All That's In Between
MARY PACIFICO CURTIS
We awoke to fog, a darker overcast than prior mornings on these waters, and an unnatural silence in a glassy expanse that was dotted by icebergs—some a resting spot for white gulls, others too jagged to be welcoming. We were still between mountains, rising on each side of the ship, but forested slopes had now given way to sheer rock faces that disappeared into the mist. The temperature had dropped and was dropping more. Along the way, the icebergs that typically anchored gulls became larger, and blue—a treacherous resting point for something we could make out moving along the water’s edge. Drawing closer, we saw humans walking, their tiny skiff anchored at the iceberg’s shoreline. Scale and perspective shifted as we realized that the floating icebergs were now the size of tiny islands. The bright white that I expected shone an iridescent blue from compaction. In only a matter of minutes, we came upon the jagged glacial wall, more shades of blue than white, dirty from the collected debris of the mountains pushing against the ice field that stretched for miles inland between rolling peaks.
It was both spectacle and shock. In the days that would follow, I wondered at the stories behind each place we stopped and the many stories, no longer told, that simply disappeared in the centuries’ dimming light.
We were seven days into our trip, and three years into our marriage. Behind us now, talk about spouses lost to cancer, evolving careers, those who could not accept that we fell in love with someone new. We’d studied well and honored the spouse that each of us lost. Also behind us by this time: Cuba, the Galapagos, Southwest US, Europe, and South America. I had imagined the terrain, the wildlife, and a short first cruise to see if I could handle a cruise: Alaska.
Michael had cruised Alaska producing shows on ships. Instead of rehearsing with a cast, I’ll get to wander this time.
We followed a larger vessel through the passage around the southern tip of Victoria Island and into the Pacific Ocean. During the next full day at sea we walked the ship, acclimating to its whisper soft elevators, grand circular staircase, multiple pools, Jacuzzis and views from the decks—grey skies, occasional outcroppings of rocky islands, hints of land, larger islands hidden in the fog shroud.
During the day-one safety drill, I surveyed the gathering of passengers—an overwhelmingly Caucasian group chattering excitedly—people nearer the end of their lives than the beginning. Though we felt like the youngest in the room, we most certainly were not. We scanned for the athletic ones—the ones who might join us on off-board exploration—and found a few couples. We also saw canes and wheelchairs, extreme facelifts on women with age-bent postures, couples with one healthier spouse offering a steady hand or arm for the one who struggled with balance, the double amputee with her attentive mate and luminous smile, the occasional young family clustering around doting grandparents. We reluctantly acknowledged our own age with the hope that good health would be with us for a long time. Recognizing that we were “in between,” we surrendered to the passage of time without days that are numbered or named as we drifted to terrains where the indigenous are dark skinned, and the wildlife is abundant—both having struggled to survive the attentions of adventurers and the privileged.
I awakened to Michael’s insistent voice, “You’ve got to see this rock.”
“Give me a minute,” I replied as I struggled between wild dreams and consciousness.
“It’ll be gone in a minute.” I rolled out of bed and hurried to the veranda.
Just before us, dominating a tiny sandbar, stood a vertical rock, perhaps a long irregular oval shape. One could only guess as it was covered by trees growing out of its surface, giving it the character of a wild-haired troll. The ship came close enough that my photos captured facial features in the verdant green surface beneath.
Though the ship’s movement was imperceptible, we soon found ourselves gazing at another tiny island—a density of pines rising directly from the water, spindly silhouettes at the bare tops suggesting the harshness of winters in this now temperate passage.
The maps I studied a day earlier charted our route between land masses of sheer rock stretching 1,500 to 2,000 feet and higher. Equal or greater depths beneath the water’s surface created this channel that ranged from 300 to 1,000 feet or more. At the water’s edge, abundant forest thinned as the eye traveled upward to the sheer ridged-rock saddles between round peaks.
One day, zodiacs took us on a quick traverse to kayaks tethered in a yellow line. Two at a time, we lowered ourselves in and paddled circles waiting for the full group to arrive, boat by boat, adapting to the rhythm set by the front paddler. In this Misty Fjord region, a bright sun and blue skies smiled on the lagoon called God’s Pocket where we hugged the shoreline, admiring trees that seem to take root in rock and grow to spectacular heights and girth. I made a mental note to find out if the moss on the rock face provides anchor and sustenance for young tree roots as they grow.
Around a rocky corner, a high waterfall cascaded down a crevice of the canyon wall, widening as it dropped and then splitting to the right, through some unseen channel to a wide rock where it spilled into the fjord. Though we spoke quietly enough to the other person in our kayak, the voices of our fellow travelers carried on the breeze—clear and distinct as creature-calls to one another, an occasional laugh, an exclamation at a rock arch and at the waterfall.
