloaded the boat in a flurry and squeezed around another point and cove before the winds came back up.

My second site of the day had absolutely no sign of bear. But it was full of spirits. A fire-scarred, soaring ancient cedar protected a clearing big enough for my tent. The fire scar was deep enough to give shelter from the never ending rain while I ate, and was a locker for my padding gear. But clearly, this cedar was at the center of a sacred space as well. Around it, the forest seemed especially still and free of specific specters – no skeletons, mossy bear or Sasquatch. Instead, the specific spirit of this tree and two others beyond the reach of each other’s branches, created a still space in the usual chaos of the woods.  At the foot of the tree was an abalone shell. I have only seen abalone shells in the forest in one other place on this trip – the midden camp just before Port Hardy. It, too, was clearly a special place.

Otelisks, also called fish ivories, left beneath a regal cedar

Here, behind the grand cedar, was a pile of fish ivories. I’ve asked around and it seems maybe the Yellow Rockfish has ivories like these – butterfly shaped, the size of joined twonies, the big Canadian two dollar coin. These ivories are not bone but harder and stronger ivory. They have to be carefully located, removed and kept while cleaning fish. Their proper name is otelisk, though I don’t know how to spell that and neither do any of the fishermen sitting around me as I write. Halibut and other deep diving fish have them in their ears, I understand. Many people collect them.

These were not a casual offering, like the inland crab shells left by eagles or the urchin shells bears drag ashore. These were left for this cedar.

The cedar’s broad reach protected the only space large enough for a tent.  For some reason, although I was only a few miles north of the earlier camp, the bears left this area alone. I asked the cedar to keep it that way for one more night. It had rained all day, I had made two camps, I was cold and tired and I slept soundly through a night of hard rain, protected by a tremendous tree, and the spirits inside it.

I wheel my handcart turned kayak dolly to the ferry.

Tuesday, June 26

Aboard the ferry Matanuska (filed from Wrangle)

Handling a sea kayak on shore is like taking your dolphin for a walk. It thrives in the water, but is just a nuisance in the parking lot.  I fell asleep at the hostel in Prince Rupert aware that I was planning to take a ferry the next day to Ketchikan that would arrive at 11:30 p.m., and yet I had no ticket; nowhere to stay in Ketchikan and no way to move my kayak and all her contents away from the ferry dock. Towns are very stressful.

I awoke and fired off emails to a couple of sea kayak tour operators in Ketchikan, asking for advice or help. I tried to buy a ticket, but it was too late to get one online and too early to get one on the phone. I went to breakfast and hoped for the best.

The best arrived in the form of Thomas and Howard of Ketchikan Kayak Tours, who said they would meet me at the ferry, help take care of my kayak and take me to wherever I was staying for the night. I am eternally grateful to the strangers who extend a hand on this trip. Many of them become friends. All of them offer me the opportunity to be better to strangers myself.

On the ferry, I got a call from Dale at Eagle View Hostel in Ketchikan. He had room if I wanted it. I did.

And, of course, I got my ticket. The Alaskan Marine Highway, also known as The Ferry, leaves a lot to be desired, especially when the immediate competition is the British Columbia ferry system. Let’s just say a cart, or even a nice employee willing to lend a hand, would go a long way in improving customer service where kayakers are concerned. Kayaks are not laptops, but that’s pretty much how the ferry treats them: You brought it here, you get it on board. I’m keeping my comments on this short, but the ridiculous lack of accomodation triggered what my brother calls my Rambette personality disorder. I commandeered a ferry handcart, used my fleece jacjet to protect my kayak from its sharp edges and bungeed the boat to the dolly. Then, piling my big bags on top of the boat, I did my best to make the awkward shuffle to the boat look effortless. It must have looked easy because not a single soul offered to help.

I got it aboard in one shot, but I’m not feeling the love for the Alaskan ferry that I still feel for the BC one.

As I’m about to post this from Wrangle, I realize I’ve made a major leap without filing an update. Towns, where I can file, also create a flurry of logistical demands. I jumped from Butedale to Hartly Bay, a native community that really demands its own blog post. I caught the town high speed taxi from there to Prince Rupert, where I executed a very fast turnaround to Ketchikan. I arrived Ketchikan late at night, spent one day on logistics and left early the next. Each turn around was so tight that I didn’t stop to post an update. Neither town offered up much of  a story, though I did see all the boaters from Butedale in Prince Rupert: Deb and Neal, Ramona and DC, Donna and Mike and the elegant fishing boat Tink.  I arrived Prince Rupert with Herman, a kayaker from Baja, but left him there to get his own errands done and traveled on solo. That catches you up to speed.