The temperate rainforest of South East Alaska contains a mystic beauty that captures its visitors in a temporary fairytale. Forests bounded by fjords and wide open waters host all manner of mysterious creatures, readily transporting the mind into the realm of the mythical. It is this ability of the wild to complement the human mind, body, and spirit, that bring our wandering thoughts towards the uncertain future of places like these…

Where waves meet mountains that reach for the sky, and raw rock faces slide down hills to tell stories from the Precambrian era.

Where glaciers flow down to the waters, shaping the landscape in their wake.

…and retreat, shrinking back towards the safety of the mountains, leaving remnants of broken blue floating in the water like glass.

There is a reason that people come here and fall in love.

It has something to do with the Sitka Spruce and Western Hemlock whose roots tumble outwards into shallow ground, tangling together so that their trunks grow tall and true.

And the mushrooms that delicately decorate the roughly hewn skin of the trees.

A golden green glow pleases the eyes, and the smell of the rain and the earth rises from the forest floor to greet the nose.

Draping mosses and water droplets soak through the skin and into the mind, a “forest bath” in Japanese.

There is a solace in the wide open spaces of South East Alaska. A de-cluttering of the mind –– a call for what is essential. It is not an idealized, pristine wilderness, but rather a wild interspersing of human and not: a point of coming together. Here meet the sea and the mountains, the trees and the sky, a strong sense of place and a strong sense of you.

This temperate rain forest captures its visitors in a story of their own making.