Walking in the Footprints of
Polar Bears

by Michael McBride

Survival, Storytelling, and the Wild Pulse of the Arctic

One of the world’s foremost polar bear experts, my friend and associate Jack Lentfer, is internationally respected by his peers. Here on the sea ice with a dart-drugged ursus maritimus under study and about to be radio-collared. Average weights range from 600 to 1,200 pounds and they stand 8 to 10 feet tall, while females weigh 400 to 700 pounds. Polar bears can live up to 25 years. The largest polar bear on record was a male shot in Kotzebue Sound, Alaska, in 1960, weighing 2,209 pounds as measured by helicopter scales.

A polar bear’s smell would alert a seal, its favored food, to its presence, even if these masters of stealth were approaching from downwind. There is a myth that a bear covers its giveaway black nose when stalking, but this has never been documented in the wild.

Few artists have captured the far north better than Fred Machetanz (February 20, 1908 – October 6, 2002). He was an Alaskan painter and illustrator who specialized in depictions of Alaskan scenes, people, and wildlife.

My friend Yemegaq Slwooko told me an ancient story as we sat on her floor in the village of Sivugaq in the Bering Strait, Alaska. A storm raged just beyond the door, its insistency shaking the house. The view through the ice-skinned window spoke volumes about the comfort we enjoyed within as she skinned the white foxes her husband had trapped the day before. Sitting straight-legged, weaving nets or grass baskets, skinning, and butchering game is all done sitting on the floor in the central room. We would call it the living room. Quasag is one name for such places, where, while working, one tells stories to pass on the ancient ways.

“In the culture of my ancestors,” she said, “the greatest gifts we can give or receive are those without material form: songs, dances, and stories.”

On the other side of the world, Alaska’s antipodes, in Africa, an imprisoned !Kung bushman of the Kalahari says that he is “waiting for the moon to turn back, that I may listen to the stories of my people, for I am here in a great city where they have put me in a cage and I do not obtain stories. I listen, watching for a story which I want to hear. I will turn my ears backward to the heels of my feet on which I wait, so that I can feel that a story is in the wind.” Lucky for us, one of the truly great raconteurs, Laurence Van der Post, saved this story for us, never imagining that it would reappear and have poignant relevance in remote Alaska.

Stories have always begun this way, the best ones perhaps told by elders, perhaps enhanced by a full moon and surging tides or the music of a talking river. There may be lightning or the call of owls, a crackling fire whose incense intoxicates. Wolves or lions may be speaking in the distance. Stories can communicate and need to communicate magic, but they need not take place in such exotic settings. The inner search or struggle for self-awareness may place the seeker in the greatest of all wildernesses, that within one’s own heart.

A few days ago, I was invited into the Zion Canyon workplace of a friend, the gifted potter and teacher. He handed me a moist lump of clay and with another in his hands, we each began to shape a sphere. The expectant lump was rounded until smooth. He instructed me to place my foot beside his on the stool in front of the potter’s wheel. Using the kneecap as a form, he gently but authoritatively smacked it on his knee, and I followed suit. Smack, turn, smack, turn, smack, turn. Then, using just our hands, we shaped and turned, lifting the walls, deepening the base. Our attention was directed to uniform thickness until a small crude bowl was formed, not much bigger than the cupped hand.

In those moments, we were as free from care as children. The left brain relaxed as the tactile senses came alive. The earthy smell of the clay was clean and heavy on our hands. The mind is more open when playing. There was a church-like quiet in the room. Motes danced on a beam of sunshine coming through a high window in the studio and encouraged a lightness of approach and freedom from desire and ambition. Basic, elemental, even primeval was this most ancient of creative expressions. In my life, I hope to be as open and expectant as a child at play.

Like the bushman, I will listen for the story. Like the Eskimo, I want to be appreciative of the insubstantial. The song and the dance and the story, real or imagined, hold greater value than we can know. Imagine now your own empty hand reaching out, cupped as if to catch water. I imagined being would be as naked as a sadhu in a Punjab alley whose raiment is only ash from the charnel fires, whose empty bowl is the only possession. To such a one, life itself is such a mysterious blessing that anything which comes to the bowl is like rubies and pearls.

On the opposite side of the earth, my good Cape Town friend Dr. Ian McCallum, brilliant author of Ecological Intelligence, describes a kudu stalking a shadowed shrub from downwind. With beautiful straight-up long curling horns, it favors a bush that is able to release a toxic smell and taste as soon as a kudu begins to graze on its delicious leaves. The clever kudu has learned that it is its smell that triggers the plant’s chemical defense, so it stalks from downwind and browses quickly before the offensive smell and taste is released.

The contrasts within the Alaskan/African Antipodes are nowhere more striking than in the parallels between the Alaskan Inupiat word “Malawi” and the Bantu Chewa word “malaŵí.” When I was with Credo Mutwa in his African homeland, I asked him, “You have an adjoining country called Malawi. Was the country named for its large lake, and what does Malawi mean?”

Malawi in Africa refers to a country in southeastern Africa, and the name itself is derived from the “Maravi” people, a Bantu ethnic group. The word essentially means “flames” in the local Chewa language, possibly referencing the sight of many kilns burning at night. The Maravi were known iron workers. It is the fourth largest freshwater lake in the world by volume and stretches almost the full north-south length of the country itself.

I told Credo about my time with my friends, the Inupiat people above the Arctic Circle, and about being out on the sea ice with my hunting partner, the best-known polar bear hunter in the village of Sivugaq. We were not interested in the polar bear, despite the giant tracks we were walking in, but rather wanted to collect, as we were asked to do, the unusual and little-known Spectacled Eider duck for museum collections in the US and abroad that did not have them.

I considered the opposites of the African Timbavati lion as I walked on the ice in the dinner plate-sized polar bear tracks. The African and Eskimo word Melawi fell from the river of stars in both places I had experienced. How, other than by considering magic, can one accept this impossible coincidence that the African and Alaskan word Melawi are the same?

There was only ice for hundreds of miles in every direction. These were places where the people knew there was an under-ice current collision with an under-ice cliff, which then swirls upward to create a place of open water. These unique eiders are known to gather and overwinter in these places by the thousands. In addition to the rising food-carrying currents, the dabbling, wing-stretching, and paddling movements of the ducks stir the surface water just enough to prevent the forming of ice.

The big man, royally robed before me, was glistening in the heat. He drew on his many encyclopedias of memorized information and said, “Mr. McBride, there are numerous words in African languages that are the same in Inupiat,” and he recited a few. Of the millions of abstract questions I might have asked him, how could he possibly have known that? Credo’s intellect always amazes, dazzles, and leaves speechless those who interact with him.

This was not the first such revelation of his brilliance. Wondering if I could stump him on something obtuse, I asked if he knew anything about the Celtic roots of my children’s names, Morgan and Shannon. He launched, without pausing, into a long-detailed narrative that would have impressed Fiona Salmon or a PhD scholar in the history of Clan Donald of the Western Isles. Credo could have held a chair at Europe’s only Celtic University, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig of Skye in the parish of Kiltearn, Ross and Cromarty, Scotland. He could have been an honored guest at the festive table of the Chief of Clan Munro, Hector William Munro, in his castle home of Foulis. I wonder which of the many rooms would have been provided for Credo and his entourage?

Paths That Cross the Great White Bear

The somewhat random and loosely connected stories and observations that follow concerning polar bears demonstrate that even an Alaskan living far from these great white bears can recall many encounters. Each memory is vivid, perhaps because of the mysterious spiritual power the great white bear holds. I share these stories with respect to highlight how the northern people found uses for the bears beyond what we could imagine.

As supreme opportunists, these great bears can roam hundreds of square miles, wandering the trackless ice beneath the shimmering, multicolored aurora.

Though I live far from their life-supporting sea ice, polar bears have occasionally appeared on the Kodiak Island chain, which has a temperate continental climate. To get there, a bear would have to traverse the ice or shoreline of the Bering Sea, cross the Alaska Peninsula with its towering mountain chain, and swim the 30 miles across the open water of the Shelikov Strait.

