Denali in the Fall

My good friend Anne somehow finagled a Sunday road lottery ticket! So right on the heels of my Adak trip I launched off to the interior for the wonder that is Denali.

Looking east along Hurricane Gulch

A sweeping vista of the Toklat river

Look closely, you can just see the fuzzy bum of a grizzly!

These two moose collided so strongly during the rut that their antlers could not be separated. One died due to a tine entering it's eye socket, the other died later from having the dead bull still attached.

A beautiful quilt hanging in the visitors center - hand painted and hand quilted, and gorgeous!

We attempted to visit my Ranger friend Liz - but she was sickly and not at home :(

Shannon - Queen of the Caribou!

Shannon Queen of the Moose!

Oh the colors!

My friend Anne - Thanks girl!

Adak, Alaska

I'm pretty lucky. I've somehow managed to wrangle jobs that continue to take me to the farthest reaches of Alaska. I have been traveling in rural Alaska for five years now, and I still haven't seen it all!

There are only two flights to Adak, one on Sunday, and one on Thursday. Better not be late, or you don't get to go. Mom, I will be sorry about this for the rest of my life. Really.

Beautiful, downtown Adak, Alaska - who thinks to wire caribou antlers to a piece of driftwood as yard art? I think the winters are a little long out here...

Currently Adak is going through a financial crisis, related in some part to the rising cost of fuel in rural Alaska ($5.70 per gallon for unleaded, $6.35 for diesel in Adak at the moment). Mostly though I think the City of Adak needs to run a tighter financial ship: http://www.adn.com/aleutians/story/526305.html

A tangled web indeed! Well, I was there on official business, but I did manage to sneak away at night and explore one of the most beautiful and strange places I've ever visited. Adak has a long history, in world events and within my family.

Originally Adak was a settlement for the Aleut people, and the island is dotted with the remains of their seasonal and permanent camps. In the 1800's the Russians swept through and permanenetly altered the settlements of the Aleut (via slavery). Any Aleut left by World War I and II were relocated as part of a US government intermnet program.

Navy roads stretch out all over the island. I like to think the base commander kept the boys in blue busy building roads! Notice the WWII quansit huts rusting back into the landscape.


A close up of the quansits: Note that inside of this hut were two suspiciously friendly office chairs...perhaps this is a breeding den?

In between Russia nd the world wars, Adak and the nearby island of Kanaga were fox farmed in the 1930's...only relevant because my great-grandfather and great-great uncle were fox farmers on Kanaga. Although mom wasn't able to go with (because of me) I did manage to do some research for her that I think really helped her in preparing to write her book (I KNOW - my mom is writing a book! How cool is that?!?)

I didn't see any foxes, but I did see a lot of other amazing things! Adak is most famous for the enormous naval base that was established there prior to World War II, and was maintained until 1997, when it was closed in the Base Realignment. It is strange to drive and walk around hundreds of abandoned buildings. Straight out of some end of the world sci-fi movie. My supervisor and I must have uttered "Our tax dollars at work" at least ten times each day. The amound of wasted resources is truely staggering. A town for 6,000 people, updated and maintained right up until 1996. All left to sit and rot on one of the most remote places on earth. If you ever need an office chair, let me tell you, Adak has plenty. Locals assured me they breed at night and pop up along the roadsides in the morning. Why so many office chairs?

Now entering/Now exiting the Adak National Forest. The sign had rusted off its hooks and was face down in the weeds, so no classic pictures...

Grave markers of WWII Airmen and Navymen.

We had to tour the Adak National Forest, all 33 trees, and the WWII Cemetary which is right next door. The actual remains were removed and buried at some official cemetary in the lower '48. Side note, the people who exhumed the remains left the graves open, so that as I took this picture I tripped over something in the grass and fell into one of the grave holes. Not my finest nor most pleasant moment. The markers were pretty though, and a solemn reminder of the sacrifices our country asks of each generation. They are also solid welded steel slats - typical Navy overconstruction!

I did see herds of the famous Adak Caribou, although from too far of a distance to get any good pictures. They grow to record size due to the temperate climate and lack of four legged predators. The caribou were imported here in the 1950’s by Uncle Sam as an “emergency meat source” for the naval base and have thrived since. The plane was almost half hunters. We jokingly called them the Cabella’s Crew and you know - I think they really liked it!

I also saw a group (pod?) of 8 sea otters, many eagles, sea birds and of all the strange things, rat tracks in the sand. Apparently they are large Norway rats, the kind that live in Russian cargo holds I hear! The state sponsored rat traps (for rodent eradication...save the seabird eggs and so on...) scattered around the island were somewhat of a local joke. The rats are apparently a good foot or so long, with pretty big heads, and the rat traps have entry holes about two inches wide...so the big boys just won't fit to get into the rodenticide. No worries though, most folks seem to think the rats will just chew through the plastic boxes and get the rodenticide bait that way.

Rat tracks - just kidding! These are eagle tracks in the sand,

something I've never seen before!

The eagle who made the tracks

Anyways, enjoy the pictures. The Aleutians are still beautiful, no matter what we seem to do to them.

An unknown and beautiful flower - anyone know what this one is?

