Cliff Jumping

[Embry Call]

One of my favorite summer activities around the reservation would be without a doubt going cliff jumping with my brothers. I know our moms always cringe at the sound of us mentioning going there but there’s nothing we can do about it. Before all the changes in my life, we used to jump only from the smaller cliff, and never by ourselves but since then, that cliff isn’t much of a challenge anymore. I remember when Jared, Paul and Sam took me to the high cliff four years ago after I joined them. I hesitated before jumping and it took a lot for them to convince me to jump. Since then, it’s the closest thing to a thrill we get, other than chasing after a vampire in the woods naturally.

When others ask us if they could go cliff jumping, especially from the high cliff, I can’t help but think of the risk it would be for them without the knowledge of the waters around our land. I try to convince them not to go by themselves but it’s not an easy thing sometimes. We sometimes get very stubborn people who refuse to go along with our guidelines on that. It’s already not fun having to turn someone around when the waters are too dangerous, sometimes we have to resort to harsher measures to convince them like the mention of what could happen if they jumped without carefulness or someone around. I wouldn’t want someone to drown because they were careless. We already had a few almost drowned, we don’t want that to be a reality now. I hope people will be careful and listen to us when we say it’s too dangerous to go jumping. Hopefully, people will also think of asking before going ahead up on the cliffs.