Escape to Alaska: Another Way of Life

Living in Alaska means lots of things.

For example, paying some of the highest gasoline prices in the country even though the state is the nation's largest domestic producer of oil.

It also means having a very cool license plate issued in 2009. That was the year that Alaska celebrated 50 years of statehood.

In Alaska you never live very far from nature and the splendor of the earth, largely uninterrupted by the intrusions of humans. Like  the friends we visited in Homer, Alaska who have this for a view from their living room up on the hillside.

When you live so close to nature you're drawn to be in the midst of it. My brother-in-law took us mountain biking on a trail that was less than a mile from his front porch.

Alaskans like to take advantage of the long growing hours provided by the Midnight Sun and plant some edibles in their back yards. A tall fence is necessary to keep out the rabbits--and any moose that come by, eager for a munch. In addition, a green house helps the plants that need more heat. Until one gets into the Interior, the hottest summer day is mild. Around 70 F. degrees.

Cabbage or spinach, anyone?

The real bounty of Alaska isn't on the land, but in the ocean and rivers.

My nephew took out a boatload of relatives and they fished Kachemak Bay. They came back with fresh halibut, a delicious white fish that can grow to upwards of 300 lbs.

They filleted the fish, cut the rest into steaks, and less than an hour later we were eating it. By then it was 9 p.m. It's a fact that Alaskans tend to eat late in the summer. Why not? With the sun so high in the sky there's little reason to start to think about going to bed until you look at your watch and say, "Oh my, is it really getting on toward midnight?" - V.W.

Escape to Alaska: Wild About Wildflowers

There's an old saying about the northern way of life:

In Alaska there are two seasons. Winter and getting ready for winter...

It's true Alaska's growing season is brief, but everything green makes the most of it.


And the midnight sun means that things are growing almost 24/7.

This explains some of the sights that follow.

A common thing to come across alongside the road or in a field is LOL = lots of lupine...

Even the dandelions here are HUGE and belong to an order of beauty and wonder that makes a person ashamed to call them a "weed."

 

- V.W.

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Escape to Alaska: The Town Where Salmon is King

Soldotna, Alaska. On the Kenai River. This little town bustles and hums in the summer as the RVs, trailers, accompanied by hardware-encumbered tourists, roll in. They're intent on catching red salmon and, the monster of the river, a king salmon.

It's an industry.

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Translation: On Friday it will be legal to fish
the Kenai River using salmon eggs on a hook.

But that's not why we're here. My wife's brother lives in Soldotna. It's been three years since we've gotten together. He's going to catch us up on the Alaska we've been missing.

So let's slip into the rhythm of the north...

Around 6 a.m. I wake up to clear skies. The sun has been up longer, I suppose. Whatever the case, all the light shining through the crack in the curtains is significant. After a long dark winter, Alaskans crave as many bright, warm summer days as they can get. I know. I lived in this state for 25 years. A dismal summer day with clouds and drizzle was the ultimate downer. But that's not what we have today.

Backyard view Alaska-style...

I  get dressed, pull on my shoes, and go for a run. I'm liking what I feel. For the first time in months the air is friendly. I'm not breaking out in a sweat.

Then it's time to go to breakfast at a local cafe.

Our son orders the Spruce Tree. It's one of a host of gimmicky named entrees directed at the tourist crowd. Nevertheless, this culinary item turns out pretty nice...

That's French toast with bacon to form the trunk...

On the way out the cafe a friendly malemute sticks his head out the side of an SUV and howls a bit for us.

The wild, intriguing face of Alaska.

The day is turning out quite nice. Ahead of us are a visit to the mouth of the Kenai River, some wild flower photography, a walk through an old salmon cannery, and a dish of delectable rhubarb cobbler topped with whipped cream.

After that it will be evening and the sun will be almost as high as if it's still early afternoon.  Who knows how late we may stay up, talking, soaking up every solar morsel of the midnight sun? That's what Alaskans do, and whether in Rome or Soldotna it doesn't hurt to follow the crowd. We can always sleep once we get back home. Wherever that is. - V.W.

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Escape to Alaska: Photos Day One

The ending of my last post was a bit misleading. I didn't suddenly say to myself, "I can't take this heat anymore" and decide to leave.

The tickets for our trip to Alaska were purchased months ago. I just didn't know that at this juncture in life how necesary it would be to point ourselves toward the Far North.