Bears had been sighted in a shore-side meadow earlier in the day. We paddled toward the meadow, beginning our watch in silence broken only by muffled warnings to stay very still. Though someone saw a bear emerge and return to the forest for a fleeting moment, to all appearances the meadow was deserted. I soon gave up hope of capturing my own version of the photos shown to me by an earlier traveler—a bear against a backdrop of bushes and high grass. Later we learned that incoming tide had raised the water level six feet by the time we were there, thus covering much of the meadow that the bears had traversed earlier.
Our kayaks sloshed over waves pushing us sideways toward the rock wall, and we knew the tide continued its swift rise, requiring us to paddle across rather than against the current. The zodiacs clustered closer together, and soon enough we reversed all that we had done, lifting out of the kayak onto the rubber tubes, crossing sparkling water toward our ship, remarking at the high rock arch etched over eons into the sheer face at the gateway to the lagoon, and finally over the tube to the lowered dock.
As the ship moved again, I stepped onto our veranda.
Mountains in the distance faded from a dark foreground to ever lighter shades of grey against a twilight sky as we slid through the waters that we had sailed to arrive, passing the density of pines and the sandbar with the troll-rock, retracing our route from the main channel as if turning back time.
In Sitka, we zipped into neck-to-toe all-weather gear, and straddled rubber tubes, grabbing the handlebars as if to ride a mechanical bronco. Speeding out of the harbor toward St. Lucius Island, slant rain pelted our faces from both sides. Sea otters floated adorably on their backs, lava tubes and porous black rock made a haven for puffins, gulls, and otters as low vegetation greened the hilly rises.
We had been told that the native Tlingit people fought off the Russians, after an odd co-existence of three or more cultures. The Americans had negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia. At what cost in the currency of the day, and at what cost to the indigenous people?
In the ebb and flow of days, eagles swooped to catch tilapia tossed in front of our zodiac. Curious whales surfaced around the bow of our skiff, circling close to study us with cerulean eyes as we gripped the metal rail. Ice Age movement over the terrain rounded the tops of most mountains, leaving intact only cone shapes of peaks surpassing 3,000 feet. Ancient movement of the Pacific plate revealed itself on the rocks rising to form Revillagigado and Gravina Islands.
One day we awoke to a concrete dock just outside our deck 5 veranda. We disembarked to walk the bleak stretch of Wrangell’s main street, past Ace Hardware and Wells Fargo Bank, an all-weather and sports gear store, the Elks Lodge, some boarded clapboard office buildings and insurance establishments, the occasional bar and restaurant, and a long stretch of waterside cargo and cooling containers with immense fans. At the end of the street, the Shakes house nestled on a knoll between inlets of the harbor. Entry through a small oval opening doubled as a mouth in the ceremonial mask decorating the face of the building. A modest display held totems of whales and fish, viewing cases protected writings and implements. The canoe opposite the door drew my attention, high at the bow and stern, thick wood that I know is carved from a single tree trunk. Around back outside, we came upon four totem poles lying flat under makeshift sheds, weathered, in disrepair but preserved for restoration.
This was a celebration of the Tlingit people and their 5,000-year history and sovereignty on this tiny island ruled at various times by Russia, Great Britain and the United States.
Along the residential area behind the main street, manicured flower gardens, a man replacing roof shingles, fishing skiffs in yards and modest homes themselves portrayed a simple life in this town that relies on a cruise ship economy for three months of the year. I was deep in thought about the preciousness of summers, family life, abundant seafood, and the people and traditions not immediately obvious to the casual visitor. A bumper sticker read: “I’ve been fishing so long, even my worm gets social security.”
The tide was out when we returned to the dock, and our gangway was being lowered from the 5th deck to the 4th. By the time we left, the ebbing tide had made even that gangway too steep for some passengers.
Our ship’s luxury catered to every comfort and need as we lulled through the dreamy expanse. But when we left to explore—whether hiking, kayaking or by zodiac—we felt an ever-present and terrible power behind Alaska’s serene summertime.
Tides rise as much as 40 feet two to four times daily, stranding people who rely on low tide by cutting off walkable ground to their homes. In a place with roughly as many bears as humans, the humans learn to stand ground and face the charging grizzly who will most often veer away—but not always. If the human runs, the bear chases.
In clear inlets we witnessed the unerring instinct of salmon who once traveled to sea but now struggled upstream in the shallowest of river waters to spawn before dying. It is a splashy fight, a desperate determination against waters rife with sandbars that ground some. Their muscled battle to carry on the species supports an entire ecosystem.