I was once asked to escort a well-known author from Outside Magazine who was on assignment to explore exciting winter activities. My Piper PA-12 was equipped with straight skis at the time, so I flew him up to the remote Mountain Lake Camp (loonsonglakelodge.com) to experience the chilly delights of three feet of fresh powder snow. Bush flying on skis in winter is an adventure in itself, with severe cold and landings on frozen lakes, from which we ventured out on cross-country skis following the tracks of wolves, wolverines, and moose. The crackling of kindling splits is a sweet sound when rising in the blackness to start the day, accompanied by the chugging of the little coffee pot. The dancing, multicolored aurora before first light takes your breath away. There is much to love about winter in the bush—I am never disappointed.

I wore a polar bear fur hat made for me by my Arctic Native friends, which I generously loaned to the writer and never saw again. He was thrilled to have the REAL Alaskan experience with such an extraordinary hat! I was proud to own such a heritage piece of traditional village headgear, having seen one only once in an Arctic village. A person could stand in the lobby of the Anchorage International Airport for a year and never see one.

The most exotic polar bear item I ever encountered was the bear’s head, removed in such a way that the hide could be sold as a valuable rug, while the head became a large gathering bowl used for collecting radiola or storing hunters’ equipment or household items. I believe it might have had shamanic use because when you put it over your own head, it draped over your shoulders, plunging you into darkness. Your face aligned where the bear’s was, and light coming through the sewn-shut eyes, nose, and ears allowed your imagination to run wild as you assumed the bear’s spirit.

Shamans could and did become bears. Witness the Peter Kalifornski story of The Kustatan Bear, which terrorized a whole village and could only be killed with a magic bullet blessed and consecrated by a priest or perhaps by the shaman himself. Killing the great bear was killing the shaman who had become the terrible bear, bringing grief and destruction to the village. Shamans didn’t always earn “ice guy” awards.

Another item of clothing that has disappeared is polar bear pants. I have never seen them anywhere but in museums. In the past, they were the merit badge of a brave and successful hunter and of his wife, the skilled seamstress who, with her dexterity and cleverness, showed off her man.

The Power of Rhodiola

Rhodiola (Rhodiola rosea)¹, was named for the rose-like fragrance of its freshly cut root. As a medicinal plant, its use dates back thousands of years in China and Tibet. Its medicinal use by everyone from Vikings to modern athletes and even cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station is well documented. The people mix the leaves and buds of rhodiola with seal and whale fat to ward off scurvy and give them energy. I was struck by the ingenuity driven by necessity when I helped skin a seal by drawing it out through its own mouth. On the “living room-quasiq floor,” this unusual skinning is often done on absorbent, surplus cardboard from the village AC Company General Store. Using a very short knife or a lithic tool like the one I found in Africa that fits perfectly between thumb and index finger, one peels back the lips, pushes the nose up and back, and cuts along the bone to release the skin. It takes a skilled practitioner to get the full hand into the mouth, cutting around the nose, eyes, and ears. It is slow and tedious, with lots of hard pulling as you release the flippers from the body; they remain attached to the hide. The slipperiness of the animal and the hide is so great that some kind of magic seems to come into play to complete the task. There it is: seal hide turned right side out, looking just like a deflated seal on the ice, and beside it—a cherished, delicious dinner with lots of fresh-as-it-gets seal oil. The eyes, ears, and vent are sewn leak-proof tight, and the skin is forcefully stuffed with nunivak, the heart-healthy rhodiola. When the cutting was going on, we took care to leave as much of the blubber or fat on the hide as possible. This live seal-looking container is now buried in the tundra under a cairn of rocks to thwart the sea-hungry sled dogs. The large amount of fat left on the skin breaks down with necrosis, and each bud and blade of the plant, rich in vitamin C, is so needed in this land of nothing green in sight from September to May.

Intuitively, the people knew that the plant could prevent the deadly scurvy. The traditional Inuit diet does include some berries, seaweed, and plants, but a carnivorous diet can supply all the essential nutrients, provided you eat the whole animal and eat it raw. Whale skin and seal brain both contain vitamin C. The Inuit may have a higher genetic tolerance for vitamin C insufficiency.

Clams are very rich in probiotics and vitamin C. People who lived with walrus got them from their stomachs. As filter feeders of phytoplankton and zooplankton, vitamin C from clams is an essential micronutrient in the marine food chain, and it’s carried by copepods and their fecal pellets. This makes copepods a potential pathway for vitamin C to reach higher trophic levels, such as fish larvae.

What has not disappeared from special Arctic attire, however, is the wolverine ruff, sewn circularly around the upturned parka hood. Even as the beards, eyebrows, and eyelashes froze with the cold when using wolf, coyote, or other furs, the wolverine helps to keep the face frost-free.

Considering where, when, and how often these mysterious bears appear in my own space, it is worth translocating for a moment into the ancient Native world to consider the shamanistic view of this animal and perhaps even its power over modern white people like us today. There is a very thin and diaphanous veil separating us from the bear and the shaman. Its thinness is clearly seen as the distance between bear and seal. If the seal were a little faster and more clever, there would be no bears. If the bear were a little more cunning and faster, there might be no seals, thus also with lions and their prey at the antipodes. To consider these separations perhaps requires that we be more open-minded and open-hearted to unexplainable mystery.

Imagination is more important than intelligence, Einstein.?

Thinking beyond current limitations is often more valuable than simply accumulating facts and knowledge alone; it is considered the driving force behind innovation and progress.

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Image Credits

Walking in their footprints…
Pixabay Image
Image by Margo Tanenbaum from Pixabay

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1. https://www.webmd.com/vitamins/ai/ingredientmono-883/rhodiola [↩]

Into the Okavango Delta

by Michael McBride

Into that vast swamp with Chris and Robert McBride
In Botswana’s Okavango Delta—on foot and by mokoro

Bittersweet words—but my only consolation.

Our watery highway was the Boro River system, just northeast of Chief’s Island.

The journey began in Alaska—at the antipodes of Maun. I descended the fifty-two steps from my remote, cliffside home to the high-tide shoreline. Hoisting my single Seda kayak from its cradle on the dock to my shoulder, I clipped on my life vest, sealed my cell phone in a ziplock, and paddled into the rushing tide.

Anchored just offshore sat the eighteen-foot Boston Whaler Outrage—secured in deep water, as always. With tidal shifts reaching up to twenty-four vertical feet in six hours, mooring at the dock is out of the question. Boats must anchor out, where they can rise and fall with the living sea.

The journey began with a thirty-minute drive across open ocean, hoping for calm seas. In rough weather, one doesn’t attempt the mooring at all—it’s safer to stay ashore, away from Neptune’s icy grip. When the southwesterly sea winds rage, launching becomes an hour-long battle against salt spray, the horizon dissolving into white mist.

The nearest boat harbor is in Homer, where—on gentler days—a vessel can rest at a floating dock. From there, a pickup truck carries travelers along one of the world’s longest natural sand spits to the airport a few miles away. But that road is a gamble when the winds rise, sending rocks and logs hurtling through the air. It was not uncommon to be stranded—either on the mainland or at the spit’s end—waiting for nature’s fury to pass.

Next stop: Johannesburg, where I joined my cousin Chris.

From there, we drove four and a half hours to Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, in a friend’s vehicle. Waiting for me was a bed and a glass of wine at the Ambassador’s home—hosted by Melissa Maino, daughter of “The Honorable” Ted, a Reagan appointee and longtime family acquaintance.

I fully expected Chris to sleep in the bushes well beyond the Ambassador’s gate, lest his tattered Harris Tweed introduce unwelcome crawlies into diplomatic quarters.

Arriving there, however, I was surprised to see men in camouflage uniforms with machine guns stationed on the rooftop. Knowing I’d soon be venturing far off-grid, the sight of armed guards stirred some apprehension.

