United States
Channel Islands National Park
May 2022 • The Channel Islands are California’s Madagascar—a land mass off the continent, home to dozens of species of flora and fauna found nowhere else. Twenty-five miles of ocean has kept Darwinian competition as well as human exploitation stuck in first gear, and national-park status provides added protection. It’s an hour-long ferry trip from Ventura Harbor, with no guarantee of a smooth ride or a clear day. On first hit, it seems like a hike in Marin or Sonoma. Then the subtle differences begin to assert, and it becomes easier to see this place not just as a terrarium but also a time capsule of the upspoiled California coastline that existed hundreds of years ago.