In a replicated Tsimshian clan house in Juneau, we heard the story of Am’ala—He Who Holds Up the Earth—a boy relegated by his tribe to live in ashes and urine. This boy secretly trained on a regimen, developing great strength. He struck out into the world where he performed such extraordinary feats that a dying god on a distant island sent for him, asking that he take over the task of holding the earth on a pole on his back. Wild duck oil rubbed into his muscles gave Am’ala the fortitude to endure and continue his task, though it was feared that when wild ducks disappear, he would no longer have the strength. My throat tightening, I was strangely moved by the story, conflicted between a childlike faith that the hero would persevere and a skeptic’s anticipation that his endurance would fail. For all its power, the story’s native wisdom has gone unheard. Our collective consciousness has not heroically held up our earth, and I wonder when the metaphoric duck oil will “run out” as we waste our natural world.
At the doorway to the adjacent collection of masks, a sign warns native visitors that these shamanic objects should only be approached if they one feels certain of their own benevolent spirits. I studied the faces made of driftwood, animal gut, salmon skin, hide of bearded seal, hair -- many titled only “Mask.” Others bore descriptive names: King Island Wolf Transformation Mask, Good Shaman and Bad Shaman side by side, The Dark Side. The hush in the room was palpable as people lingered before each mask, examining the contours of the faces, their chiseled features, the aspects and absences that made each unique, expressive, strong in ways we interpret through the lens of our own intuition and personal mythologies. In each was the story of the spirit it represents, as well as the history of its making. This was a sacred ground because of the powerful spirits emanating from the masks themselves, and because of the extreme care today’s natives have taken in their work with elders to preserve and recreate the beings and deities—as if restoring artifacts will also return them to life and dignity.
Floating to my awakening, icebergs of various sizes passed by as we moved forward. What is forward?
Silence, with only the soft breeze we floated through. We stood on our veranda surveying in all directions from our tiny spot, ours in this terrain, this ecosystem on our planet as we entered the land of the giants. Deep breath.
More icebergs drifted by—clumpy, smaller in their densities until there it was. Not pristine and towering. Instead, a spilling between rocky rises of 3,000. Sheer blue peaks dwarfed our vessel.
Ice rivers older than the rings in the most giant trees. All shades of blue from stages and centuries of compaction. Midnight blue to almost white with ribbons of dirt on the slopes of ice—debris and mountain slides and vast fields. 30,000 years had built layers into masses that muscled rocks and cliffs apart, sending dirt to mark the power of the ages—ages of ice reforming a planet to the geographies of today.
Boarding a small boat, we approached the giant that sent off its shuddering groans, soft grindings, rifle shot blasts—the precursors. And the silences—broken by a whoosh and roar of ice falling, hitting the water, churning up icebergs at the base, pushing the waters to a perfect tsunami of waves in chaos, churning back against themselves, breaking again around the glacial base of the calving.
The small crowd ooh-ed and ahh-ed as if watching July Fourth fireworks, their collective silly cheering celebrating the explosion while anticipating the next to come.
The ice giants shed and shed again. As the oohs and ahs continued, my heart sank. Though a natural occurrence, the calving cycle’s power felt to me like a wounded earth shuddering and shedding. These glaciers that once shaped this world are now being destroyed by it with no turning back.
A pall fell over our ship as it anchored, passengers lining the rails and speaking in hushed tones. We learned that Alaska is losing ice at 75 billion metric tons per year, a rate that will cover the state with 30 centimeters of water every 7 years. With that loss goes the diversity of species in the ecosystem, as the fingerprint of glacial meltwater is altered, tidal volumes are changed, as is the temperature of the water and the nutrients it carries. The Little Ice Age that began 4,000 years ago produced 100,000 glaciers in Alaska alone. Ninety-five percent are losing ground today. The Ice Age covered 33% of our globe in glacial ice, of which 10% remains today, still the repository of 75% of the world’s fresh water. Time lapse photography of Mendenhall Glacier documents the impact of its 1,830-foot retreat since 2007, transforming the ice mass that once covered the lake to the tame backdrop of today at the edge of a distant shore.
As we continued through the waters, hanging glaciers appeared between peaks and we felt a sudden elation at the sight of a single advancing glacier, Johns Hopkins.
Light dropped as our engines reached a purposeful speed signaling the end of our journey, a sea-day before disembarkation in Seward. We were still between islands and fingers of land that met the water, between tides, between all the events that formed the region and the uncertain future of man’s impact on the earth. Between land masses, islands and channels formed by upheavals of rock, between yesterday’s hopes and tomorrow’s outcomes.
The overcast opened, revealing curled cloud edges, through which the cold sunset started and stretched to the earth. It was a miraculous, embracing light, despite the ominous surround that it had penetrated, an embrace that said you are a part of all this, we are a part of all of this. One with the light streaming to earth and the dark sky, one with the people who had cheered as the glaciers calved, one with those who mourned the passing of majesty and miracles—one with the glaciers. One with the sludge of centuries, time and land masses shifting and collected in ribboned mud veins traveling across each glacier’s surface. One with the sheets of ice that spill into the bay, the harsh ripple that follows, the dark waters, the frothy waves sloshing to shore, the darkness and the insistent light. We are one with this earth, it is ours to carry.
