Category Archives: Spring Paddles

For Mom

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Every year I try to paddle to Wild Horse Island in May. I do this to honor my mother who died this month sixteen years ago. Some people have ideal mothers. My brother and I were not so fortunate, thanks to a surgery when she was in her 20s. Medical mistakes set her up for a life of pain, chronic illnesses and multiple addictions in response to physical and mental suffering. Despite these difficulties, and partly in reaction to them, I remain the recipient of so many things. In truth my mother gave me everything I needed—a wariness of intoxicants, desire for a conscious life, my love of language, and attentiveness to the world within and around me.

Because she gave me the gift of life I am able to paddle to the island, hike its ridges, explore its valleys, appreciate its wildflowers.

Almost certainly she would have noticed and called attention to the way Balsamroot turn toward the morning light,

the composition of stone and flower, hard and soft,

an owl feather still wet with dew,

a once-living tree suspended above the current of its journey and the storms that threw it there upon the stone.

Trained by her at the window of sunrise, I notice the way cumulus clouds form the central reflection in ovoids, see the kestrel, on its perch in a pine tree, step in a full circle as it surveys the world.

Given a perfect day for paddling and a chance at life, I am nothing but grateful. In response I offer her the the whole island’s bouquet.

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A Philosophical Turn

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This week I hope to go fishing with my friend Robin. I like fishing with him because we don’t talk very much about fish; we talk about even more important things. One afternoon, for example, I remember rolling up his driveway after a day on the river and hearing him say something like, “Consciousness is the great mystery…” Maybe on Thursday we’ll return to this topic. Paddling a kayak also points toward the same mystery.

While trying to wait patiently for weather to turn incrementally warmer, I decided to repair my kayak. In the course of 16 years on the water, Bluebird’s sensitive gel coat acquired a number of scratches and dings. At the upturned end of the stern there was a spidery crack from shipping and handling, there from the beginning, a few long scratches when I did not see a sub-surface spine of sharp rock, a more serious wound received when a wave slammed Bluebird sideways into a log. To make the repairs I went to school on YouTube, bought supplies I needed from a company in Spokane, endured a little trial and error and began to make repairs before buffing the body of the boat with a series of compounds.

In the course of this project I came to appreciate how the gel coat seems as sensitive as skin and how the boat itself is actually an instrument of perception. It feels the world through which it moves as much as skin detects changes in temperature, the slightest breeze, a tender touch, puncture or scrape. In the water the kayak feels the tap of a piece of driftwood, the cutting action of a jagged rock, the friction of gravel or sand, push or slap of wave, the buffeting of headwinds, the pressure of a tail wind. As the skin perceives the outer world, so the kayak perceives the influences and effects of the the aquatic environment. This awareness motivated me to care for my boat, to try to make it last as long as possible. A boat is a story and I want to keep it alive.

To go one step farther, as I sanded the curves to get a better bond or used progressing abrasives to level the gel coat’s creamy surface, it occurred to me that the kayak actually extends my conscious awareness into the water and weather, into the liquid body of the lake, its shorelines and depths. In short, the boat is a tactile instrument that allows me to feel more than I am capable of perceiving with my mind alone. If the tip of the shovel feels the contours of the stone in the hole where one hopes to plant a tree, so the kayak extends awareness into the topography of the lake and the vagaries of weather.

If I had any doubts about this insight I would only need to recall what it feels like to paddle at night. In the absence of light the eyes are almost useless. As never before one is forced to use the body of the boat to feel the waves, the direction of their approach, their energy and strength. At night one feels—through the skin of the kayak—what is happening in the world. To the paddler’s body the kayak transmits every signal sent by water and wind.

Alert to these things, I sense how a kayak is not just a means of transport or a way to have fun on a lake but a tool that increases one’s awareness as it extends itself into the world. It is the tactile equivalent of binoculars used to focus on a vireo reaching for the last berry in a mountain ash, or a telescope turned toward a star. No wonder it seems worthy of attention and repair. Through its sensitive hull I want to keep in touch with the watery world.

