Just a few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to take part in a meditation/writing/ kayaking retreat in Alaska. There were 14 of us in all, in a small lodge, off the grid, accessible only by boat, for five full days and six nights. On a small channel above the Wrangell Narrows on the Inside Passage – which is that panhandle of Alaska that runs north-south with the Pacific Ocean to the west and British Columbia to the east.
The Inside Passage is part of the marine ecoregion called the North American Pacific Fjordland. Shaped by massive glaciers millions of years ago, boasting majestic mountains, wildlife-filled waterways, and thousands of islands blanketed by temperate old-growth rainforest, it is home to bald eagles, sea lions, porpoises and whales.
The lodge backed up to towering spruce and hemlocks that shaded a lush world of shrubs, ferns and mosses, in which bright fungi sprang up overnight on decaying stumps and four-inch-long slugs crept across lichen covered logs. When the tide was in, the deck was maybe 100 feet from the water’s edge, the rocky shore buffered by tall grass. When it was out, a graveled carpet of shellfish, anemones and algae was laid bare...(read more)
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| Low tide on Keene Channel |
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