I'm sure I would feel similar about the PNW, but this is what we have........No, we don't have the mountains and beauty of Alaska. We do have Maine, New England, the Chesapeake, the Carolina/Georgia low country, Florida, and the Keys.
Don, thanks for the reply that Michener wasn't far off in his depiction of the feel and mood of the bay. It sounds like a very interesting place to explore.
I agree with your implication that one should get the most out of the situation and location one is in. Sometimes we're lucky in that we get to determine those things, sometimes we have to play the hand we're dealt.
I was lucky in that I was able to determine where I ended up.
I made the decision to move from Hawaii to the PNW/BC standing on the aft deck of the BC ferry Queen of Prince Rupert at the end of a camping/fishing trip in the Yukon when I was driving my Land Rover back to Oakland, CA to put it on the ship back to Hawaii.
When the fog burned off to reveal the upper channel of the Passage, it totally blew me away. Mountains coming right out of the water, glaciers, waterfalls, and all the life one gets in this part of the world both on shore and in this protected saltwater environment. When I saw it, I knew I had to move here.
I'm sure Eric Henning can relate to how I felt, and still feel, when I get up into that country. I've done it a lot by air (first photo) but never by water other than that first ferry ride. (Of the thousands of photos I've taken here, the last photo I think best captures what I love about boating here.)
We've taken the GB as far up as Desolation Sound, which is the start of what I consider to be the great coastal country, and we've taken our small boat up to Queen Charlotte Strait, Knight Inlet, and Blackfish Sound, which is farther up into the great coastal country. But we've never gone into "Eric Country" by boat.
I seem to need to have high and wild country around me with big rivers, big forests, and big animals. Not that I've ever been interested in actually hiking the mountains here--- that's why God invented horses, and later, helicopters.
I've used both, and am now investigating the acquisition of a drift boat so I can start exploring (and fishing) the rivers with the rivers doing all the work. I'm fundamentally lazy and am a big believer in internal combustion, hay, or gravity doing as much of the job as possible.
Last year my videographer and I spent part of a day driving around the shoreline of Long Island exploring some of the harbors, looking at the cool old houses, and so forth. Very interesting stuff to look at, and we had a great time talking to some of the local commercial fishermen. But the totally featureless terrain had no appeal to either one of us.
I've been to the South Carolina, both the Low Country and farther inland, a number of times for work, and I've been visiting friends in southern Virginia (Virginia Tech) and North Carolina (Winston-Salem) for decades. The Blue Ridge and Appalacian hills are beautiful to visit, no question, and the history in that region is fascinating. But it all lacks the wildness and scale that I like so much.
Maine's coast is certainly not like the PNW, at least in terms of altitude. But the coastline itself has a wild ruggedness that I find really appealing. I love northwestern Scotland for the same reason.
Anyway, perhaps someday I'll re-read "Chesapeake" and re-kindle my interest in the bay.