The Living (Lake)

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Near the end of March it is still snowing, not in the fitful fashion of a spring squall but continuously, earnestly, as it usually snows in December. Once again the driveway is covered in snow and the back slope wears an armor of ice. We have been locked inside this winter for five solid months. Yet, the expansion of the light after the equinox has an effect on me in the same way that it normally affects the apple tree outside the south window. In a normal year, whatever that is, the buds would be swelling by now in response to the light if not the weather. Despite the weather, something in me is also awakening. Despite the snow and unseasonable cold, I am beginning to imagine paddling my kayak, negotiating wind and waves in a glassy vessel, exploring islands and coves, immersing myself in color, dissolving into the life of the lake.

from the top of the Polson moraine

This weather that keeps me indoors also leads me to reach toward my shelf of favorite books where I find The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd, a slim, white paperback that stands in the company of hardbound Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard, Robin Wall Kimmerer and Robert Macfarlane. The book tells the story of Shepherd’s first sight of the Cairngorn plateau in Scotland when she was a child and how it awakened a desire to explore its heights and depths. She recounts encounters with wild weather and hardy human beings. She traverses slopes, climbs peaks, notes birds, animals and insects, crosses streams confined by granite walls, traces their courses from uppermost springs to the valleys of the Spey, Avon or Dee.

First published in 1977 by Aberdeen University Press, the book was written in the years during and soon after WWII. After Shepherd received a discouraging response to the manuscript she tucked it in a drawer where it sat untended for almost thirty years. Meanwhile she continued to climb and explore her living mountain, but also the mountain that had impressed itself on her mind and heart. In a disturbed and uncertain world the Cairngorns were her “secret place of ease.” Then as an old woman she began “tidying out my possessions,” as she says. Rereading the manuscript, she found it still valid and felt renewed energy to see it published. We are so much the richer for the second wind of this writer and her belief in what she had written.

In some ways the book resembles a kitchen pantry nearly bursting with sensory detail. As Shepherd opens the door on this pantry, she describes the taste, touch, smell, sights and sounds of the mountain in all seasons of the year, both night and day. With her description of the taste of a berry, the texture of a plant or stone, what it feels like to walk barefoot over heather, the sound of an owl landing on a tent pole or a storm crashing into the walls, canyons and corries, she practically places us inside the mountain. Then in the final chapter, acting as our mountain guide, she takes us beyond all the details of weather, the colors of leaves and feathers, the varieties of animals, the intricacies of trails and routes, human pleasures and fatalities. She leads us up and out, or down and in, until we break into the open to consider the deepest things of all, the mystery of what it means to be alive, to be aware of one’s own being in the company of Being itself. It is as if the fog and mist of sensory detail suddenly clear and in her company we see an open sky above the summit.
Rereading the final chapter of The Living Mountain I realize that what Nan Shepherd says of her beloved range might easily be said of Flathead Lake. One only needs to change a few words from her closing paragraphs to experience the lake that, like her mountain, is its own living being. If she had lived in Montana instead of Scotland, when she crested the last moraine heading into Polson she might have written:

…So my journey into an experience began. It was a journey always for fun, with no motive beyond that I wanted it. But at first I was seeking only sensuous gratification—the sensation of height, the sensation of movement, the sensation of speed, the sensation of distance, the sensation of effort, the sensation of ease: a kind of lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, certainly the pride of life. I was not interested in the lake for itself, but for its effect upon me, as (a cat) caresses not the man but herself against the man’s pant leg. But as I grew older, and less self-sufficient, I began to discover the lake in itself. Everything became good to me, (its long shoreline, its islands, its rocky hillsides and forests, its shades of color, its crevice-held flowers, its birds). This process has taken many years, and is not yet complete. Knowing another is endless. And I have discovered that the experience enlarges (the ramps and slabs of stone, deep, dark depths, turquoise shallows, great banks of gravel, deer and sheep drawn to the margins). The thing to be known grows with the knowing.
I believe that I now understand in some small measure why the Buddhist goes on pilgrimage to a mountain (lake). The journey is itself part of the technique by which the god is sought. It is a journey into Being; for as I penetrate more deeply into the (lake’s) life, I penetrate also into my own. For an hour or two I am beyond desire. It is not ecstasy, that leap out of the self that makes a human like a god. I am not out of myself, but in myself. I am. To know Being, this is the final grace accorded from the (lake).

