Published on Monday, June 1, 2009 by TruthDig.com
War Is Sin
by Chris Hedges
The crisis faced by combat veterans returning from war is not simply a profound struggle with trauma and alienation. It is often, for those who can slice through the suffering to self-awareness, an existential crisis. War exposes the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves. It rips open the hypocrisy of our religions and secular institutions. Those who return from war have learned something which is often incomprehensible to those who have stayed home. We are not a virtuous nation. God and fate have not blessed us above others. Victory is not assured. War is neither glorious nor noble. And we carry within us the capacity for evil we ascribe to those we fight.
Those who return to speak this truth, such as members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, are our contemporary prophets. But like all prophets they are condemned and ignored for their courage. They struggle, in a culture awash in lies, to tell what few have the fortitude to digest. They know that what we are taught in school, in worship, by the press, through the entertainment industry and at home, that the melding of the state's rhetoric with the rhetoric of religion, is empty and false.
The words these prophets speak are painful. We, as a nation, prefer to listen to those who speak from the patriotic script. We prefer to hear ourselves exalted. If veterans speak of terrible wounds visible and invisible, of lies told to make them kill, of evil committed in our name, we fill our ears with wax. Not our boys, we say, not them, bred in our homes, endowed with goodness and decency. For if it is easy for them to murder, what about us? And so it is simpler and more comfortable not to hear. We do not listen to the angry words that cascade forth from their lips, wishing only that they would calm down, be reasonable, get some help, and go away. We, the deformed, brand our prophets as madmen. We cast them into the desert. And this is why so many veterans are estranged and enraged. This is why so many succumb to suicide or addictions.
War comes wrapped in patriotic slogans, calls for sacrifice, honor and heroism and promises of glory. It comes wrapped in the claims of divine providence. It is what a grateful nation asks of its children. It is what is right and just. It is waged to make the nation and the world a better place, to cleanse evil. War is touted as the ultimate test of manhood, where the young can find out what they are made of. War, from a distance, seems noble. It gives us comrades and power and a chance to play a small bit in the great drama of history. It promises to give us an identity as a warrior, a patriot, as long as we go along with the myth, the one the war-makers need to wage wars and the defense contractors need to increase their profits.
But up close war is a soulless void. War is about barbarity, perversion and pain, an unchecked orgy of death. Human decency and tenderness are crushed. Those who make war work overtime to reduce love to smut, and all human beings become objects, pawns to use or kill. The noise, the stench, the fear, the scenes of eviscerated bodies and bloated corpses, the cries of the wounded, all combine to spin those in combat into another universe. In this moral void, naively blessed by secular and religious institutions at home, the hypocrisy of our social conventions, our strict adherence to moral precepts, come unglued. War, for all its horror, has the power to strip away the trivial and the banal, the empty chatter and foolish obsessions that fill our days. It lets us see, although the cost is tremendous.
The Rev. William P. Mahedy, who was a Catholic chaplain in Vietnam, tells of a soldier, a former altar boy, in his book "Out of the Night: The Spiritual Journey of Vietnam Vets," who says to him: "Hey, Chaplain ... how come it's a sin to hop into bed with a mama-san but it's okay to blow away gooks out in the bush?"
"Consider the question that he and I were forced to confront on that day in a jungle clearing," Mahedy writes. "How is it that a Christian can, with a clear conscience, spend a year in a war zone killing people and yet place his soul in jeopardy by spending a few minutes with a prostitute? If the New Testament prohibitions of sexual misconduct are to be stringently interpreted, why, then, are Jesus' injunctions against violence not binding in the same way? In other words, what does the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill' really mean?"
Military chaplains, a majority of whom are evangelical Christians, defend the life of the unborn, tout America as a Christian nation and eagerly bless the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as holy crusades. The hollowness of their morality, the staggering disconnect between the values they claim to promote, is ripped open in war.
