Today was, for me, like walking into a long-awaited dream…at once serene and sad—with carved sculptural shapes of ancient cedar returning to Earth, and the unimaginable losses suffered here. A land fiercely battered by wind and waves yet carpeted with soft nearly irresistible beds of moss. The inhabitants long gone, and yet so very present through what they left behind.
Mists lifted, clouds parted, and we landed ashore through the opening following the watchmen, those gracious and steadfast, soft-spoken gentle Haida men, solid in their culture and patient in their teaching. We walked in the footsteps made over millennia, of a culture so remarkable in its social complexity and technological advancement and so nearly lost.
How many canoes have landed here, and how many potlatch songs and dances blessed that village now resting? Thousands? My wanderings leave me with more questions than answers, about we humans and our social evolution…but perhaps at times answers are overrated.
Maybe the best answer is to head out to the bow and enjoy all those humpback whales!