I do not know when this storm will end, when the ground will thaw, when the water temperature will rise enough to make paddling seem safe. But as the light changes, whatever atmospheric rivers flow our way, I imagine what it will be like to be on and in the living lake. Like Shepherd the hiker and climber, walking herself “transparent” to every living thing in her world, I hope to paddle myself transparent, clear of fears and concerns, empty of self, open to every resonating thing in a still-living world. As Shepherd’s knowledge of the mountains evolved, so, too, has my motivation and knowledge of the lake evolved. I will return to the lake not for myself but to experience the lake being itself.

looking north from Wild Horse Island

Renewal in June

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Renewal in June

Have you visited the storehouses of the snow
or seen the arsenal where hail is stored…?
(Job, 38.22)
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In the southwestern U.S. conditions are drier than at any time in the last 1200 years. If Lake Powell drops another 33 feet, the water level will be too low to power the turbines that send electricity across the region. In Los Angeles people will soon have to choose between saving water to drink or watering their lawns. In my region of the country parts of the state remain in a state of severe drought. But around Flathead Lake it rains intermittently for two days and two nights, raising the water level of Flathead Lake over a foot across its 191 square miles, more than 122,000 acre feet of water.

Unable to reserve my own campsite because competition for these spaces is so keen, I ask a friend to let me set up my tent next to his recreational vehicle in space 11 at Finley Point State Park. He kindly allows me and Big Agnes to create shelter next to the picnic table in exchange for an oatmeal crisp made from cherries grown in the orchards above us and the reading aloud of two Kathleen Jamie poems while he drinks his morning coffee. My friend is in the grip of the latest James Lee Burke novel, so I take Bluebird down to the marina and paddle in the rain.

Wary of lightning and the risk of waving a wet piece of carbon in the air during a storm, I plan a short paddle through The Narrows, threading my way in a figure-eight pattern around the islands. But when clouds to the north look particularly ominous, I make a broad sweep, reverse course, head south along the backside of Bull Island and cross back to the protection of the marina. If it is gray above, it is blue and green below.

Since everything is wet when paddling a kayak, it makes little difference if it rains. So I go out the next day too. This time I head north across Finley Bay, the tip of the peninsula and the chain of rocky shark’s teeth disappearing under rising water. I have paddled in many different conditions but never before in a hail storm. This time a trunk of hail drops down to the lake surface and balls of ice pelt my hat, drysuit, bare hands and deck. Though the particles are little larger than course rock salt, they turn the lake surface into a layer of froth not unlike a beer poured too fast or a latté covered in a milky hat. When dramatic things happen while paddling I wish I had the poise to unzip my pfd pocket, reach for my phone and take photos; but the best I can do is hang on, hunch my shoulders like a hawk on a limb and wait for the storm cell to pass. Until the gray column of falling ice advances to the east I listen to the sounds of hail, each sound different depending on the surface it strikes.
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In time I circle Bird Island and begin to head south, eventually finding that perfect paddling rhythm that makes distances dissolve. Along the way I think of our good fortune. Though climate change models still predict a hot, dry summer and the potential for fire, at the moment we are being given the gift of rain and experiencing the release of more water from the storehouses of snow and hail. On Bird Island and the slopes of the Mission Mountains after the Boulder 2700 fire, mahonia, Rocky Mountain maple, chokecherry, arrowleaf balsamroot and cottonwoods rise from blackened ground. The hidden power in seeds is being set free by rain and light; the birds are having families; we will have water to drink and irrigation for our gardens and fields.
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After the isolation and fatigue associated with a pandemic; during the ravages of war; in the aftermath of gunfire in classrooms and shopping markets; after the danger of insurrection has passed—at least for now—we have rain, an unmerited gift from the sky that renews everything that is tired and worn. For a couple of days I visit the storehouse of life-giving water—whatever form it takes—and return with nothing but gratitude, rich in ways that cannot be counted.

