Running the Gamut

Temperatures have fluctuated more than 50 degrees recently, but a common theme these past few days would have to be just plain cold. Snow has fallen, melted, fallen and blown away time and again. Rain, wind, sun and then repeat is the theme. Ice has started to accumulate on the lake in coves and bays where there isn't enough movement and the lake ice begins. It will fluctuate a bit, forming and breaking, melting and growing but one of these days it will be here for good.
There are limited things to do around the property, and even more so for exercise, so swimming has been a nice change of pace. The water temperature is a steady 35, and it really isn't noticeable with the suit on, hood and gloves. The cold part is actually the time between taking the suit off and the shower. Either way, it is very peaceful to be floating out there, doing laps and drifting with the current. I can't say how much longer this will last, but I hope to continue while the temperatures are above zero, and will most likely find a few days a month to get out there all through the winter and into the spring.
There have been some absolutely beautiful moments up here with the sun rising at a lower angle, combined with low temperatures that make a nice fog and decent photos.
And the best part of all, the fox is back! I can't be sure its the same one as years past, being extra friendly and carefree, though how many tame foxes are there in the wild? I won't complain if its not the same one, at least its company. Here are some photos of the past week or more. I'm hoping to have a nice Thanksgiving up here in a week, and hoping that a fox will join me for the holiday feast. The menu should be close to the following- Duck (whole/roasted), Stuffing and Pumpkin Pie. I might add some yams or something else, but likely there will be too much food as it is, and more would be gluttony. We'll see.

Enjoy-

Someday never comes

A break in the rain was the warmest reception Alaska has had to offer in the past month, and only but three or four times. I wasn't afraid to take advantage of the calm, before another storm I might add and this time it would be snow. I spent a little time on the river, boating up and down while enjoying whole heartily a dry and bug free evening. A solid month of showers, flurries and or both has the river raging at its peak, generally spring time flow. The usual boulders and identifying landscape are submerged and all to elusive while the rapids have grown more intense and creating quite the echoing roar. I have had the enjoyment of riding the river in its full length a few times now, both for work and pleasure. During the last severe wind storm, I had lost all communications to what I had believed was due to natures uneasy temperament around this time of year. However it was a logistical error on someones part back in the big city to announce a switch over in modem frequency... needless to say I, along with a few dozen other remotely located people around the state were isolated further by this oversight. Nearly a week later, a rainy boat ride into Aleknagik, a nice drive into Dillingham, there at the airport sat a new modem for me and all would soon be well.
The time away from computers and phones was a short lived and exhausting little ordeal, going through the emotions of boredom, excitement and wonder, to boredom and deep boredom. I wonder what everyone did when we weren't so connected to the world, having someone a fingers touch away online and yet thousands of miles in between. I'm still at a loss for  words to explain those thoughts and feelings occurring last week.

A rare glimpse of my cabin in sunlight-

The saying is too true... "red sky in morning.... and its going to be one miserable sort of day"

I'm not ready for my surrounding to look like this for six months straight but I'll accept whatever happens. It was a nice change from rain, and it really brightened the cabin inside, something the sun refuses to do. I didn't have to shovel much, but on the side of caution, I made the necessary removals in areas that I keep cleared out in case this was the point of no return. Substantial rains followed and made a massive soupy mess of everything, and the lackluster of gray continues on.

At it again - The beginning

Waving goodbye and being peacefully alone was one of the most anticipated moments I had been waiting for all summer, as yet another autumn in Alaska begins. The rugged landscape changes little if any in form, only in color as the leaves become a lovely burnt red and deep, bright yellow. The leaves of color fall gently with a heavy frost in the stillness of morning and are scattered by the tens of thousands with a stiff wind. As quickly as the birch showed a fresh bud in spring, it has shed the foliage of a new season revealing a forest of tangled and naked sticks and twigs. Nearly eight months will pass before my scenery changes, though the color will make one final transition from the dull and bare greens and browns of the wooded surrounding, to a blinding and frigid white.

