June 17, 2017: Catcher's Beach

At camp today, everyone took a walk at low tide over to Catcher's Beach.  I guess it's called Catcher's Beach because the shore here catches all the garbage from the ocean.  We grabbed a big stash of trash bags, round up the kiddos, made sure we had our two gun carrying adults at the front and rear of the pack (one of the only hiking rules for the kids was "Stay between the guns."  That's one I hadn't heard on a field trip yet), and set out for the beach.  It was a beautiful hike.  The sun was out (still only 50, but sunny!!) and the kids were happy.   On our way to the beach we passed a patch of dead trees that are still standing.  Marya told me that these are trees that were killed in the 1964 tsunami that destroyed the village on the island. Apparently you can still see remnants of the village on certain parts of the island as well, but we didn't go see them.  I can imagine these trees are a powerful reminder of the destruction that fell on Kodiak in general, but especially on the people who lived in Afognak at the time.  They were eerie yet still beautiful.

Once we made it to Catcher's Beach, the kids all grabbed their trash bags and filled them with beach garbage.   Parts of old fishing nets, weathered water bottles, chunks of plastic with Japanese writing.  I saw three boys work together to carry a mattress sized piece of styrofoam from the beach back to camp.  Granted, they were more motivated by the prospect of it becoming their new raft once they were back at camp more than their desire to rid the beach of pollution, but do the details really matter?  Watching 30 kids hike back to camp with their yellow trash bags flung over their shoulders made me really happy.  The kids took pride in cleaning up a beach that very few people ever even get to see.