Uprooted: Viekoda Bay

Last week, I lived in Viekoda Bay in the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge. Perks of my job include getting dropped off by float plane in remote parts of the refuge along with four high school interns and a few other "grown-ups". Among other conservation related projects, we did trail work, maintenance on one of the refuge's public use cabins, and environmental education.

Some of my favorite memories from the trip include:

During the lowest tide of the month, we waded through the water to two small islands within the bay. As we were exploring, we rounded a corner and startled a group of harbor seals that had been sunning out on the rocks. They rushed into the water and proceeded to swim along the shoreline, watching us as we walked, stopping every few minutes to ogle at eels in tide pools or wild chives growing on the cliffs.

On the night of Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, it was so warm that I sat on the beach with no jacket at all. At 11:15pm, I watched the sun set over the snow covered mountains of Katmai National Park, nearly 60 miles across the Shelikoff Strait.

The interns and I went on an evening walk and the sun poured into the bay, filling it with a golden warmth. We saw bears playing in the water across the bay. Eagles mated (or fought? It can be hard to tell), soaring high, locking talons, then tumbling through the air for a few seconds, screeching at one another. Rafts of sea otters, many of the individuals with babies resting on their chests, floated nearby. I racked my brain for ways to describe this place, but the vivid beauty of it all was impossible to sum up with any single word in my vocabulary. So, I asked the interns to describe where we were using three words each:

Green, natural, tropical.
Pristine, wild, unique.
Alive, warm, golden.
Colorful, untouched, calm.

All excellent describers of the place and those magical moments walking down the beach in our own, real-life version of Planet Earth.