What We Left Behind
I can't stop thinking about this tree -- I know that sounds silly but well, it's the truth.
I've been having dreams about this tree with the fire licking up the ridge behind it.
Yes, it is a real tree (I'm not going that crazy just yet). It sits on Campsite #25 on Isaac Lake, just 20 feet down a moss-covered path, surrounded by a thick blanket of flowering dogwoods.
Navigate down this path, around the old trappers outhouse (which is strangely beautiful -- or maybe I've just spent too many hours cleaning/moving outhouses this summer), and then you see it: after decades of being a giant, this massive cedar has outgrown every young tree around it, so that now it has its own radius, like a solar system, home only to undergrowth and dogwood.
When the sun shines in the forest, this radius allows the entire tree to become illuminated, like a spotlight (or like that weird scene in the Twilight movies when Edward awkwardly sparkles - except way more awesome).
It is the most beautiful tree I have ever seen (again, this may be influenced by the fact that I have spent three months in the bush). And it is massive, too big to wrap my arms around, in fact too big for three of me to wrap my arms around - its bark, a patchwork of sprawling paths, working their way up over the years.
I mention this because I think I miss this tree - I mention this because despite the job, income, cabins, books, supplies, and other belongings that we had to leave behind, I can only think of this tree.
No, this does not compare to the experience of those who have lost their homes in any of the hundreds of fires this summer - I cannot imagine the sorrow that they are going through.
Nor is this where I guilt you into thinking about the 'consequences for Mother Nature" - to be honest, I hate the Disney movies where you laugh and enoy yourself right up until the part where you realize that the moral of the story is that humans are terrible and ruining the earth (damn you Wall-E!).
This is not my Inconvenient Truth moment - fires need to happen and, especially at Bowron where our fires aren't threatening cities or community, the fires need to burn.
But this is not the point of this blog, nor do I believe that this is the point of my recurring tree dreams.
The point is, when all hell broke loose, I began to realize what was really important to me.