Look close - there be otters in these waters!

Adak is of course an old volcano - really cool ash layers exposed on this bank

And some columnar basalt, also volcanic in orgin and a really modern looking eagle's nest. Two juveniles had nested up on top of this outcropping.

Fear

As you can tell, I took a break from blogging. I wish it was because I was lazy, or was too busy. It wasn't any of those things. I stopped blogging because I didn't want to share what was happening to me with the whole wide world.

Looking back I think it was mostly fear. Fear that I wouldn't get healthy, fear that my illness would be long term or deadly, fear that if I shared my experience beyond my circle of friends I would be burdening or hurting others.

I used to casually say that I was terrified of something, but no longer. I know what true fear is. I surprise myself because it isn't of death. I'm fearful of leaving Richard alone, and of never getting to know our future children.

But now the fear is manageable, and I've gone back to work, back to life. I will be posting more regularly from now on - about the happy things in my life, the reasons for living.

Shan

It's been thirty years...Part IV

I recently turned thirty. To commemorate this milestone birthday, I'm writing down some of my most amazing memories from the last thirty years. I'll post them here as I finish them. Remember that I'm no author, and these are my memories, described faithfully as I remember them.

AURORA

Growing up in Fairbanks I have seen many, many great nights of aurora, or the northern lights. Usually they are green, sinuous curls of ribbon, and dance for anywhere from five minutes to five hours. The best display of the lights I remember was when I was probably ten or eleven. I had done well at the fifth grade science fair (with a project on the reactions of different household chemicals to things like heat, moisture, acids, bases, etc.) and our whole family, including my dad had loaded up into the truck and gone to the school for the awards ceremony. I remember being so proud to receive my blue ribbon, and that my dad (on a work night!) had come along to see it.

Afterwards we were heading home, and in the parking lot we couldn’t help but notice the lights. They were green, with edges of crimson and were dancing so wildly that you could see the shadows of the trees flickering on the ground. As we drove home we could see the lights spiraling and whipping across the sky, and the green gradually disappearing to be replaced with reds, blues, and a deep purple. As we turned off Badger road my dad pulled the truck over, and we all got out of the truck to watch the lights explode into blues and purples, and the dancing so fast that it was literally hard to keep your eyes on just one strand. I remember the whole sky from edge to edge being filled with the blue, red and purple strands. You could not see the stars for the lights. We watched for several minutes, until the -20 temperatures proved too much for us. Secretly I thought that I had somehow been rewarded in the sky for doing so well at the science fair.

SAMBA
To most people, the samba is an obscure dance, or a funky Bob Marley song. To me, Samba is a small, dark, dorky looking dog that I love more than anything. She’s not much to look at, but she’s been a good dog for me over the last ten years. Born in Nenana to a shady kennel, she was sold to a young man new to Alaska and eager to own a “McKenzie River Husky” He’d been told that only the McKenzies had the black, tan and white coloration and was new enough to not know any better.

He paid $500 for her at this kennel in Nenana, and took her home. He was amazed to find out at the vet that his “three month old McKenzie pup” was actually a year old runt mutt Alaska-love-puppy and that he’d paid so much for “nothing.” So he tied her up behind his house on a two foot rope and fed her when he remembered, and let her eat snow for water.

When I met Samba I’d been dating this guy for a few weeks, and he’d asked me to house-sit for him while he went on vacation to Hawaii. He told me how to take care of the cats, and then, almost as an after thought asked me to take out food to ‘that dog’ too. What dog? I’d never seen or heard of a dog in all the times I’d been over there. He took me out back to a picture of wretchedness that I will NEVER forget. She cowered. She was covered in poop. She was thin, and her neck looked very thick around the collar. The thick rope around the tree was twisted and short. Her eyes were absolutely blank. Swallowing hard I agreed to take care of her, and drove him into Fairbanks to drop him off at the airport. As soon as he was out of my car I probably hit 90 miles per hour getting back to that cabin and that dog. I cut the rope and led her around front, where she promptly covered the seat of my suburban in feces. She was that scared.

I took her to the vet, who gave her an IV, carefully cut away the collar that had grown into and infected the top layer of her skin. They cut away the worst of the matted hair, and gave me antibiotics for her to take for the next two weeks. Her back was covered with long thin raised welts, which I hadn’t noticed among all the other things. The vet told me they were likely from ski poles, which upon interrogation of the guy I found out was correct. He’d wanted to go ski-jorring and she wouldn’t run for him, so he whipped her with his ski pole. I still get a sick feeling to this day when I remember running my hands along the ridges raised up along her back. An interesting note to this story – he ended up in jail for domestic violence, bad enough to earn him five years. He’s in jail right now, and that is wonderful to know – even if it wasn’t for what he did to Samba. As my sister MeyMey always says “bad things happen to bad people.”

Needless to say I had little to say to this guy after that, other than that he was scum, and that Samba was now mine. I attempted to give her a bath at my parents house, and it is the one and only time she has bitten anyone. That would be me, when I turned the hose on her the first time. It took her a full year to learn how to come up for treats and butt scratches (thanks Dad!), and that feet and hands weren’t going to hit her. I used to pretend to kick or hit her all the time to try and cure her of the cowering and flinching. After three or four years it worked, and you can walk up to Samba today and pretend to karate chop her head, and she won’t even blink.

