Solitude
February 1st, 2012
Sean Rielly monitors a party of tourists on a misty morning.
Until I spent a few days in the wilderness with Sean and Liz, I had a difficult time getting my head around the idea of monitoring the solitude of a place. When one is surrounded by the sounds of other humans, those sounds disappear. In wilderness areas, human sounds are amplified. The chugging of a passing cruise ship or voices heard from a campsite resonate with a different impact. In an area as remote as Endicott Arm Fjord, hours can pass without hearing the sounds of people. After a day or two, other sounds seem far more important: the crashing of a glacier calving, the breath of a whale, the screech of Bald Eagles socializing in their aerie.