There is a difference between killing someone who is trying to kill you and taking the life of someone who does not have the power to harm you. The first is killing. The second is murder. But in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the enemy is elusive and rarely seen, murder occurs far more often than killing. Families are massacred in airstrikes. Children are gunned down in blistering suppressing fire laid down in neighborhoods after an improvised explosive device goes off near a convoy. Artillery shells obliterate homes. And no one stops to look. The dead and maimed are left behind.
The utter failure of nearly all our religious institutions-whose texts are unequivocal about murder-to address the essence of war has rendered them useless. These institutions have little or nothing to say in wartime because the god they worship is a false god, one that promises victory to those who obey the law and believe in the manifest destiny of the nation.
We all have the capacity to commit evil. It takes little to unleash it. For those of us who have been to war this is the awful knowledge that is hardest to digest, the knowledge that the line between the victims and the victimizers is razor-thin, that human beings find a perverse delight in destruction and death, and that few can resist the pull. At best, most of us become silent accomplices.
Wars may have to be fought to ensure survival, but they are always tragic. They always bring to the surface the worst elements of any society, those who have a penchant for violence and a lust for absolute power. They turn the moral order upside down. It was the criminal class that first organized the defense of Sarajevo. When these goons were not manning roadblocks to hold off the besieging Bosnian Serb army they were looting, raping and killing the Serb residents in the city. And those politicians who speak of war as an instrument of power, those who wage war but do not know its reality, those powerful statesmen-the Henry Kissingers, Robert McNamaras, Donald Rumsfelds, the Dick Cheneys-those who treat war as part of the great game of nations, are as amoral as the religious stooges who assist them. And when the wars are over what they have to say to us in their thick memoirs about war is also hollow, vacant and useless.
"In theological terms, war is sin," writes Mahedy. "This has nothing to do with whether a particular war is justified or whether isolated incidents in a soldier's war were right or wrong. The point is that war as a human enterprise is a matter of sin. It is a form of hatred for one's fellow human beings. It produces alienation from others and nihilism, and it ultimately represents a turning away from God."
The young soldiers and Marines do not plan or organize the war. They do not seek to justify it or explain its causes. They are taught to believe. The symbols of the nation and religion are interwoven. The will of God becomes the will of the nation. This trust is forever shattered for many in war. Soldiers in combat see the myth used to send them to war implode. They see that war is not clean or neat or noble, but venal and frightening. They see into war's essence, which is death.
War is always about betrayal. It is about betrayal of the young by the old, of cynics by idealists, and of soldiers and Marines by politicians. Society's institutions, including our religious institutions, which mold us into compliant citizens, are unmasked. This betrayal is so deep that many never find their way back to faith in the nation or in any god. They nurse a self-destructive anger and resentment, understandable and justified, but also crippling. Ask a combat veteran struggling to piece his or her life together about God and watch the raw vitriol and pain pour out. They have seen into the corrupt heart of America, into the emptiness of its most sacred institutions, into our staggering hypocrisy, and those of us who refuse to heed their words become complicit in the evil they denounce.
© 2009 TruthDig.com
Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com. Hedges graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He is the author of many books, including: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, What Every Person Should Know About War, and American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. His most recent book, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle, will be out in July, but is available for pre-order.
Mr. Hedges knows whereof he speaks, having been a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, and has seen the horrors of war first-hand. And talked with hundreds of soldiers about their experiences. Living here in "The Belly of the Beast" as my Mother calls the U.S. (because of our empire and horrible warring history), and especially Fairbanks, because of it's large army and air force bases, really has opened my eyes, since my arrival here in 2001. Fairbanks is the most conservative place I've ever lived; other than the area around the University of Alaska, culturally speaking, it is not much different than living in Great Falls, Montana, or Amarillo Texas. The majority of the churches seem to be of the more fundamentalist Christian type, one of which in particular occasionally displays venomous, polarizing statements on its light-board next to the busy Steese Highway, for all the passing drivers to see. Part of this also stems from the fact that many thousands of people from Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana came to Alaska in the 1970s to help build the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, and work in the rapidly expanding oil industry.
