I awoke at night to pee.
Stumbled out in the new darkness, barefoot and barely clothed. I hardly took notice that I was in fact peeing outside in
It wasn’t the dark, the bears, nature’s toilet, or being without clothes or shoes that surprised me—this was nothing new to me. It was that I could walk outside with no coat, pants, or shoes and not feel cold. The shocker was that I was completely comfortable.
And I had just declared this my last adventure in cold territories, but, somewhere through the season, I acclimatized to not just the weather in
I spent a better part of my morning shift of work tiptoeing atop the bladderwack, slippery rocks, starfish and various other sea life at extreme low tide. We were having 15 Japanese high powered business men as guests that evening and it was my task to collect as many mussels as I could before the tide came back up.
I walked toward “cellphone” beach, normally unreachable via shore unless the tide is extremely low and I can walk around the point, as was the case on this particular day. There was a spot that Nelda had told me about, high up on the rocks where the mussels attached themselves and supposedly collecting them straight off the rocks gives you a cleaner, less sandy, mussel.
I couldn’t help but stop en route to the point to pick up as much vibrant green sea lettuce as I could hold. It was everywhere this low tide and has become my favorite new breakfast—steamed with two eggs on top.
The point was almost directly below the Eagles nest and as I approached, I saw him perched proudly on a tree stump atop of the point surveying his territory. We stood a mere fifteen feet apart eyeing each other curiously. I stood still in awe of the actual grandeur of his size and admiring his Zen warrior energy. He was peace as much as he was strength and I now see why the emblem of the Eagle is so sought after.
I had been in my own Zen-like bliss the past couple of days from all my moments of foraging for local edibles.
The night prior, as I was walking home through the damp woods, I stumbled on a patch of chanterelles sprouting from decaying pine logs.
It is hard to believe it was a year ago that I spent countless hours scanning the forests of
But the Last Frontier lacks the competition of
Here in
I picked the chanterelles and inhaled their apricot aroma deeply—the last confirming detail—and laughed gleefully as I lowered my hands and knees into the wet earth and delicately picked my delectable, edible treasure.
As I picked the last of the chanterelles, I saw or perhaps felt a presence in my periphery. There, camouflaged in the fallen tree stumps, sat squatting a fat- gnome of a mushroom, the largest Bolet (cepe) I have ever seen. I started talking and squealing to myself at this point.
When I approached the Eagle, I matched his calm and we were both observers and foragers in this wild land. I continued on to collect hundreds of mussels. When two hours had passed without notice to time or tide, my hands had been rubbed raw by barnacles and cold. I sat on the edge of the shore and soaked my hand in the frozen ocean waters—again oblivious to cold. There is nothing so grounding as to washing your self in fresh frigid waters.
This was one of those days, where I could state in all certainty, “I love my job.” For this is all I need—connecting with land, food and people.




