PS to the Yakutat Journals

I mentioned early on in the Yakutat Journals that JJ intended the trip to be more than exploration of new country. She'd had knee surgery the year before after rupturing the ACL in one knee. This trip was to help condition the knee. She had difficulty carrying heavy loads, wearing heavy hip waders, etc., and occasionally had to wear a brace on that knee.

I spoke with her a couple weeks ago. She had hiked to Bench Lake and back in one day--nineteen miles.

I'd say the knee was doing well.

The Yakutat Journals, Chapter Fourteen Minus One

(NOTE: No, I didn't skip a chapter and you didn't miss a chapter. I finally figured out how to write the final chapter of this Yakutat saga and not have it numbered thirteen.)

Chapter Fourteen Minus One: In which we leave Yakutat on a high note--except for my sleeping bag


JJ is the kind of person who loves to explore unnamed back roads. As a result, we found this place a little ways out of Yakutat. Besides the beautiful water, the first thing that caught our attention were all the bald eagles soaring around in the sky or perched in the trees and on the rocks.

An immature bald eagle. The head and tail turn white at three or four years.

A little investigation led us to a dock with this view:


That curving black line is a school of herring.



In this picture, the fish are swirling around.


And guess who's trying to catch dinner?



Hit and run...er...hit and fly.




Shucks. Next time I'll catch one.

We watched the eagles for a long time, then headed off to Chris's lodge to check into our room.




JJ chose to sleep downstairs to give her surgically repaired knee a break. I went upstairs. This place could have slept a dozen people. It also appears my Big Agnes sleeping bag has taken up permanent residence there because it wasn't with my gear when I boarded the ferry for the trip home. E-mail her, you suggest? Yakutat has neither cell phones nor internet service. I did call, though, to no avail so far.



Next morning we were at the ferry dock at 7 a.m, but had watched the ferry come right by our room earlier.



On board, the deck crew tied down all the vehicles.



We checked into our rooms and this time had to carry our sheets and blankies to our rooms by ourselves. All the smart stewards were out of sight.




Our room was the farthest to the left, just before the shed roof woodshed.


Part way across the Gulf of Alaska, we approached Kayak Island and this is where history jumped up in my face again. Today Kayak Island has an unmanned, automated lighthouse. The island is twenty miles long and averages two miles wide.



In 1741, Peter the Great of Russia selected Vitus Bering to chart the Siberian Coast and search for a land bridge to America. Bering's voyage led to the coast near Yakutat, where he spotted and named Mt. Saint Elias. Traveling north, they saw Kayak Island, and sent a landing party.


On the landing party was a zoologist named Georg Stellar. He collected plants and birds not seen in Asia or Russia. Named after Stellar were a variety of sea lion, the Stellar Jay, as well as eiders and eagles. He also made the first sighting of what became known as the Stellar sea cow, a relative of the manatee, which became extinct several decades later due to over-hunting.

(Those little white spots in the large area of forest, right center, is the lighthouse location. Click to enlarge the photo.)

Bering's name is applied to the Bering Sea, where the Discover Channel's series about crab fishing there is filmed. And, the Bering Strait, which separates Asia from North America also is named after the captain.

British explorer Capt. James Cook recorded seeing Kayak Island in 1778.

Eventually, though, it was bedtime for us latter-day explorers and this time I didn't have nightmares about seizures throwing me to the floor. We arrived in Whittier about 6 a.m., and it was raining.

But, I think I mentioned that in the first chapter, didn't I? Because it always rains in Whittier.

The End of the Yakutat Journals.

The Yakutat Journals, Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve: In which we are led to Sunshine Boy

I never knew Nathan Bremner.

I’d never met him nor heard his name. I never knew his parents or his friends, though I have reason to believe I’ve spoken with some of those who loved him. By default, that is, simply because I spent a few days in Yakutat.

Portion of carved eagle mural at Yakutat High School

When JJ and I asked the locals what we should see during our time in Yakutat, all mentioned the totem. There was something in the way they said it, something in their voices that caught my attention. I should have followed up on that, asked a few more questions.

The lake where we found Sunshine Boy.

I’ve seen lots of totems. There are a few in my area of Alaska, but they are atypical this far north. Totems are indigenous to the Haida, Tshimshian, and Tlingit peoples of Southeastern Alaska, neighboring British Columbia, and the Pacific Northwest.

Along the trail to the totem.

Totems are not idols to be worshipped, but are monuments of various types. Many are memorial markers.

Occasionally a shame totem is carved, such as the one erected in the fishing town of Cordova, Alaska. It, according to Wikipedia, “includes the inverted and distorted face of Exxon ex-CEO Lee Raymond, representing the unpaid debt that courts determined Exxon owes for having caused the oil spill” in Prince William Sound in 1989.

On our last day in Yakutat, JJ and I drove out to the small lake where the trail to the totem began. The trail itself was wide and well-constructed through the huge forest.

We walked quite a distance and began to wonder if we’d missed the totem. Finally, there was a break in the thick forest and we saw the lake again.

A short distance farther and we spotted the totem in a clearing.

A boardwalk over a small creek led us to the clearing.

The sun was directly behind the totem, which faced the lake.

Fastened to the base of the totem was this plaque. [Click on the photo below once or twice. That should enlarge it enough to make it readable.]

Not until I reached home and Googled Nathan’s name did I learn more about the young man.

Nathan was a Down Syndrome child whose nickname was Sunshine Boy. His family said he always knew when someone needed a hug.

He was also the eagle mascot for the Yakutat High School basketball team.

Display at Yakutat High School

During the 2004-2005 season, the team let Nathan play, setting up shots for him.

