Those Back-to-School Assignments

Remember when you were a kid and returned to school in the fall and the teacher told you to write an essay on what you did that summer?   So, you took your pencil, or pen if you were in the upper grades, and sat there chewing on the pencil, turning it over through your fingers, or trying not to bite the eraser.

 

You were wondering what you HAD dome that summer and thinking, “Did I really waste the whole summer doing nothing that I can remember?”

 

It is now the final days of September and I DO remember what I did this past summer because I just recently finished the chores.

 

MAY:   picked up litter over 17 miles of the Seward highway.   I would have kept going, but I was expecting friends from Canada and we, along with another friend, were going to fly to Nome on June 2 to photograph migrating birds and the local musk ox.   That meant I had to spend the last week cleaning house and getting my gear together.

The Arctic terns have returned to Alaska.

Getting the downed dead trees out of the forest.

A small part of litter I picked up.

 

A red breasted merganser on the stump.

It's spring.   Pussy willows are blooming.

Silhouette of an Arctic Tern that has returned to Tern Lake from Antarctica.

Cleaned up pieces of debris here.

Yellow-rumped warbler, a migrating bird.

Marg, Shelly and I visit the most famous red-necked loon in Alaska.   His name is either Romeo for Ivan the Impaler, depending on your experience with him.   He spends his days braying at floatplanes and terrorizing photographers.

JUNE:   Five days in Nome, a place I’d never been.  Driving up and down the only three roads out of town, as well as the town cemetery.

 

Wilson's Snipe

Long-tailed jaeger on the tundra.

Train to Nowhere

SCORE!!!    A Bluethroat, one of the main reasons I went to Nome.

                                    A lifer for me--first time I"ve seen one.

Pipit.   A lifer for me.

Rock Ptarmigan.   Another lifer.

White-crowned sparrow.

Long-tailed Jaeger

Musk ox

Another Bluethroat

American Golden Plover, a special lifer.

Lapland longspur male, a lifer.

Lapland longspur

There was a bit of snow in Nome.

Golden plover, a lifer

Wilson's Snipe

Godwit, a lifer

Safety Roadhouse, the last checkpoint on the Indiarof Trail race, 22 miles from Nome.

Marge, Shelly and I had a couple days to play tourist before they flew back to Canada.

Marg, Shelly and I on a day cruise out of Seward.

Sea otters in Resurrection Bay

Sea lions in Resurrection Bay

         Then, back from Nome, I had to get ready for my two cousins to arrive  from Montana and Wyoming.   

I had three sets of exterior stairs that were rotten and needed replacing.

The lumber is waiting.

Now the fun is over for the duration and the works begins. After recess, we'll revisit June.

The foxglove in blooming.

Fur and Feathers Journal, 2004, Day Three, Entry Five, Off and Flying

Off and Flying

L-R, me, Alicia, and Eddie.   Karl Arceneau photo

I wake to the tantalizing aroma of frying bacon and lie in my sleeping bag  thinking about the no-no of bacon in bear country.

 

I’ve always heard and believed that carrying or cooking bacon when tent-camping in the wild is a sure way to bring hungry, unmannered bears to your camp.   This morning, I have to laugh.  

 

Our tent camp in Lake Clark National Park and Reserve is surrounded by flimsy white tape that is electrified and is meant to keep the bears out of camp.   So far it’s worked because there is still bacon for me when I finally get out of my sleeping bag.

 

Even though the electric tape is unhooked during the day.

As feared, it's a cloudy day as we take leave of Shelter Creek.

 

My bags are packed.  This is our last morning at Shelter Creek and very soon our transportation will arrive to take us a little way north up the coast of  Cook Inlet to Silver Salmon Creek Lodge.   Imagine!  Running water.   Showers.   And, uh-oh, mirrors.  I’ve been wearing the same clothes for three days, day and night.

 

Ronnie sets about frying eggs to go with the bacon and—Ronnie's innovation—Blowtorch Toast.   It’s too chilly here for butter to be spreadable so a propane torch does the butter-melting honors.

Blowtorch Toast

L-R:   Alicia, Karl, and Ronnie

 

We learn that our co-host Karl is the mayor of a small town in Louisiana and that Ronnie is an artist and muralist of some fame.  He’s also a musician with his own band.   They are the best hosts owner David could have chosen for this camp after the regular host had to leave early.

 

Oliver arrives in his Maule light plane on HUGE Tundra tires and lands on the gravel bar that appears at low tide in front of camp.   He drops off some groceries and other supplies, then takes off and lands on the beach where he has more “runway.”

 

Alicia is the first to go with Oliver, along with luggage.   Eddie, who has been dawdling, has to make a sandwich out of his breakfast and carry it to the beach to await Oliver’s return.

Eddie, left, with his impromptu breakfast sandwich, and Karl

 

I look toward Iliamna volcano but it's all fogged in.

Our bags are waiting for us on the bank at camp.   We need to get them to the beach.

Saying good-bye to Karl ands Ronnie.

Three days, same clothes, no running water, no shower, no mirror.   Karl took this photo as I was settling into Oliver's Maule.

 

 Next:   Our afternoon at Silver Salmon Creek.