open to possibilities and doesn’t hold too tightly to plans or schedules, his day may be enriched by moments of serendipitous delight, even wonder.
As one who tends to keep a largely ordered life, I’ve had to relearn this lesson over and over. Fortunately, I seem to have become a bit more spontaneous, and also learned to pay greater attention to what might be called my intuitive self—my gut instincts—as I’ve grown older.
I was reminded of all this one recent morning, which had begun as I’d expected: my body seated in front of a computer screen while I zoomed into a meeting with some friends. This group of older men meets once a week. And on that particular day, our conversation ranged from politics to Anchorage’s unusually wet late-summer weather (now extending into fall).
The morning had begun in yet more drizzly, dreary grayness. But as we shared stories, the clouds parted, blue sky appeared, and sunlight suddenly brightened the local landscape. Looking out my bedroom window, I was struck by how the leaves on front-yard birch trees now glowed warmly.
A few of us commented on the sun’s surprising, and most welcome, arrival; the day had been forecast to be gray and mostly rainy. I said something about it being beautiful enough to make a guy want to go outside, before the rain returned. And in that moment I realized that, yes, I would do just that.
“No offense to you guys,” I told the others, “but I’m going to get my dog and go for a walk in the sun, while it’s here.”
After a “good to see you guys” farewell, I left the meeting, called Denali, grabbed a jacket and hat, and headed out the door. It was still early enough in the day—and late enough in the year—that the sun’s light streamed into Anchorage at a low angle, which meant that we walked in a rich, golden light that gave my neighborhood a kind of glowing radiance.
I figured this would be a short, local walk, just enough to revel in the unexpected glory of the morning. For no particular reason, except maybe for the sweeping views and the wilder surroundings, I decided we’d stroll to the Coastal Trail.
Along the way Denali and I crossed paths with several other walkers.
“Beautiful morning, isn’t it?” I said in greeting.
“Yes, it certainly is,” everyone agreed, smiles on their faces. “It’s great to see the sun.”
Upon reaching the Coastal Trail, I looked out toward Cook Inlet, a natural instinct. And what I saw both startled and cheered me: a pod of beluga whales were moving through the inlet’s calm, gray waters, their large and sleek white bodies gleaming in the morning sun.
Conditions couldn’t have been better to watch the whales glide past and it seemed that anyone walking along the trail would notice them, unless completely self-absorbed.
The belugas’ graceful swim through the water seemed both relaxed and purposeful. They were moving right to left, in other words down the inlet, toward Point Woronzof and eventually Turnagain Arm, where they are most commonly and easily seen, by people traveling the Seward Highway. Had they been hunting in the upper inlet? Were they headed toward other hunting opportunities in the arm or did they have other motivations?
There’s so much I don’t know—even researchers still don’t know—about Cook Inlet’s endangered population of beluga whales, which according to the most recent counts number less than 300 (down precipitously from an estimated 1,300 individuals in the late 1970s). But on this morning walk I was simply happy and thankful to get a glimpse of the whales, which I so rarely see in my own wanderings along Anchorage’s coast and Turnagain Arm.
Which reminded me: less than a week earlier I’d seen a pod of belugas—perhaps this same group—while walking the Turnagain Arm Trail with Jan and our dogs. That time, the belugas seemed to be “milling around” rather than on the move and we wondered if they might be feeding. To see them from such a height—we were at least several hundred feet above them—was a first for us, but at the same time the whales were almost immediately below, giving us an excellent view of their strikingly white bodies, which at times seemed to be floating along the surface.
On this morning, Denali and I followed the belugas a while, but their speed was much greater than ours and within minutes they were distant, tiny white specks.
Continuing our own wanderings, we met a man and woman who also had watched the belugas. The man told us he’d counted at least 16 as they’d passed by, the most he’d ever seen at one time. I hadn’t been counting, but wasn’t surprised by the number. In the short time we’d watched I too had seen an unusually large number of the whales.
Though unplanned, our timing—like the morning’s burst of sunny weather—had been just about perfect. If Denali and I had reached the Coastal Trail only a few minutes later, we would likely have missed the belugas’ brief, exhilarating passage.
I was again reminded how much “wild life” goes on around us all the time, that we mostly miss or fail to notice. In a way, I’d been rewarded with—or graced by—the whales’ presence only because I’d made the spur-of-the-moment decision to get out into the world, beckoned by the sunlight that has seemed all too uncommon in recent days and weeks.
Other small moments of grace—and the sun itself—enriched our walk, but the whales, along with the morning’s golden glow, are what I’ll remember most. And yes, I’ll also remember heeding that intuitive call to leave the house.
The clouds returned while Denali and I wandered here and there, gradually dimming the sun, then hiding it once more.
By the time we’d returned to the house, nearly two hours later, I felt a drop or two of rain on my skin. Not long after, a steady rain began to fall and it continued, hard at times, through the afternoon and much of the evening. That rain, like the belugas, reinforced the lessons I’d relearned that day: pay attention; be open to possibilities; and trust my more intuitive nature. Let it be ever more so.
Postscript: A “Belugas Count!” public event is scheduled for this Saturday, September 7, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. along the Anchorage coast and Turnagain Arm. More information about the event is available at this website: www.fisheries.noaa.gov/event/2022-belugas-count
Anchorage nature writer and wildlands/wildlife advocate Bill Sherwonit is a widely published essayist and the author of more than a dozen books, including “Living with Wildness: An Alaskan Odyssey” and “Animal Stories: Encounters with Alaska’s Wildlife.” Readers wishing to send comments or questions directly to Bill may do so at akgriz@hotmail.com.