And my friend steps out of his camper and says, “Would you like a cup of coffee?”



April Memories

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I stepped away from planting perennials in the rock garden and found someone eager to paddle with me in April. On Flathead Lake in April the air can be warm but the water is close to freezing. Before the mountains begin to release their snow and fine sediment flows down rivers into the lake, the water is clear. The water is deep blue and aquamarine and a kind of yellow in the shallows. On the best day between days that were too windy we paddled out to Wild Horse Island and into the shelter of Skeeko Bay.

During the day I thought about saying:

  • This is where I found a Bighorn ram dead on the rocks
  • This is where I saw a ewe with her lamb among the cliffs
  • This is where I found an iceberg tucked inside the curled hook of a gravel bar
  • This is where eagles used to perch before a wind storm blew down their snag
  • This is where Native people found food in a starving time
  • This is where I have ridden waves back to safety
  • This is where we might find the horses
  • This is where I find flowers
  • This is the rock where friends and I watched a solar eclipse

But I realized it was better to be quiet. These are my memories, coins in my purse. I count them again.

No Matter How Hard We Try

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May 3, 2020

Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we cause a death we did not intend. A father called to an emergency checks his rear view mirror, sees nothing, then rolls over his infant son; the car strikes a warbler leaping into flight from a willow thicket; we join a group of mourners during the pandemic and come home coated with tears and virus.

Yesterday was the perfect day for a spring paddle: light winds on the surface, soft swell-waves left over from a storm the day before, temperatures rising to the sixties after morning frost, not a cloud in the sky until late afternoon.

The water level was still seven feet shy of full pool so I carried my boat over the breakwater and out across the beach to reach the edge of the lake. I paddled out to Bull Island, feeling for the rhythm of strokes and breath that become automatic by season’s end. Knowing that May is the nesting season for Canada Geese, I stopped for lunch on an open beach far from hidden nests. Initially the geese flew out and landed on the water but soon returned to their circles of down.

After lunch I paddled north against a light breeze and saw the mountains as never before. Six weeks with very little human activity during the initial stages of the pandemic had cleared the air. I could not only see the high peaks of Glacier Park but all the way to the Whitefish Range, nearly 70 miles away. I crossed open water to Bird Island, chose not to land because I did not want to disturb the geese, then south to the tiny islands that are mostly covered by high water in high summer. I chose a spot to land, no apparent geese in sight. As I looked around I saw a patch of vetch in bloom and decided to look at it more closely. On the way I found a broken bottle neck, the sharp glass a threat to any swimmer. I picked it up and planned to stow it before tossing it in the trash. After taking a photograph of the season’s early wildflower, I took a couple more steps into the desiccated trees at the top of the rock. Suddenly a goose I did not see as much as hear burst from the ground and flew out to the water. It left behind a nest with four big white eggs.

Since I had already disturbed the bird I decided to take the glass back to the boat and return for a photograph of the nest, never having seen a goose nest at this stage. After putting the glass in a dry box, I started back toward the nest and in peripheral vision saw black wings overhead. Curious, I thought. I peered through the dead branches of the tree next to the nest and saw that one of the eggs had been broken and its contents drained. Only a little blood showed in the big white cup. Suddenly I realized that a raven had probably seen me come to the island, sensed an opportunity in my approach, and seized on it the moment I unintentionally disturbed the goose protecting the eggs. Turning my back to take the glass back to the boat I had given the raven just enough time to break the egg and eat a meal. I had helped to kill a goose.

