In mid-July I found two days with good, clear weather in the forecast so I made my Cedar Island overnight solo. In part I wanted to see improvements that Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks had made on the island—a series of looping trails, tent pads marked out on the ground, and the installation of a first-rate composting toilet to prevent the fouling of the island and surrounding water with human waste. The island now awaits people willing to paddle this far, in my case, from Walstad Fishing Access to the island, or arrive under power to spend some time on an island that feels like a ship in a vast sea.

During this paddle I love adjusting myself to the multi-directional winds around Wild Horse Island—the challenge to balance and centeredness posed by crosswinds, the strength that headwinds require, the temporary pleasure of tail winds. I love the big, open-water crossing between Wild Horse and Cedar Islands that asks me to be patient and the marvelous conjunction of turquoise and cobalt water colors along the way. When setting up camp I am grateful for a hummingbird’s visit probably because I wore my red swim trunks. I am always astonished by the way they make eye contact. Sitting in my lightweight folding chair, I like watching the noise of the waves grow still around sunset. Waking in the middle of the night, I see the star river through the mosquito netting and the overhead appearance of brilliant Deneb and companion stars that form Cygnus the swan. Time on the island in a state of stillness allows me to watch two eagles race each other to a fish they spotted a half mile away, their powerful wing beats, the sudden splash, wheeling turn with taloned fish, and the long return to the roost. Time and attention are rewarded with many gifts.

This time I noticed something else. In three different locations I saw imaginative expressions of human creativity in the use of natural materials. As if undistracted by technology and its trailing devices and cords, people, perhaps children, expressed themselves in wood, stone, and bone. In the absence of civilization, with space and time to imagine, something arises in us that lies dormant during hours of attachment to our screens.

On one beach I saw the long lower jaw of a now extinct sea monster:

On another beach I found a constellation of stones and driftwood decorated with symbols and signs in waterproof paint:

In another location I found what I call a Wild Horse Still Life, an arrangement of natural objects that tells a geological story and recognizes the comparative transience of the lives of deer inhabiting the island.

Away from home and its entaglements we get playful; imagination awakens and the materials of the world present themselves, inviting rearrangement in accord with images that arise in the mind. This, too, is beautiful. This, too, is part of the journey.