Eating Alaska

Last night we went to a showing of the documentary Eating Alaska sponsored by a local group, Sustainable Kodiak.

Eating Alaska is a serious and humorous film about connecting to where you live and eating locally. It is about trying to break away from the industrial food system when that means not only buying fresh seasonal food from local farmers, but taking part in a world of hunting and gathering. Made by a former city dweller now living on an island in Alaska and married to fisherman and deer hunter, it is a journey into regional food traditions, our connection to the wilderness and to what we put into our mouths.

We enjoyed the perspectives presented in the film and were pleased by all of the unique characters featured from across the state.

Here are some shots of us eating locally...

Mom's Visit

This weekend my Mom flew up for a visit from Boulder, CO. She endeavored to experience Crab Fest and anything else we could cram into the four day weekend. After a long flight on Thursday, we took her for a short evening hike at Fort Abercrombie State Park. On Friday we experienced Crab Fest and dined on a plate of crab legs and the famous bruin burger during the last dry weather of the festival - as we learned from everyone in town, "it always rains on Crab Fest."

Mom and me enjoying fresh crab

After eating crab Mom and I took a tour of the NOAA research vessel Oscar Dyson. While the instruments and scientific studies discussed on the Dyson tour were interesting, Mom really enjoyed a behind-the-scenes tour of another vessel a local fishing vessel by our friend Dirk. With more than two decades of fishing experience, Dirk had lots to share including harrowing stories of sea lion encounters and the icy Bering Sea - Mom loved it.

Mom and Dirk aboard the Ocean Hope 3

Perhaps the most exciting activity of the weekend was a full-day kayak adventure provided by Orcas Unlimited, an excellent local guiding company. During the paddle we were "stalked" by two curious harbor seals swimming close enough to hear their breaths, while shy sea otters kept their distance in the open water. Our guide Casey shared her wealth of knowledge about the bird life during the trip - Mom's favorite. In addition to the occasional arctic tern, we floated past islands full of kittiwakes, parakeet auklets, and puffins. By the end of the paddle rain had soaked us throughout - we were wet, Kodiak wet.

Ready to paddle before the rain

On Memorial Day Mom and I took a drive out to Pasagshak to watch whales and a nesting pair of bald eagles. The weekend sped by and before we knew it Tuesday, and the sun, arrived. A zoology major in college, the wildlife that Mom saw was definitely worth the trip. Hopefully, she will return soon.

vous me manquez beaucoup

Baby Kevin and Momma Deb

Memorial Day weekend in Spring Green marks the annual Bob Fest at the SG General Store, the local cafe where I spent many of my formative years. My uncle, Peter, shared some of his wonderful pictures from the event, including these of my family.

The Kelly boys-Kevin, Big Tom and Patrick

Today I am wishing that I was closer to my family and friends and enjoying the sunny Wisconsin summer...

ladies' banya

I feel like a real Alaskan after my first banya this week! A banya is a traditional Russian steam bath.

Our lovely hostess invited the ladies to join her for a rejuvenating sweat on Sunday night. My companions are all mothers and I enjoyed listening to their stories and wisdom about birth, life and parenting as we sat steaming.

I feel fortunate to have encountered so many interesting and fearless women up here on the Last Frontier...

(no, this is not a picture of me in the banya)

Deadliest Paddle Episode 2 (Photos)

Coming ashore

On the beach

Rafting Up
(Jeff, Rob, Bruce, Meg, Phil, James, Hal, Amanda)

COASST

On Sunday Meghan and I participated in the University of Washington's Coastal Observation And Seabird Survey Team training. COASST is a unique citizen science program intended to monitor changes in marine environments through identification and data collection of dead sea birds that have washed ashore. Basically, we walk the same beach once or twice a month and record data on any birds that we find. During the training we learned how to identify birds by measuring their tarsus (leg) and beak length. (In case you were wondering my "beak" is a full cm longer than Meghan's.) Soon after Sunday's training we conducted our first survey. Although we did not record any birds, we did see a seal and young humpback whale offshore. We'll certainly let you know if we find a bird - we have to take pictures and send them in.

Meghan "COASSTing"

My New Favorite Poem

Galveston, 1961

You who in crazy-lensed
Clear water fled your shape,
By choppy shallows flensed
And shaken like a cape,

Who gently butted down
Through weeds, and were unmade,
Piecemeal stirring your brown
Legs into stirred shade,

And rose, and with pastel
Coronas of your skin
Stained swell on glassy swell,
Letting them bear you in:

Now you have come to shore,
One woman and no other,
Sleek Panope no more,
Nor the vague sea our mother.

