A Major Catching up for the New Year!

Since I have not written a blog in months and months and since pictures are more powerful than words, and since much of what we are now doing repeats what we have already done (no complaints here!) I am altering the format of this blog to include lots of photos and little commentary.

This is our yard with a very large moose calf standing next to the sign that reads "Ye Old Watering Hole, which is where we dump the beloved slop bucket that catches our water under the sink. Mama was on the other side of the house and you better believe that David took this photo and ran back into the cabin!



One event that Fairbanks holds in the winter is the Tired Iron which is a race (of sorts) of old snow machines. 

This photo was taken on 2/22/11 on or trip to Talketna

And the photo on the right is from Esther Dome.  Since Fairbanks is in a flat area amongst hills, the higher peaks are called domes and there are usually electronic equipment stations on each one, being the highest point in the area.

Of course, one of the main attractions in the area is dog mushing in all forms.  Here is a "fun" race at Dog Musher's Hall, right down the road from our cabin...weekly races for all sorts of amateurs.   Another great dog racing event is the North American Classic which is for great sprint runners.  It takes place over 3 days and starts right downtown Fairbanks.  There is quite a festival atmosphere involving great dogs running, big, giant dogs pulling huge weights and  a fur auction.

On of our last "winter" trips was a day trip to the Blackwater area and a skiing trip with friends. David in  snowshoes.   and I spent a good deal of time flopping around!

In June I was lucky enough to hook up with two ornithologists who took it upon themselves to check 9 boreal owl boxes along the Steese Highway going out of Fairbanks twice a week, from before the chicks were born to when they left the nest.

                            The owls are tiny..about 7 inches high at most!

In June we decided to take Fred on a shake down float on the Chena River to see how he did in a canoe.  He was GREAT!   And this moose was determined to get his photo on a post card!

Before we went on the Clearwater River for a canoeing trip David, Fred and I went to camp on its banks in late April.  Note all the snow on the ground.



We made our annual trek to Chicken for Chickenstock, the little bluegrass festival that a friend of ours runs at her parents gold camp in Chicken.  This year we added an actual gold panning trip to the gold camp of a workmate of David's.  Never again.  First of all it started to hail.  Then I got stuck in sucking mud and had to take off my boots to get out and then retrieve my boots by popping them out with a shovel.  Yuck! The people we visited had a real deal going and used a sluice box. But not us!And then it started to hail.  Yuck again!

Our first canoeing camping trip of the season was with Jack Wilbur, David's boss and 4th generation Fairbanksian and super canoer. On May 5th David and I with 2 other men and Jack went for an overnight trip on the Clearwater River.  Cold but really great and we learned a great deal about canoeing and camping.      

After this trip we never cooked on a coleman stove again.

 

We take the solstice very seriously here and along with the midnight sun baseball game which we have attended, we have the Midnight Sun race with over 3000 runners, from all over the country, many is costumes.  Fittingly it starts about 8 pm and, you will notice how light it is,   

 

It is the little things that count.

In June one of David's clients took us on a great flight over the Alaska Range.  We had hoped that we would be able to have him drop us off in August for a weekend camping trip, but the weather never cooperated.  But we had a great flight.  The funny thing is, he parks his little, fabric covered plane right in his backyard!!!       Believe it or not, this is the body of a WWII  plane that crashed into the tundra in the 1950's.

We had a lovely 4th of July in Homer, listening to Dylan's band, Burnt Down House play at two fundraisers and then ride in a fire truck with Fred in the 4th of July parade.   And Fred had a chance to visit his bigger twin Eire.

In August we had friends come to visit and we took them on our favorite trip, canoeing on Tangle Lakes to fish and camp.    T he only hard part is a double portage up and down very steep and rocky hills with a canoe on head.  I was exempt because of my extreme old age...and it was my birthday! But the fishing and  berry picking were great even though it was cold and windy!   We were lucky to see a father and his 10 year old son shoot a caribou right on the bank of the Delta River as we were floating by, so we stopped and looked at the fresh kill.    Since they already had one caribou in their raft they were going to be quite overloaded but quite well set for the winter!

A big trip for us was the Labor Day trip to Haines and Skagway, 1600 miles.  The big draw...bears!!!! 

 

 

Skagway is the head of the famous Chilkoot trail that the miners used to get to the goldfields in 1896, and home to some magnificent mushrooms! Fred on our tent. 3 is a crowd! And the famous sand hill cranes that migrate through Fairbanks to great thrills of all.

I was so lucky to go winter camping with Peg Billingsley, the musher that I am helping in her training for the Yukon Quest 2012.  here we are at -10 camping overnight.  I built the fire!!!!

     

 

  we celebrated David's 60th birthday with a cookout.  Turned out to be the last warm day of the year.  He received many gifts of frozen local game meat like moose, caribou, grouse, salmon, & halibut cheeks.- Only on Alaska.

Barrow...Top of The World

Very soon after I came home from Bethel, I went to Barrow with two lovely folks from UAF. WHAT A GREAT PLACE!!!!  Truly the top of the world. 