The daily onslaught of high temperatures has been killing us. Packing our bags it feels less like we are going on a two-week vacation than like we're prisoners busting out of a hot house jail.

Our plane takes off, bringing an immediate sense of relief. It's already like falling into a northern dream and we're not even there yet.

Between the fourth and fifth hour of a seven-hour flight I look out the window.

"I think that's Canada," someone in the row behind me says.

They say you can never get a good picture out an airplane window, but I snap another one anyway.

Everything is so large, white, amazing. Just what I want to see. Then, for a while, nothing but cloud cover. Until there comes a parting.

The rest of the way it's all mountains and glaciers.

We land in Anchorage. It's 7:30 p.m., the sun is shining, and it's nearly 50 F. degrees cooler than back home. The sun will not set until sometime after midnight.

We load up in an SUV and start driving south. We're headed to the Kenai Peninsula, the land of salmon. - V.W.

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This Post is Not About What It's About

It started with a piece of paper I noticed in the front flowerbed.

I'm used to dealing with such things. Plastic grocery bags snagged on shrubs, door hangers wedged between perennials, sheets of newspaper crumpled at the foot of a tree.

The wind always blows a lot around here and it leaves behind remembrances in the form of once airborne garbage.

I was sweating, but for tidiness sake I took the time to pick up the piece of paper. I began walking back to the house.

When I hit the sidewalk I could contain my curiosity no longer. I stopped, wiped my brow, turned the envelope over.

There was something funny about that Franklin D. Roosevelt stamp. I hadn't seen one of those in a long time. For that matter it had been decades since first class postage in the U.S. was only 6 cents.

The postmark told me that the piece this mail had passed through the post office in 1970.

The other thing was that the letter wasn't mailed to my town. It had either blown in from somewhere far away or one of my neighbors (possibly) had possession of it for some reason and then tossed it in the trash and then the wind pried it loose.

I was still sweating. I hurried indoors.

I set my find on the kitchen table and began examining it.

A thank you note.

I opened it up.

Right away I noted the unusual names. From another era: Nim, Edna, Van, Sue.

Ah, thank you for the baby gifts!

I wondered what had happened to the "darling" silver spoon, fork and cup.

A bigger question: what happened to that baby? Did it turn out to be a he or she? (In 1970 it wasn't possible to know in advance with a sonogram). Now 41 years later, could that child be one of my neighbors? Live in another town? Be deceased?

What about the "favorite" aunt and uncle? What had happened to them? Or that mom who was so thoughtful and correct in manners to send out a thank-you note?

What I had was a tangible piece of evidence that something once surely happened. The rest consisted of unanswerable questions.

It seems like I have a lot of unanswerable questions in my life, especially (and obviously) since I started the Van Winkle Project.

Soon I will receive answers to a few big questions like what happened in Arizona in January, the Middle East in February, in Japan in March, in the American Midwest this spring...

But I don't expect to get an answer to the mystery of the Merkel, Texas thank-you note that the wind deposited in my yard. That's all right with me. At least it brought a man hungry for news some old tidings that he could  chew upon while he awaits the main course.

A man who continues sweating every time he goes outdoors, a man who continues being grateful for the air conditioning indoors.

You see, the really inescapable news for anyone living in these parts isn't a piece of trash or such. It's that we're having the worst heat wave in anyone's memory. I allow myself to look at the corner of the front page of the local newspaper when I retrieve it in each day. I figure that's not a violation of the VWP since this is news I'm living in the midst of.

Here's what I see:

As far as anyone knows these days of 100+ degreee F. heat are not going to end in the foreseeable future. This is a  problem. Since there's been no rain, every field of burnt up grass could potentially spawn a wildfire. The wind has been averaging 15-20 mph every day. When the wind catches the flames, the fire spreads...

The awful weather is the reason why I was sweating in the front yard where I found the windblown piece of mail. I was trying to keep the landscaping alive in the flowerbeds by hand watering with the garden hose. Due to water restrictions, I can only use the automatic sprinkler system on Thursdays and Fridays.

In this heat, the plants need water every day.

But at this point I have to say many of us humans seem to have wilted as much as the lillies. There has to be some way, some place to cool off...

Fossilized walrus ivory carving with gold nugget
by Keith L. Haley.

You know what? Next time you hear from me I'll be writing from Alaska. Seriously. - V.W.

COMING: Impressions of a Northern State

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