The Mainland

As mentioned in a previous post, we spent the last two weeks of July on the Mainland. I'll just say here, bluntly, that we tried to pack too many things into one short trip--including family time, shopping, fishing, cultural experiences, and camping.

And now I'm going to try to pack too many things into one blog post.

First of all, the ferry ride: We had the good fortune to ride on the Kennicott, the larger of the two ferries that stop in Kodiak, and I have to say that, while the trip was not without queasiness, it was smoother and more enjoyable than I expected. 

Guess who loves riding on the ferry?

No ferry ride is complete without whale sightings.

One highlight of the trip for Rainbow and for and me was watching T and his dad go dip net fishing for sockeye salmon. Rural Alaska residents, a category that includes us, can apply for a subsistence fishing license that allows them to catch significantly more fish via dipnetting than people with "regular" fishing licenses. 

When the sockeye are coming in, hundreds of people drive their vehicles on the beach near the mouth of the Kenai River. Whole families come. They set up lawn chairs and grills. It's not rowdy, it's not a party scene, but there is a feeling of celebration. These people are catching food for their families. The fishermen and fisherwomen carry their ridiculously large nets into the water, where they stand and wait. The fish literally swim straight into the nets on their way to the river. On good days, a dozen fish can be caught quickly and easily.

T's dad in his fancy dry suit

T and his dad waiting for the fish to swim by

T and his dad didn't end up going on good days, but they did catch enough to get some salmon in our freezer. I'm thankful to them and to the fish.

Rainbow sharing a snack with her grandpa while he takes a break from fishing

Girl needed a day of rest after her big dip net fishing outing.

Most of the time when T and his dad were fishing, Rainbow and I hung out with T's mom. We also spent some time in Homer, Alaska, a beautiful, artsy town at the end of Alaska's well-traveled Sterling Highway. T's parents live near Homer. 

Rainbow got lots of snuggle time with her grandma.

View from the playground at Karen Hornaday Park playground in Homer

This seagull relentlessly shadowed this sea otter, hoping to get some nibbles of the crab the otter was eating.

We borrowed his parents' truck and camper for a five-day camping trip with stops in Anchorage, near Whittier, in Hope, and at Skilak Lake. 

Whittier, Alaska

Alaska is full of unique and fascinating communities. Kodiak is one of them. Another is Whittier, a small town on the mainland that I have been somewhat obsessed with ever since listening to an episode of This American Life that featured a Whittier resident. 

Being an isolated Alaskan village (population 220) does not make Whittier unique. It's history, it's accessibility, and it's housing do. 

Unlike most small, isolated villages in Alaska, Whittier is not an Alaska Native village. According to the Milepost, Whittier was created during World War II as a port and a center for petroleum delivery to northern bases. 

View of the tunnel from the Whittier side

Originally, Whittier was connected to the rest of the state via rail and water. Trains traveled through a remarkable 2.5-mile long tunnel through a mountain. Not terribly long ago, this tunnel was opened up to vehicles as well. The one-lane tunnel alternates in being open for trains, for traffic to Whittier, and for traffic out of Whittier. As we learned when we visited Whittier last week, not familiarizing oneself with the tunnel schedule can result in long wait times (for us, 45 minutes). 

Begich Towers

Even though the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel is North America's longest tunnel, it's not even what makes Whittier so unique. Over half of the village's residents, and many of its businesses, are housed in one building--the 14-story Begich Towers. The building was originally housing for the U.S. Army. What I find particularly interesting is that Whittier villagers have a history of living under one roof that goes back further than Begich Towers--the now abandoned Buckner Building played the same role in the past. 

The Buckner Building. If no one has yet written a horror or murder mystery taking place here, somebody should.

We visited Whittier last week on a short camping trip on the Alaska mainland (I'll blog about the rest of the trip later). Most people go there to get on a ferry or to take a glacier viewing cruise. We were led there by my curiosity and stayed only for a couple of hours. We stopped at a coffee shop (the Lazy Otter) on the harbor. Then we walked in the rain and then through a pedestrian tunnel (apparently Whittier is all about the tunnels) that runs below the railroad tracks and links the harbor to Begich Towers. There is a small covered playground beside Begich Towers (Whittier is known for its extreme weather as well), where we let Rainbow play for a while before heading back to the tunnel and waiting for our turn to go back through.

