Michio Hoshino: Give your life to the man at the end of the world.

You may have been to many places in the world and been intoxicated by many beautiful scenery. I have met many people and their different lives. Have you ever wondered how people and animals living in the northernmost part of the earth, near the Arctic Circle, spend the same days and nights as we do? I guess you won't believe it as much as I do. As early as the last century, a Japanese photographer and travel writer spent his whole life trying to find out all this for people. He is the author of the book I want to recommend-Michio Hoshino.

Michio Hoshino was born in Ishikawa City, Chiba Prefecture on 1952. He loved freedom since he was a child. In order to prepare equipment for skiing activities in primary school, he made an absurd thing of skipping classes without authorization. /kloc-When he was 0/6 years old, he came to the Pacific Ocean alone on an immigrant ship and traveled all over the American continent. Talking about his fate with Alaska is as paradoxical as the plot of a novel. It all comes down to a photo album about Alaska. This photo album, lying in a second-hand bookstore and rarely visited, shows Michio Hoshino the vast and magnificent scenery of Alaska, and also gives Hoshino, who has always liked the northern scenery, the idea of traveling to Alaska for the first time.

For a Japanese who grew up in modern civilization, Alaska is undoubtedly thousands of miles away. How can I get there? He wrote a letter. Yes, 20-year-old Michio Hoshino took full advantage of his unique recklessness at that age and sent a letter asking for a visit according to the name of the village "Xi Shmalev" marked on a photo. Even he didn't expect that a year later, he actually received a welcome reply from the other party. In this way, the reckless Hoshino Jun came to Shmalev, the western tip of Alaska, in the summer of the 21st year, and spent three months there that later influenced his life. There, he helped local people to cut antlers and hunt seals, and he also saw for the first time the extreme daylight scene where bears and the sun never set. That is, from that time on, Michio Hoshino buried a vague idea in his heart-this vast tundra under his feet may be the land he was destined to live in this life.

"There is no noise in the virgin forest. Occasionally, the harsh cry of the North American red squirrel broke the silence. I made coffee to warm myself up. Suddenly, a monster appeared in front of me, moving slowly between fish scales and spruce. At that time, I was so scared that my mind went blank that I forgot to take out my camera and watched the huge deer disappear into the forest. This is the first time I have ever met a moose, and I started a long journey of observing moose for the next five years. "

? 1978, 26-year-old Michio Hoshino finally returned to Alaska after a long absence. At this time, he fell in love with photography and just finished studying wildlife management at the university. He traveled alone along alaska range with heavy photographic equipment on his back, but this continent of vast expanse was like a silent and cold girl, so he didn't know how to get close until he met the first moose. "No one can grasp the wind and the whereabouts of moose in North America." This is an old saying of the northern Indians. During the five years of exploring the whereabouts of moose, Michio Hoshino has been living a wandering life of building tents everywhere, except returning to his hut in extremely cold winter. No one can be in the primitive wilderness. In the days of chasing reindeer, he was only accompanied by loneliness and danger that could happen at any time. The photographic equipment is heavy enough, so the only place where there is no room for more food is rice, soy sauce and sashimi. "If I can see or even photograph a moose, I will treat myself well. In addition to the rich dishes cooked that night, I will also take out my precious cocoa to drink. "

Hoshino loves everything in the far north. He used a lot of space in his article to describe brown bears, gray wolves, bighorn sheep, vultures, seals, walruses, whales and polar bears living there. "The world we see now is exactly the same as it was ten thousand years ago." When he took a transport plane overlooking hundreds of thousands of reindeer from the air and marched in the virgin wilderness where no one had set foot, he sighed. There are gray wolves lurking in dark places that reindeer herds can't detect; The golden eagle holds the newborn little bighorn sheep in front of its eyes; Grizzly bears crouched by the river, waiting for salmon full of fish eggs to go upstream; Polar bears kill seals but only eat their fat, and the rest of the meat just satisfies the Arctic fox that has been following them. He is like a tourist standing beside God, observing and combing the delicate and fragile biological chain of this continent. His photos and words began to be published in magazines in Japan and western countries, which triggered people's thinking about the influence of modern civilization on the ecology of the Arctic Circle. With the implementation of the Arctic Ocean oil field development plan, will the noise at the bottom of the sea affect whales with keen hearing, and will the subsequent oil spill endanger the safety of a series of marine life chains such as seals? If environmental damage affects the survival of lichens, it will also affect the large-scale migration of reindeer every year, and what worries Hoshino is whether they will disappear from the earth like buffaloes that once spread all over the American continent. "Every time I travel to Alaska, I can't help but admire this vast nature. The wind blowing in such a natural environment can make people realize the fact that "man belongs to nature" again. Endless nature is obedient, which makes people realize how short a person's life is, but this kind of consciousness will not only make people shrink back, but will emerge from nowhere. This kind of power that cannot be explained in words always makes me want to go all out. "

After traveling back and forth between Japan and Arasky for nearly ten years, 40-year-old Michio Hoshino finally had the idea of settling down. He said, "As a traveler, I began to feel tired and dissatisfied." But instead of returning to modern Japan as everyone thought, he bought a piece of land and built a house in the forest of Alaska. In an article for Osaka Morning Post, he called this decision "the end of the journey". Yes, from then on, he is no longer a wandering stranger.

