Like a river, we all drift on time. With a current too forceful to fight, time carries us through life, our surroundings ever-changing. The oars can get us from one side of the river or the other, but there’s no going back upstream. How and who we choose to spend time with defines who we are as people and colorfully fills in the lines called life. Time is our most precious currency, and when I say “spend” time I mean it literally. Just like money, there is always an opportunity cost, a choice, for how we choose to allocate our time. I am so lucky to have so many amazing people in my life who have chosen to spend their time with me. So many, in fact, that I struggle with how to allocate my limited time and waning energy to show the people in my life what they mean to me. I ponder why so many people are given no time to say goodbye and then some, like me, are given so much time to say goodbye. Despite this blessing, I have realized I’ll never be able to see and show all of those I love how much they mean to me. So, if you’re wondering, yes, I do love you, and I’m so sorry I haven’t had the time or energy to reply to that text, email or phone call. I am also fortunate to have worked in jobs that brought so much value and allowed me to spend my time fighting for things I believe in (and having one hell of a time while doing it). Four years ago a good friend approached me and told me about a river in Alaska (the Chuitna) where a coal company proposed to strip mine through 14 miles of salmon stream 300 feet deep to send coal overseas. He needed someone to do communications for that campaign and a few others. Jenny and I struggled with the choice. Alaska holds our nation’s last untouched wilderness; it’s the last place where you can stand in rivers filled with wild salmon, it’s one of the only places in the world you can catch a 30 inch rainbow trout whose ancestors swam in that same river millennia ago. It’s one of the few wilderness areas in the world we can protect before we ruin it and have to restore it. Should we move to Alaska, leaving behind family, friends, colleagues and a state that we love? It wasn’t an easy decision, but ever since my Mum was diagnosed and successfully fought cancer, my motto has been “life’s too short” and I’ve always tried to make decisions based off of whether I would regret them on my death bed. Together, Jenny and I decided that even if things went terribly wrong, we would always wonder if we should have gone to Alaska if we didn’t do it. We packed up our bags and headed North. Behind choosing to tell Jenny how I really felt about her (another story for another time) this turned out to be the best decision of my life. For the last four years I have poured my heart and soul into the fight to save the Chuitna River, a small river off the road system that you can only fly into. I have been humbled and honored to have the local residents let me into their world, open their doors, feed me their food, and show me unequaled hospitality. Like so many environmental campaigns I have fought, it was the people, not the river itself, that drove me to work long into the night, spend countless hours on conference calls, take red eye flights to DC, and manically pace around the office coming up with crazy plans and distracting my co-workers.
While an innate stubbornness keeps me from my deathbed for now, I can assure you that I have never, nor will ever, regret a second I spent fighting for the people whose life depends on that river. However, I must admit that I had a rather significant emotional breakdown last week realizing I would never see the campaign to its conclusion. Just like not having the time to see all of the people I love in this life, I realized I would leave this world not knowing if the sliver of contribution I made in the fight to save the Chuitna would come to a successful end. The news came early this week in text message with a one-sentence document attached: “The partners at PacRim Coal, LP have decided to suspend permitting efforts on the Chuitna Coal Project.” Wait, is this an April Fools Joke? This can’t be real. After more than a decade, could we really have won? Was PacRim Coal really backing down? It took hours to set in. Once it did I cried tears of joy thinking about President Al Goozmer and the Native Village of Tyonek who have lived off the fish and game the river provides for generations, and whose culture is synonymous with the river. I thought about my adopted Alaskan Grandparents, Judy and Larry, who spent the last decade fighting to save the river where they taught their grandchildren to fish. Thinking about my good friend Terry, and the days we’d spend drinking coffee and chatting on the beach looking over Cook Inlet and the Kenai Mountains as we waited for fish to hit his net. About all of the nights Ronnie made me laugh until my stomach hurt while his wife Bobbi shook her head quietly at his side. I cried thinking about how, at least for now, the Chuitna and places like it will provide people like me the chance to revert to childhood. To splash around in a stream full of fish, to throw rocks at other rocks for hours, and to get away from the offices, infrastructure, and screens that make us all take ourselves too seriously I cried tears of sorrow, wishing I could be with all of the people I worked alongside who had dedicated so much of their time, so much of their life, to protecting this place. I reminisced about all of the amazing memories -- the moonlit, starry night a fox joined us on the log as we ate dinner at the mouth of the river. All of the days getting trapped upriver by tides only to come back to camp dehydrated, exhausted and happy. All of the nights spent at Judy and Larry’s homestead sitting around the table eating smoked salmon dip on Chicken-in-a-biscuit crackers and bullshitting for hours. All of the mornings spent in the office eating breakfast burritos, throwing darts and cracking jokes as we schemed and dreamed of ways we could protect that river. Time moves slower at the Chuitna River, it is dependent on tides, weather and bush plane pilots. It is a spiritual place where I never failed to find peace. It is a place I will die happy knowing I did something, however small, to protect. When this stubborn old body reaches the mouth of the river of time, I want my family and friends to divide my ashes, take me on adventures and set me free in places I loved in life or places I never got to see but would love. I figure why should the adventure end with life? And when you do, I hope someone will spread some of my ashes in the Chuitna River. And when you do, don’t forget to bring a fishing rod, a snack, some extra water, and a good friend, but feel free to leave your watch behind. ### Tick Tock, Tick Tock Goes the clock In the stillness of the night. My heart beats faster And I wonder “am I spending These precious seconds right?” Like the waning snowbanks In the spring sunshine I know My time here is not long. Does the ice on the lake Contemplate its end? Does it know that come winter It will be back once again? With the hushed breath Of a blonde beauty in my bed And the soft whimpers of dog Dreams below, these questions Fade and peace begins to flow.
Hillary Feder
4/5/2017 05:46:26 pm
Sam,
Janelle Bamlett
4/5/2017 06:45:59 pm
Your beautiful writings continue to make wish I knew you better. You both amaze me. I think of you often and send lots of Fossen love! ❤
Darlene Machtan
4/5/2017 08:20:37 pm
You make me so very, very proud.
Bev Mangerson
4/5/2017 08:49:07 pm
You're an amazing young man Sam. Thank you so much for sharing so much of yourself with us. I wish I could have gotten to meet Jenny. Maybe some day. Much love. 4/5/2017 11:56:21 pm
hey sam. i remember when i first saw your big-earred ass come up here with the tab-collared shirts, and thought, what the fuck. but then i remembered my own entry, and thought, "hey, the kid's got some pluck - he's confident in a foreign space." And I always liked that. Then you melted into the place, and you took it as your own. And I watched your skills at communicating grow, in line with your absorption into alaska life, and in a pretty damn quick time, you figured this shit out. so, here we are, now, present day. you played big role in sending asshat joe lucas packing. i hope you feel that, because it's lasting. the chuit will never be developed. you know the place. you know the people. so, thanks for that.
Kristi DuBois
4/6/2017 05:46:34 am
Thank you for dedicating your time to saving such a beautiful place. It's very said that someone would think to even destroy it, and it takes people like you to set them straight.
Jenny (Opperman) Reefe
4/7/2017 05:39:25 am
When I named my son Sam, you were the only other Sam I knew and even though it has been a long time since our families have played together, I had happy memories when I thought of the name Sam. Thank you for sharing your journey. You and your Jenny are amazing! Many thoughts and love to you and your family!
Scott Fiocchi
5/10/2017 03:34:36 pm
Hey, Sam, Comments are closed.
|
Archives
November 2019
Categories |