The thought that just  a short four months ago I was in this very chair, looking out over my little slice of paradise is a hard thing to grasp. Half of my mind believes that I never left while the other part knows full well I had a summer away, but excited to be here once more. It will take a few days to re-adjust to my home away from home, but I feel quite relaxed being only day two. The cabin is nearly complete with my usual equipment and provisions for the winter, with the exception of a few things I hope to build in the coming weeks.


The best first morning views -

Here's to an exciting new season in Bristol Bay with a promise of adventure and uncertainty. I feel quite ready to face the elements of weather and isolation, hoping that this winter will fly by as the last season did. I have a few bears around the cabin and plenty of spruce grouse in sight. Things are shaping up quite nicely.....

* Merry Christmas *

A particular comfort it is, sitting by the fire while the sun retires and night presses forth. At three in the afternoon, I sit by these glowing coals and stare at my furry fox friends who bare the temperatures with ease. Not a shiver or sign of chill have they shown despite being thirty below. Just the day before, out in what seemed the worst and minus twenty, I just needed to take advantage of the blue skies while they lasted. I am continually grooming the trails to the lower lake and only about half way through the woods. Constant defeat and agonizing labor to free the snow machine from holes it sinks into, getting stuck in powder and near cemented in, buried to the handles. I build ramps in front and dig away near the back to rock it free, and to my efforts, twenty feet further I find myself digging yet again. I do enjoy the mere fact of having something to do and although it is hard work, I can't shy away from it. After all, on the other side of these woods there is a village and a town with a grocery store should I choose to satisfy my most recent cravings.

Some days when the air is still, the trees covered in frost and not a noise is made in all the forest, I just sit watching and listening to absolutely nothing at all. On these especially cold days, there are many situations that can arise from nowhere and be quite surprising and consequential. Luckily I found out in time to spare a digit, but not without a stern warning. Frostbite. I understand why it is not called frost touch. Fortunately, I was done with chores outside and came in for the day, not realizing the condition of my fingers and it wasn't until the next day that I really knew the severity of the bite. Numb to the touch but throbbing inside. I have obtained just slight bite on the ears and fingers, and will be much more observant and tuned in to such pains from here on out.

My fox friend knew a good thing when he saw it and was reluctant to welcome another of his kind. What filled one mouth is now shared among two. Should a third venture this way, I may just cut them off cold turkey. I do have a soft spot for them. Curious, energetic and full of fight. They go at it and snarl, yelp and bark, attack each other, chasing and tackling and biting.... but they are both rewarded the same. I did manage a trout for the original one, the day before his companion showed up. Should they have had to fight for it, that would have been too much. They often sit outside my door in the day, come running in the waking hours of morning and come from who knows where in the night when closing the door. Each and every time I make a noise outside the cabin, they look with anticipation and often discontent when I close the door empty handed. Never failing, they are around in hopes of food.

How quickly the snow accumulates, two feet here and a foot there....  I do enjoy most things about a good hard snow fall and I can even enjoy the removal for a time, but those tiny snowflakes sure do become heavy and burdensome after too many hours. Who might have thought the soreness and aching in the muscles would be a result from the lightly falling crystals from above. Anyone who has held a shovel in hand would testify to their weight and not so innocent being. Yes they look harmless but that is simply not true. Another ten inches I woke to this very morning, and riding the trails again to maintain their existence and not make my previous labor in vain. When the wind whips across the snow fields, down from the mountain sides or across the lake, the trails in the open vanish in minutes. Constant packing and riding them will create a disruption to the aerodynamic flows, thus making faint distinctions between untouched powder traps and my trustworthy packed trail. When you spend as much time removing the snow as I do, you will understand the obsession with maintenance.