No cause for worry, as it turned out—perhaps just standard State Department policy for safeguarding diplomats in Africa.

The following day, Maun was still six hours away—our route taking us through Francistown, renowned for its ability to tan entire elephant hides.

That final leg by vehicle meant crossing the Makgadikgadi Pans of the Kalahari—a land of relentless daytime heat and desolation. My backpack, packed with bare essentials and first aid, lacked one critical item: a broad-brimmed hat. We searched the few shops along dirt streets, nearly ready to abandon the hunt when—Eureka!—one was found.

Chris’ “kit,” meanwhile, consisted of whatever happened to be in his pockets at that moment—likely kudu biltong and a crumbling rusk.

Wherever water was available, I plunged my cotton treasure into it, then placed it back on my head, leaving a small pool within to trickle cool relief down into my sun-glassed eyes.

By this point, we still had no solid plan for crossing the intimidating Kalahari.

Enter James McBride—a fresh-from-Ireland character we met at a local bar and casino. His Gaelic brogue was thick, his humor even thicker—keeping us doubled over in laughter about his homeland, his mother, and his pals back home.

When James—the slot-machine repairman—heard of our destination, he latched onto the idea like a rat on a Cheeto. Without hesitation, he offered to be our chauffeur, neatly uniformed for the occasion.

We might have imagined a sturdy, time-tested Land Rover for this desert crossing. Instead, his car was barely bigger than a breadbox.

Three grown men and gear for the wild—two men too many. Running alongside seemed an unwise alternative, so we poured ourselves in, knees to chins.

We waited for midnight, then—with a full tank of gas—roared off into the star-filled African night.

I tingled with excitement. Chris slept like a stone. The third McBride—the “real McBride,” fresh from the old sod—had the wheel.

His foot was lead-heavy on the pedal, pushing us across barren wastes before dawn.

Several hours in, Chris and I were jolted awake by a bone-crunching impact—a zebra, flying into our right-side door at terrific speed.

Chris muttered something about a leopard stampeding the herd.

The collision sent us skidding to a dusty halt. The door never opened again.

No brass band welcomed our early-morning arrival in Maun, beside the usually dry Thamalakane riverbed.

The Duck Inn was closed—so much for a scotch-and-water reward after the trauma of that desert crossing.

Waiting ahead lay the Boro N’yane River, flowing from the Okavango Delta.

It would be our gateway into the wet/dry wilderness—and as far as we knew, no one had ever done what we planned to do by mokoro.

We woke our Doctors Without Borders friend in Maun, rolling out our sleeping mats on his floor—not at all troubled by the cobra curled in the cold ashes of the fireplace. Or rather, we hoped it was sleeping. The flick of its tongue, sampling the air, suggested otherwise.

Yes, fireplace; yes, nights can be surprisingly cool in the Kalahari. And, yes, I was less than pleased with such an evil-eyed roommate.

Chris had graduated from Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg in 1965 with a degree in English and Zulu. Soon after, he ventured alone—guided only by his instincts and curiosity—into the depths of the Okavango, searching out what he described as the last of the San River Bushmen.

He found two traditional, Kiganima and Matturu, thought to have diverged from other humans one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand years ago—holding tight to traditions fading elsewhere.

Before leaving that first time, Chris loaned his double-barrel shotgun to a Swana friend, promising to return for it one day.

Now, here we were, returning and hoping and needing to recover the shotgun.

We found a guide, whom we nick-named “Gilly-Billy”, a Swana man whose real name defied our tongues—and hired him, along with his twenty-foot mokoro, a thin-hulled vessel hand-carved from the sausage tree (Kigelia Africana).

Before steel tools were available, locals shaped the boats by controlled burning, hollowing the tree’s core with fire.

Our mokoro was long, narrow, and impossibly streamlined, its bow and stern forming elegant points. Some of these handcrafted boats carried subtle, snake-like curves, depending on the tree’s natural bend and the skill of the builder.

The pole,balancing delicately upright,maneuvered with a long push-pole, its duckbill-shaped tip spreading as it pressed into the mud, then closing as the mokoro glided forward.

The art lies in finesse: push too hard, and retrieving the pole robs you of forward momentum. It is a rhythm,a conversation between force and surrender, yet another example of the opposites of the antipodes.

We launched into the world’s largest inland delta with precious few supplies; cornmeal, salt, oil, kudu biltong, and our greatest treasure: a pellet gun purchased in Maun for one hundred fifteen pula.With scant pula left—the Setswana word for “rain” and Botswana’s currency—we had gambled heavily on the gun.

A single lever stroke compressed enough air to send a tiny lead pellet fifty feet, enough to drop a green pigeon from the trees. We ate scores of them in the days ahead,each shot fired with careful restraint, not just for accuracy but for preserving our dwindling pellet supply.

Fishing hooks and twine allowed us to snare the ever-present catfish, though their taste was muddy and thick.

Ketlhatlogile Mosepele at the Botswana University writes of the nutritional richness of bream fish, which we found to be far more palatable.

Silver catfish(Lerehe in Setswana)—were easily caught, as were the three-spot tilapia, known locally as Mbweya.

With little money left, we sought to buy our own mokoro—a cheaper solution that would allow us to hire a guide independently.

We arrived at a tiny village on a too-small island, hoping to negotiate.

Following tradition, we were brought to the chief—a wiry man seated before his crude shelter. One of his wives appeared with bowls of fish stew.

The stew had more sharp bones than meat, but we slurped loudly, mimicking the chief’s own eating style, eager to show respect.

I tried not to stare at one of his wives, though my attempts were in vain.

She, like the other women, was stark naked save for a small leather modesty belt.

Her sign of relative wealth was far more memorable—a bright pink knitted jersey, worn to near ruin. Through well-worn holes, protruded two of the most pointed, erectile breasts the gods had ever shaped.

Had she been handed two balloons, she might well have clasped her hands behind her back and popped them both with a single stab.

The chief had two bowls before him—one for fish bones, one for eating.

From time to time, his young son emptied the bone bowl into his own, re-sucking the scraps that had already been consumed once before.

Such was the scarcity of food among these thin, wiry people.

That full-moon night, drums echoed across the delta.

Somewhere, the solitary crocodile specialist—the one we had met earlier—was out there, searching for hidden nests among the reeds.

In the distance, basso drumbeats reverberated, mimicking the heartbeat of Africa itself.

Freud would have smiled, I thought.

Through it all, Chris was quietly, profoundly joyous returning to the place that had captured his soul as a young man, after university.

I hiked daily with Horoletswe from Kiganima’s camp to the felled tree and wrote writing for hours as he hacked endlessly until his calloused, dry and deeply cracked hands bled.

Those familiar with this glorious place in Botswana hesitate to call it the Okavango Swamp, though in certain wet-season moments, the name might feel justified.

But for those of us who have been seduced by her gin-clear waters, her scrappy fish, her sweet-fruited marula trees, and her star-drenched nights, she qualifies as Eden itself—where one might, indeed, be tempted to lie down beside her still waters.

Yet the imagined lion and lamb do not lie together here.

For this place has spent the last ten million unglaciated years shaping itself into a state of flawless equilibrium, where the veil between prey and predator is as diaphanous as a silk scarf.

There is no wasted motion, no excess. Everything, everything, occupies a place that has been worked out since time out of mind.

Chris McBride—my old friend with the shared surname, if not shared genes—was nodding off, lulled by the breeze noodling along the slow-moving stream.

We had wandered into this remote, unknown place, calling to mind the old admonition:

Chris stirred, half-awake, wrapped in the languor of the Tropic of Capricorn, where man, lion, kudu, and impala alike call a ceasefire beneath the marula’s shade—escaping the blistering heat of a Capricorn sun.

Chris could explain those vocalizations in full.

Then, suddenly—his voice sharpened with urgency.

I couldn’t see it. But I was acutely aware of my situation and I froze.

Just be patient, I told myself.
Try to wait calmly.