Nathan was diagnosed with leukemia. Before each game in the 2005-2006 season, the team dedicated their season to him, holding a 30-second moment of silence in his honor.

The Yakutat High School basketball team won the state championship that year for the first time ever. Nathan died on July 4, 2006, at the age of sixteen.

The plaque tells the story of how the totem came to be carved at Yakutat High School, with lead carver David Boxley of the Tshimshian people.

Once I learned the provenance of this totem, I understood the looks and tones of voice used by the Yakutat locals when they told us to visit the totem. It stands in a sunny clearing surrounded by wildflowers, beside a peaceful and picturesque lake, an appropriate place for the Sunshine Boy.

Note the eagle feather inserted behind the plaque.

The Yakutat Journals, Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven: In which things get spooky

Right up front I want to tell you I don’t consider myself psychic. I’m not a telepath; I can’t read minds. I don’t do séances. I don’t have ESP and I don’t see dead people. I don’t have a sixth sense—or any sense at all at times, for that matter.

I will admit that strange things have happened to me over the years, things I cannot explain. Sometimes—especially when I was younger—I somehow seemed to know things. I don’t have a name for it, and if I had to describe why it happens, the best I can come up with is perhaps at times I’m particularly in tune with my surroundings.

Other times, I’m oblivious, which is how I almost ran over a sandpiper in my driveway this afternoon.

But I wanted to get all that out of the way so there aren’t any misunderstandings later, after we re-entered the rainforest late that night in Yakutat, when circumstances got a bit out of control and approached eerie.

Looking back at all the photographs I took on that whole journey, initially I didn’t pay any attention to this photo. I took it earlier that afternoon as we were leaving Russell Fjord and climbing back into the rainforest. Just an anomaly, I thought, looking at that streak of whiteness. So what? Many of my photos have flaws or are not worth posting here.

Leaving Russell Fjord.

Then, late that evening as clouds were pocking the sky and making for a terrific sunset, we drove back to Cannon Beach to decide where to camp. This would be our last night in our tents. Tomorrow night, we would stay at the Yakutat Bay View Lodge and clean up before we reentered civilization on the ferry. Real beds. Showers. No mosquitoes.

We went back to where we’d camped the night before at one of the cannons and re-hydrated our freeze dried dinners. The beef Stroganoff with noodles doesn’t look very appetizing, but it’s tasty and filling, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.

Out on the beach, it was still very light, despite what this photo into the sun looks like. But in the forest, it was getting quite dark.

Sunset at Cannon Beach

We decided to drive in the opposite direction and try to find the campsites we’d heard about. We found the first one, but it was occupied, so we drove farther. At least a quarter mile farther, if not a half mile. We found site number two and stopped to check it out.

Cannon Beach camp site.

Darkness had swallowed this site. The opening to the beach was light enough, but behind that it was dark and dreary. And unsettling. I looked around and didn’t see any place I wanted to pitch my tent. I hastened back to the truck. JJ did the same.

“Let’s try number three,” I said. We were silent for a while and then I said, “I didn’t like that spot.”

Old military roads near Cannon Beach.

“I didn’t either,” she said.

“I think something bad happened there,” I responded.

“It definitely gave off bad vibes,” she said. I noticed JJ was driving a little faster than normal on the dark, narrow gravel road.

Driving through the forest near Cannon Beach

Now that that was out in the open, we then proceeded to tell each other the kinds of stories that no one should recite if they are going to camp in the forest primeval with nothing but mosquito mesh and a thin sheet of ripstop nylon between them and eternity.

We found site number three. No bad juju here, except once again the campsite was deep in the trees. “I’m camping right here,” I declared and spread my ground cloth on the gravel next to the truck. It was not out of fear. The parking spot was in the open, light, and had no clouds of mosquitoes. They were all in the trees waiting for fresh blood and a feeding frenzy.

JJ did the same but soon found she couldn’t drive her tent pegs into the hard ground. She gathered her stuff and went down to the campsite.

JJ (or her ghost double) near Cannon Beach.

I stayed right where I was, got my tent up in record time, my air mattress inflated, and my sleeping bag ready.

I woke up the next morning. And that, as they say when people find themselves still alive, was that. All the bad juju was gone. I still feel something evil lurks around site number two. The photos I took that night are eerily similar—fuzzy, with streaks of light.

Enough. We woke up. The sun was shining.

Now was the time to check out the two-sided log structures we had seen.

Open air outhouse guarded by devil's club.

It had an accessible wheelchair ramp.

And a metal contraption holding a toilet seat.

But the toilet seat went nowhere.

We had found the Outhouse to Nowhere!

I think you’re supposed to insert your own bucket under the seat and empty the contents in the vault toilet back at the main Forest Service group area.

Then we were off into town, taking the long way around. We found waist high chocolate lily…

Yes, I know the shirt and pants are way too big for me. I was camping, for Pete's sakes. Look at the chocolate lily instead.

And huge skunk cabbage.

JJ and the giant skunk cabbage.

And a train under a protective roof. These are pieces of equipment from one of most unusual railroads in the world. Built in 1904, the Yakutat and Southern Railroad operated for about sixty years, hauling salmon from the banks of the Situk River to a cannery and wharf in Yakutat. The entire line was only eleven miles long, but was a principle factor in the economy of Yakutat for six decades.

Yakutat and Southern Railroad preservation site.

During WWII, the railroad was used to transport troops and equipment to the shoreline of the Gulf of Alaska.

(For more info: http://yakutat-southern.org/historypage2.html)

Afterward, we drove back to that enchanting pond we’d seen earlier.

People had told us we really shouldn’t miss this. So, once again, we started into the rainforest…

(to be continued. Cheer up, we're almost done with this trip.)