The day was cloudy and rainy, but I think that only highlighted the beauty of the village and surrounding mountains. Would I go back? Yes. There are hikes in the surrounding mountains with closer looks at the spectacular waterfalls that we could see from below. There are lovely glacier tours allowing one to view up to 26 glaciers in one day. Will I go back? Probably not. I got a taste of Whittier, and it only intrigued me more, but the world is great and vast and full of many other wonders I have yet to see at all, and I think their beckoning will pull stronger.

But then again, I said I'd never live on an Alaskan island, so you never know. Maybe I'll end up in Whittier again one day. 

Shuyak Island

Kodiak Island, on which the town of Kodiak is located, is only one of many islands in the Kodiak Archipelago. This large collection of islands is about as big as Connecticut. In addition to Kodiak city, the archipelago has six villages. All but one are located on Kodiak island, and all six are off the road system. 

Most of the archipelago is uninhabited by humans and untouched by marks of civilization such as roads, electricity, and cell phone reception. This includes Shuyak Island, located at the northern end of the Kodiak Archipelago. Most of the island's wilderness is part of Shuyak Island State Park, which T, Rainbow, my parents, and I visited this week. 

So how did we get to such a place? Well, we chartered a six-seater float plane to take us there. Both on the way out to Shuyak Island and on the way back, we flew low enough over the land and ocean that I could see individual seagulls flying over the water. 

It's a strange feeling watching an airplane fly away after dropping you off on a remote island. 

We stayed in Deer Haven, a rustic State Park cabin located about 100 feet from a calm rocky beach on Carry Inlet. We were the first guests of the season and had to do a bit of housekeeping to get the dusty cabin inhabitable for our three-night stay. 

Amenities on the premises included an outhouse (with a door that had rotted off its hinges); an outbuilding equipped with a hanging bucket that could, at least in theory, be filled with hot water for a shower; a stocked wood shed; a metal sink connected to a bucket outside the cabin that could be filled with water; a wood burning stove; and two sets of bunk beds consisting of thin, dusty foam pads glued to wooden boards. The cabin's fresh water supply had been mostly cut off by the local beavers, so we were glad T had thought to bring 10 gallons of drinking water with us.

I suppose we would have been surprised if we HADN'T seen deer from our cabin, given its name.

This picture doesn't do justice to the golden evening light. 

Somehow, miraculously, we had four warm, spectacularly sunny days and spent most of our time on the beach near our cabin. We gathered sand dollars and looked for crabs and jelly fish in the clear water of the inlet. We made a fire on the beach each evening. We cooked our suppers on the open fire and roasted marshmallows while we watched fish jump and listened to Canada geese, oyster catchers, and loons call to each other. 

Marshmallows!

We went for walks in the woods and saw lots of signs of bears but, luckily, never came across one. It wasn't quite the right season for fishing in that area, but my dad still gave it a try for the first time in his life. 

All in all, the trip was everything a vacation should be. T and I were delighted to get to see the more "wild" side of Kodiak and to share that with someone else. 

On the beach with all of our wilderness gear, waiting for the plane to pick us up

Kodiak Camping

The approaching end of summer (yes, it's coming) and a lot of gloomy weather prompted us, when we saw the sun peeking out of the clouds, to go camping one night each weekend these past two weeks. Both times, we chose Fort Abercrombie State Park because of the relatively low risk of bear encounters (more on that below) and because of its proximity to home, in case things went awry (it's on the edge of town and less than a 10 minute drive from our house).

I have been there so many times that I sometimes forget that the place is spectacularly beautiful. The State Park is quite tiny but still boasts great diversity: tall seaside cliffs from which whales and puffins can be seen (although, sadly, not by me); beaches with tidepools filled with crabs, starfish, anemones, and urchins;  wildflower fields; mossy spruce forests; springs and a lovely calm lake and military bunkers so old and overgrown that they have become part of the landscape.

We went to the beach at low tide, allowing us to walk far out into a rocky area that is usually underwater and encounter these rocky "steps."

This is where we walked--a little tricky with a squirmy toddler on your back.