And as I sat—stone still, not breathing more than necessary—my mind filled with the story of a young man who had died near Timbavati Dong-Dasha.

He had gone to the wood box for firewood, reached in, and—like a flash of fire—was bitten.

He was on his way to the clouds before his mind had even fully grasped the moment.

• First, loss of control—tongue and jaw heavy.
• Then, slurred speech. Blurred vision.
• Tunnel vision.
• Drowsiness. Paralysis.
• Nausea. Cough. Sweating. Dizziness.
• Hemorrhage.
• And a taste of death itself.

It can take seven to fifteen hours for a black mamba bite to kill a man.

According to National Geographic, venomous snakes kill an estimated thirty thousand people annually in sub-Saharan Africa—though experts believe the number could be much higher, as many deaths in rural areas go unreported.

Newsweek places the figure between twenty thousand and thirty-two thousand fatalities a year.

Staggering numbers.

Numbers that, in this moment, felt very personal.

Before this next adventure, back in Timbavati, Chris had played Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony—his favorite music on earth—through speakers mounted on the little Land Rover, letting the sound roll out across the bush.

It was part of his method—an attempt to habituate the lions to his presence.

He would provide an impala or another offering, hoping to draw the lions in for observation, then follow them as they hunted.

Through this persistent study, he documented their dependency on Cape buffalo, a reliance that had once been doubted.

The next day, Gilly-Billy poled us further up the Boro River, with Chief’s Island on our left.

He and Chris spoke of the dangers of crossing open water on a cloudy day—and of the serious threat posed by the hippos.

Territorial, furious, and unpredictable, hippos will overturn a mokoro without hesitation—killing all aboard.

My personal observation at T’sau l’gwana—pronounced with the click sounds of the Bushmen—was something I had never read in any report.

Deep in the Okavango, we poled past a place where there had once been a cluster of huts.

Like an echo of Karen Blixen’s words in Out of Africa:

Our guide, push-pole in hand, explained to Chris:
The head man had been killed by a hippo, right in front of his family.
In terror of the spirits, the people burned all they owned and abandoned their home.
We could still see the burnt earth, the twisted blackened metal trunk—likely their most precious possession, used to keep their food safe from hyenas.
They even left behind a beautiful stone adz.
I had not seen a single stone on our wide-ranging travels, and I could only assume this fine artifact had come from a great distance.
The name for the place, Carry My Child, spoke to the ever-present spirits of the land.
The story carried a warning—woven into the very fabric of life here:
A mother, needing to water her mealie-corn stalks, asks the zebra to carry her child while she is gone.
The zebra tires of the duty.
The hyena, sensing opportunity, offers to care for the child.
Then promptly devours it.
In Africa, hippos kill more people than any other animal, followed by crocodiles and then snakes.Hippos are estimated to kill around five hundred people annually—but fatalities are likely underreported, meaning the real number is far higher.
They are, without doubt, the world’s deadliest large land mammal—charging, capsizing boats, crushing human bodies with their immense, sharp-edged teeth.
We stuck to the narrow hip-wide trails, cut through the dense papyrus thickets by crocs and hippos themselves.
Overhead, only a tall giraffe might peer above the towering reeds.
Thus, we had no real sense of direction—no clear landmarks—in this search for Kiganima and Matturu.
Only the ancient waterways.
Only the unseen hands of fate, guiding forward.
Finding them days later, mm has (hard copy?) photos of the VE 24 next to their simple brush shelter.
At one point, unknowingly, we passed a small side channel, where a crocodile had parked itself for a midday nap.

The creature, disturbed and territorial, voiced its displeasure—a sound torn straight from a nightmare, rising from just a few feet away.
Crocodiles are the most vocal of reptiles, capable of bellows, growls, and hisses.
This ancient relic of Pangea, barely changed since the Triassic period, has been around for one hundred million years—perhaps its unchanging existence is the reason for its perpetual boredom and grumpiness.
Each year, hundreds of people are estimated to die from crocodile attacks in Africa—though, as with most fatal encounters, the true number is likely much higher.
Enough of that grim thought, I prayed, imagining a rosary in my fingers.
We pushed on, searching for solid ground—a small island, preferably one crowned by a strangler fig, where we could make camp.
By now, Chris had reclaimed his shotgun, and as we rounded a leafy little island, he quickly fired at a sitatunga (Tragelaphus spekii)—a marsh-dwelling antelope, standing knee-deep in its usual habitat.
Wounded, it weakened, and we closed in.
From the bow of the mokoro, armed with a seven-inch Buck knife, I lunged—grabbing the animal’s left horn—and with a single, lucky stroke, stabbed between the atlas and axis vertebra at the base of its skull.
The kill was instant.
We butchered the animal, making camp on that tiny island, and ate from the hindquarters forward—consuming the most perishable cuts first, before the heat summoned maggots.
A twenty-four-hour smudge fire kept the remainder smoking into biltong jerky, preserving it for the long days ahead.
That full sitatunga belly, with the moon and stars above, sent me into a deep sleep.
Until I was awakened—thrown into a hideous nightmare.
Something—an insect, a parasite—was inside my ear, burrowing inward, searching for an exit through my brain.
For a time in college, I was a pre-med student, taking a course in parasitology.
You do not want to travel alone in Africa if you have taken such a class.
Panicked, I considered assisted suicide, hoping not to waste a shotgun shell.
Chris, unruffled, suggested a simpler remedy:
He placed a drop of vegetable oil into my ear.
The damned thing drowned.
Its remains, I assume, are still lodged somewhere—perhaps the reason my earwax carries an unpleasant scent.
Chris was unwell, his residential malaria reawakening, the blood parasites attacking again.
Even after treatment, malaria can persist for years—its Plasmodium species lying dormant in the liver, triggering relapses.
Its effects can be long-term, leading to neurological problems, cognitive impairment, motor dysfunction, even seizures.
As he slept, I decided—perhaps foolishly—to venture alone on a Chief’s Island hike, without Chris, and more critically, without his .416 rifle to protect me.
My mind buzzed with fears—but I chose to press forward, treating it as a test.
Upon returning, I described to Chris a sound I had heard—a hideous growl, something that nearly killed me from sheer fright.
I imitated the noise, trembling still.
Chris burst into laughter.
“That was an ostrich, Alaska man!”
Wandering alone, I stumbled upon something extraordinary:
Beneath a large marula tree, a giant wooden sculpture—a penis and testicles, crafted into a bellows for smelting iron.
I was instinctively afraid—the place felt like a sacrilege, a site where no white man should trespass.
Throughout history, forgers were high-ranking Sanusi mystics, their work filled with ritual and alchemy.
Near the ancient bellows, I found pieces of slag—stony waste matter, separated from liquid metals in the refining process.
Such heat requires fast-moving air, forced into the flames through a powerful bellows—one not easily crafted.
The Zulu forged at least twenty types of spears, the most famous being the assegai, used across Southern Africa—a throwing spear, its narrow leaf-shaped blade designed for flight and impact.
The bellows itself was astonishing—its shaft measuring three and a half feet long, roughly ten to twelve inches in circumference.
Carved from a single piece of wood, it was hollow, smooth inside and out.
At the base, two rounded testicles, their surfaces stretched loosely with animal hidperhaps porcupine, though I guessed impala.
At the tip, a small aperture—through which air was expelled into the fire, mimicking the act of creation itself.
By manipulating tension, the forge master could accelerate the air, deepening the flames, seeking the searing heat required for metalwork.
Across centuries, forgers and alchemists alike have searched for the Philosopher’s Stone—a substance to transmute lead into gold, to hold the secret to immortality.
In Western myth, Thor of Scandinavian legend wielded lightning to forge ancient swords.
His hammer, Mjollnir, represented thunder, the force of creation through fire.
Africa, too, has its sacred metallurgy.
And though the distance between Scandinavia and Timbavati is vast, the art of fire and metal—the act of forging transformation—remains universal.
I Remember
We hitchhiked out of Maun in a wheeled Cessna 206, lifting off into the African sky, leaving the delta behind.
At the Namibian border at Hanse, we faced uniformed guards, machine guns slung across their shoulders, their expressions unreadable.
We had no certainty of passage, but we had a fat bag of oranges—a bribe, or perhaps just a gesture of goodwill.
With jovial interaction, our passports were stamped, and we were sent on our way—flying at treetop level, because below us, the war raged on.
Bullets flew beneath us, and rumor had it that Cuba had sent twenty thousand mercenaries, engaged in the fight for control of the country.
Landing in Windhoek, we were reminded again of our precarious position.
We passed through scowling faces, camouflage uniforms, machine guns pointed at us.
We avoided eye contact, the way one does when passing a snarling pit bull—submissive, downward gaze, long, slow exhalations, moving forward without hesitation, without challenge.
Africa had left its mark on us.
The zebra, colliding with our car as it fled a lion’s pursuit.
The herd of impala, leaping over our sleeping-bag bodies, plunging into the Umfolozi River, where crocodiles waited, mouths open.
The live-trapped leopard, caught in a baboon cage in the dark.
The black mamba, poised behind my head, waiting.
The pygmy goose, drifting in the Du-O pool.
The parasite, burrowing into my ear, seeking my brain.
The sitatunga, killed with a Buck knife, eaten in its entirety.
The old man, dying fireside, struck by a night adder.
The mating adders, coiled in the dark, unseen until I had stepped over them.
Horuletsue, carving a mokoro.
Maturu, with her small band of river Bushmen, telling us that Kiganima was dead.
Carry My Child—T’sau-n’gwana, the burned-out camp, where the hippo had killed the man.
And so much more.
We had entered the Okavango Delta, and it had entered us.
Some places never leave you untouched.

