I left Port Clements behind me, heading for the Delkata Wildlife Sanctuary, and the Agate Beach Campground in the northern section of Naikoon Provincial Park. There I had a nice little hike ahead of me. And, some rain.

Let’s get into it.

I didn’t get to do all that much after I arrived on Graham Island, Haida Gwaii. Ferry delays made sure of that.

So, when I awoke in Misty Meadows Campground the following morning, I wanted to seize the opportunity to go do something. Do what, exactly?

I knew I wanted to explore Née Kún (Naikoon) Provincial Park. I knew I wanted to stretch my legs and experience some of the islands’ famed natural beauty.

I also knew that the nearest, popular hiking trail led to a shipwreck.

Would it be worth my while?

I’ve told you that I’m finally going to pick back up my series of posts about traveling around British Columbia and Haida Gwaii in May and June of 2022.

Well, I am going to do exactly that. But before I get started, I thought it would be a nice idea to write a little something about Haida culture and history, and how things came to be in the modern era. Instead of covering these topics directly, I’m going to do so by reviewing three books about different facets of Haida culture and history.

Specifically, I cover:

• Raven’s Cry by Christine Harris, Young Adult-oriented fiction covering 175 generations of Haida history.
• Potlatch as Pedagogy: Learning Through Ceremony by Sarah Flourence Davidson and Robert Davidson, a book on indigenous pedagogy, filled with memories of cultural reawakening.
• Athlii Gwaii: Upholding Haida Law on Lyell Island, a collection of memories and photographs that provide primary source accounts of the successful grassroots effort to stop logging and get the Canadian government to recognize Gwaii Haanas.

I finished each of these books during June of 2022. Each of the three is extraordinary, and well worth reading.

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For a while now, I’ve been thinking that my blog posts focusing on my 52 frames entries aren’t all that interesting. I mean, they are a means for me to share some images that I took each week over the previous month, but they are also basically just stuff I’ve already shared elsewhere re-posted with a bit more context.

The other thing that’s true about 52 Frames is this: it’s a creative exercise that does not necessarily represent my best, or most interesting output. So, why not move the stuff I value more to the forefront, and move the (admittedly very fun and often creatively invigorating) homework to the background?

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There are other things I do in a month, besides weekly photographic challenges. I’ve been trying more and more to incorporate more of this into these posts, and now I think it’s time to make a habit of doing this in a more organized, repeatable fashion. (It should also be much less time consuming than some of the more detailed travel posts, which seem to take me aeons to produce, what with all the writing, editing, post-processing, and sanity checking that comes along with… this blog literally living inside of a scrappy Github Repo.)

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In terms of format, I draw my inspiration from Katrinka Abroad, and for this I make no apologies. I don’t know her, but I really enjoy her approach to writing, photography, and blogging.

So why not try cribbing a format that works for someone else?

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I had the last in a series of house guests in 2022: C. (celebrating her 30th birthday) & R… and so, I had an excuse to try to connive them into going on an (admittedly long) automobile journey, to see something of the beauty of Washington State outside Seattle.

The day of their arrival was the day the rain came – lots of it, and so, it heralded the beginning of the rainy season, which will stretch until next June. But it also heralded the end (mostly) of smoke season.

The stagnant smog choking Seattle parted. The air was clean. There was much rejoicing, even as strangers on the street could be heard lamenting the coming of the clouds. The end of sunshine.

Out of places that I visited in Washington State that were jaw-droppingly gorgeous, the surrounds of Mt. Rainier stood out to me, after my visit in August. I would be glad to have any excuse to go back, and now I did.

The trouble was, the unusually heavy rain on Friday & Saturday wasn’t rain at 4,000 ft. It was snow. The park had gone from smokey to snowy overnight, and the National Park Service had only this to say about road conditions:

Delayed report on road opening status. Crews are assessing conditions. - tks

— MountRainierNPS (@MountRainierNPS) October 23, 2022

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Last year, I went on a walk to Denny-Blaine, and marvelled at how many mansions had fences just low enough that I could see over them. (See: “Descent into the Valley of the Gnomes”.)

At that point in time, I didn’t realize how close I was to the house where Kurt Cobain passed away, nor a dingy city park that serves as a makeshift memorial. I had long planned to return to the area.

And so, I finally did…

September and October were smokey months in Seattle. The Bolt Creek wildfire raged on. Air quality was not a priority in firefighters’ containment strategy, so capricious Washington winds filled the skies with haze, and my lungs with malaise.

I was looking forward to an excuse to get out of town.

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Meanwhile, two friends planned to buy an RV and embark on a cross-country road trip. Prior to their odyssey, a marriage proposal was planned. The location: the town where they met: Whitefish, Montana. For some strange reason though, Emi did not plan to propose to Jarrod at the precise location where they met: the Enterprise Car Rental.

I left Sunday, a week before, a day after some birthday party karaoke, and a day after saying goodbye to Spencer. As the week continued, I would balance fealty to my work duties with fun outdoor sightseeing.

Just as a general note to readers, this post covers visits to beautiful places across three states, in a week of time. As such, it is heavy on the images, and even though I’ve pared them down, 85 images remain. Please keep this in mind when loading and reading the full post.

(I probably should have broken it up, but I don’t think I’d have been motivated to stick it all up here if I did.)