Atka Village, Atka Island, Aleutians June 21, 2012 23:48 52N11 174W11
Is it really the first day of summer? If anyone had told me that a few days ago, I would have believed them – not with the low passing over today. Three days ago, we were lying in the tundra on a south facing slope soaking in the warm sunshine and another luscious view, and watching the grass grow. Gart says it’s a favorite summer pastime in Homer to sit in the yard with a beer and watch the grass grow. With all these daylight hours, it is not a passive activity. I think if we had taken a nap on our tundra rest, we could have missed some key moments. Watching the grass grow in the Aleutians is a spectacular spectator sport, lacking only a pair of enthusiastic commentators:
“A bold move by the blade of grass on the right clump next to the eagle’s nest, it slices, it pierces, right through the weakened defenses of last year’s has-beens, the tip leaping to waste-height – wouldn’t surprise me Bob, if they aren’t disqualified for fertilizer abuse. But the shore team takes the gold, and drowns it with bushels full of this year’s more fashionable kelly green. Over in the brook gully, photosynthesis is on phast phorward, the darker earth warming this year’s crop of wildflowers, I believe they have a plan to steel the show with something other than green – I see hints of small yellow, white, and pink blossoms testing the ground for giant spears of blue lupine on the right ready to burst.”
“Nope, can’t beat those brawny Aleutian Genus Lupinus, Joe. Now there’s a family that takes its spring seriously.”
It is amazing what a little sunshine can do to accelerate the shift from gold to green. When we first arrived, you had to pull back dead grass to see hints of sprouts below, then a week or so ago it looked like someone had airbrushed green across the the water lines (coast, rivers and streams), there where the darker sands and rocks seemed to heat the earth more and extra moisture fed the roots faster. Then the tops of all the islets went dark green; those fox-free rocks a safe distance from the main islands where seabirds can nest (and fertilize) freely. Then the tops of the taller tufts where the eagle’s perch took a turn at going green. Now all slopes with even a hint of southerly exposure, are casting a new green gold shade. The dimpled gold landscape is now mottled green, with only full northerly facing slopes remaining green-free. I expect that when the fog and rain of this low lift, and we can see land again, it may well be transformed into an emerald world.
Night before last, we arrived at the only village on Atka, an arrival timed to put us in a protected spot for the low that’s now blowing overhead (and across our bow). As we pulled around the point hiding the old town from the sea, my heart skipped a beat. I fell instantly in love with this scene. It is the archetype of a high latitude village: tiny clapboard houses in a variety of light and dark, but always muted colors, the green dome of the white Russian Orthodox church peaking over the back of the cluster of 20 homes, all nestled in a protected valley facing the cove, across from a collection of small islands framing a snowy-peak view of the larger Nazan Bay. Half the homes are tumbling down, but the other half look to be under reconstruction. Kennan’s comment on peaking out, “ So this is where all those midwest tornadoes dump their houses.” They do look like shacks that landed somewhat randomly on the landscape. Still, of the many are-we-there-yets of the past 3 years, here we are definitely there. We have arrived at a somewhere I will remember forever, even if it’s not a somewhere I would want to live in forever.
We read that that snowy-peak view isn’t always so snowy. Korovin volcano, one of the higher of the snowy peaks, last erupted in 2006. My dad just wrote to say that Cleveland, a volcano between us and Dutch Harbor, erupted yesterday shooting ash and debris 23,000 feet into the atmosphere. We had planned to sail close past, the “Islands of Four Mountains” where Cleveland is located, they are small circles on the charts with incredibly high mountains, should be quite a sight. But besides the unappealing notion of VW sized blobs of lava and ice raining down on us (a steel hull can only help us so much), ash from these volcanoes can choke an engine in short order. This is a land of fire and ice. Can’t say that and not finish off with a little Robert Frost:
Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.
xoxomo