---

Image Credits

Image: Black mamba taxonomy chart
Source: Wikipedia
By Hendrik van den Berg, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47439580

Image: Deadly crocodile
Source: Pixabay
Image by Jean photosstock from Pixabay

1. National Park Service History Electronic Library & Archive May 1, 2012 [↩]
2. Blixon, Karen. Out of Africa, 1937. Putnam, Denmark. [↩]

Under the Bering Sea

by Michael McBride

IN A SCUBA DRY SUIT BENEATH THE BERING SEA, I worked to save a disabled king crabber as gale-force winds—approaching eighty knots—threatened to drive the vessel aground and take the crew with it.
The Lindblad Explorer, famed for its Antarctic expeditions, happened to be nearby. I was serving as Expedition Leader aboard her at the time of the incident.
Sharing the bridge with German Captain Verner Volkersdorfer, I navigated the renamed Explorer—based out of Seattle—carrying ninety-six passengers and thirty-four crew. We diverted course to pick up a passenger in Prince Rupert en route to Nome, with plans to visit the rarely seen Pribilof Islands.
These islands—little more than treeless, tundra-covered hills—are home to the Aleut communities of St. George and St. Paul, with populations of about one hundred eleven and four hundred, respectively. Despite their remoteness, the shorelines and cliffs teem with life, making them a haven for birders and wildlife enthusiasts. Often called the “Galápagos of the North,” these islands attract those drawn to rare wild abundance: whirlpools of seabirds, herds of marine mammals, and congregations of whales.
Some come seeking to notch “Galápagos” into their travel log, only to find themselves equally mesmerized in the middle of the Bering Sea. Go figure. Chill bumps, after all, have no fixed geography.
The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration attributes this biological bounty to enhanced tidal mixing—nutrient-rich slope waters rising into the euphotic zone. Copepods, crucial links between phytoplankton and predators, flourish here, feeding fish, seabirds, and whales in a food web of astonishing complexity.
The Pribilofs are the world’s largest Unangax̂ villages, where the languages spoken are St. George Unangam Tunuu and St. Paul Unangam Tanax̂ Amix̂. For English speakers, the bilabial pronunciations can be challenging.
Historically, the Unangax̂ traveled to the Pribilofs seasonally for hunting. But in 1786, when Russian fur trader Gavrill Pribylov arrived at St. George, the islands were uninhabited. That changed abruptly: for two years, the Russian-American Company enslaved and forcibly relocated Indigenous people from Siberia and the Aleutians to hunt fur seals. The descendants of those first captives still live there today.
Overhunting drove the fur seals to near-collapse, and the once-resilient Unangax̂ communities fell into poverty.

Now…

Now the islands are part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge and are known for their exceptional birding and vast gatherings of northern fur seals.
Commercial fishing—particularly for halibut—and seasonal work in local fish processing plants make up the backbone of the modern economy. Subsistence practices also remain essential, carried out with vigor and ancestral knowledge.
Each summer, more than two and a half million seabirds representing over two hundred species fill the cliffs, tundra, wetlands, and beaches. Even more staggering: over one million northern fur seals return to these shores to breed and raise their young—the largest such gathering of marine mammals anywhere on Earth.
Viewing blinds dot the beaches, offering close glimpses not only of fur seals, but also of Steller sea lions, walruses, and sea otters—each part of the deep rhythm of life in these islands adrift between continents.
As we approached, we maintained contact with the St. Paul harbormaster via marine VHF radio, which can reach across the sea for about one hundred miles. Through sizzling static, he confirmed our estimated arrival time and asked whether we had a diver aboard.
He spoke slowly and clearly, informing us that a large Bering Sea crabber lay disabled with line in its wheel—adrift in shallow water on the island’s windward side—and that a deep low-pressure front was approaching from the northwest, with predicted winds nearing eighty miles per hour.
I reminded the captain that I was a certified open water dry suit diver and had my equipment stowed in the bosun’s locker. I trusted Pedro Megano, our bo’s’n, to serve as my tender for what would be a challenging and possibly dangerous rescue attempt.
A high-wind warning had already been issued for the Pribilofs: eighty-mile-per-hour gusts expected from the north-northwest. The crabber and her crew—five or six men—were in grave danger. There would be no hope of salvation unless a diver could remove the fouled line and free the vessel before the storm arrived.
The sea was not heavy as the Lindblad Explorer hovered upwind from the crabber, “hanging on the hook.” Still, even in moderate swells, the anchor and heavy chain groaned and protested—an unnerving sound as Pedro and I clambered aboard.
Our twelve-foot black Avon raft pitched wildly, rising and dropping with each swell. The transfer to the crabber—a leap of faith—was tenuous at best. We quite literally tumbled over the bulwarks after first heaving our dive tanks and gear aboard.
The crew understood too well that their lives depended on me freeing that line. A spotlight was trained on my position as I moved aft to assess the current. I was more than aware that an anti-cyclonic tidal flow encircles these islands—complex, dynamic, and far from forgiving.
The bow’s orientation could have been influenced by either wind or current. What I saw disturbed me deeply. The current appeared to be flowing at nearly five knots—enough to make me seriously consider abandoning the crabber to her fate.
I understood the basics: warmer, slightly fresher surface water mixes downward, while colder, more saline water rises—driven by strong tidal movement. Bottom configuration adds further variables, and I knew there was no feasible way to enter from the stern and work my way forward to the prop in my cumbersome gear.
My only choice was to enter from the bow and belay myself aft.
The crabber’s bow, curved steeply upward, loomed what felt like light-years above the waterline. I turned to the captain and asked—half-joking, fully serious—whether he had any duct tape.
His look said everything, but he obliged. In the wheelhouse, I applied a foot-long strip across the engine start button. If I was going under that boat and hanging on to the prop, there was no way I was becoming crab bait due to someone’s careless mistake.
Next, I lashed a lead line to one of the large orange bumper buoys tied to the rail and tossed it overboard. If I failed or was swept downstream, I hoped to catch the trailing line and save myself.
I was not at all sure I had the strength to perform the series of underwater gymnastics required to get from Point A (bow entry) to Point B (entangled prop). I tried to picture the transition—while wearing a heavy dive tank and sufficient lead weight to neutralize the suit’s buoyancy. It was more than a little complicated.
Another mantra whispered to me: Beware of the unseen and unknown in unfamiliar situations.
Whether piloting a bush plane, a vessel, or simply driving a car, my personal rule is, “If in doubt—don’t.” The yellow traffic light is a warning. The next one is red. And I had no interest in meeting red beneath a disabled crabber in the Bering Sea.
Two cold-water swimmers offered me lifelong wisdom in moments like this.
Diana Nyad—movie-famous and still a dear friend—taught me the vital importance of breath control during high-stress underwater conditions. I assisted her once during her swim from China Poot Bay to Homer in Kachemak Bay.
Then there’s Lewis Pugh—Alaska’s antipodal counterpart, swimming in defense of fragile ecosystems around the world. Dubbed the “Sir Edmund Hillary of ice-water swimming,” Lewis became the first to complete long-distance swims in every ocean on Earth. Way to go, Lewis. Keep swimming.
Calm, they had both told me, was the secret.
That might be easy to say, but it is an art—an art that demands practice. And there was no time for practice. The storm didn’t care.
Over the side I went.
Immediately, I was gripped by the sheer force of the current and horrified by the monstrous razor-edged barnacles encasing the hull. These weren’t like the ones I’d lived with on my salt-kissed doorstep. These were serrated sabers.
My thirty-five-hundred-dollar Viking dry suit had no warranty against shredding itself on crustaceans. One tear, and my dive—and the crabber’s last hope—was over.
I remembered another dive: cold water, wrench in hand, when my neck seal tore. “I can take forty-degree water,” I thought. “I’ll finish the job.”
Old Neptune had other plans. He whispered back in his briny tongue:
“No sirree, Mr. McBride. Get your skinny butt out of my ocean—now.”
I complied, shivering, tail between my fins.
Somehow, this time, I avoided tearing the suit.
Reaching the prop, I nearly gave up. There were fathoms of five-sixteenths-inch polyline fused tight around the shaft and bossings. Unless I had a miniature underwater chainsaw, I couldn’t see how I would clear it.
My freshly sharpened nine-inch dive knife suddenly felt like a toothpick defending against a grizzly bear.
Then came the whisper, perhaps from some inner ancestor: “Faint heart never won a fair maid.”
So I attacked—with full force, though I cursed my choice not to pack a serrated blade. A diver under stress consumes far more oxygen, and I was stressed. That, I promise you.