Barrow is the largest city of the North Slope Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska.^[2][3] It is one of the northernmost cities in the world, and is the northernmost city in the United States, with nearby Point Barrow being the nation's northernmost point. The population was 4,683 at the 2000 census, with an estimated population of 3,982 in 2007. 

 

We stayed in a hotel that ws exactly across the street from the airport on the main road.  This is truly a whaling town and the whaling captains are the kings.  Each crew hacks a path across the sea ice which is about 2 miles to the open ocean) in the spring to drag his whaling boat to the open leads to hunt for spring whales.  Each town is allowed so many strikes per season.  A strike is a throw of the harpoon, so the whalers are quite careful as to what they aim at.  Catching the  a whale is a big deal and the culture is such that sharing is so important.  The cvaptain of the crew that catches the whale has the honor of dividing up the whale and each member of the community gets a piece, with the elders getting the best pieces.  Then it is up to the whaling captain and his wife to throw a feast for the whole village.  There is a whole section of Barrow named after one of the large whaling families. All in all, I found Barrow a very friendly place.

Point Barrow is the tip and many, many scientist come there to study to sea and its ice as well as the whales.     This is the road to Point Barrow.  It goes past the fish camps where the Natives go every year from their houses in town to fish, and dry their salmon.  Notice the sense of humor in the "parm trees" made of whalebone and baleen.  Barrow is known for its football team.  Can you imagine?  Note that we are above the tree line and, even if it were not snow covered which happens in about July) there is nothing green.

The highlight of my trip to Barrow was a trip onto the sea ice.  There are many scientist in Barrow and someone told me that if I asked, and someone was going out to the open water they would take me.  Well they did, but it was not a casual trip.  Frist of all I had to acquire arctic gear including jacket, pants and double lined bunny boots. Then a snow machine was produce, and when I told them I had never driven one before, a driver had to be arranged for.  So, we had this great snow machine with heated handle bars! and a native guy who carried the biggest gun I had ever seen (for polar bears).  Then there was a discussion as to whether I could weild a pick axe, because apparently anyone who goes out has to contribute to hacking the path to the ice.  Luckily the path was complete by the time I got there so I was excused.  Silly me.  I thought sea ice was like pond ice.  It turns out it is like an ocea that has been flash frozen with So we went to the edge of the ice where a lead had just opened up.  The scientists where makinga "perch" from which they will watch the spring whale migration by standing their in shifts 8 hours a day counting whales as they go by.  When I was there a lead had just opened and they predicted would close again that night.

  This is the perch they were building.     Here are some scenes around Barrow, which seems to start getting snow in August which lasts until July,    Whalebones everywhere!         I was in love with the way this little girl played around.      Baby aboard!  Here is a skin whaling boat.  Can you imaging hunting a whale in one? This is a view from the end of the street where my hotel was located.

Note the prices!      A gallon of water was close to $7.00!!!

Here is a great example of, what up here is called a sun dog.

Bethel, Alaska

Bethel, Alaska
I was so lucky to be able to travel to Juneau, Bethel and Barrow for work in April. I went to Juneau with folks from my program, RAP, for a cofnerence with others in programs like ours. While there I met with Andrew Heist, Dylan’s friend from grade school and his lady-friend, which was quite a treat. Juneau, the only state capital that you cannot drive to, is very beautiful, sandwiched between mountains and the sea. it is all green, and white and blue, except that it rains quite often so it is mostly gray. I had to leave Juneau early to go to a conference and do some recruiting in Bethel.

David was able to meet me in Bethel for the weekend, which,luckily for us, was Camai, the huge Native dance festival.

Bethel (Mamterilleq in Central Alaskan Yup’ik) is a city located near the west coast of the U.S. state of Alaska, 340 miles (550 km) west of Anchorage. Accessible only by air and river, Bethel is the main port on the Kuskokwim River and is an administrative and transportation hub for the 56 villages in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

Bethel is the largest community in western Alaska and in the Unorganized Borough, as well as the 9th largest in the state, with a population estimated to be 6,356 in 2006.[3

Camai was held in the high school gym for three days and nights, going until about 1 am every day. Most of the speaking was in Yupik, the local language, because it is the language that the schools use until 4th grade. Many elders, many little kids and lots of teens coming and going all day as well as many dance troops from all over the area.

Below are photos of the Tsimshiam people who are known for the button blankets. Each group has great, decorated drums.



We were able to go to a free Native dinner with traditional food including seal stew and Akutaq, Eskimo ice cream which is crisco, sugar and blueberries whipped together.



Towards the end of Saturday evening all the drummers were called upon to march around the gym, drumming on their huge skin drums as hard as they could. Very powerful and very beautiful! Camai had a wonderful mixture of young and old, and some of the oldest were the dancers. This old lady was our favorite.

The craft fair had wonderful art that we have not seen elsewhere, and the museum also had very unusual work. First the museum pieces:





This fish skin doll was for sale. Bethel is quite desolate but had some humor as well as seen by this dumpster. What you see here are salmon drying on a rack in the back and the large, sort of yellow thing is the waste water container that is sucked out overy week.

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