One of the ways you can always tell who Lundies are at a party is by observing the people who bring a headlamp. Either that or they are the ones seen jaunting down the trail without a headlamp, so used to navigating in the dark that light becomes unnecessary.
I am not one of the latter quite yet, but I hope to be once I have lived out here for 50 years.
Dark is easy to forget about in middle of summer, when it always seems light out, but it reasserts itself as nights start to gently remind us that they are going to become very long, very soon.
Out in Lund, far from streetlights and traffic, you get comfortable with darkness. As summer burns out and the dark slowly starts to come back, it is like an old friend coming home.
A lot of visitors out here do not think to carry a light because, where they come from, they never need one. Darkness shocks them. For some people, being in a landscape not organized around their comfort and where humans are just one of many creatures instead of the most important one, is frightening.
As something only wild places have, darkness provides a kind of shorthand in our language for “scary places we should not go.”
My parents were wilderness guides when I was young, which makes me think of guests standing on the deck of a boat under a starry night in a place like Bute Inlet or the Broughtons and shouting, “Hello world! Is anybody out there?” They seemed unsettled when no reply came back; no human reply, anyway. Darkness, quiet and the absence of human-built things resulted in an unnerving loneliness to them.
This time of year, when the longest days are over and the night starts to come back, I like to sit on my porch in the darkness and feel all the other kinds of company in places where more than only humans are allowed some space.
Out in the country, darkness is full of pleasant companions. Across the forest, Barred owls are asking, “Who cooks for you?” Tree frogs call “kree kree” in maple trees, field mice rustle around on the ground and loons sing down in the inlet. And always, there are the stars.
I missed the stars while living in the city. A lot of folks who come out here for the first time stare at them in wonder. Many of them have never really seen stars before, because they have never been far enough from city lights.
I always hope seeing stars for the first time makes people curious to find out what other magical things are waiting to keep them company in the dark, quiet places where the pavement ends. I hope it makes them realize darkness is not really that scary after all.
