55.45544°, 130.90542°: a word like ‘biodiversity’ doesn’t begin to approach accurate description of these forests, here at the edge of the sea, with astounding amounts of rain and frequent cloud cover, such that when the sun does shine it smells like the earth waking up in spring, which is about when the blooms of this plant – lysichiton americanus, with a very unique and rather, umm, halting odor of its own – poke through the ground or snow to announce the official start of the season, the deer eating the plants and mister bear and his kin enjoying its roots, a digestive aid as they awaken from their nap of the long night and start to emerge.