Their culture came with them, to the detriment of Alaska as a whole (that could be a great future topic, the change in Alaska state politics from the 1960s, to the present. There were some surprisingly diverse and progressive Alaska politicians up until the 1970s, who could never be elected now). Those of you who have spent time in those places would know exactly what I mean by that. One of the best illustrations of this is that in the Fairbanks North Star Borough (population around 90,000), there is no natural food store! Even tiny Valdez, Alaska, population 2000 or so, has one! Enough said. [fortunately in the past year serious effort is going in to start a natural foods coop here, eds.]
Many of the bars downtown have banned G.I.'s from their establishments. Because some of the soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan went wild, more or less, causing a large amount of fighting and property damage in them. Which is sad, since many of them are probably in great emotional and physical trauma, from what they experienced there. There are some support groups available locally for these returning vets, and it's vital that progressive people and groups interact with them, so that they can help teach people about THE TRUTH OF WAR. That will help in the efforts to make the U.S. a less militarized, and non-imperialistic country. Because if we don't, more 9/11 type attacks will occur in this country, and/or other countries may choose to cut their economic and other ties with ours.
Why do you think North Korea, at great expense and sacrifice to their population and land, develops nuclear weapons and long-range missile technology? Because they know that is the only way their integrity as a country and political system can be maintained. Not that their system is ideal, by any means, there is great repression and suffering there, to be sure. But all smaller countries know now, after the criminal Iraq invasion especially, that the only way to protect themselves from foreign, and U.S., aggression, is through the possession of nuclear weapons, and the ability to deliver them.
20 YEARS AFTER
One of the joys of living in Alaska is showing relatives and family from the lower 48 the beauty of this land, and experiencing that with/through them. When my mother and sister came up from Oregon and California last week, we drove down to Valdez, so they could see that amazing area around Prince William Sound, and all the country between it and Fairbanks.
Of course, we all remember what happened there in March, 1989:
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill
"Introduction:
On March 24, 1989, the tanker Exxon Valdez, en route from Valdez, Alaska to Los Angeles, California, ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska. The vessel was traveling outside normal shipping lanes in an attempt to avoid ice. Within six hours of the grounding, the Exxon Valdez spilled approximately 10.9 million gallons of its 53 million gallon cargo of Prudhoe Bay crude oil. Eight of the eleven tanks on board were damaged. The oil would eventually impact over 1,100 miles of non-continuous coastline in Alaska, making the Exxon Valdez the largest oil spill to date in U.S. waters.
The response to the Exxon Valdez involved more personnel and equipment over a longer period of time than did any other spill in U.S. history. Logistical problems in providing fuel, meals, berthing, response equipment, waste management and other resources were one of the largest challenges to response management. At the height of the response, more than 11,000 personnel, 1,400 vessels and 85 aircraft were involved in the cleanup.
Shoreline cleanup began in April of 1989 and continued until September of 1989 for the first year of the response. The response effort continued in 1990 and 1991 with cleanup in the summer months, and limited shoreline monitoring in the winter months. Fate and effects monitoring by state and Federal agencies are ongoing.
Shoreline cleanup began in April of 1989 and continued until September of 1989 for the first year of the response. The response effort continued in 1990 and 1991 with cleanup in the summer months, and limited shoreline monitoring in the winter months. Fate and effects monitoring by state and Federal agencies are ongoing.
