alaska

I love ravens! I mean, sometimes our “relationship” has been a little fraught, when they steal stuff, or tease the dogs, or generally make a racket when it’s far too early in the morning. But all in all, I love ’em!

It’s possible, I also owe one raven my life.

It’s a bit of a stretch, but when paddling alone on my kayak expedition in Uummannaq, Greenland, I encountered lots of fog. Paddling by yourself in freezing waters with icebergs in fog is on my list of things I’ve done but don’t really want to do again. It’s exciting, but that moment when you hear the crack and boom of an iceberg calving, and you can’t see it, and the fog is so thick you can’t really pinpoint the location of it through sound… well, things go from exciting to damn, I need to get off the water pretty quickly.

Cue blurry two o’clock in the morning photos:

And one more.

At the end of a month of solo paddling, I had one last crossing of about 20 kilometres ahead of me, the last leg of the journey before reaching Uummannaq and seeing Jane again. I really wanted to leave, but it was foggy. There were icebergs, and I also heard some random shots from what I guessed was a rifle, at sea – probably a hunter shooting seals.

I really wanted to go.

And then this wonderful raven turned up and kept me occupied. It landed so close, it was begging to be photographed. Each time I approached, it stayed still long enough for a good shot, and then flew a little further away, leading me further and further from my kayak.

Now, you can read into it what you will, but after an hour or so, when the raven finally left me alone (or was it the other way around?), the fog had thinned out, making the crossing far less interesting.

So, I love ravens. I can’t get enough of them! And, when Jane and I visited Juneau, Alaska, at the end of our Yukon adventure, we discovered Alaskans love them too!

Chris