I could console myself by saying, this is the struggle of existence: what the goose loses the raven gains. I could say, there are plenty of geese; one death does not make much of a difference. But having seen the blood on the white shell I continue to feel complicit, an ally of death. These days death needs no help. I do not want to make its work easier. In this case I have no way to make amends for this killing.

After driving home, I put my gear away and think now about how the circles overlap and intersect, the circle of migrating geese, sharp-eyed ravens, and a respectful, cautious paddler. Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we open a door and death steps in.

Accident Under the Mother Tree

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Accident Under the Mother Tree

My mother died on May 26, 2007. At least we think that was the day. The nursing home lost track of her during the night. Grateful for her life, and the gift of my own, I try to go paddling each year around the time of her death day. I do this for several of reasons. Her generosity made it possible for me to buy my Current Designs Gulfstream, the kayak I use on Flathead Lake. The end of May is a nearly ideal time to paddle out to Wild Horse Island and explore its interior. Unless the weather has been unusually hot and dry many of the wildflowers are still blooming and I enjoy searching for the island’s wildlife. Paddling in May is also a way of giving thanks for my relatively good health and stamina, qualities my mother never enjoyed.

On May 29, I slipped through the morning’s commuter traffic, headed west on the interstate, and took the slow lane up the Evaro hill. To the east the meadows were full of snowmelt and wild iris. At Ninepipes the ponds were overflowing as the first truly warm days brought snow down off the Missions. To the west a heron stilted after fish in the grassy shallows. At the base of the Polson moraine I looked at the log decks at Hunt’s Timbers, bunks of material ready for sale, and thought about a friend’s request that I make her grave marker from pine purchased at Hunt’s. Near the bridge in Polson several boats of fishermen had lines in the water.  At the Walstad fishing access the parking lot was empty.

Trusting the Graphical Forecast of “variable winds and waves less than a foot,” I pushed the wind around the north side of Melita Island, rounded the southeast corner of Wild Horse and headed up to Osprey Cove, one of many places on the lake where osprey and bald eagles compete with one another for territory and fish. I spotted one of each, breasts to the morning sun. Knowing that the lake is filling toward full pool, I lifted Bluebird onto one of the gravel benches parallel to the beach, peeled off my dry suit, and dug out my lunch sack and water bottle. On a previous trip I had begun exploring the steep draw that empties into the cove. This time I had time to climb it to the top. In the lower elevations Arrowleaf Balsamroot had finished blooming, but Arnica still caught my eye, along with a few spent Shooting stars, Larkspur and Harebells. In the deep shade of the forest a trio of bucks in velvet yanked at Balsamroot leaves.

As I continued to climb I realized that the draw would not end in a valley but in the island’s true summit. At the top I could see south to the islands of The Narrows, the Mission crest in the distance, west to the northern Bitterroot range still under snow.

Looking around for a good lunch spot, I noticed a “mother tree,” a large Ponderosa Pine. Beneath the drip line of the low branches Balsamroot and Harebells grew in a concentrated ring.

I backed in, rested against the trunk and opened my lunch sack. A little thirsty, I drank some of my water and ate half an apple. On these solo trips I often carry a can of sardines and my favorite Dakota bread from Great Harvest Bakery. Using my left hand to secure the tin I pulled the ring. At first the lid would not yield and the top developed a crown. It would take a lot more force now to peel back the lid. So, I set my shoulder to the task and pulled hard. When the lid finally gave way the edge of the tin sliced my left hand between thumb and index finger. Blood pulsed out of the open gash, spotted my clothes, lunch sack, and pine duff at my feet.

I knew I was in trouble and would need to make good decisions. I took time to breathe and think. I poured some of my water into the open wound, knowing that the sardine can was not sterile. Having left my first aid kit in the kayak down below, I had to find an alternative to compress and tape. I looked around for solutions and saw the big Balsamroot leaves. I broke off three, pressed them against the wound and then used a stem to bind everything in place.

