Sitka

Only in Alaska. 

Sitka is the oldest settled city in the state.  It was Tlingit, Haida, Russian, British, Russian, and then the site of the purchase agreement to the USA from Russia but you still can't get there directly from anywhere and it is the size of a medium high school in the lower 48.  I think 17 miles of road and then you get the sign, end of the road and forest.  

Sitka Spruce in this case, tall, stately trees and the big, Brown Bears.  Bears that grow 1500 lbs. and 12 feet at the shoulder.  Bears that take the dumpsters up in the woods not just your trash cans.

Bear playing with a stump 

Larry and I just passed our 36 year anniversary and he promised me an adventure trip on the Alaska Marine Highway (ferry system)   It has been an adventure.  So far we ferried to Ketchikan, ferried to Wrangell, and ferried to Sitka.  

We were here for Memorial Weekend and it was lovely.  Everyone thanked us for bringing the sunshine.  Sitka is our on the open Pacific and takes all the rainstorms first.  Their longest stretch of no rain in recorded history was 9 days.  But we had a cookout and got a little sunburn.

Sitka has its own volcano, Mt, Edgecombe.  It is a fine looking cauldron luming over the harbor.  If it ever blows again, good by Sitka.  Their harbor is too small for cruise ships but they anchor off shore and the passengers are water taxied in to spend their $$.

The cauldron of Mt. Edgecombe

Russia left it's mark on the city.  There is a Russian Orthodox church built of wood.  It is filled with silver and gold icons, just amazing.

 

The Russian cemetery too was fascinating.  Headstones were carved from ship ballast stones and the Russians were here in the 1700s.

There was a need for a cemetery because some one was always fighting over this island.  There is even a modern National Cemetery here.  This structure is called the Blockhouse.  It seems to have been a guard house from the days of the Russian/Tlingit conflict days.

Yes, we are loving the city so much and our friends, Joe and Debbie are making us so comfortable (They have grass and running hot water!) that we decided to stay here another round on the ferry schedule.  Not only is it tricky to get here, you can only leave when a ship comes to port.

We will post more from some of the other attractions of Sitka.  Here is one last picture of Mt. Edgecombe and the harbor.

Our Latest Hostage/ Guest Worker, Guest Worker!

I gotta practice that term.  Guest Worker!

It happened.  We burned through all the eligible family members that we could con, er, persuade to visit Alaska for a work-cation.  The last guy, Zach, Beret's wife's brother was a stretch to even be called a relative but we got two good years out of him.  He actually moved on here in Alaska to a paying job but we won't hold that against him!

So we had started pulling nets with this year's products ourselves and were writing to Char send back ache liniment.  She sent instead the web address of a great site, ********.  It actually charges people to be matched up with us, the host.  

It is such a great site that Larry and JR want to keep it a secret so that all of the other farmers and locals don't get to the best workers before we do. 

People write a profile touting their skills and we can select from those that want to travel to Alaska.  We wrote up a listing for the location, the housing conditions, and the work involved with pictures and interested parties can contact us as well.

I don't want to brag about our writing skills or maybe it was the photography but we woke up the next  morning to the ping ping ping of incoming mail.  We were stacking them up! 

 It seems everyone between the ages of 20 and 40 dreams of taking a gap year and working on an oyster farm in remote Alaska.  They want to live off the grid, work from 3 a.m.  until 11 p.m. in the cold rain with wet, heavy nets, and stay on a cot behind the cabin with no running water.

And I told 'em like it is.  You will be chopping wood, carrying water, eating whatever you catch, and playing second fiddle to Brick, our dog.  He sits on the boat seat!

They pay their own way here.  They agree to work around 25 hours a week on the farm plus help with the living chores and we provide the room and board.

We heard from a couple from Australia, Poland, a girl from Malaysia, a Frenchman, a Scotts, several Brits, a Hoosier, and one guy from New York City.

We wrote back and forth with several people.  We ruled out the New Yorker right away.  Too citified.  After all these exotic applicants who do you think we actually invited?  A good ol' southern Indiana farm boy!  

Yep!  Lee showed up one week ago.  Jerry spent the weekend boating him around and taking him fishing and out to pull in the shrimp pots.  On Monday we put him in rain gear and he was soon elbow deep in oyster poo.  He is catching on quick, is polite, likes my cooking, and is willing to do whatever.

This weekend we are having a three day rainy, windy gale.  He still seems to want to stay.  We are all ready talking about  promoting him to management and pulling in more workers.  Jerry can take a different one out fishing and adventuring each day.

********, what a deal.

STINK

I didn't think he could ever top it but JR never lets you down.

The bear brain paste, as all our teenaged readers remember fondly, was a very popular story.  From a distance.

This time I am chased off the back and the front and the sides of the float by a tote.

When I screw up my fortitude and peek in the said odoriferic tote what do I spy but putrefying octopus skin.  

