Discoveries made along the way

An Unsettling Quiet

Standing on the bow of the small cruise ship in a channel of Doubtful Sound, I was struck by the silence. True, I was in an isolated fiord at the southern tip of New Zealand, far from the smallest village, but I stood facing a forest so dense that trees leaned out over the water to catch a bit of sun. There should have been more noise from the forest.

The captain told us we were in for a treat; that he needed our help to make this moment special. All motors were shut off, all cameras set down, as all 80 souls on board shared a collective moment of stillness to appreciate the grandeur around us. To the lee, the sun rose behind vertical cliffs of glacier-carved stone, casting half the channel in shadow. To the port, still water bathed in sunlight reflected the forest draped over the landscape, broken only by the stripes where landslides exposed the rock beneath the thin veneer of soil. Dozens of shades of green blossomed in the undergrowth, with moss dripping off branches and rock.

The two-day trip had been blessed with sun, not the norm for an area that measures rain in feet. Our first afternoon we motored out to the ocean's edge to visit a raucous colony of barking, belching seals. We explored the edges of the fiord by kayak on the way back, fish jumping along the way. Dolphins visited us at sunrise, before we pulled into that narrow arm of the fiord for our moment of stillness.

In one sense, I was in total bliss at being in this remote and ancient place. Fiordland National Park, encompassing 10% of New Zealand, is a land barely touched by humans for thousands of years. The cruise in this corner of the world was the realization of a long held dream, an indulgent adventure capping a fun road trip with friends.

But I was also sad for what the silence implied. There should have been countless birds greeting the dawn, courting new mates, shattering the very silence we were trying to appreciate. As full of life as the waters were, the forest somehow felt empty.

In part, this was my bias from North America where a forest with no mammals just feels incomplete. Indeed, there are no native mammals in New Zealand (except a few species of bats), but there are many introduced mammal species which wreak havoc on the native bird populations. It is because of their presence that the bird life here has suffered tremendously, and that was what made the silence so palpable, so painful, that morning.

There are efforts to turn this around. The Department of Conservation as well as many non-profits work tirelessly to control introduced species, restore habitat, and rebuild native populations. They are making a difference. Yet when I think back on that moment of stillness, what I most recall is the bittersweet feeling for what was missing in the unsettling quiet.