The images that the world saw on television and descriptions they heard on the radio that spring were of heavily oiled shorelines, dead and dying wildlife, and thousands of workers mobilized to clean beaches. These images reflected what many people felt was a severe environmental insult to a relatively pristine, ecologically important area that was home to many species of wildlife endangered elsewhere. In the weeks and months that followed, the oil spread over a wide area in Prince William Sound and beyond, resulting in an unprecedented response and cleanup—in fact, the largest oil spill cleanup ever mobilized. Many local, state, federal, and private agencies and groups took part in the effort. Even today, scientists continue to study the affected shorelines to understand how an ecosystem like Prince William Sound responds to, and recovers from, an incident like the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
How much oil remains?
Based on the areas that were studied in the aftermath of the spill, scientists made estimates of the ultimate fate of the oil. A 2001 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) study surveyed 96 sites along 8,000 miles of coastline.
A pit dug on a Prince William Sound beach in 2001 revealing oil in the sediments. (Source: NOAA)
The survey distinguished between surface and buried oil. Buried or subsurface oil is of greater concern than surface oil. Subsurface oil can remain dormant for many years before being dispersed and is more liquid, still toxic, and may become biologically available. A disturbance event such as burrowing animals or a severe storm reworks the beach and can reintroduce unweathered oil into the water. Results of the summer shoreline survey showed that the oil remaining on the surface of beaches in Prince William Sound is weathered and mostly hardened into an asphalt-like layer. The toxic components of this type of surface oil are not as readily available to biota, although some softer forms do cause sheens in tide pools.
Based on the areas that were studied in the aftermath of the spill, scientists made estimates of the ultimate fate of the oil. A 2001 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) study surveyed 96 sites along 8,000 miles of coastline.
A pit dug on a Prince William Sound beach in 2001 revealing oil in the sediments. (Source: NOAA)
The survey distinguished between surface and buried oil. Buried or subsurface oil is of greater concern than surface oil. Subsurface oil can remain dormant for many years before being dispersed and is more liquid, still toxic, and may become biologically available. A disturbance event such as burrowing animals or a severe storm reworks the beach and can reintroduce unweathered oil into the water. Results of the summer shoreline survey showed that the oil remaining on the surface of beaches in Prince William Sound is weathered and mostly hardened into an asphalt-like layer. The toxic components of this type of surface oil are not as readily available to biota, although some softer forms do cause sheens in tide pools.
The survey indicates a total area of approximately 20 acres of shoreline in Prince William Sound are still contaminated with oil. Oil was found at 58 percent of the 91 sites assessed and is estimated to have the linear equivalent of 5.8 km of contaminated shoreline.
In addition to the estimated area of remaining oiled beach, several other important points were evident:
Surface oil was determined to be not a good indicator of subsurface oil.
In addition to the estimated area of remaining oiled beach, several other important points were evident:
Surface oil was determined to be not a good indicator of subsurface oil.
Twenty subsurface pits were classified as heavily oiled. Oil saturated all of the interstitial spaces and was extremely repugnant. These “worst case” pits exhibited an oil mixture that resembled oil encountered in 1989 a few weeks after the spill—highly odiferous, lightly weathered, and very fluid.
Subsurface oil was also found at a lower tide height than expected (between 0 and 6 feet), in contrast to the surface oil, which was found mostly at the highest levels of the beach. This is significant, because the pits with the most oil were found low in the intertidal zone, closest to the zone of biological production, and indicate that the survey estimates are conservative at best.
Ecosystem response to the spill
Recovery is a very difficult term to define and measure for a complex ecosystem such as Prince William Sound. If you ask a fisherman from Kodiak Island, a villager from the town of Valdez, an Exxon engineer, or a NOAA biologist, you are likely to receive such different answers that you may wonder if they heard the same question. In particular, disagreements exist between Exxon and government-funded scientists, and unknowns persist, especially in understanding how multiple processes combine to drive observed dynamics.
Recovery is a very difficult term to define and measure for a complex ecosystem such as Prince William Sound. If you ask a fisherman from Kodiak Island, a villager from the town of Valdez, an Exxon engineer, or a NOAA biologist, you are likely to receive such different answers that you may wonder if they heard the same question. In particular, disagreements exist between Exxon and government-funded scientists, and unknowns persist, especially in understanding how multiple processes combine to drive observed dynamics.
