Wild Fierce Life by Joanna Streetly

Author:Joanna Streetly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Joanna Streetly, Authors, Canadian, 21st century, Biography, Memoir, Outdoor life, British Columbia, Vancouver Island, Autobiographies
ISBN: 9781773860367
Publisher: Caitlin Press
Published: 2020-06-09T00:00:00+00:00

Wild Life

seal, like a mirage

you shimmer to sudden life

and likewise vanish

I’ve always been a capable spy. Drawn to inner landscapes, I drift easily into a private theatre of thoughts and images, lingering there while I gaze in parallel at the real world. But despite my watchfulness, important wildlife affairs still go unseen. And those very proceedings have the potential to affect my life. I learned this when I was nineteen and a bull orca rose out of the water directly in front of my kayak. I wasn’t expecting whales and it was the first orca I’d ever seen. The four-foot dorsal fin made a noise like the flexing of sheet metal as it cut through the air toward me. My paddles whirled in full reverse, fuelled by a thumping heart and a surge of adrenaline, which didn’t abate until the whale came abreast of me, his small all-seeing eye examining me before passing by.

In that moment I realized that the scope of my watchfulness needed to expand: I needed to become more observant, both of my immediate surroundings and of the larger view. I also needed to improve my ability to predict the general patterns of weather and wildlife—patterns that had the potential to affect the routines of life on the coast. With all the assurance of youth, I presumed these skills were not only something that would protect me, but also something I could master. It never occurred to me that animals could be just as fallible as humans. And that, despite my best intentions, my skills of observation could fail me.

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