Before spring energy fully overtakes life here, we wish to take a moment to remember the equinox just past, the space in between the heartbeats of our seasons. Some years equinox is just a mere date. We’ll look at the calendar, at each other, at the rapidly growing daylight and say “happy spring” and that’s about it. But this year it felt like a true pause, a soft space between the chills of late winter and the damp growth to come, an actual balancing moment of stillness in the seesaw of the seasons. The biting northwest wind and below freezing temperatures we’d endured for months fell away and suddenly, arrestingly, the actual day of equinox was calm and velvety as the pussy willows in the woodlands. It was as if the world decided to take a rest day. Next day the sun came out and now we have the first rain of spring, washing away snow, puddling our trails, bringing forth optimistic bits of green if you know where to look. This synchronization of the natural elements with the calendar this year will surely not last, but we certainly appreciated the moment.

A few things to note from this season in our corner of the universe come to mind. Bears seem to have been more active than normal. Although we rarely see them, our regular hiking trail is criss-crossed by bear tracks, sunk in the rapidly diminishing snow, and a sow and cub had left their footprints on Long Beach just prior to our beach combing walk there the other day. Some bears remain un-hibernated all winter, but the volume of these tracks and the presence of the little one indicate these are true spring bears, lured out by the hours of light or some other internal clock. Our little dog is a good bear warning system, but in general we do not have “bearanoia,” knowing that these magnificent beasts would far rather avoid humans than interact in any way.

The barge fits in the shop with plenty of headroom.

On the home front, Tollef has been deeply engulfed in a major project to re-build his salmon holding barge into our new kelp harvesting machine, which is much needed as the skiff can do it but is very cramped. At 28 feet long and 12 feet wide, its 10,000 pound hulk just barely fits into our shop, by design, but that process of winching it in was enough of an ordeal that we finished up the wrestling of winch, lines, and pulleys wearing headlamps close to midnight. As I (Adelia) type, I can hear Tollef’s grinder whirring away, interspersed with the welder crackling on. He’s powering it with an outboard instead of having to just tow it around, installing a reel, mast and boom for harvesting kelp, and redoing a number of small but highly important aspects of the platform that have been annoying him for years. I’m handy for him when he needs a human vise or an extra set of hands, but for the moment I’ve got time to write, something I find as absorbing and satisfying, perhaps, as Tollef’s work is for him.

With calm winds and temperatures reaching the high 30’s or low 40’s, we’ve been tempted out to visit our summer fish sites for the first time since fall. While they are really not far - only 7 miles to Tollef’s and 8 to Adelia’s - they catch winter winds and waves from the Shelikof Strait, making us happy to stay in our protected part of the bay for the bulk of the off-season. Now though, conditions are perfect for us to check in on these sites that are such a deep part of our lives. At Broken Point, we took measurements for a new hoist to ferry things up the cliff the 100 vertical feet to the cabin (instead of having to carry them up the 120 stairs). Tollef noted that the new window he installed last fall still creates an amazingly improved view from inside, and the temporary siding he used for winter held up just fine. He also retrieved two highly critical pieces of equipment we’ve been missing at home: the handle to his pasta machine that he’d been looking for all winter, and a plunger for the French press.

At Trap Six, we checked on the new battery bank and inverter to ensure it had made it through the winter, inventoried the line there to make sure Adelia has enough for her plans to update her set this salmon season, and scored some nice driftwood which we threw above the high tide line for future chainsawing and splitting to keep the cabin cozy this summer, all while enjoying the expansive beach and views to the Shelikof with fresh bear scat on the beach “animal highway”.

Equinox Pause