Dutch Harbor

Dutch Harbor
We arrived bright and early today in Dutch Harbor, which is most famous for the Discovery show Deadliest Catch. Our tour today was to consist of a WWII Museum, a Russian Orthodox church, a Memorial, an Aleut museum, and the local 4 star resort/hotel. So we got to the first museum which was small but interesting, and we only had 20 minutes there which was quite brief. The we got to the church and we had 45minutes there, which I popped my head inside the door, thought to myself “YAWN” and then wandered around. There were about 30 bald eagles flying about and I decided to capture them with my camera. They were magnificent, and they are soooooo large. Then the eagles took off, because there seemed to be a school of fish just out in the water. They were diving and picking up fish and swirling in the air, the whole lot of them. Breathtaking.
So they flew off with their lunch, and I still had plenty of time to kill at the church. Again, Yawn, so I decided to ask our wonderful host, a local girl who had grown up on the Island, where the next stop was. She reported that it was quite a ways down the road, at the end of the little bay that we were on. I looked out over the water where she was pointing, and I said “Where the flags are?”. “Yep” she replied. “Um, yeah… I’ll see you down there”. She was shocked that I wanted to walk that far, meanwhile it was about 15 NY blocks, basically nothing to me.
Yeah, no film crew, a day off and so I set off on my own little adventure. I saw a few more eagles, stopped and talked with a few locals and when I arrived at the park, I saw something in the distance trotting across the street. Could it be? I thought to myself, it seems big enough. So I ran to where I had seen the creature, and sure enough it darted back across the street and I caught a good look at it.
Now a brief aside, for those of you who don’t know my spiritual history, I personally believe in a blend of Buddhism and Native American Spirituality, with a healthy dose of skepticism mixed in. Now in brief, the natives of our country believe that there are spirits, and spirit animals that help guide us along the path of life. And my spirit animal was determined to be a fox, I even have a beautiful shield that a friend created for me, that shows a red fox with blue eyes.
So, what I had found was my Red Fox and I was determined to get up as close to her as I could. She crossed the street a second time, and when she got to the lawn of the community center where I was standing I yelled out to her. And to my astonishment, she stopped. So I snapped a few pictures, and emboldened by the fact that she hadn’t run away yet. I creeped a bit closer. She sniffed the air, looking at me intently, occasionally twitching her ears and giving a little start at the noises around us. I started talking to her, and she crept a little closer, and I crept a little closer and we ended up about 3 feet from each other. I thought to myself how cool would it be to touch her or pet her. Then the other voice in my head (there are plenty of them) said “Fool, you can’t pet a wild fox!”. So I satisfied myself by crouching down on the ground so that I was right up next to her. I even forgot to continue taking pictures because it was such a wonderful moment that I was having, talking to her and she seemed to be listening. I was moved.
So, for all of you who want to poo-poo my story by pointing out that the locals sometimes feed the foxes scraps, and they become quite approachable. I want to say, that even having that knowledge doesn’t take away even a scrap of how magical I felt in the moment of meeting her, and having the discourse that took place.