Why would JR save octopus skin in a tote to rot and smell you ask when the great natural waste basket, the Pacific Ocean is a mere short toss overboard?  I DON"T KNOW why he or anyone would keep such a container around civilized people.

Ask him, he just might be looking for a new place to store his stuff.

A One Bear Day or Musings From the Front of the Skiff

You saw the new front door.  It has been four days of high winds, hail, rain, sleet, the whole gamut of nasty weather that keeps us pinned down in the cabin so we were ready to go out even though it was still a heavy mist.

We were boating around the outer islands looking for treasures which is what we often do after high winds.  Not everybody ties things down and not everything that is tied down stays.  Heck, we often find things that we lost after a blow.

So, there I am standing in the front of our skiff  perusing the shore lines and I am thinking of Dad Ryggs.  A long time ago I bought him a mug that he loved.  Printed on it was, " You can always tell a Norwegian, but you can't tell him much"! 

Ryggses are Norwegian.  But, I am thinking, you can always tell an Alaskan too, by the way they stand up in their boats.  Now granted, I haven't been around a lot of boaters before here except lake ski boats and you DON"T stand up in those.

Now local Alaskans ( I would say native but around here natives are Native) always stand up in their boats be it large fishing boats down to 12 footer skiffs with hand tillers.  I have seen them put extensions on the tillers so that they can steer while standing.

So, when we got our own boat I started practicing standing.  It is a little tricky what with the wind, waves, and a husband that isn't above jerking the steering wheel.

I learned that it is all in your stance.  You gotta stand wide with slightly bent knees, loose hips, and sway with the movement, kinda like riding a horse without the smell.

By now I am pretty good at standing and ready to move on to phase II.  It is about then that I realize that I don't know what phase II is.  Why am I standing here???  Am I looking for whale? rocks? rogue logs? the next island?  Am I to be ready to bale out at any second? 

 Why do Local Alaskans stand up in their boats?

Oh, and while we were out there on the water we saw our first bear of the year.  It was a really pretty, velvety black one, seemed rather big.

Eagles

Larry says when we quit looking at eagles we have been here too long.  I guess we haven't been so far because we are still watching with open- mouthed wonder.  

This spring the eagles have been extra active or else they have relocated to the front of our happy little acres.  We sure are seeing a lot of activity.

In fact, when you next visit...Larry brought back greenhouse sheeting and started building us a nifty little viewing front porch.  Here in Alaska they call a porch a wanagan.  Regardless, of what you call it we are going to have a snug, warm, dry front viewing area on the float.

The guys are sitting out there all ready but it is only a roof and one side covered so far so I think I will wait a spell.  I have two porch rockers and little snack tables waiting.  Send working wishes north to Larry.

So back to the eagles.  In the spring our circle of life starts with the growing of the kelp.  Herring come  in and lay their eggs on the new leaves ( and I am talking Alaska leaves _ 40 footers!)  Then we have hatch lings and bigger fish move in to gorge on them.

The next stage is the predators of the fish, seal and the swooping eagles.  I think the eagles are the top of the areal cycle but the seal get eaten by Orca in the water.  It is a rough life around here but quite the show.

So again, right now we have eagles in the cedars lining our beaches.  When they spot the sparkle of scales too close to the surface they dive bomb down for a tasty mouthful.  You can see them perched on the rocks post dive with a talon full of fish.  We always know that it is an eagle by that round little golf ball white head.

I've often wondered what the adult children eagles do.  They think that nest is home but then they get rooted out by a new setting of eggs...  There is a definite pecking order.  Last fall we put deer carcases on shore where we could watch.  There was a lot of fussing and fighting but the older eagles ate first while the juveniles waited.

It is springtime now and mating season.  Eagles mate for life and use the same massive nests.  We are lucky to have some nest trees on the farm.  Right now I can hear eagles twittering.  I like it when I hear them fly over me.  Those long wings make an audible swoosh as they power by. 

Eagle mating is a spectacular display of tandem wind gliding and turning patterns culminating in a joining dive that hopefully ends before they hit the surface of the water.  I actually saw one eagle barrel rolling.  I did not know that birds could fly upside down but I saw it!  Jim said that he has seen more than one couple smack the water.

  It gives us a rush to watch!

Dreams of Shellfish Farming

Ok Kiddos,
You wake up early on a Saturday morning to the news that it is 30 degrees outside.  It is so foggy that you can barely see the decks and it is raining.  So, do you :
 A. roll over and go back to sleep? 
 B. grab some pop tarts and catch cartoons on the                
     tube  
C. dress in layers and go out to dig clams.