Despite this, there are some things known with a high degree of certainty: oil persisted beyond a decade in surprising amounts and in toxic forms, was sufficiently bioavailable to induce chronic biological exposures, and had long-term impacts at the population level. Three major pathways of long-term impacts emerge: (1) chronic persistence of oil, biological exposures, and population impacts to species closely associated with shallow sediments; (2) delayed population impacts of sublethal doses compromising health, growth, and reproduction; and (3) indirect effects of trophic and interaction cascades, all of which transmit impacts well beyond the acute-phase mortality.
Acute Mortality
Marine mammals and seabirds are at great risk from floating oil because they have routine contact with the sea surface. Oiling of fur or feathers causes loss of insulating capacity and can lead to death from hypothermia, smothering, drowning, and ingestion of toxic hydrocabons. Scientists estimate mass mortalities of 1000 to 2800 sea otters, 302 harbor seals, and unprecedented numbers of seabird deaths estimated at 250,000 in the days immediately after the oil spill. Mass mortality also occurred among macroalgae and benthic invertebrates on oiled shores from a combination of chemical toxicity, smothering, and physical displacement from the habitat by pressurized wash-water applied after the spill.
Marine mammals and seabirds are at great risk from floating oil because they have routine contact with the sea surface. Oiling of fur or feathers causes loss of insulating capacity and can lead to death from hypothermia, smothering, drowning, and ingestion of toxic hydrocabons. Scientists estimate mass mortalities of 1000 to 2800 sea otters, 302 harbor seals, and unprecedented numbers of seabird deaths estimated at 250,000 in the days immediately after the oil spill. Mass mortality also occurred among macroalgae and benthic invertebrates on oiled shores from a combination of chemical toxicity, smothering, and physical displacement from the habitat by pressurized wash-water applied after the spill.
Long-term impacts
The persistent nature of oil in sediments produce chronic, long-term exposure risks from some species. For example, chronic exposures for years after the spill to oil persisting in sedimentary refuges were evident from biomarkers in fish, sea otters, and seaducks intimately associated with sediments for egg laying or foraging. These chronic exposures enhanced mortality for years.
The persistent nature of oil in sediments produce chronic, long-term exposure risks from some species. For example, chronic exposures for years after the spill to oil persisting in sedimentary refuges were evident from biomarkers in fish, sea otters, and seaducks intimately associated with sediments for egg laying or foraging. These chronic exposures enhanced mortality for years.
Clean-up attempts can be more damaging than the oil itself, with impacts recurring as long as clean-up (including both chemical and physical methods) continues. Because of the pervasiveness of strong biological interactions in rocky intertidal and kelp forest communities, cascades of delayed, indirect impacts (especially of trophic cascades and biogenic habitat loss) expand the scope of injury well beyond the initial direct losses and thereby also delay recoveries.
Oil that penetrates deeply into beaches can remain relatively fresh for years and can later come back to the surface and affect nearby animals. In addition, oil degrades at varying rates depending on environment, with subsurface sediments physically protected from disturbance, oxygenation, and photolysis retaining contamination by only partially weathered oil for years.
Rocky rubble shores should be of high priority for protection and cleanup because oil tends to penetrate deep and weather very slowly in these habitats, prolonging the harmful effects of the oil when it leaches out.
Oil that penetrates deeply into beaches can remain relatively fresh for years and can later come back to the surface and affect nearby animals. In addition, oil degrades at varying rates depending on environment, with subsurface sediments physically protected from disturbance, oxygenation, and photolysis retaining contamination by only partially weathered oil for years.
Rocky rubble shores should be of high priority for protection and cleanup because oil tends to penetrate deep and weather very slowly in these habitats, prolonging the harmful effects of the oil when it leaches out.
