We continue our exploration into what it means to be “More Than a Tourist” with a submission from Patrick Kelly! After graduating with a master’s degree in outdoor and environmental education at Alaska Pacific University, Patrick seized an opportunity to participate in a week-long cultural exchange in the village of Tatitlek. In this piece, Patrick shares details from his impactful experience, and reflects on the greater importance of adventure, especially when juxtaposed against insulated, cruise ship tourism.
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Click on the first photo to expand Patrick’s photo journal into a storybook!
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- Leaving Whittier, my contingent from Alaska Pacific University embarked for the village of Tatitlek to teach kayaking for the Peksulineq Cultural Heritage Week.
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- Over the course of the week we got dozens of new kayakers, Alaska Native and non-Native, onto the water.
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- A theme of the week was traditional subsistence food. The seal was hunted, skinned, and cleaned. The meat from the seal was eaten later in the week. Two visiting Alaska Native artists collected the bladder for a traditional bladder ceremony and gave the seal a drink of water to assist in its return to the spiritual realm. This beautiful tradition of giving thanks has been lost in many villages today.
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- The land of the midnight sun extends to Prince William Sound as well. The village is a breathtakingly beautiful place, with its scattered children’s bicycles and distinguished dogs adding a flare of the pragmatic.
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- After the bladder ceremony, releasing the bladder of the seal back into the ocean, we had signs of its spirit as free once more. That evening, two seals were spotted off of the ferry dock, an extreme rarity, and later that night, the Aurora came out full-bore. The lights danced for an hour beginning at exactly midnight. The lights whipping across the sky, seemingly erupting from Copper Mountain, made the night like nothing I have seen before. At one point, the lights gathered together and formed what looked like an ethereal seal in the sky. It may seem coincidental or like confirmation bias, but even in reflection the only way I can think of the events of that night, after that powerful ceremony, was incredible and appropriate.
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- As the lights grew dimmer, we remained by the fire, keeping watch for more aurora, and speaking to each other about what it all means.
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- The next day a sea lion was hunted and brought on the beach. Local children had never seen one up close before. Their reactions were mixed, between two little boys poking the body with their feet, and one little girl who kept asking if it was dead, and why.
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- Eventually, the sea lion was harvested, and the remains were left off of Dead Dog Point, where eagles swarmed the carcass to feed for days.
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- Leaving Tatitlek with an expanded group of friends, we were all taken aback by the splendor of Prince William Sound. Our group came to Tatitlek separate—as kayakers, artists, musicians, dancers, and storytellers—but left embodying all of these traits and passions. The power of travel, of embarking on a genuine adventure, is in the discovery of passion. What drives people? What do they have to share? What do you have to share?
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- After nine hours on the ferry, we arrived back in Whittier to beautiful vistas, and the Grand Princess cruise ship. The difference between the adventures of us, and the “Princess people” became palpable, even from a distance. We had just spent the past week, and even the last several hours, outside and in the fresh air. We were sunburned, exhausted, and yet energized by the adventure we had all been a part of. We were not whisked away from one insulated boat to another insulated train car, just to make it to our insulated hotel rooms. Adventure is about more than spending money to look outside of a window for a week, it’s about spending time actually in a place, and learning to see beyond the dichotomy of self and place. Tourism let’s one take pictures of their self being in a place. Adventure allows one to let the place become a part of their self.
Continue to More Than a Tourist #1 and learn about Becky Kusar’s transition from tourist, to outsider, to local in St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands!
