Silver Salmon Creek Lodge is all about bears and fishing. You prioritize bears, fishing, puffins, and enjoying great meals in the order of your priority – photography versus fishing. Once your priority is set, your group is reliant on the expertise of your guide. They are there to keep you safe and help you enjoy what you came to experience.
Our guide was Jen. She is committed, dedicated, and at times, lucky. As I watched the different approaches taken with the various groups, I realized that our experience is unfolding in unique ways. We are experiencing things that others are not.
My initial thought was that Jen was lucky as well as good. As I reflected on what happens when people are intentional, I began to draw a different conclusion. In an old story, “it happened that while Apollos was away in Corinth, Paul made his way down through the mountains, came to Ephesus, and happened on some disciples there.” (Acts 19.1) In that story, many say Paul was simply lucky. In our case, each time we go out looking to photograph bears we find bears.
In the morning when the bears have not been out, we spend an hour enjoying a bear grazing in the emerging light. As an added bonus, we witness an amazing sunrise as well as a dark cloudy backlit field of green and gold that brought everyone to silence. In the course of the past few days, we have seen bears fighting, salmon running, and puffins doing what puffins do.
Our excursions are more than luck. They are a combination of passion, knowledge, people that are willing to explore, patience, and being out in the field when the opportunities presented themselves. I see am beginning to see luck differently. Passion and being in the right place trumps happenstance. Being willing to let the community be involved in the decision on when we stop opens everyone to a vision greater than their own. Letting someone unfold naturally creates the space for the unexpected.
Silver Salmon Creek is more than bears and fishing.