The only downfall of our trip was sharing a two-person tent with a toddler who hasn't (successfully) shared a bed with us in nearly a year. She loved being in the tent and fell asleep in it by herself quite nicely, but things went south once we crawled in there with her. It didn't help me to get sleep the second time we camped when a park ranger visited our campsite to warn us there was a young bear prowling around the area. We never saw or heard any sign of him, although since then I've seen multiple pictures of the bear on Facebook. 

Despite the lack of sleep, all three of us felt rejuvenated by our

quick 24-hour forays into the "wilderness." My child stuffed herself with salmonberries, we roasted marshmallows and cooked fish in a fire and made pancakes with a camping stove and sat lazily on the beach and rarely looked at our clocks. It was life as it should be.

And now, without further adieu, a ridiculous number of photos of my child:

If your kid sits in a puddle, just take off her pants. Who cares? You're camping! Oh, and she's pointing to a tuft of grass saying, "That's a sea anemone."

She kept asking, "Where's the other one glove?"

Why traveling with a pregnant lady can be annoying

It was pretty fun, but we're both walking mosquito bites now.

T and I went on another camping trip this weekend, this time to celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary. The drive to our destination was only about two hours, but it got me thinking about why traveling (and camping) with a pregnant lady might be annoying. And when I say "a pregnant lady," what I really mean is "me."

First of all, I'm forgetful these days. (Yes, even more so than usual.) This means you need to be prepared for me to run back inside the apartment two or three times to retrieve my water bottle, my purse, my cell phone, the grocery list, etc. Occasionally, you might drive a couple of blocks before I ask you to turn around because I forgot _____.

You must also be prepared for me to announce at any moment, "I'm hungry!" And I will need food immediately. (This may become one of the many reasons that I need to run back inside the apartment before we leave.) I am not doing this to be annoying. I'm doing it because I experience only two states related to hunger: 1) not hungry (a.k.a. "uncomfortably full"), and 2) suddenly very hungry.

Any time you see me take a sip of water, start looking for a rest area or gas station, because two or three minutes later, I will tell you I need a restroom...also immediately. Announcements of the need to pee can come at any time, regardless of how little time has passed since the last pit stop.

I will complain about the discomfort of sitting in the car, but I will probably also slow down any walking or hiking with complaints about a stitch in my side or constant comments about how tired I am.

When camping, I will wake you up every hour with my tossing and turning, complaints of congestion, and bathroom breaks.

Luckily for most of you, you are too far away from Maryland to worry about being trapped in a car or tent with me anytime in the next three months. At the least, though, perhaps this blog post has increased your respect for the infinitely tolerant and patient T, who put up with un-pregnant me for 10 years and has put up with pregnant me for several more months and continues to claim to want to keep on living and wandering with me and with the child who will (poor thing) be half me.

Happy anniversary, T.

On camping

My husband loves camping. Over the years, he's slowly been collecting more and more camping gear, although the truth is that the two of us have only gone camping together a handful of times.

As an Alaskan, T has a particular definition of camping which he sometimes struggles to widen enough to encompass what passes for camping down here in the "lower 48." My impression of his definition of true camping is that it must involve the following four features: 1) Trekking some distance and carrying all of one's camping gear along, 2) absence of other humans, 3) absence of bathroom facilities or running water, and 4) the possibility of bumping into large carnivorous animals. T asked his dad for a list of essential camping gear, and it was 7 3/4 pages, single spaced, when printed out. Camping is serious business for him.

T is happy after setting up his new tent for the first time, at Susquehanna State Park.

I am largely unfamiliar with this method of camping. As a Midwesterner, for me camping involves loading up a camper with easy-to-cook food, life-sized cooking and eating utensils, suitcases, maybe even a bicycle for each person, and driving some distance (maybe as little as just a few miles), and setting up the camper at a camp site. Alternatively, one might load up a car, truck or van and "rough it" in a tent, but that tent is likely to be the size of a room or even a small apartment.

Throughout the years of our marriage, T has been under the impression that I hate camping. I guess I can understand why he thinks that, given our very different definitions of what constitutes camping and our differing tolerances for different aspects of camping, which I can illustrate with a discussion of our most recent camping trip (and the first in at least two years) to Susquehanna State Park in central Maryland.