Knowing that I still had to paddle roughly seven miles back to Walstad, I decided I’d better eat. So, I used the fingers of my right hand to pull the sardines out of the can, dividing the fish onto the two pieces of bread. I also took time to eat a Cliff bar and to consider my limited options.

Often traveling alone, I have developed a practice of noticing my surroundings when I hike. On the way down from the summit I looked again for the fallen pine whose roots now held a limestone block in the air, the snag with a nesting cavity, the patch of bare ground, a particular erratic boulder, the cliff dividing one side of the draw from the other, the fencing of an old corral. I did not want to end up in the wrong cove or waste energy looking for my boat. Once on the beach I plopped down on the edge of the water, let go of my bloody leaves, did a better job washing the wound and pulled out my first aid kit. Though not trained in making a dressing, I used a sterile gauze pad and two long strips of tape torn free with my teeth. Then it occurred to me that I could use my paddling glove (tucked in the hatch for emergencies), to create more pressure. I worked the tight black glove over the dressing and into place. Now I knew I could paddle.

Before slipping the boat back in the water I drank most of the contents of my spare bottle containing electrolytes called “Skraitch,” a less sweet alternative to drinks commonly used by athletes. I knew I would have difficulty pulling on my dry suit with its latex gaskets and long diagonal zipper, so I stowed the dry suit. I would have to trust the weather and smooth strokes. I did not want to roll in 43-degree water. In calm conditions I reversed my route but chose to paddle between Melita and homes along Labella Lane in case I needed help. As I rounded Melita I skirted a flock of ring-billed gulls clustered together on the gravel bar. After they scattered I noticed an eagle wing feather waiting to be discovered by Boy Scouts who would soon arrive. A slight tail wind carried me back to my starting point.

More slowly this time, I carried all my gear back to the truck and made myself re-load and secure the kayak. Driving back into town I realized that I was having trouble concentrating. Intersections and crosswalks felt like a flood of data. I decided to ask for help. I vaguely remembered a sign pointing to a clinic at the top of the hill south of town. The Ridgecrest Clinic did not accept walk-in patients so they directed me back into town to the clinic near St. Joseph’s Hospital. As I walked back toward my truck someone tapped me on the shoulder. A kind woman said, “I heard you describe your injury. Don’t drive back into town. Walk across the street. Those people will take care of you.” Indeed they did. From the women at the front counter helping me with paper work to the woman who helped me pull off the bloody glove, from the physician who tested tendons to Karen Smith who stitched the severed artery and closed the wound I received the care I needed. The leathery leaves of Balsamroot were a temporary solution at best.

Driving home I turned off the radio so I could concentrate. Along the way I reflected on my day. Many would say I should not make these trips by myself; the risk is too great. But if I am going to paddle to the islands at this time of the year I will probably paddle alone. In the future, if I combine a paddle with a hike, I will stow a fanny pack containing my box of first aid supplies and will not leave the kayak without it. Having watched skilled hands dress a wound, I am going to add a few new supplies to my Pelican box.

I return astonished by how quickly a day can change. A fall on the ice, a snowboard accident, a car crash happens in an instant. I find this humbling. Accidents befall even those who are prepared. In the end I’m glad I stopped for lunch under the mother tree on a day I wanted to honor my own mother. More than flowers grow in a ring beneath its sheltering limbs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Vastness

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It wasn’t morbidity that drew me to that dangerous place but rather the pleasure of abandoning myself to something vastly beyond my control.

            Olivia Laing, To the River

 On June 6, 2018, between a late picnic and dinner, I paddled from Finley Point State Park to Yellow Bay State Park, about ten miles northeast as a kayak tracks. On the way I stopped briefly at Bird Island for a drink of water. When I left the island I suddenly felt the gap between the island behind me and the east shore of Flathead Lake about three miles to my right. Until then the peninsula and the island had been protecting me from this awareness. As I concentrated on smooth, rhythmic strokes, a phrase kept floating through my mind—this vastness. I felt the expanse between kayak and shore, the column of height and depth between lake level and the peaks of the Mission and Swan ranges above me, the distance between where I launched and where I hoped to arrive. In the process I kept picturing my kayak from above. This had happened once before, years ago, when I paddled from Finley to Wild Horse. From a vantage point outside myself the kayak seemed like little more than a pine needle on an infinite sea, a blade of grass afloat on a flood. Ever since this experience I’ve been pondering the mid-paddle mantra that came to me in the course of this trip.