My frosty days are more frequent and the bitter cold more present as we near the beginning of official winter. Weeks pass like days and the only sign of time are tracks of myself and the animals around that tell the travels and business we have in this land. I judge a day by energy consumed and observe the quality by the amount of relaxation. Even work is relaxing in some instances. Bringing wood down for methodical stacking is quite cleansing to the mind and running the snow blower to push large amounts winter aside is pleasing to the body for the pain it defers. Even the tediousness of making kindling is pleasurable both for the honing of accuracy and for the product of the evening fire. I did miss one day and while perhaps too relaxed, I was slow to react. Nothing a bandage would not fix. All of these little wounds, misfortunes of falling in the river and slipping on ice add to the story of life up in the more wild parts of America.  I am careful, but even when crossing the t's and dotting i's, one can forget a period or two. I like to live my days with an exclamation mark.


Christmas is only one week away and soon January will be here. I know at the end of that month will be half way through and much to my amazement, I don't know where those days have gone. I have lived each one, some more painful than others but I do wonder how this has gone by so quickly. I do believe that the whole month of October was an adjustment time, not knowing just how to prepare mentally for the upcoming months. November was settling in nicely and was over before it began really and now December is snow and soon Christmas. Maybe the new year will bring new feelings of time and it will seem more drawn out. As the months are now, I agonize over the loss of each moment that mimics and resembles the next. Losing those moments and subsequently time from a lack of differentiating between the two. Likewise for days and weeks, painfully savoring but a memory from what could have held a dozen. It is safe to say each day that presents a new task or chore or irregularity is often welcomed, cherished to some degree and is the only variety or spice in my life. Those little things that switch up routine make all the difference in my world.

Christmas for everyone down south, I wish you all a very merry season with each other, a great time to be among those you care for and celebrate in true form the reason for this holiday. For all who endure the lines, in grocery stores and gas stations, I hope there is plenty of patience and tranquility to go around. I will celebrate with a nice dinner for myself and prepare something tasty for my fox friends. I think of you all often,

Questions

 

 

 

 

The meaning of adventure to one person can be vastly different to another. I have heard it said, adventure is when things go wrong but until then, it is your plan.
Here in the twenty first century, I live close to a hundred years ago. Limited energy sources, no running water and I'm dependent on the respect given to nature. If you love something, you take care of it. I do love nature, but the idea of nature is something we have created. People for centuries lived in desolate places on earth, remote, self sustaining, and it wasn't that long ago when people were living as I presently find myself. That was their life. Nature to them was the unknown, the great Louisiana territory of the 1800's, the America's in the late 1400's. In today's world, people have closed themselves off to their roots in the earth's soil, they trade simplicity for complexity. Many people haven't the slightest ideas on how to provide for themselves, or steward the resources of their land which can provide. Concrete prisons are created in high rise fashion surrounded by thousands of others who think nature is walking in the park and sitting on the lawn for a picnic. That was a luxury for most back then, not nature today.
People couldn't conceive preserving wild forest lands and "nature", their very lives were lived there and so what exactly were they to preserve? Life?

The northern lands of this world must be relatively the same, differing in mountain ranges and water systems, but equally beautiful as to where I sit. One could say I was in Norway or Sweden, Newfoundland or Alaska, and I wouldn't know it. There are no mapped out boundary lines or degrees of latitude that define the earth's beauty. When you are on an adventure, a life altering experience, questions arise that wouldn't have come any other way. Questions you didn't even know you had, and some that you didn't know existed. Often there are more questions than answers, but when an answer hits you, it's that light bulb moment. Everything of concern is erased, all the random wheels stop turning. There is often an empty feeling, as if the only thing in your mind was the question and now the answer. It is overwhelming. Why must they be so personal though? Often the epiphany isn't understood, shared or conceived by others, and it isn't like you have just solved one of the world's dilemma's but instead there is only personal growth in that understanding.
I believe when someone has their heart set on something, change only comes within. The outward appearance can vary in direction, manipulate the minds of others and be a great deception but what lies within oneself, is the only true north. To that, they will live and breathe for. If you love something you take care of it.
So the passion that drives someone, the loves they have and the desire to care for them, is that not what we are to pursue? Who makes the call on what is a worthy passion and love and to whom does it belong? Are we of the mindset "individualism" in life or is there a relationship to community? To each their own? Probably not.
What might the world become if everyone examined and explored themselves through solitude, or is that idea flawed as well?