For the longest time I wasn’t sure if she had really bonded to me. She’d run away the instant she could, and was a regular Houdini with any sort of tie up or kennel. This all changed two years after I brought her home. For some reason, I’m still not sure why, I decided that I had been in Fairbanks too long that summer and that I needed a “soul trip” to the Kenai Peninsula to camp on the beach and look at the sea for awhile. I took Samba with me. I left all my friends and my bras back in Fairbanks and road-tripped to Homer. Turns out Samba gets carsick. It was what used to be a typical summer in Alaska, pure blue sky and the hot hot sun pouring down 23 hours a day. At every stop I leashed Samba, terrified she’d run off. For some reason, when we reached Girdwood, I just knew she wouldn’t run off, and she didn’t. She stayed by me or the truck for the rest of the trip.

We stopped in Clam Gulch to dig for clams, something I’d never done before. I had a shovel, and an idea that you looked for a dimple in the sand and dug like crazy to get the clam. A very nice woman saw me marching off to the beach in my Teva’s and ran out of her camper to lend me her husbands Xtra tuffs. SO glad she did. I would have cut my feet up something fierce between the clams and the digging. I remember walking out along the great sandy beach and seeing the dimples extend for as far as I could see. Samba was along and giving me a ‘what in the heck are we doing?’ look. I started to dig, and right away cut a giant clam in half. I then cut all four of my fingers trying to fish it out of the hole. I got smarter after that, and got the hang of clamming with a shovel in just a few minutes. I had a pailful in just under an hour. Samba figured out what I was up to and began digging in my off set pile of sand. It was the first time she’d done something fun with me, and of her own accord. I remember stopping my digging to watch her little white paws fling the sand all over the place, with her goofy husky grin on. In the sun of the early morning, glistening along the wet sand of low tide, it was a beautiful picture of a dog healed, and a love that has lasted all this time. Love you BambaGirl!

SLEDDING
My relation ship with my sisters has never been an easy one. This is the happiest time I ever remember having with both of them. We were all old enough to be living on our own. I can’t remember whose idea it was, probably Bethany’s, but we all decided to go sledding at the University. They came over to my apartment, we drank a lot of liquor, and we went sledding. We started on the old ‘suicide hill’ section. Suicide Hill is a locally famous sledding hill at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. It used to be from the ridge top all the way down to the bottom, but a number of serious accidents over time led to its solemn title and a series of fences limiting how much risk one could take.

With three plastic disk sleds, we ran up the hill and almost chickened out at the top. Even shortened, it’s a wicked hill. Bethany was the first to go, then MeyMey. I went last, I guess being the biggest chicken. The first run was fantastic, but super fast. Again and again we ran up to sled down. A major problem though was that we were so much heavier than the smaller kids that we’d barrel down the hill, and had a hard time adjusting to avoid the smaller kids nearer the bottom. I hit one kid on a snowboard who’d stopped in the middle. That hurt a whole lot.

Deciding that the kids were too much of an obstacle we followed a trail into the woods east of Suicide Hill, and found a lovely sledding run amongst the birches behind the Student Rec Center. There we sledded in the blue light of dusk. The trees swayed above us, making fantastic patterns against the sky with their frosty branches. I flopped down in the snow for awhile and rested, and just watched the tree branches while my sisters improved the trail by adding a hill of snow to stop the sleds. A rabbit hopped up to the edge of where I was laying, and I watched his funny nose for awhile until he left. The moon had risen by then.

My sisters came over and made me get up and sled some more. Then I became the judge for my sisters. I suppose I was judging on style, speed and creativity. Both got an average of 9.5. They are both Olympic caliber sledders - who knew? I don’t think I ever laughed and played so much with either of them as children. Looks like we had to grow up and drink a lot to play nice.

Family - rediscovered

Don, Andy and myself at lunch - thanks for lunch Uncle Don!

This week I went to lunch with my Uncle Don and Aunt Andy. Technically I think Uncle Don is my great Uncle, but he doesn't seem old enough to add in the great yet. They both live in Anchorage and are true pioneers of our state. Uncle Don has been here since the 1930's, and they both have great stories to share.

It is good to reconnect, I think the last time we saw each other I was in high school...which would be ten to fifteen years ago! Hopefully we'll stay in better touch. It's funny what you remember about people. I remembered that Andy was a sharp dresser, and always had cool jackets and blouses (didn't change!) and that Uncle Don was a natural story teller, and that I LOVED it when he told a story, it was somehow so real when he told it (also didn't change!).

Don is my grandmother's brother, and since she died when I was just a few months old, it was nice to learn more about her, and he sent me some amazing pictures of her that I'd never seen. My favorite is this one - I think she's 16, in Seward, about to graduate high school. She's the one on the left, and she looks so beautiful and alive, with her whole life ahead of her. It's a good picture of a good place in everyone's life.

Shirley, my grandmother, is on the left

I hope we meet up again soon, and that my husband Rich can come along too.