Who:
Paul Loeb
Author The Impossible Will Take a Little While, rec by the Sierra Club as a common reading
Where:
Seattle, WA
We were rafting down the Nigu River in Alaska, north of the Brooks Range and west of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Other than one plane overhead, we saw no one else the entire ten days except for our guide. Rolling green tundras. The river rolling on as we paddled downstream, mountains surrounding, and caribou every day, coming up close and looking at us like we might be the first humans they've ever seen. The last night Arctic fox stopped twenty feet away and just looked at us through some willow bushes for ten minutes, then scampered off. Followed shortly by another one. Large canine about 50 lbs. Lots of birds too. The sense of solitude and stillness was something very foreign to me, and pretty wonderful. Reminded me that we're fighting both for sustainability and also for that humbling sense of the wild, and how much that sense has to teach us.