Oil effects to sea birds and mammals also are substantial (independent of means of insulation) over the long-term through interactions between natural environmental stressors and compromised health of exposed animals, through chronic toxic exposure from ingesting contaminated prey or during foraging around persistent sedimentary pools of oil, and through disruption of vital social functions (caregiving or reproduction) in socially organized species.
Long-term exposure of fish embryos to weathered oil at parts per billion (ppb) concentrations has population consequences through indirect effects on growth, deformities, and behavior with long-term consequences on mortality and reproduction.
Long-term exposure of fish embryos to weathered oil at parts per billion (ppb) concentrations has population consequences through indirect effects on growth, deformities, and behavior with long-term consequences on mortality and reproduction.
The U.S. Coast Guard now monitors fully-laden tankers via satellite as they pass through Valdez Narrows, cruise by Bligh Island, and exit Prince William Sound at Hinchinbrook Entrance. In 1989, the Coast Guard watched the tankers only through Valdez Narrows and Valdez Arm.
Two escort vessels accompany each tanker while passing through the entire Sound. They not only watch over the tankers, but are capable of assisting them in the event of an emergency, such as a loss of power or loss of rudder control. Fifteen years ago, there was only one escort vessel through Valdez Narrows.
Two escort vessels accompany each tanker while passing through the entire Sound. They not only watch over the tankers, but are capable of assisting them in the event of an emergency, such as a loss of power or loss of rudder control. Fifteen years ago, there was only one escort vessel through Valdez Narrows.
Specially trained marine pilots, with considerable experience in Prince William Sound, board tankers from their new pilot station at Bligh Reef and are aboard the ship for 25 miles out of the 70-mile transit through the Sound. Weather criteria for safe navigation are firmly established.
Congress enacted legislation requiring that all tankers in Prince William Sound be double-hulled by the year 2015. It is estimated that if the Exxon Valdez had had a double-hull structure, the amount of the spill would have been reduced by more than half. There are presently three double-hulled and twelve double-bottomed tankers moving oil through Prince William Sound. Two more Endeavor class tankers are under construction by ConocoPhillips, their expected induction into service is 2004 and 2005.
Congress enacted legislation requiring that all tankers in Prince William Sound be double-hulled by the year 2015. It is estimated that if the Exxon Valdez had had a double-hull structure, the amount of the spill would have been reduced by more than half. There are presently three double-hulled and twelve double-bottomed tankers moving oil through Prince William Sound. Two more Endeavor class tankers are under construction by ConocoPhillips, their expected induction into service is 2004 and 2005.
Contingency planning for oil spills in Prince William Sound must now include a scenario for a spill of 12.6 million gallons. Drills are held in the Sound each year.
The combined ability of skimming systems to remove oil from the water is now 10 times greater than it was in 1989, with equipment in place capable of recovering over 300,000 barrels of oil in 72 hours.
The combined ability of skimming systems to remove oil from the water is now 10 times greater than it was in 1989, with equipment in place capable of recovering over 300,000 barrels of oil in 72 hours.
Even if oil could have been skimmed up in 1989, there was no place to put the oil-water mix. Today, seven barges are available with a capacity to hold 818,000 barrels of recovered oil.
There are now 40 miles of containment boom in Prince William Sound, seven times the amount available at the time of the Exxon Valdez spill.
Dispersants are now stockpiled for use and systems are in place to apply them from helicopters, airplanes, and boats.
"
There are now 40 miles of containment boom in Prince William Sound, seven times the amount available at the time of the Exxon Valdez spill.
Dispersants are now stockpiled for use and systems are in place to apply them from helicopters, airplanes, and boats.
"My sister and I took a day-long glacier cruise from Valdez aboard the LuLuBelle, a 70 foot touring boat, one of the goals of which is to reach the face of the 3rd largest glacier in Alaska, the Columbia Glacier. As with most here, it has receded quite a bit in the past few decades.