Shake out your spattering hair
And sprawl beside me here,
Sharing what we can share
Now that we are so near—

Small talk and speechless love,
Mine being all but dumb
That knows so little of
What goddess you become

And still half-seem to be,
Though close and clear you lie,
Whom droplets of the sea
Emboss and magnify.

By Richard Wilbur

sun dog

A Few Lil Shakers

The map is from the Alaska Earthquake Information Center. It seems that the sea floor due south of Kodiak city was quite active today during a succession of small quakes. We didn't feel anything up here though.

12:47 PM AKDT Friday May 15th, 2009 3.47 ML
12:03 PM AKDT Friday May 15th, 2009 3.05 ML
11:59 AM AKDT Friday May 15th, 2009 3.78 ML
11:23 AM AKDT Friday May 15th, 2009 4.51 ML
10:41 AM AKDT Friday May 15th, 2009 3.86 ML
10:38 AM AKDT Friday May 15th, 2009 3.62 ML
10:24 AM AKDT Friday May 15th, 2009 4.65 ML
10:15 AM AKDT Friday May 15th, 2009 2.74 ML
09:53 AM AKDT Friday May 15th, 2009 2.93 ML
09:38 AM AKDT Friday May 15th, 2009 4.25 ML

Deadliest Paddle Episode 2

The bad news: we missed another episode of our favorite reality show last night. The good news: Rob, Hal and Jeff treated us to another late evening kayak experience. This time we added a few more paddlers to the mix. Hal's neighbor James and Phil, his coworker just up from New Zealand, and another Kodiakan Amanda. By the time we got the gear and the group together, picked up some food to eat at the beach, and launched everyone it was near 7:30. We put in at Mill Bay and paddled out and around Miller Point - part of Fort Abercrombie State Park. Usually teeming with comorants, eagles and puffins, the rocks off of Miller Point were eerily quiet. Once we reached the point we rafted up and enjoyed a Rainier "loud mouth malt." Calm water allowed us to drink, eat and be merry while the sun slowly slid toward Kodiak's mountain peaks. After rafting we paddled between rocks that punctuated the shoreline to find a small beach. Meghan was excited to find anemones, crabs, and chitons in the tide pools. I chatted with the Kiwi about skiing in New Zealand and we made plans for a mountain bike ride later in the week. Soon we all geared up and shoved off to return to Mill Bay. I lingered in the kelp beds soaking up every moment of the sunsetting pink light on the silvery sea. By the time we landed our boats we saw a couple of otters, no one went for a swim and it was past ten o'clock. The Deadliest Paddle it sure wasn't.

Amchitka 40 Years Later

Footage of the largest nuclear blast in US history.

In the late 1960s and early 70s the Atomic Energy Commission and the Pentagon chose the Alaskan island of Amchitka to test nuclear weapons. A valuable bird sanctuary designated by President Taft as a national wildlife refuge, Amchitka was home to nearly 100 migratory species, walruses, and sea otters - not to mention a thriving fishery of salmon, cod and halibut. Immediately after the the underground blast the fallout was dramatic. And the aftershock of the nuclear test has caused long term environmental consequences. Not surprisingly, the native Aleut population and workers at the test site later showed high levels or tritum and cesium. Most of this post contains information from Jeffrey St. Clair's recent article found here.

Amchitka's "isolated" location was used as an argument for the test.

Earlier tests - which triggered small earthquakes, splashed lakewater 50 feet into the air and turned the surrounding ocean into froth - were used to "calibrate" the island for larger explosions. The final test named Cannikin was the largest underground nuclear explosion ever conducted by the US. More than 385 times larger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, the test sparked legal and political action including a lawsuit filed in federal court citing that the test violated the Limited Test Ban Treaty, while President Nixon kept objections from several federal agencies secret. The Supreme Court eventually refused to halt the test in a 4-3 vote and five hours after the decision the Atomic Energy Commission and the Pentagon flipped the switch to detonate the bomb.

Sea otters penned up for observation during an early test blast.

Aleut families were forced to leave Amchitka in the 1880s shortly after Russian fur traders had decimated the sea otter population. Sea otter numbers were devastated again nearly 100 years later by the Cannikin blast. After the Cannikin bomb was detonated in 1971 with the force of a 7.0 magnitude earthquake thousands of marine animals including sea otters were killed by the blast. Most troublesome, however, was the explosion's effect on White Ash Creek. The Creek disappeared through a rupture in the earth's crust formed by the blast and into a new radioactive aquifer.

Slumfrog Millionaire

Kodiak Island Borough - the new Calaveris County?

I recently learned that Tony's Bar, the "largest navigational hazard" in Kodiak, hosts an annual frog jumping competition. Each year the theme is the "Best Picture" Academy Award Winner. I have seen shirts around town with last year's slogan: "No Country for Old Frogs," and have been very confused. Mystery solved...