The winds are relentlessly testing the structural integrity of my cabin, and the trust I have in the builder is with my life.  I try to sleep through the great howling noise and violent shaking of the supposed solid walls. Each morning I awake one more time, not knowing how close I came to a tree coming down on the roof or if the cabin was lifted from the foundation. That is probably a good stretch to say, however there is much unknown when I sleep so long.
I received a call about weather rolling in. A warning as it were, the recommendation to be prepared for a severe weather front. The only good thing about the change is the warmth. Going from fifteen below to twenty above is most welcome and even if snow accumulates to feet, I'll have fun with it.

The ice picture above was just amazing to see. Cracks on the frozen lake bend and twist to create these colorful patterns and mesmerizing images, if you stare at them too long.
Should I be lucky enough for new snow, two feet or more, I'll be out grooming trails and shoveling to no end. I do miss the sights of a proper winter and blustering, snowy days. The warmth of my cabin and the window I stare out of is all the comfort I need but there isn't any sense in settling there, so warm cookies and tea lighten the mood even more. I wish I could give thirty minutes to every soul that wanted it this very moment.

With Christmas around the corner, time does fly by when you're having fun. Hard times do present themselves, challenging and perplexing as they can be, putting your left foot in front of the right usually overcomes any obstacle. I took my boat out of the river for the time being. There was too much effort in the upkeep, so it sits on land waiting for better conditions.

Fishing, oh that wonderful and frustrating past time. I continue to bring in the large rainbows but unfortunately I am wanting char to feed the fox. Not a hint of complaint in there, only fact.

House Cat

Twelve mice, shrews as they are known here have met the bitter end in nearly two months. Although traps continue to be active, an additional pair of night eyes with an appetite are the so called big guns that I have in reserve. My little buddy came in for a quick visit today, coerced by salami at first and then by curiosity and probably the odd sensation of warmth. Luxurious as it seemed to walk upon ground not frozen, to smell the wonders of food and in abundance that doesn't run and needs not catching, I couldn't allow him to stay too long and  become domestic. He has learned the time of day when I start cooking. He comes running and with those eyes, who could not resist sharing an easy meal. Salami is a good tasting, fattening protein that he seems to enjoy immensely, and I even spruced it up by heating it for some extra flavor on Thanksgiving. Luckiest fox in all of Alaska.

A thankful day I had. Thankful for beautiful weeks of endless blue sky and sunshine, for health and wellness in this frozen land and for my little furry friend who is more trusting than ever. This is the second Thanksgiving I've had up here, and another decent meal for the annual tradition. I didn't have Turkey, but chicken curry soup was more delicious on the cold day. Stuffing was baked, but obviously it wasn't ever stuffed, so it was just a bread casserole. To top off the evening was the classic pumpkin pie. Now I've often had many mouth watering cravings for Costco pumpkin pie, and although mine wasn't that, it was a very respectable comparison and a worthy rival.

    

Baking has also been a little reward for the survival of cold, quiet and often uneventful days. I started out with banana bread and used the recipe that I had two years ago. Somehow, I recall it being so much better and more moist. It would hardly last four days and a whole loaf was gone. I have healthy portions of the good things and over indulge on the really great things. Well, this bread wasn't as spectacular but it was edible and I managed just fine. Not feeling satisfied with just okay bread, I made a recipe of decent chocolate chip cookies and added walnuts, under baked them and made them thicker. I truly enjoy making each one of them just how I would love all cookies to be. No one would say, leave out the nuts, flatten them, make them smaller, they're not done..... instead, my mind was saying go bigger, more walnuts, go ahead and let them be what you want.
So on this pursuit to quench a thirst of sweetness, I melted down a large portion of dark chocolate and spread hazelnuts over a cookie sheet and bound them together with the most delicious smelling, pleasing to the eye, pure chocolate that ever saw this side of Bristol Bay. It tastes good.

