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

Another year, another Crabfest

Here in Kodiak, the last day of school marks the start of Crabfest. This local event has been known to disappoint folks from big cities expecting something a little more, um, big, but this year everyone was excited about Crabfest. The reason was simple: the weather. We had a streak of exceptionally warm, sunny weather that had the whole town grinning from ear to ear all weekend. 


The weather made it easy to stay out all day Saturday, starting with the morning parade (Iris got to march--with me, of course--as a "Shrimper").

Interesting piece of trivia: These friends will (sadly) soon be moving to the New Orleans area and will live very close to where we lived in Metairie, Louisiana over a decade ago.

Rainbow once again rode a horse and enjoyed it with serious intensity.

We also discovered that Rainbow absolutely loves king crab. She ate about $20 worth of it over the weekend.

That's her "rock star" face. She makes it when shes happy or excited.

After looking at booths, eating crab, and having a (short-lived) adventure in the bounce house, our first day of Crabfest ended with a toddler passing out on her mama's back. She woke up from that nap muttering, "Where we going?" I loved her presumptuous question, the idea that there was certainly somewhere interesting to go, and her readiness to go there. It's summer. I want to have that openness and readiness, too. Let's get going, summer. Kodiak, here we come!

A sunny day and a snowy day

I keep hearing people who have lived in Kodiak longer than I have saying that this has been a difficult winter with an abnormal amount of rain and even less sun than usual. So last month when we had a "warm," sunny day one weekend and a snowy day the next, both were unusual, and we got out and enjoyed the weather as much as possible.

We had a picnic at the end of the road at Chiniak. It only takes a little over an hour to drive out there (well, longer if you have a recently potty-trained toddler who is obsessed with peeing outside).

There are always wonders to be found on the beach.

It may surprise you to know that Kodiak gets very little snow. March 20 was our first real snow of the winter--and our very first opportunity to take Rainbow sledding. She loved it!  

It was a good thing we went sledding in the morning, because even by noon much of the snow had melted. That's very typical for Kodiak. 

Berries and birthdays

Since I started working full-time in August, and we moved to a new apartment near the beginning of September, we haven't had nearly as much time to enjoy Kodiak as we would like. We have, however, had a little time to celebrate two things: the autumn berry season, and Rainbow's second birthday.

This summer, I didn't pack away nearly as many salmonberries or high bush blueberries as I had hoped to. With the summer berries long gone, my last chance to stash some free fruit in the freezer came in September, when low bush blueberries and low bush cranberries (a.k.a. lingonberries) are usually at their best. We  were disappointed to find that this was a bad year for the blueberries, but we did manage to get a few cups of lingonberries while also enjoying the gorgeous views from the top of Pillar Mountain. 

September 6 marked Rainbow's second birthday. We celebrated the following weekend with a few of her friends. In true toddler fashion, she refused to eat cake when it was time to eat cake and showed no interest in opening presents until all but one guest had left. But what a joy it was to celebrate two years with this delightful person in my life!

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?"

Crab Fest

Every year on Memorial weekend, the good people of Kodiak, Alaska celebrate Crab Fest. It is, by far, the biggest event of the year, and there is an excitement surrounding it that certainly rivals the anticipation of much bigger events in much bigger places, like Mardi gras in New Orleans. 

If you are used to larger, more polished events in more metropolitan locations, you might not be impressed by our small town parade; our midway with modest tents and trailers selling food, drink, and souvenirs; or the relatively meager line up of rides and games. T and I were unimpressed last year. But this year, I got into it--and this even though my poor husband was bedridden with the flu and completely unable to join in the festivities.

Rainbow and I watched Saturday's parade with friends, and I loved seeing her enjoy it, collecting trinkets and books given to her by people in the parade and waving as they went by. Inspired by her enthusiasm for the parade, I did for her something I never thought I'd do--I stood in a line for at least half an hour so that I could pay $5 for her to ride a horse for about 45 seconds.  She loved it so much that she cried when she was taken off the horse.

On Saturday afternoon, Rainbow and I walked by all of the booths, watched people on the rides, and ate somewhat cold (because of the weather, ya know) fish and chips while listening to a brass band play. We didn't do everything there was to do, or see everything there was to see, but I felt somehow very present, and that was nice. 

On Sunday, I left Rainbow at home with T (still semi-bedridden) to watch our neighbors' marimba band perform at Kodiak's beautiful public library. There's something very satisfying about hearing a marimba band when it's 40 degrees and raining outside. If you're interested, here's a video with a few snippets of some of their songs. Our neighbors are the two blonds with the most interesting hair.

Circle of friends

There are some experiences we don't have many photos of, not because the experiences aren't worth remembering,  but because we were too busy living them to worry about taking pictures. That was the case for the road trip T and I took about a week and a half ago.

First, we drove up to Brattleboro, Vermont, to visit Jack and Sher. T and I know Sher from the community college the three of us worked at in Wyoming. She was and still is a mentor to both of us. 

Next, we drove to Hamden, Connecticut to visit Jonathan and Leslie and their three girls. We met them in Morocco, where they became very good friends to us.

I love these girls.

The two eldest helped me custom tie dye onesies and newborn shirts for Baby S. (and shirts for themselves, of course!).

And in case you're not yet getting a sense of how small the world really is, we currently live within a two hour drive of visiting my mentor from when I was in graduate school in New Orleans (that was about a decade ago) and just a few hours from an aunt in Virginia. 

Given how random it seemed that we'd ended up in Maryland, it's a nice feeling to have this unexpected circle of loved ones around us. I hope we'll have the same feeling at our next location.