Ken Campbell, Author at The Last Wilderness

Solstice

Posted by Ken Campbell December 22, 2008 0 Comment 777 views

I can’t remember where I heard it, but someone once told me that December 21st is the best day to get married. “Shortest day and the longest night.” It turned out to be a good day for kayaking too, although the drive to the put-in was an adventure in itself. There’s a foot or so […]

Freedom

Posted by Ken Campbell December 19, 2008 0 Comment 778 views

Fishers are members of the weasel family, like otter, mink and martens. They are native to Washington, and the Olympic peninsula was once their home, but their population was sharply reduced by a combination of over-trapping and habitat destruction. Reduced to zero, actually. They are back now though. There’s a State program currently underway to […]

Eagles and salmon and me

Posted by Ken Campbell December 18, 2008 0 Comment 851 views

The snow is still falling, off and on. Off, right now. The other morning I had the opportunity to take a short walk by a river. Last Sunday, before I went kayaking, I followed the Skokomish River Road up and away from the highway and back into the foothills. Snow blanketed the rocks and the […]

Moclips and the Falcon

Posted by Ken Campbell December 17, 2008 0 Comment 1071 views

The Falcon and the Snowman was an ’80’s movie about a pair of semi-pro spies and poor decisions, a true story about two young men from wealthy California families who sold classified government information to the Soviet Union during the mid 1970’s. It’s a fascinating story of greed and misguided passions, and the film is […]

By-catch

Posted by Ken Campbell December 16, 2008 0 Comment 878 views

When I wrote the previous entry about kayaking in the Skokomish delta, I forgot to mention the seal. There was a section of fishing net, along with a small bundle of floats, that was bobbing in the current near the river bank. Tangled in the net was what remained of a seal pup. Years ago, […]

A Sunday morning paddle

Posted by Ken Campbell December 15, 2008 0 Comment 792 views

Another morning, heading out of town before it gets light. Again. I’m ready for summer and the winter hasn’t even officially begun. I know I will have to learn to cope. And dress warm. Like I am this morning. I’m putting in at Potlatch State Park for a quick paddle into the Skokomish delta. It […]

Beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Posted by Ken Campbell December 14, 2008 0 Comment 690 views

There’s snow on the ground now and it’s supposed to get even more wintery as the week progresses. Although it would never measure up to the snowfalls they get regularly in the Midwest, here’s how one of the local TV stations is calling it. “As an arctic boundary sags over western Washington Sunday; dense, cold […]

Ahead of the storm

Posted by Ken Campbell December 13, 2008 0 Comment 827 views

Mike got to my house just as the sky was getting light. In a matter of minutes, we were on the road, dodging raindrops on the way to Port Angeles. For a week, we had been planning to go surfing, and the threat of a predicted winter storm wasn’t going to stop us from going […]

Snow in the lowlands

Posted by Ken Campbell December 11, 2008 0 Comment 790 views

They’re saying snow this weekend. Maybe as early as tonight. It feels like snow outside. Cold wind… it even smells like snow. Which is undoubtedly an olfactory sensation too complex to explain. But I’d be willing to bet that some of you know what I’m talking about.

Thinking about a river

Posted by Ken Campbell December 7, 2008 0 Comment 958 views

A couple years back, I sea kayaked the Washington side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. I split the trip up into four segments, all the way from Port Townsend to Neah Bay. I called it “Washington’s other coast,” and even did a few slide presentations on the route. It’s a beautiful and delicate […]