Lately, cold and clear days give way to even colder nights with crisp moon light and negative temperatures. When the moon sets, and yes I am often up at all hours of the night, it gives way to the amazing star filled skies. I sit for some time watching through binoculars and see every twinkling. I have been partial to the sword in Orion's belt for it's galaxy like existence that makes the sword so bright. I do love these sleepless nights.
 River Bay is freezing across nicely and growing thicker by the minute. Large sheets of ice are coming down river, sometimes crashing into the shore and sometimes floating by as stealth and silent as they were formed. Wind gusts change the tune some days. Wind so violent that they blur the Internet and phone signals, shaking trees and tossing water many feet up the river bank. Below zero wind chill allows for remarkably quick building of ice formations, ice shelves and barriers. My boat is encompassed daily with ice up to twelve inches thick and in some parts of the shore over thirty feet in width. Water is one of the most powerful, natural commodities there is. Whether it's waves in the ocean or icebergs at the far ends of the earth, water in a liquid or solid state is quite impressive. Over time it washes away stone and forms caverns, and quickly it transforms to deadly, sharp ice that can tear through the metal hull of a ship. I dig and pry, hammer and heat to try freeing the craft from a death hold of some hydrogen and oxygen bonded together.
After a week of relentless freezing and attempts to dislodge the boat, I decided to move her off the ice and now she sits afloat a few yards from the bank. Sheets of newly formed frozen slush that couldn't cling to any one side of the river, discarded and rejected by the source, they are drifting on down, broken and battered by the rapids below never amounting to anything.

One of the worst things happened the other evening. It's four degrees, breezy and the sun is setting. I had been in all day and staying quite busy, had a fire going and was quickly roasting out. I slimmed down to shorts and my shoes, no shirt or hat. I had to go fetch water, which was just fine and even intended for a cool off but when I came back to the cabin, the latch on the door had somehow twisted out of place and locked permanently. No knife or lighter, no tools of any kind were in my shorts and at first, I thought I would just knock on the door as if someone would answer. There isn't anything to read into that notion of a companion, but I never had thought someone was with me before this moment, no matter how over stacked the wood I was carrying in, or the trouble I find myself in when getting the snow machine stuck. I don't know what I was thinking, but I guess I wasn't thinking. I grabbed a file and punctured a hole in the plexiglass to unlatch the handle and enter. I often think of scenarios when and if I fall in the water or through the ice. Never does that end well and I don't know how long you can function before the elements really take over, hypothermia and all. Not long. Standing outside perfectly dry and feeling the the piercing breeze through tender skin is how the thought came about.
Duct tape is the new addition to my front door, a small hole and a comical moment will forever mark this little cabin. And I am most definitely alone.

There are Christmas songs playing on the radio, having started just after the last forks from Thanksgiving dinners were washed and the promotion of shopping was overwhelming in my inbox. Emails for saving hundreds, by spending hundreds on things I don't need or have a want for. Up here I really don't want for much. I really don't need anything I don't have and most things I think of people buying are non essential for sustaining life. They may be fun, but that hardly impresses upon me the need to spend what I don't have.
I must conclude that " Black Friday" is indeed very dark.

     December is nearly here. A time when people expect and desire winter white to blanket the ground. It softens the calm life I live, dampens what little noise there is and purifies the land by hiding all deformities, traces of mankind and wipes the slate clean for a time. Not a shrew nor moose goes undetected in the meadows, not a falling cranberry or pine needle is without guilt in disturbing the pureness of white. I really enjoy new snow. I would hope for some soon, as I've done quite the job in ruining what is around. I could use a clean slate and a fresh start.

