Magoun Islands and Sitka, Alaska
Down-pillow clouds in line, hugging low islets. Gentle air moving ripples on narrow passages. The full moon tugging tides – low now.
Seastars in reds and purples and oranges and grays – predatory – but huddled to defeat the desiccating sun, their cool-water home soon to rise again. Floats and stipes and blades waving underwater, growing fast, grasping tenaciously to deep rocks. Bays of barnacles casting feathered-feet in anticipation of drifting food.
Baranof’s high peaks, un-rounded by endless, grinding, polishing ice sheets, now melted back to the tides.
Fusiform salmon back home in natal water, transporting riches from the ocean to streams and riparian forests...their final gift.
Glimpses into Sitka, Russian-America’s legacy – heartland of the hunt for soft gold, a species to the edge of extinction. “The Purchase” – 1867 – including $200,000 in gold bullion for thick ice of tiny Swan Lake. Winter’s ice is thin now...Earth warms.
Totem poles – the story books of the First Peoples – standing tall until nature draws them back to the soil.
The glowing sun a gift of kindness we shall not forget.
His Majesty Bald Eagle watching.
That was our day near the Pacific.
Down-pillow clouds in line, hugging low islets. Gentle air moving ripples on narrow passages. The full moon tugging tides – low now.
Seastars in reds and purples and oranges and grays – predatory – but huddled to defeat the desiccating sun, their cool-water home soon to rise again. Floats and stipes and blades waving underwater, growing fast, grasping tenaciously to deep rocks. Bays of barnacles casting feathered-feet in anticipation of drifting food.
Baranof’s high peaks, un-rounded by endless, grinding, polishing ice sheets, now melted back to the tides.
Fusiform salmon back home in natal water, transporting riches from the ocean to streams and riparian forests...their final gift.
Glimpses into Sitka, Russian-America’s legacy – heartland of the hunt for soft gold, a species to the edge of extinction. “The Purchase” – 1867 – including $200,000 in gold bullion for thick ice of tiny Swan Lake. Winter’s ice is thin now...Earth warms.
Totem poles – the story books of the First Peoples – standing tall until nature draws them back to the soil.
The glowing sun a gift of kindness we shall not forget.
His Majesty Bald Eagle watching.
That was our day near the Pacific.