If you are a shellfish farmer the answer is C all the way.  The tides were right for digging so out we went.  It takes a while to learn how to dress in the right layers for digging in our weather but I think I have it now.  I start with a tank bra, a set of wind proof long johns, and my SmartWool socks.  Over this goes a thick knit shirt, Army surplus wool long underwear, followed by a sweatshirt.  On the outside goes the rubber water proof coat, pants, liner gloves, rubber gloves, and insulated Mickey Mouse boots inflated for max warmth.  They weigh about ten pounds each leg so you better hope you don't fall overboard because it would be cement overshoes time.  I top this with a knit cap, face mask, and goggles.  We pack some water and snack bars and waddle out to the boat to cruise to the beach.

We see some otter waving at us along the way.  The sun comes up burning off the fog and stopping the rain.  The eagles are screaming as they glide the air currents preparing to mate. It looks like a great morning to dig.  As we have an order for clams to ship A.S.A.P. it had better be!

We pull up by a rock.  As I throw myself over the boat side, Larry anchors up.  Now the dream of every clam digger is to get five or six clams per rake. A more typical dig is five or six rakes to find one.  This time we were making twelve passes of the rake to unearth one clam.  We were teamed up, Larry wielding the rake, me picking the clams up and putting them in the bucket.

I was picking up everything too.  Alaskan beaches have layers of different species of clams.  We are licensed to sell the Littlenecks from 1 1/4 inch sized on up.  They are found two to four inches down.  Close to these are the pretty Cockle shell clams.       
They have long elbow syphons in them and make a great chowder. Under this layer you find the bigger Butter Clams.  These are great sliced in half, dipped in flour, and steamed in hot butter, but then, what food isn't good steamed in butter?  Deep under these are the otters' favorite, the Horse Clams.  To get to them, they plow up our favored clams, eating some and leaving the rest exposed to die.  As otter eat 25% of their weigh every day, that is a lot of digging area.

Those otter we passed must have been giving us the nanana razz berry not just waving good morning.  Otter had gotten to the beach before us and cleaned it out.  We just hoped that Jerry and Brick, the clam digging dog were having better luck on their beach.

Larry rolls me back in the boat and we go scouting for that dream beach where the clams are laying thick on top of the sand waiting to jump in our buckets.  A beach that the otter have not found.  A beach in warm sun shine...

Such are the dreams of a Shellfish farmer.

Keeping Us Afloat

We returned to less than stellar weather this spring so we spent some time inside, cabin cleaning.  

Unfortunately, every time I cleared an area, JR brought in more things to pile there.  With the weight of us, the snow, and rain in the logs we were hanging precariously low.  I mean, waves were washing over the decks and lapping at the doorstep.

For too many years we have been looking at different air bladders and floatation devices.  It had become time to act.  With the time crunch, we went with the time-tested low tech method of putting barrels under the float.

Over time we have collected the odd barrel floating by (hope that's not because they escaped from under other people's floats!).  We also made two quick (HA HA!) trips

to town to buy barrels.  I laugh because we are in year two of the ten year road rebuilding project here on Prince of Wales and no road trip is quick but that is fodder for another blog.

Lar and I spent a day running down a local guy who dives for hire. Now here is a job not for the faint of heart, diving in Alaska.  It was also not an easy task to find this guy.  People truly move to Alaska to hide out.  After driving around having numerous conversations with suspicious people or suspicious conversations with people along the line of we are looking for Jeremy and them saying Jeremy who, we gave up and went to the mail drop to wait on a plane.  The island drums must have worked their magic because as we sat there up walks a guy who says he is the elusive Jeremy.

We agree on $100 an hour (chump change for this type of work) and the day of service.  Then we had to hurry back to the float to ready the barrels.  That consisted of, unreal as it seems, removing one of the bungs from each top. Larry siliconed the other bung in tight.  The rule is, top bung in tight on the float barrels, bottom bung open.  Who knows these things? Supposedly, magic air pressure keeps them in place and dry under the logs.  We laid out our water bilge pump and our extra generator and air compressor and we were ready.  I could hardly sleep a wink waiting for the dive day to arrive, but arrive it did.

Jeremy dressed in his wet suit and spoke not a word but slipped straight in the water.  He didn't even shiver!  Wrong story, but it felt like the wonderment of Christmas.  

We had amassed 23 barrels for this first effort.  This was by Jeremy's estimate about 60 barrels short of what is needed to raise the place but hey, he is the guy getting paid to put them in place.

Placing them consisted of us bilge pumping water in to each one until it sank enough that Jeremy could swim it under the space between two logs then he displaced the water with our air compressor and voila!  We had rise! 

It truly was that simple!  He could place barrels as fast as we could sink them, about 10 per hour.  As if all that swimming around in a balmy 40 degree ocean wasn't enough he started cutting off the fouling that had grown under the raft that was further weighing us down.   The theory is you can stack barrels under a float like an upside down pyramid adding about 450 pounds of lift per barrel.

It may not be enough yet but we are all ready four inches above sea level and more ready for the next gale that will blow our way.

We were more than grateful to this intrepid diver for all his work and that was before he produced rock scallops that he found hitchhiking on the bottom of our home.   All that floatation and dinner too.  Where else but Alaska could you get that?