Where to begin?

Just holding on to the hull in that fierce current felt like all I could manage. To untangle the problem, I had to shift angles constantly—fore to aft, port to starboard—searching for a solution from every perspective. I thanked all the yoga classes I’d ever taken and the four years of discipline from my military school days as a Navy SEAL. In underwater difficulty, calmness and breath control are everything.
A fathom at a time. Then another. And another. What felt like three hours—though it was surely less—passed before I began to believe I might succeed.
Few divers have ever been more relieved to break the surface than I was when I hauled myself from the sea and was helped aboard by the skipper—whose name I never did catch.
“What can I do for you?” he asked, still breathless.
“I’d love a spool of your net-mending twine,” I said. “It’s useful in more ways than you might imagine.”
He handed it over. That was that.
The dive had broken a cardinal rule—never dive alone—but there was another time, equally treacherous, when my solo descent nearly cost me everything.
When I first envisioned the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies, it never crossed my mind that the dream might try to kill me. Yet there I was, helping build the Marine Science Field Station near the wilderness lodge, with no easy way to bring students ashore from the main transport vessel. Captain Jack Montgomery of the Rainbow Connection ferried kids back and forth from town with the kind of skill that makes it look easy. I knew the site intimately—I had kept a floating sawmill there, anchored with massive logs as I cut the lumber for the Center.
I’d found a three-thousand-five-hundred-pound concrete cube—three feet by three feet by three feet—to use as an all-weather mooring for the student raft. Board member Boyd Walker and I had constructed the raft from logs, rigged with a pulley system and a long splice in the line so it ran freely—no knots to jam—as we ferried kids from the Rainbow to shore.
But one day, I had to move the anchor into deeper water. And once again, from the salty depths rose that old mantra: never dive alone.
My friend, state legislator Drew Scalzi—the man who championed the Seafarers Memorial on the Homer Spit—owned a handsome tender called the Anna Lane. She was anchored nearby in Peterson Bay. Sixty-two feet long with a crew of four, the Anna Lane could hold forty thousand pounds of halibut or sixty-five thousand pounds of salmon in refrigerated seawater.
The anchor sat at the base of a steep, forty-five-degree slope. Beneath a layer of gravel lay three feet of glacial mud—fine as flour. Disturb it, and a thick cloud rises, blotting out all visibility.
I asked the skipper to help me move the anchor.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll be glad to.”
Despite our care, we fouled the line in the prop, rendering the boat dead in the water. The Anna Lane was under contract to a cannery, and if they called and we couldn’t respond, the skipper risked losing a valuable agreement.
Without hesitation, I pulled on my scuba gear and dove in.
I fought through the tangle, locked in a knotted battle with a mess of heavy lines, when something touched my flipper—something that shouldn’t have been there.
At first, I thought a seal was nosing me, curious.
But through the dense brown cloud, I saw it—the underwater cliff looming near. The Anna was drifting on the slow tide toward the rock face, and I—wedged between iron hull and stone wall—was about to be crushed like a water bug.
I struggled harder. The line gave.
Back aboard, trembling in the safety of the galley, a hot cup of coffee in hand, I made a quiet vow to myself: never again, not like that. Never dive alone.

---

Image Credits:

Polar expedition vessel image by Constantine – Own work, via Wikipedia. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Preface

Karen “Tanne” Dinesen, in Out of Africa, wrote in Danish, “I once had a farm in the Ngong Hills.” If the Alaskan Natives spoke of their cove at Chenik Lagoon in Kamishak, they might say, “There was once a village there.”

Lying beneath the spreading trees of Tanne’s farm just beyond Nairobi, I felt the depth of those words—not only in their meaning but in their essence. The air carried the scent of land long lived upon, and, in that moment, I knew it resonated with Alaska’s. At Chenik, the undulating salt-loving Elymus maritimus—beach rye that dances in the wind like the tide beside it—embodies the spirit of the land just as Africa’s grasses do. In both places, the interplay of scent, soil, and movement forms an identity, a heartbeat tethered to memory.

Opposites often share more than expected. In Alaska, I have felt the same profound connection as I did in Africa—that inexplicable sense of belonging to a land my heart recognizes as home. The stark differences fade, revealing something deeper: the emotional weight of place, the silent call of history beneath our feet.

The concept of opposites surrounds us—earth and sky, birth and death, samsara and nirvana, man and woman, sea and land. Even our own shadows reflect duality, ever-present yet never fully graspable. The Polynesians called the balance between past and future “ana pua-nana wale.” To stand firmly in one place, we must first reflect on where we have been and imagine what lies ahead.

Alaska and Africa—geographic opposites—are best understood with a globe in hand. Yet beyond mere distance, they exert a pull, like a magnet drawing in curiosity, intellect, and imagination. These places stir something elemental, their contrast more kinship than separation.

My home in the north stands where a village once did, and the breath of those who lived upon this soil lingers in the spruce-scented air. Their presence is felt, not only in memory but in something intangible—a whisper from the land itself.

Chenik, an ancient village site, became a haven for nearly twenty-five years, shaping us just as it was shaped by those before us. Like the Phoenix, our camp rose from the ashes of past fires, only to become part of that cycle once more. What remains are echoes—the shadows of stories, real as breath yet elusive as mist. Though these narratives may seem like fables, they are as true as time itself.

Dedication

With these stories, I seek to honor Herodotus, the great Greek historian and storyteller who serves as my mentor. His narrative style—woven with cultural insights and historical accounts—guides my approach to storytelling.
Often called the “Father of History,” Herodotus was the first to apply a systematic method to the recording of historical events. Writing around 435 BC, he became a leading source of original historical knowledge, blending observation, inquiry, and vivid narration into a legacy.