It is sometimes a challenge to be where one is, however far from shore. Faced with vastness one can become anxious. It is easy to feel an internal pressure to shorten the gap and close the distance, while peaceful acceptance of vastness calms the mind. Trying to be where I was, far from shore, it occurred to me that in the West we are often given an opportunity to see ourselves in scale as we move through the vastness around us. The mind flies toward the heights and reaches out across the water or the plains. In the process we come to see ourselves as a tiny body of being surrounded by distances not frequently experienced in the confines of urban environments. Before the depths of sky and all the miles in view we see ourselves in perspective. Especially in a kayak there is little danger of overestimating one’s power and influence in the face of such landscapes. We are little more than a speck, even if a conscious one.

When I finally popped the skirt, extracted my legs, and pivoted over the combing for a soft landing on the rounded stones of shore, I felt grateful for the chance to move through the vastness that remains the context and measure of all human things.

 

Report from the Island, May 18-19

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The forecast was not good—wind out of the northeast at 15 miles-per-hour with gusts to 30, rain, and waves 1-2 feet. Water temperature 39 degrees. I was tired of pulling dandelions so I went paddling. In a year of record snowfall and now epic flooding I knew the island would be green. It would be worth the effort to cross from Big Arm to Wild Horse.

 

When I pulled into my campsite conditions were dismal. I waited for a lull before setting up my tent. The only flat ground was next to the fire pit. It was a good thing I don’t make fires.

From time to time I checked my latest weather app until I had a sense of the pulse of the storms. In the diastole I pulled on my neoprene top and dry suit. I slid Bluebird into the gray water and pulled for the island. It felt good to sink into the headwinds. When gusts approached I ducked and made low angle strokes. In the lulls I returned to more efficient high angle strokes. Two hours later I pulled my kayak over some logs and secured it in the arms of driftwood. Arrow leaf balsamroot covered the hillsides. Walking through the clusters felt like wading through leather. In the interstices lupine, harebells, biscuit root and vetch reached for their share of the light. Climbing the first slope I came across patches of death camas, false asphodel and starflower. On the rocky crest I watched a pair of young eagles make intersecting gyres or hold positions in the wind with only the slightest movement of individual feathers. Knowing my interval would not last I waded back down the hill and let the rolling chop push me back to camp.

Joyce’s Yucatan soup, heated in my WhisperLite stove, and tortillas warmed on the lid of the pot never tasted so good. I was in my bag by 9 p.m.

The next morning was gray but not raining. The wind had not had time to build waves so I did it again, this time paddling around the corner of the island and into Skeeko Bay. After signing in at the register and seeing that I was only the second kayak to make it to the island this year, I walked the trail to the saddle with, as Andrew Marvell says, a green thought in a green shade. I continued up the east-west ridge and watched the bronze backs of retreating turkeys. They walk uphill faster than I do. Seeing the birds helped explain the broken feather I had found the day before. Peaking over the ridge I spotted four Bighorn rams lounging in the balsamroot. On a rocky nob where I know to look for bitterroot I found the flowers. This early in the season they were all promise and no bloom.

 

 

 

 

Satisfied that I had again made a deep connection to the island I started back down. On the way I heard a low growling off to my right. As I turned my head I caught a glimpse of a red fox in full plumage leaping between the flowers, unhappy that I had disturbed his proprietary rights to the island. Further down the trail I saw where the fox had excavated a vole, exposing the now-dry root and source of the flowers. Gliding down through the trees it seemed this island belongs to its non-human creatures first of all. They take as much pleasure as we do in all the life brought into the open by rain and light. They have first rights to the air and its breezes, the flowers and their variations.

