Sometimes I ask “when I grow up, where will I be”
I hear a small voice say
If I get lost in the woods a little
Somehow I’ll find my way
Into the clear someday…
~ Little Red Riding Hood (Cannon Movie Tales)
Sitka has always been my favourite port on the Alaskan run. There’s no deep water dock here, which means there’s no onslaught of commercialism along the waterfront that you find in so many of the other Alaskan stops. This is just a town, with a few locally run souvenir shops, a few restaurants and that’s about it.
Sitka’s claim to fame is its National Park.
Only a short walk out of down, the Sitka Forest may as well be in a whole different world. Especially on days like today when it’s ever so slightly overcast. For reasons I’ve never figured out, that keeps people away – that and the fact that most of the guest chose to go on excursions this morning. Once I got past the main trail that bridges the river I had the woods to myself. The woods are the embodiment of the elements, even if the fire of the sun was hidden just slightly behind the early summer cloud cover.
But most of all, I just needed the river. Since I was raised very near a beach where the water is cold enough year ‘round that if an unsuspecting visitor tries to wade in it they will instantly find their limbs numb – the chill rushing water of the Sitka river doesn’t faze me, though I wouldn’t want to swim in it (even if it were deep enough, and at the stretch where it runs through the park it isn’t). Instead it just reminds me of home. Water cleanses, water heals. In the living silence of the forest, I find I can just stand on the banks of the river, dip my fingertips into the lancing cold water and let it take all the pain, exhaustion and confusion away…carried from me, diffused in a million water drops.
It’s true, sometimes I ask when I grow up, where will I be…but then, following that, is a more important question…
Why grow up?