We pulled out from Take Home Fish Company, headed to Cape Flattery Road at the edge of town, four blocks away. Seven miles later, along the base of Bahokus Peak, we reached the edge of the world.
Cape Flattery is a place that cannot be revealed by or translated into words. Even photographs do not display an accurate account. To get an idea of the power held within the land, one must experience Cape Flattery firsthand.
From the parking lot of the park we walked perhaps three quarters of a mile, often along a boardwalk of cedar planks, identical to the wooden path we took at Ozette.
Eight hundred feet from the actual point, a side-trail ended at a cliff, which overlooked a small cove guarded by tremendous rock formations and lush sea stacks. I do not know how long I stood mesmerized, but after some time I realized that my wife and my friend were no longer with me.
I met up with my friend at a lookout point just below the main observation platform. He had disappeared into the landscape in much the way I had just a few moments before. My wife had climbed onto the platform. She did not notice I had arrived.
I have traveled to all forty-eight continental United States of America, have seen more than my share of stunning places. Cape Flattery has taken over my dreams, and for the first time in over twenty-five years, I wake up and remember what I have dreamed.
Standing on the wooden outlook of the point, I wanted to hold my breath in wonder, but the power of the place only allows the body to feel the way it should. I could not feel the weight of myself, did not wince with arthritic pain as I leaned over this rail and that one to gape at the life happening where the Pacific Ocean folds into the waters of the Juan De Fuca Strait—puffin, cormorant, gulls, guillemots, sea lions, dolphins, and the dorsal of an orca… Sitka spruce, Cape primrose, cedar, hemlock… . Fog coming from the west blocked my view of Tatoosh Island, the home of the Cape Flattery Lighthouse, just seven hundred eighty-seven feet away. It didn’t matter. The cove off to my right basked in sunlight, with more sound, smells, and movement than I could fathom in a lifetime. It shone in direct contrast to what I would see of western Washington in three days time.
For a moment, I got the idea that if I jumped from the head, I would forever become a part of this place. Cape Flattery and I would be one-and-the-same. But my sanity reminded me that a jumper would cause too much commotion, and a lot of people would be either sad or pissed. I decided not to muck up such a beautiful place with an act of human folly. Besides, nothing lasts forever. One of these days, eternity will reclaim the beauty that it placed for a brief moment in our little corner of the universe, and Cape Flattery will return to the cosmos from whence it was borne.
In the meantime, I will sit with the joy of experiencing such a place. And when I’m not sitting, I will think of all the ways that I can return until I am reclaimed by eternity.
We spent so much time at Cape Flattery, that we did not arrive in Sekiu to camp until after sundown.
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