Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Elena Village Site


There are no signs of people out here now, even the intrusions of air traffic are relatively few (if notable).  Notable mostly because that's part of our job... to write down any and all human oriented contact, we are official "solitude monitors".  I've been known to covet the job of outdoor gear tester for REI, but I gotta say that solitude monitoring is my new favorite job description!

Although our encounters are with critters for now, we definitely are not the only humans to have inhabited this place.  You can see a welcoming beach and the wide green bench of cow parsnip above it which marks the old Elena Village site from a long way out.  A good landing place, protection from storms and a reasonably close water source are the same criteria for locating a village or for finding a good campsite.  This fits the bill, especially in the mild conditions of summer.  Adjusting to the stillness, you can almost make out soft voices and laughter on the bench above high tide that once was home to a village of Tlingit.  Shell middens, sometimes old house posts, sprouting new growth as nurse logs and flat pads of thick moss are what's left to see, but your other senses tell you this is not an empty place.

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