? After choosing to settle in Alaska, Michio Hoshino not only continued to pay attention to the animals and plants in the Arctic Circle with his camera and pen, but also began to go deep into the lives of local people. Over the years, he shuttled between Alaska, Chukchi Peninsula and many ancient desert islands in Canadian waters, sorting out the footprints of Eskimos and Indians, two similar but different peoples who first came to America. About 18000 years ago, the earth was in the last ice age, and the sea level dropped, resulting in the land bridge connecting Eurasia and North America coming out of the water in the Arctic Ocean. The ancestors of two ethnic groups that originated in Central Asia came to today's Alaska through eastern Siberia, and after a long time, some immigrants chose to continue to move south, which also promoted the Indians who later spread all over the American continent.

? 1993, Michio Hoshino sailed to Queen Charlotte Island at the northern end of Canada, where he found the remains of our ancestors-the only decayed totem pole. /kloc-at the end of 0/9 century, white people from the west discovered this place and brought terrible smallpox. The virus killed the local aborigines, and those who escaped by luck had to move to other places, so this desert island has always maintained its original appearance. "Most totem poles have been staggered, and one totem pole fell to the ground. These totem poles are covered with moss and various plants, and the illegible carving patterns still seem to tell the story of life. I saw bears hugging human babies with both hands, frogs sticking out from whale fins, vultures carved on the top of their heads, as if guarding the village ... "Hoshino wandered among these decaying totem poles, and slowly pursued the way for Indian ancestors to get along with nature from these mossy logs. "The history of mankind continues to extend in this invisible fog. In the future, if human beings want to survive on this earth, they may once again face the moment when they have to gamble on life and create our own myths. "

The most touching passage in the book is the story of Hoshino and local Eskimos going out to sea for whaling. There will be a stir in the camp when it is heard that the whaling team that went out to sea together has gained something. In order to pull back a whale, even the whole tribe needs to be dispatched. At this time, the camp will become empty. When Eskimos pull whales ashore, they sing old songs around them. An old woman stood on an empty ice pile and danced facing the sea. Slow dance is said to be a dance handed down from ancient times to thank whales. The villagers began to pray around the whale's body and pat it like children. The dismembered whale was stained with a large area of ice and gradually divided into small pieces of meat. Finally, only a huge mandible is left. At this time, everyone will get together, and Qi Xin will work together to push the whale's mandible into the sea and shout in unison: "Come back next year!"

? Through the vivid description of Hoshino, the whole shocking scene will naturally be filled with the brain. Take it from nature and fear it. This reminds me of the prayers of the Na 'vi people after killing their prey in the movie Avatar. I believe that this custom of Eskimos must have been inherited from ancient human ancestors, but it has been forgotten by us who have left this land now. China has a well-known idiom "Man can conquer nature", which means that modern misunderstood human beings can certainly conquer nature with wisdom and technology. This idea is not only arrogant, but also ridiculous. Human beings live between heaven and earth, and the air they breathe, the water they drink and the food that sustains their lives are all gifts from nature. Do we just think that every mountain is a victory for nature when it opens a road and bridges when it meets water? It's better to let go of fantasy and think about whether all this is the conquest of nature by human beings or the tolerance of nature to human beings.

Seeing this, I think there will be another problem. Is this passionate and brave explorer still wandering in the ice and snow at the end of the world? In fact, in an interview with Kuye Lake in Russia on 1996, Hoshino's camp was attacked by a sudden brown bear, and his life stayed at the age of 43 forever. One of my favorite photos in the book is unremarkable. In the primitive jungle full of tundra plants, a pair of moose bone horns dyed emerald by moss are placed in the center of the picture, as if it were growing there. Hoshino commented in the photo: "In the winter when food is scarce, antlers are the most important source of calcium for rodents growing in the Arctic Circle". Everything will eventually return to nature and benefit other lives. Although it can't be said that such a cruel way is an adventurer's best farewell to the world, perhaps this is the natural law he has always believed in, and finally, he devoted himself to this operating order.

Book collection sigh. There must be many people yearning for the world of ice and snow in Hoshino lens, but few people really practice it. I don't know if I will have the opportunity to go to the far north of the book in my life, and see with my own eyes the whale bone cemetery standing tall on the coast of the Arctic Ocean in the Star Field lens, and see with my own eyes the Eskimo hunter who warms his hands with seal blood. Can you wake up in the morning by the rumbling hoof of reindeer migration outside the tent and sit in the home of a hundred-year-old chief to keep warm silently? But Hoshino told me through decades of career that in this life, where I have been and what I have seen is never the most important. What matters is to what extent you can recognize yourself in this vast world and limited time.