The Final Journey

Whenever I would pass Discovery Island, I would wonder what Staqeya thought of the marine mammals in the waters around his island home. What would he think when he caught the scent of a Humpback Whale blow on a westerly breeze, or when a matriline of Bigg's Killer Whales would slip past the shoreline of his rocky, sundrenched perch. And I wonder what trepidation, if any, he felt when he left Discovery Island after his tenure there was over. I thought about the first fateful steps he took into the cold water as he left the island for the last time, leaving behind a pair of black turnstones cheeping curiously as he swam away. And in the distance, the sea wolves of Juan de Fuca Strait pass by, completely indifferent to Staqeya's final journey he was undertaking and the legend he created in the minds of his Homo sapien admirers.