Little Pasture

Walking along the frozen banks of Lake Nerka and River Bay, was filled with nervous anticipation. A Spruce Grouse flies off in a panic just several feet away and makes every hair on the back of my neck stand up. It's time for the bears of Tikchik State Park to ascend into the mountains and start a very long hibernation, and also make any last minute kills, trying to suppress an insatiable appetite. I however, am by no means willing to be such an offering, so being alert and easily startled is acceptable, where as screaming like a little girl and paralyzed by fear is not.
Luckily on this small hike there were no bears or moose or fox or any other worth while animal to see except an occasional bird or two. I once was flying in Katmai National Park and upon our descent, we came right over a bear that had been grazing or doing something, but whatever it was he preferred peace over our presence. He started off in a full out sprint and I thought wow, a bear that weighs a thousand pounds running thirty miles an hour over rugged tundra. There isn't a chance I'd have if put in harms way. I've also seen first hand the power of ripping flesh from dead animals and the bone crushing jaws at work from these massive bears. I don't believe that my little legs jammed inside the bear's mouth would present any challenge and that I'd soon be another fallen victim to nature. Being out on this open plain really felt alarming, should any bear show itself and pursue me with intent. I was constantly looking at trees, the size of their limbs to hold my weight and whether or not I'd be able to get there. Jumping in the lake, should luck allow me to get there in time would only result in hypothermia and I'd wash ashore soon enough just to be picked up by the bear anyhow. So, as it would seem, the only option was to be loud with my yelling and trying to present it in the most menacing of ways. It sure is  silly to be out here doing all that, but it's a precaution and a safety measure.

I have yet to see one bear this year, and if I don't see one soon, I think my chances are near over for a sighting or encounter. That will be the first time in the last 5 years of not seeing one of these amazing animals up close. I won't be baiting any, but I'd like to have one come around, even if it's a little one that doesn't look too mean.

For six weeks, I've been without winter and finally we have snow. I opened my eyes and noticed a dull light, more reflective than direct and thought, has it snowed? No sooner did I look out the window but I saw almost six inches of fresh powder blown all around forming drifts and barren areas but none the less it was snow and mostly covering the landscape. A much welcomed change in scenery and a feeling that there is progress in being here, if not for something to do, but just for something different to look upon.
Today the snow would most likely accumulate quickly if the wind were to ever let it settle. Sideways as linear as it could possibly be, seemingly unaffected by gravity. That's just some strong wind, but it's snowing again and I like it. Hard to say how much there is, not but a few inches of fresh, a few spots of the old and a really great day to be inside drinking tea and writing about it.

     There are some really enjoyable moments up here to sit and think. One of which is the time when the power is off. I make some tea and sit in front of the fire with my book and after each chapter I sit there for sometimes hours just staring into the fire and getting lost in thought. There are times when the ideas I entertain are serious and need working out, others are for fun and imaginative. I like the latter more so because it's nice to envision being on some tropical island with fresh produce and an open sea to fish. The funny thing is that I'd sit on the beach for hours staring into the ocean or the horizon and dream of being next to a fire in a cabin with tea and a river to fish.
Some days I'll just go out and fish and the other day I did just that for my fox friend. I was hoping to get him a nice char for supper and so I did, but hours of calling for him, he never showed. I kept the fish in my net on the woodpile outside and later that evening when I was putting the generator in, I noticed that he had stolen his own fish. Maybe he only stole my enjoyment of giving it to him, but never the less he got his char and I suppose was pleased.

A really calm and sunny day allowed for a nice hike up the mountain. I wasn't sure how it would go with snow, but to my amazement I only slipped every other step instead of every single one.
It was worth the constant falling and sliding and two hours of realizing my out of shape heart needed this exercise. Once at the summit, I quickly put my sweater back on and gloves and bundled up. Snapped a few photos and headed back down. I am not one to look at a mountain and say, I'd like to climb that. I particularly like mountains with snow on them and that further deters my inclination to climb them.

The days pass and I keep myself busy enough with the small things like baking some banana bread or making kindling for fires. Occasionally if I get too rowdy, I'll practice throwing my knife at the wood stack. Soon there will be some shoveling and snow removal from areas around the lodge, so I might rest better at night with some good hard work during the day.