Green Monster Mountain

Green Monster Mountain, charcoal and ink on paper, ~4’x2.5’

In the 80’s I worked for the Forest Service in Southeast Alaska, mapping soils. We lived in a floating barge building, called a wannigan. It had an attached, floating helicopter platform from which we would be flown in teams of two to parts of the Tongass National Forest archipelago. The mapping often involved a drop off at a high elevation that was land-able, such as an alpine muskeg and a pick up at the shoreline, hopefully not at high tide! The dense rainforest between would be surveyed by walking a straight line maintained using map and compass, digging test pits and making notes on soils, elevation, species, etc. My workmate Scott and I were scheduled to do a transect on what was called Green Monster Mountain. There was a local indigenous belief, undoubtedly misunderstood by non-natives, that a protective and malevolent spirit inhabited this mountain and would enact retribution if it’s space was violated. The day’s transect seemed uneventful except for two things: we landed in a high elevation snowfield full of very large bear tracks, distinct and recent, and a sheer cliff required us to divert way off the tangent to circle it safely. But, we made it to our pickup just in time!  The beach was narrowing, the winds were picking up, and we felt fortunate as we looked out the windows at the storm gathering over Green Monster Mountain. That evening we got a rare chance to be flown into an actual town, Ketchikan, and kick up our heels dancing at a local pub. While doing so, for no apparent reason, Scott fell and broke his leg! I made the drawing almost ten years later, with the image engraved in my memory. I hope it, like an honoring, absolves me of my trespass.