Back on the beach and while climbing back into my yellow ziplock of a dry suit I noticed a group of paddlers crossing over to the island from Dayton. After they landed I walked over to greet them, a pair of guides with a new paddling business and two clients. They, too, had come to see the island in its green splendor. In Montana after a year of fire, snow and flood, this place felt like our Sistine ceiling, our Louvre, our MOMA. It was ours to visit but not remain.

 

 

Preparing to Meet This Wildness, May 2018

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Before each season’s first paddle my eagerness to be on the water plays tug of war with the knowledge that I must prepare for it.

As part of this year’s preparation I decided to make a few small repairs to Bluebird. A couple of long scratches on the bottom of the hull needed attention. Years ago I was paddling between Bird Island and Skidoo Bay early in the season. Without realizing that an underwater spine of rock almost connects Finley Point and the island, I passed over the rocks at speed. I still remember the sound as rocks cut a pair of long lines down the bottom of the boat. Then last season I slipped between a friend’s boat and a log because I wanted to assist her with a stubborn spray skirt. When a big wave smacked her upwind side my boat was driven into a protruding branch that cracked the gel coat just above waterline. To solve these problems I bought a repair kit, read about the process, mixed gel and catalyst and filled the wounds. Using equipment from the woodworking shop I sanded with progressively finer grades of sandpaper before polishing the hull. In preparation for the season I also reviewed what I’ve stowed in my emergency dry bag and in my old Maine Guide bag, planning different layers of clothing for different types of weather. Before Thursday’s paddle I made myself take time to prepare a nutritious and calorie-rich lunch as well as two bottles of water, one with electrolytes.

These preparations to paddle put me in the mind of other forms of preparation. If we prepare before launching a kayak, we also prepare to teach, travel, or plant a garden. We prepare before building a home or designing a chair. We prepare for a job interview, a first date, a wedding, and before giving birth to a child. A move to another state requires extensive preparation as we try to meet the challenges of deep change. We prepare internally to hear someone else’s story, before surgery, or that life transition poorly named retirement. As we prepare for life, some people prepare for death. Our preparations put us in a better position to face potential difficulty. As we attempt to make ourselves ready, we lower the wave height of our anxiety.

On May 3, I drove up to Flathead Lake for the first paddle of the season. At the base of the Ravalli Hill I pulled off at the mandatory watercraft inspection station. In the age of aquatic invasive species, stopping for this inspection is a necessary and important part of preparing to paddle. In the deep shade of early morning the inspector’s smiles rose over me like sunrise. I thanked them for their work in keeping Flathead free of zebra and quagga mussels, as well as other imported creatures that would upset the ecology of the lake.

After the right-turn in Polson I learned that Finley Point State Park was closed for major reconstruction, so I continued north to Yellow Bay State Park where I would find access to the water. Here, under the cottonwoods shedding the sticky sheathes of their catkins, I rubbed talcum powder on the latex of my old-style dry suit so that I could slip the neck collar over my head and escape through the diagonal zipper at the end of the day. I spread various items on the bed of my truck so I would not forget something essential. I arranged protection for two cameras so they would not get wet. Then, after loading my boat I paused at the water’s edge. No matter how thorough I am with my other preparations, this is the one that seems most important. I pause to remember that the lake and its weather are infinitely more powerful than I am, that my slender boat makes its tentative and determined way at the mercy of these forces. I pause to remember some of the people I love. I stop at the threshold to give thanks for water so clean and pure that entering it feels sacramental.

I used to think of preparations as an obstacle between me and what I wanted to do—paddle my boat. All the little preparations, from tying down the boat to packing lunch seemed to stand between me and the goal of getting in the water to make beautiful strokes. More than a decade into the late-season life of a paddler I no longer see it this way. All these little acts and duties make paddling safer and free of agitation. In the process we make ready for meeting this wildness over which we glide.