Advance Warning

   I watched Greenpeace lose their grip, from my vantage on Collison Point, as they tried to clash with the Arco tugs pulling their Drilling Platform into place that August day in 1997. Then a few days later, I watched again as man learned how puny he is to the advance of nature itself.
   I awoke to take care of my camp, and noticed that the top of the Brooks Range was covered in snow. The next day, it was on the foothills, and the third day, I was paddling in it. The weather moves fast in the Arctic, and if you fail to take that into consideration, if you do not watch all that goes on around you, the consequences can be less than pleasant. Here we are not in control, and as mentioned before, we are not on top of the food chain.
   The beauty of the Arctic is in it's raw discipline. You move with the rhythm of the land, and she in turn moves with you. That's the way it is - no hype can cover for the honesty in her ways. She has nothing to hide, and no reason to. I've seen that in some of the blazing beauty of the frozen waterways, and the stark landscape of her sobering winter artistry...

Beckoning...
Amber Fire radiant through
                          Sparkling Crystal Lace;
Brilliant the Morning when it comes, stealthy in It's own
                                                                       Time and Space
to Define the Virgin Majesty of
                                          peopled shrubs and whithered trees,
Bowed in frosted subjection, while robed serene to the Soul's awakening
                                                                                                                                      into a
Diamond Eternity...
                           Together.


   So it is.
   And was, as it turned out, the harald of the storm to come, and which welcomed me into Kaktovik.
   Into the second stage of the journey...and new life.
-WKD