Here is one of the countless small islands in the Valdez Arm of Prince William Sound on that cool, grey, rainy wednesday, of last week.
Most of the shoreline around the Valdez Arm and the main Prince William Sound areas we saw rises nearly vertically thousands of feet directly out of the water, with little or no beach. In some cases, just sheer cliffs rise straight out of the water, and at one point our boat even nudged in to a cave-like entrance with an arch overhead.
The sea lion population is doing quite well there apparently. Though the locals are not too crazy about them.
They eat a prodigious amount of salmon, and our boat captain told us the stories of how they have swam north from California to the Ballard Locks in Seattle's Lake Washington, and up the Columbia River Gorge, and decimated salmon stocks there. But they are protected in Alaskan waters, so they are mostly left alone.
They sure were entertaining to watch though, cavorting around the boat, but their fishy breath was incredible, almost nauseating!
Heading toward Columbia glacier, we only saw one humpback whale, and it wasn't very active, just slowly searching the base of the cliffs for fish.
So we proceeded on toward the Columbia Glacier rendezvous. But, unfortunately, there were too many icebergs in front that have calved off. There were no leads wide enough that the boat could get through to approach the glacier's face in the tidewater. We could only get to within about five miles of it, and since it was rainy and foggy, couldn't even see it. But the icebergs themselves were just as beautiful.
The deep blue ones are deep, compressed ice from the bottoms of the glacier, not containing very many air bubbles. The whiter the ice, the shallower in the glacier it was, and hence, less compressed.
It was also much colder nearer to the glacier. It had been about 43 degrees F out in Prince William Sound, and when we reached our turn-around point, at the iceberg front, it was down to near 32 F, and some snowflakes were mixing in with the rain.
It was disappointing not being able to see Columbia Glacier, but the ride back through Prince William Sound made up for it.
Two humpback whales gave us a show we'll never forget. The sight and sound of their breath, and splashing as they reared up and breached, then slammed back down into the water was an experience not to be missed!
Hard not to believe some great intelligence drives these amazing creatures, and to wonder in awe at their lives in the sea. Migrating thousands of miles through the seasons, in search of the fish they eat, and for birthing areas. How do they sleep? Obviously they must stay afloat while they do.
It was a full eight hour 80 mile or so cruise, and all 15 of us on the boat will never forget it. A multi-day kayak trip will have to be undertaken someday by the A.P.R. staff, to fully experience and appreciate this beautiful wilderness, which fortunately seems to have recovered much of it's former abundance, as the above article mentioned.
Of course, while in Valdez, I had to continue my marathon training, for the Anchorage one on 6/20. My friend Erik told me about Mineral Canyon, a dirt road goes up it for several miles.
It is a beautiful steep, glacially carved canyon, 4000-5000 feet deep, as you can see, and only about a quarter-mile wide.
Wednesday morning, before the 2 pm boat tour, I took off from our hotel near the harbor, and ran up into the canyon. About 3 miles in, an old avalanche blocked the road, which I had to scramble over. It probably came down a month or two ago, was melting, but still brick hard. Not something to be in the path of!
I just went a mile past that, then turned back, I only could take 90 min. for this run, my sister and mother were waiting for me. Just a half-mile back, I had to stop. A black bear had taken up residence by the side of the road and was munching greens. I stayed back 100 feet or so, and talked to it. I told it how beautiful it was, and asked permission to pass. I never felt any threat, and just waited a few minutes. Sure enough, it finished up munching it's greens, and ambled back into the woods. I ran past the area and thanked it.
The next morning, I ran back up Mineral Canyon, but this time, just before the old avalanche, I felt chills run up my neck and head, something just didn't feel right. I turned right around and headed back. I don't ignore those feelings, and am still here! I don't know what, if anything, would have happened, had I continued on, but feel it is extremely important to listen to these feelings/intuition we all get from time to time, and act on them. Cheers.
