Taking Shelter

Shelter Island, 2 hours kayak from Juneau, Alaska




Here above the muskeg a sweet breeze blow hints of the spring – Labrador in bloom. I have never smelt a sweeter breeze, there’s something to it. I’m sitting on the future porch of the cabin-in-construction. To my left is the small ‘chapel’, soon to be the sauna. The amber shingles of its carefully insulated roof glow in the morning sunshine.

I hear a whale breathing. I cannot see the water that is above 500 metres away, across this muskeg front yard, over the thick spruce forest, and down to the rocky beach. Beyond this waterbody - the Lynn Canal, and mountains – the Chilkat Range, their snowy reaches bathing in sunshine on this still day. Follow the mountains north and you will come to Haines, and meet Jeff, Robin, and Eli, for a cup of tea and a gossip about who did what this week past.

Here we are at Rick’s with a familiar WWOOFing feeling: travellers, not much money, plenty fit, with appetite, and learning alternatives. Trahern is here. I work with Trahern. He is twenty years old, a self-confessed nerd, tall as hell, skinny, coke-bottle glasses, a mental sponge and a chemistry enthusiast. I like him a lot.



Rick’s Rick: playful, risk-taking, playing the game his own way and bollocks to the rest of it. He’s built a maze of structures here, on muskeg and forested slope – watching where trees fall and milling the bounty, building on-site, or making steep trunk-staircases up to the next level. Walking around here requires fitness and dexterity. There is no wheelchair access. Thin, bouncing boardwalk suspends above deep bog, a narrow log will bring you to the other side of the otherwise impassable slope – if you have the balance. This place is gorgeous and speaks of Rick himself, may he never have to get around with a cast on his leg!

There is Mark, an environmental studies major from North Carolina, and Debbie, an organics researcher from Colarado, and Andy, who is Rick’s surly computer scientist little cousin.

And the hindrances? Mosquitos. In full force: swarms, mists of mosquitos. Graciously, they itch only a little. And the flight path, that is a nuisance I’d do without: Juneau air traffic.