In the Stillness

It’s the beauty that fills me with wonder,

It’s the stillness that fills me with peace

~ Robert Service ~

 

The quiet of the wilderness doesn’t fit well into words. Those who know it, and particularly those who love it, will try to tell you about it but the words won’t convey the sense of it, the deep down in the soul awe of it. Of all the majesty of Alaska - the grandeur, the beauty like nowhere else, the vastness - none quite so overwhelmed me when I came into Alaska as the quiet.

I had been traveling with my dog and had pulled into a wayside to take him for a walk. No one else was there and the snow was gently falling. Gently falling snow can quiet even the quiet. As we walked along I suddenly became aware of a strange, rhythmic  far off sound. I recall first looking at my normally watchful and alert companion padding along beside me seemingly unperturbed but it didn’t really quiet my pounding heart, perhaps because it was such a desolate place, or because I had never heard such a sound before, or because it was quickly approaching in my direction. As I looked frantically about trying to find something to explain it, I saw nothing but a lonely raven flying high above me, the woosh, woosh,  woosh  getting louder and beating to the rhythm of its wings.

No where had I ever learned that in the stillness of the Alaska wild, one could hear the wings of a raven in flight. I had heard tell of the beauty and the grandeur, the wilderness and the wildlife, but never of the quiet. Or if I did it didn’t register. Perhaps that is why it so completely startled me and left me standing in absolute awe. That is the feeling that one can’t convey in words.

Alaska is full of such moments given only in the quiet.  Walking along a winter trail you may suddenly realize that the sound you hear is not your snow shoes but the squeak of snow as it compresses beneath your feet. Skiing along on a back country muskeg you become conscious of the sound of your own breathing. Rarely one is treated to the far off mournful howl of a wolf but the more common yowling of a pack of coyotes can have almost the same effect.

Like many of Alaska’s treasures, wilderness quiet is an endangered species. Once quiet back country trails are now invaded by hoards of roaring ATV’s chasing swans and loons from their nests. Quiet skis in the high country above the tree line are shattered by snow  machines riding the same trails. Even the wilderness of Denali Park is often engulfed in the heart-stopping whop, whop, whop of touring helicopters.

Some who love the quiet are working to let others know of the special beauty of this wilderness resource and the reasons to preserve it. Find them at http://www.alaskaquietrights.org
Go to "Recent Activities" at the top of the page then click on "Digital Stories". Dan's story is the third one down.

Dan, Will and I are fortunate to have a place to go in a remote part of the back country that very few have found and where little exists to steal the silence.  Dan calls it our subsistence.