Introduction to The Grand Antipodes

Opposites—whether in geography or within our own hearts—are often our greatest teachers, offering insight to those who look closely.

Were it not for a magnificent convergence of people and events, I would not be writing this. I owe a debt of gratitude to those giants who lifted me onto their shoulders, allowing me to see further down the path. To them,Idedicate this work, which is my earnest attempt to weave togetherstories that share the experiences and observations which shaped my journey.

This book is, at its core, a tribute to the insatiable wanderlust that carried me across oceans and continents, and to the countless individuals who inspired, guided, and challenged me along the way. From the Bering seacoast to the rugged Aleutian Islands, I ventured further and further westward until I reached the edge of the map the arbitrarily drawn international date line. Then, beyond that final boundary, I found myself standing in Chukotka, Siberia—without a passport yet warmly embraced by people I had been told were enemies.

This was but one of many moments that taught me to reconsider what I had been told and what I had assumed. It is opposites—be they distant lands, cultures, or ideas where the deepest connections often reside.

Where one finds the horizon, another may find their starting point. If I were to dig straight down, where might I emerge? Yes, into the antipodes, the other side of the world.

What I have set out to do is repay an overdue debt to honor the source that has given us a rich tapestry of experiences, woven together like the warm red and black stripes of a Hudson’s Bay blanket.

In the tradition of my Zulu friends, I wish to sing a praise song, a tribute to the land, the stories, and the connections that have shaped this journey. I want to sing it well, carefully enunciating each syllable, as ancient songs and stories were always repeated. I hope it brings both smiles and tears, stirring recognition in those who read it that they, too, have felt what I have felt. That there is camaraderie among all kindred spirits, a shared understanding that transcends borders.

Though the opening setting may be Alaska, the world at play here is far greater. A bountiful river of Africa runs through our Alaskan experiences, binding two lands that, though geographically opposite, share striking similarities.

Opposites, as it turns out, have more in common than we often realize. Just as our own shadows mirror us, so too do distant places reflect one another. This insight reminds us that the world is smaller than we imagined—that we are, in truth, one people.

The Alaska-Africa connection is a rich vein of treasure, first glimpsed as a glint in a mountain stream. We followed it upstream, and soon, it led us to the motherlode. We were given unspoken permission to mine it, and in return, we were gifted with something beyond measure—a veritable river of silver salmon, offering themselves to our nets, which in turn propelled us toward the other side of the earth.

It was a time when silver was gold silver salmon, that is.

These accounts serve as a tribute, a current flowing back to its source, honoring that which shaped, sustained, and allowed us to prosper.

In the Zulu court, there exists a role both sacred and deeply rooted in tradition—the m’bongi, meaning “thankfulness” or “gratitude”, is a singer of praise songs who was raised from birth to honor the Chief. These individuals are more than storytellers; they are the honored keepers of myths and legends, passing down histories through oral tradition from time immemorial. Their words do not simply recount—they uplift, integrating admiration, reverence and profound connection.

So too do I see my own role—weaving the ordinary into the sacred, binding experience with land and sea, air and animals. This is not new; it has been done across time and across cultures, from the first footsteps out of Africa to every corner of the world where stories are carried forward.

My praise song is sung for our ancestors, for the land that bore them, for the waters that sustained them, for the creatures that walked beside them, and for the diversity of people who continue to shape the world.

As the Zulu m’bongi honored their leaders, Robert Frost on the other side of the world in West Running Brook, honored the unseen forces that shape us—reminding us that a stream’s downward flow is its “tribute to its source”, just as we are tributes to what created us.

If Alaska is the final chapter of an ancient journey, then that journey began millions of years ago in Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge, where Australopithecus—Lucy and her kin—first walked upright. Across the millennia, humans traveled ever further north, until at last, Alaska’s indigenous peoples arrived—crossing the Bering Land Bridge from the east. They would later encounter Europeans arriving from the west, converging in a land that feels, even now, like the farthest edge of the world.

Yet this story does not end where maps do. It carries us as far west as possible—even beyond passports and borders—continuing ever onward.

The beginning of my multi-cultural story has an Alaskan genesis, shaped by three distinct places—each bearing the weight of history far older than the Pyramids.

The Aleutians: Islands of the Four Mountains – A land of myth and mystery, where the ancient belief holds that “Chuginidak breathes through a woman.” This region remains one of the most remote and difficult places to access in the world, known only to the rare few who dare to tread its isolated terrain.

Nearby is Chulaka, The Oldest Occupied Village in Alaska – called Nikolski by the Russians, Chulaka has stood for millennia, dating back 5,000 years before the birth of Christ. From its shores, the silhouette of Anangula, Whale Swimming North, rises from the horizon—a small island believed to be inhabited by remnants of those earliest migrants who crossed the land bridge from Asia. The site, dating to 6400 BC, holds thousands of years of human presence, preserved beneath volcanic ash. Archaeologists like William Laughlin, professionally akin to Richard Leakey, excavated these layers, revealing a bedrock of history and the cornerstone of the ancient past: an estimated million razor-sharp lithic shards, remnants of centuries of sophisticated toolmaking.

The Bering Sea Coast – Northwest of Togiak, deep in the untouched coastal   wilderness lies the final resting place of Apanvugpak, a warrior whose legend remains almost unspoken in history. Here, suicidal walrus, chased by grizzly bears, hurl themselves from towering cliffs—a testament to the raw, unforgiving nature of this place. In this vast expanse, where few ever tread, I wished to leave an offering at Apanvugpak’s gravesite and did so with gratitude. Perhaps no other living soul had done the same. I wanted to honor him and the generations of people who had walked these shores since time out of mind.

Interlude: Forgotten Landscapes

Even in the vast, untamed stretches of the world, there are places so remote that even those who dwell on their wild coasts do not know them.

Each of these stories stands as a tribute to the First Nations of this great land—a recognition of the deep histories, cultures, and lives that have shaped the terrain beneath our feet. They speak of places long inhabited yet scarcely known, where myths and legends live on, carried by the wind, whispered through the trees and through the long waving blades of the beach rye grass and embedded in the very soil itself.

We often believe we understand our world because we have mapped its boundaries and uncovered its secrets. But there are stories hidden in plain sight, waiting to be unearthed, their voices just beneath the surface, echoing across centuries.

These narratives remind us that discovery is not only about reaching distant horizons—it is about looking closer at what lies right before us. The richest stories are often the ones we never thought to seek.

A Life in Opposites

A lifelong fascination with remote, little-known, and unpopulated places has carried me across the globe—from the North Pole to Antarctica, Africa to Polynesia—pushing the boundaries of knowledge and possibility. These opposite corners of the earth have always held a particular fascination, both geographically and philosophically, reminding me that opposites are worth careful reflection.

In Antarctica, aboard the famous Lindblad Explorer as Expedition Leader, I experienced a moment of profound perspective. Captain Werner Volkersdorfer set me ashore in a Zodiac raft on the very beach where Shackleton and his men endured their ordeal before rescue. Shackleton left in search of help after four months, while others remained for ten months, surviving against all odds. Standing on that wave-washed gravel, I reflected on how far I was from my own home shore—on the other side of the planet yet I felt deeply connected to the place and those men.

Connecting with individuals in remote places creates a magic connection to those places. My global curiosity allowed me to have I friendships and ties in Polynesia, where I’ve been privileged to cross paths with remarkable individuals: Bengt Danielson, crewman on Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon Tiki raft, Dennis Akaka, crewmember on the maiden voyage of Hokulea alongside Nainoa Thompson and David and Dr. Mimi George, champions of Polynesian celestial navigation.

Yet another remote place led me to the Congo, where I worked alongside Franz Shimek and the Frankfurt Zoological Society under the United Nations, helping craft a Master Plan to restore Kundelungu and Upemba National Parks—lands nearly half the size of Switzerland. This work was as far-flung as one could imagine from my conservation efforts in Kachemak Bay, Alaska, and proved that opportunities for environmental protection knows no borders.