Apparently the frogs are flown up from Texas for the event, which takes place during the Kodiak Crab Festival. You can purchase your frog for $20, which actually seems like a fairly good deal, considering that lemons cost $2.49 right now at the store and don't carry the limitless possibility of financial return that a championship jumper presents.

Image from nppa.org

The Deadliest Paddle?

Meghan shows off her Big Ten Championship (crew) form

Tuesday nights are usually reserved for the latest episode of "The Deadliest Catch" and, by accident "Out of the Wild: The Alaska Experiment." Meghan and I got hooked on "Catch" long before moving to Alaska. Whenever we were house-sitting or at a place where we could watch cable TV for an uninterrupted span of hours we would find ourselves vegging out to several episodes of the show. Last night, however, our usual hosts for the show Jeff and Rob invited us for an evening kayak trip instead (with DVR anything is possible). Hal, another experienced kayaker joined us as well. By coincidence, Hal's son Shea was featured on last season's Catch. We were elated to get a chance to paddle around some of the smaller islands near town.
After launching from the float plane dock and avoiding a plane that attempted to splash down in front of us we paddled out into the larger bay. Waves crashed on rocks and cliffs as we pushed past bull kelp beds. Rob became infatuated with a sea otter resting in a kelp bed and lost track of the swelling sea. Before he could react a wave lifted his stern and flipped his boat. Immediately Jeff and Hal initiated a rescue. Meghan and I, the greenhorns, watched and waited trying to avoid a similar fate. The rescue was quick and efficient and soon Rob was upright in his boat, pumping out seawater. We then paddled to a nearby beach where Rob changed into dry clothes, Meghan searched for sea glass and the rest of us sipped on cans of Rainier beer. With the sun slowly setting we launched from the beach and paddled back to the dock. Once safely on dry land Meghan and I helped to load up the boats and I secretly hoped for another episode of The Deadliest Paddle next week.

Loose hips paddle ships

Monday Evening After Work(out)

Why did the "mountain chicken" cross the skin track?

Today after work Meghan gave me the OK to make a ski tour up Pyramid Mountain. On Saturday, while temperatures reached the upper 50s down in Kodiak, I skied it as well and got fried. My Dad would say that I got a "good base coat." Well, before heading out this evening I applied a healthy layer of sunscreen. I arrived at the top of the pass to find the mountain devoid of fellow skiers. The sun was still warm at 6:45 when I flipped up the heel pieces of my bindings and started climbing. While skiing alone I usually bring along the nanoCoug III (an iPod nano). Tonight's playlist featured a live recording of Antony and the Johnsons - you can listen to a part of it here. After crossing paths with a ptarmigan and stopping to admire the still valley below, I reached Pyramid's northwest shoulder, put the skis on my pack and kept climbing until I reached the summit ridge. Only briefly did I stop to admire the view - strong winds and choosing a safe route to descend kept my eyes focused downward. Ultimately, I decided on the north face and climbed down to an appropriate area to dig a pit and test the snow. Fortunately, my stability tests revealed safe conditions for a descent. Checking my pulse and taking one last breath, I slid into my first turn and picked up speed. The top five inches of snow was soft yet heavy, forcing me to make wide turns. Only after my sixth or seventh turn did the weight of the loose, wet snow sliding with me start to push me downward. I made a couple more turns and skied out of the direct path of the sliding snow back toward the direction of my ascent. The long, sunny days have definitely started to warm the white stuff up high. The snow was soft for the rest of the descent and I reached the parking lot at nine o'clock to find a solo snowboarder pulling his board from his truck to start his own tour. He might still be up there making turns as I finish this sentence.

Up on the right, down on the left

Rebel Roaming

Meghan and I got out on Sunday to enjoy the sunny weather. Out in Women's Bay we walked Rebel into the tide flats to spot a few birds. Kodiak has hosted several unique bird species during their spring migration including the greater white-fronted goose. The flats were a great place to let Rebel off of his leash. He is completely uninterested in birds unless he mistakes them for a squirrel so we knew that he wouldn't ruffle any feathers.

After leaving Women's Bay we headed out the Boy Scout Lake Trail and found our way to the sandy beach. We were amazed at the large fine sand that stretched to the waves. Meghan said that it looked like Mexico - green surf, black rocks and the beatiful sand. To Meghan's dismay I let Rebel off the leash to explore the tide pools and stretch out his legs. With good reason Meghan is always vigilant for bald eagles who might like the taste of hot dog. Nonetheless, Rebel and I sprinted across the beach a few times while a couple of "baldies" scoped the scene.