“We the people of Alaska, grateful to God and to those who founded our nation and pioneered this great land, in order to secure and transmit to succeeding generations our heritage of political, civil, and religious liberty within the Union of States, do ordain and establish this constitution for the State of Alaska.”
—preamble, The Constitution of The State of Alaska
July, 2019
Three days of Kenai River fishing. It’s July. In decades past, on days like these, hundreds of boats navigated the current, banks. “Net up, net up, net up,” “Rods up, rods up, rods up.” Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. “Fish on.”
Not this year. Two days of targeting King Salmon, I was still undecided what I’d do if I hooked up, unless it was a Jack (small Chinook King Salmon). I was a guest, fishing with visiting friends, inwardly recalling stories from years ago–I’d taken a break from King Salmon fishing for a long time now. Kenai River king salmon fish eggs: a 2010 fish tale
While conversation flowed on the boat, my inner grief grew: so few boats—looked like an evening in mid-September—and not once, not once, in 16 hours of river time, not once, did I see a rod hooked up on any boat.
The mighty Kenai flowed high, trunks of dead trees drifted by, sun beat on bare shoulders, and my angst simmered.
Day three fishing, we opted for the middle river, up from Bings Landing, and the world-famous turquoise—Kenai River blue—water grew clear. An abundance of early Fireweed blooms struck the landscape with a cycle of hope. Weeks of unprecedented heat changed their flower timing—it’s only early July. Tips beginning to bloom signals the start of school, and that’s six weeks away. Uncertainty takes root there, too.
Wildland fires were burning nearby, remnants of fires past lined the river banks and horizon, interspersed with spruce bark beetle kill. My cell phone pinged with legislative updates, a battle between executive and legislative branches raging. Funding for K-12 education will be next year.
I believe in hope, a season for all things.
In chest waders, standing two feet deep for three hours in her cleansing Kenai flow, flipping for reds on a fly rod, I found a rhythm. Then two men came ashore, beaching their boat feet from us, wouldn’t leave. Sat there, watched us three women and two men, cigarette after cigarette hanging from slitted mouth corners, the scent polluting pristine air. I looked to the opposite bank, checking. Yes, eagle still gripped atop the spruce at twelve o’clock to me, observing and present. Our gazes locked again, and again, silent respect.
I missed three sockeye salmon, they unbuttoned from my hook. It wasn’t my day to become like the mighty Kenai, wild salmon swimming in my bloodstream. I simmered with questions of the people, by the people, for the people, with liberty and justice for all. What is a politics of love, full of biodiversity, abundance for all?
Now at my zen house in the woods, it’s early in my perch. The Kula dog nudges me, clothes dryer hums, magpies call and respond. I seek my emerging kuleana. In my inner heart and soul, words rise. “Be still,” he says. “Be still and know,” I recall. “Be still and know that I am,” the psalmist wrote. “Who are you,” I wonder. “Be still and know that I am God,” says wild, unprecedented spirit. “I make all things new.”