Flying the Alaska Bush with David Brower, the legendary founder of the Sierra Club, on his 80th birthday, was a world away from flying the African Bush with fellow game-ranger colleagues to protect the iSimangaliso Wetlands—which later became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Kalahari-Okavango designation, the 1,000th such site, became an enduring success thanks to the tireless efforts of Carol Ross, The Wilderness Foundation where I have been a Board member for decades, and “Bateleurs, volunteer Pilots flying for Conservation in Africa” where I was co-founder.

Another striking contrast emerged in environmental activism, under my mantra of working locally while thinking globally: 

My family hosted Robert Rubin at my home in the wilderness during his tenure as Secretary of the Treasury under President Clinton, hosting Ian Player of Mpumalanga, Africa, co-founder of the Wilderness Foundation, alongside Magqubu Ntombela and working with Tebogo Skwambane, on the African Parks Board. Only to later be elected as the first Alaskan to the Smithsonian’s National Board—two wildly different antipodean localities, but with deeply intertwined purpose. 

Each of these experiences sharpened my perspective, giving me both the confidence and conviction to testify before Congress and advocate for conservation worldwide.

Perhaps the river running through these opposite experiences was a quirk of ancestry, an inheritance from unknown forebears who, like Herodotus, understood the power of storytelling—the ability to inspire a sense of wonder for this vast blue and green planet.

If stories can help us better understand the diversity and complexity of life, they may also guide us toward peace—toward a stronger commitment to protecting each other and the world we depend upon.

Balancing this duality has become essential in the Anthropocene. In an era where the fragility of the environment is undeniable, we can no longer afford to ignore the sustainability of our own existence.

Unlike past generations, we have come to realize that the way we are living is no longer sustainable—that we are dangerously close to fouling the very nest that incubated us.

Yet, hope remains. A sense of wonder, whether offered by nature itself or through the carefully chosen words of a storyteller, may be at the heart of what drives action.

The antipodes before us are simple, do nothing, remain passive, sit comfortably on the couch with a remote in hand or do something, act in whatever way you believe can make the world a better place.

The choice remains our own.

A Story Against All Odds

Years ago, I was given a set of files by the young widow of my skiing partner—lost too soon to an avalanche in the Chugach Mountains of Southcentral Alaska. As a pilot, he provided transportation to archaeologists and anthropologists exploring one of the most remote stretches of the Bering Sea Coast. Throughout his long contract—conducting interviews with elders in distant villages, landing his Cessna 170B on snow-covered terrain—he gathered copies of their transcripts.

Against all odds, I ended up with them and against all odds—like Telemachus recognizing Odysseus—I saw within these pages a story as vast and compelling as the great Mediterranean epic itself. What lay between those black and white pages was a tale pulsing with life, energy, courage, and wonder—a chance to salvage the narrative of Apanvugpak, to honor Alaska’s First People through its telling. Without intervention, this history might have faded into the depths of museum archives, overlooked by those who should have chewed the bones and sucked the marrow from its realities, truths, and values. But that complete story must wait for another book—one that does justice to the extraordinary people of these distant, little-known places.

The Journey Home

I have been asked, time and again, to write not just these stories, but the story of how my wife and I came to this roadless land—how we survived, even thrived beside our northern estuary.

Many have set out for more distant horizons and lived more adventurous lives. There are bigger fish in the pond, and we are but a small minnow—our story shaped more by the time we lived in than by any grand actions we took ourselves. We were young newlyweds in 1960s Alaska, swept into an era of change, navigating the balance between opportunity and challenge.

Life, like the blending of nature and nurture, follows the melting currents—where rivers flow toward the sea. Some say you make your own luck; others insist luck favors the prepared. But all the luck in the world cannot help you strike a wooden match on a wet bar of soap.

Yet we had the gift of dry firewood—a box of strike-anywhere matches and a steady hearth from which to build a fire. Time and again, the planets and circumstances aligned, offering opportunities that rarely come twice. It was up to us to make the most of them.

Each of us walks a remarkable path, carrying stories that deserve telling and preserving. Our journey is simply another retelling of an age-old tale, one echoed across thousands of places and lifetimes.

The Shaping of a Vision

Experience is the prism through which we see the future—what we have witnessed and reaching for what was possible, propelled us forward. My own path began in the Far East, as a boy growing up in postwar Japan, immersed in Buddhist traditions and among the first American occupation families. The Land of the Rising Sun became my first home, offering insights into Old Nippon, its history, and its mysteries.

Yet Alaska called me forward, pulling me across continents, away from family and friends in Virginia, where my father retired on the gentle shores of Chesapeake Bay. Moving westward meant leaving the comfort of the Atlantic’s placid currents, only to find myself standing beside Cook Inlet—a body of water as volatile as it is vital.

Named after one of my maritime heroes, Captain James Cook, the inlet is an arena of volcanoes, glaciers, and towering tides, an expanse where indigenous history remains more intact than in Chesapeake Bay. And yet, despite the staggering differences, both estuaries serve a similar purpose, feeding into the oceans, sustaining life, linking land and sea.

Like everything else in this story, they are opposites. And yet, they are bound together.

Finding Home

Standing atop a high bluff, gazing across mountains, glaciers, and Kachemak Bay as it split from Cook Inlet, I knew—in a single heartbeat—I had found the place where I would spend my lifetime.

This was the place to bring a new bride, to raise children, to grow old, and eventually leave my bones to the land. But before settling into that vision, there was work to do. First, to reinvent myself—a man shaped by military service, trained as a Navy SEAL, leaving as an officer with captain’s bars. Then, to build a life, carving out a supporting enterprise, its form still unknown, but its necessity undeniable.

Challenges lay ahead—some ignored, others embraced. When recognizable opportunities arose, we seized them. And yet, as I stood there, I couldn’t help but wonder—what lies beyond the western horizon, beyond the mountains where the sun sets over the sea?

A Changing Era

What Diane and I did in the late 1960s was nothing unusual—we did what many Alaskans were doing. We took to the land, prepared for isolation, endured the long, dark winters, and worked tirelessly beneath the endless summer sun.

Yet today, few still live that way—few remain in the wild, content with its solitude, willing to endure its hardships. In that era, schoolteachers from Juneau rode circuit to homesteads and remote cabins, visiting correspondence students once per year. They slept on floors, in sheds, wherever they could—because no one had an extra bedroom to offer.

It was a necessary program, but like so many aspects of that world, it faded as families moved closer to medical services, within the radius of cell phone towers, and back toward human connection.

And now, many of those same people, their lives pulled toward modern conveniences, might admit that television, once a symbol of progress, was nothing but an insidious intruder in their home. Bob Dylan saw it happening across the country, and we saw it too, in the Alaska bush, as “The Times, They Were A-Changin’.”

Passing the Torch

We were among the luckiest of our era, finding a niche that could expand to sustain us through a lifetime. Now, we hope our children, grandchildren, and future generations can forge similar experiences in this place.

Perhaps, instead of drifting westward, as pioneers before us did, the future will find stability—a shoreline unchanging, offering new challenges and rewards.

Or maybe their explorations will take different forms—not across continents, but beneath the ocean’s surface, or deeper still—within themselves.

Courage & Legacy

My John F. Kennedy generation answered the call of Profiles in Courage—embracing the challenge of inner struggle, recognizing that self-awareness was a measure of courage equal to bravery in battle.

Perhaps, for those who no longer have a westward frontier to chase, their wanderlust will manifest in the pursuit of peace—both Peace with a capital ‘P’, and peace with a lowercase ‘p.’ Because peace—in all its forms—is the opposite of conflict.

Now, more than ever, the world must acknowledge the urgency of equanimity among all people. If individuals cultivate peace within themselves, it will radiate outward—to families, communities, nations, and beyond. This is natural progression. And so, I pass the baton optimistically, hoping that the children of today will embrace it—and pass it forward, in turn.