I moved to Alaska this summer, driving there from MN with two cats and a dear friend, Katie. It was an 11-day adventure, and the scenery was breathtaking. Now I am exploring life in Alaska, and find that posting pictures for family and friends is so much easier than trying to describe it!
Well, we had our first week of school... I have a lot of work to do by Sept. 25th, so it wasn't very relaxing. Monday I get to go down to my Russian Old Believer school, and I'm excited to see that community- the drive is supposed to be long, with tricky hills near the village, so that should be interesting...
Here's a big mural on the outside of Sol El, my home school- it's made of glass, and I like all the Alaska images, it's a fun thing to drive up to in the morning:
It rained all week, and I was so swamped with the schools, there isn't much exciting to report. I can tell I'm on the west coast because we get so much steady rain- I'm searching for a good rain coat. Yesterday it rained in the morning, but in the afternoon the electricity went out, so I went out into the Kenai Wildlife Refuge. It's right across the river from my apartment, and while I was out there, the rain started to clear up.
The Refuge is densely wooded, and looks like anywhere in the north woods, so it feels a little like home:
I didn't see any excitng wildlife though... just this moose statue. Kaeli is coming to visit next week, and so that weekend should be a ton of fun- hopefully no more of this rain!
School is starting tomorrow- it has been nice meeting all the teachers and getting an idea of the student needs... there are a lot of them. There are more kids on the unvaccinated list than who have their shots, so the teachers might have pretty empty classes, and we might have a lot of angry parents to deal with.
We have a neighborhood friend: This cute little guy comes and visits every afternoon. I usually feed him apple or some other treat when he's around. I think he's blind in one eye, and he's really calm, he was probably someone's pet, because I can get really close to him and he is fine. The cats love watching him out the window.
I keep getting turned around in Soldotna- all of the streets curve and change directions, and it's so frustrating because I get on a street thinking it will take me the direction I need to go, and it will curve and I have to find another one. When the sky is clear, I can see Mt. Redoubt- it's the volcano that was active this past spring, and it helps me re-orient myself. It's pretty neat to see a volcano as you're driving down the street:
Yesterday was beautiful and sunny, so I drove about 70 miles out of Soldotna to Hope, a town where there were a lot of gold paners at one time. They have a paved bike trail through the mountains, and it was a beautiful ride through Chugach National Park
Fall came overnight; sometime in the past week, all the fireweed flowers fell. It was sad, because the landscape looked so bare withouth the blossoms. Fireweed was the major flower we saw all along the Alaska Highway, from Banff on into Soldotna:
This is a cool bridge on the Seward Highway:
Mr. Darcy has been really playful lately. Maybe it's the altitude and lack of oxygen. Maybe it's that he doesn't have Kaeli to play with anymore. Maybe the stimulation from seeing all the wild animals in the yard has been infectious. But he's created his own little games that he does. A few nights ago, he found a paper bag that I had dropped on the floor, and spent over 2 hrs pushing the bag around the floor until his head was in it, and then trying to get it off. It was hilarious:
When in Anchorage, mom and I went to the Alaska Native Heritage Center. It was really wonderful- like an Alaskan Epcot Center. There are a lot of different Native Alaskan tribes, with really different ways of life and traditions, but they can be broken down into five major groups. At the center, there is a lake, and around the lake are five permanent structures, one for each group of Native Alaskans. (Mammoth Tusk Fossils)
They were really neat- full-size structures you could go in and see, with examples of clothing and weapons and other materials inside. There was a younng person in each one, who was a member of the respective tribe. Some were more talkative than others, but they shared stories about their tribe, and showed how to use various weapons and other tools.
Eyak/Tlingit/Haida/Tsimshian Clan House (live in the panhandle, in temperate rain forest, and use cedar to build their homes, which makes the houses smell incredible):
Ulax/Ciqlluaq Long House (live on the Aleutian Islands):
Inupiaq/St. Lawrence Island Yupik Seasonal Round (Northern-most AK): The guy in the Seasonal Round told some really good stories about life in the far-north Alaska. He explained that polar bears were the greatest enemy of his people, and as a result, they needed escape hatches in case the polar bears attacked their home. He also told some stories he had heard from an elder, about the elder's experience living in a Seasonal Round, and about fighting off polar bears, and the methods used to kill them. Apparently polar bear meat is very high in mercury, and so must be cooked a very long time before it can be eaten, otherwise it is lethal.
Escape Tunnel:
Yup'ik/Cup'ik in Southwestern Alaska. Apparently, in many places here there is no wood, or if there is, it is very scarce, so they have to find other sources of fuel. The men all live together in the large structure, and the smaller openings are where women and children live:
Athabaskan log house: (East and Central AK- these are the people most common in my area of Alaska as well)
There was also a neat museum of artifacts, and a music/dance performance as well. I really liked this Loon Mask:
Later at night, we went to see the Cook Inlet. There was a statue of Captain James Cook: I read Blue Latitudes by Tony Horowitz, in which the author visits all the places Cook discovered, it was an excellent book, I highly recommend it. It was exciting to be at the Cook Inlet, a place that Cook put on the map.
There was also a great view of Sleeping Lady (Mt. Susitna), which looks like the profile of a lady lying down: The legend about this mountain is that friends came to tell the lady that her lover had beeen killed, and couldn't bear to wake her. Instead, they asked the gods to protect her until peace returned forever to the land. The gods complied, and now she sleeps under grass in the summer and snow in the winter.
It was so nice having mom come and visit- I'm glad she's seen where I live and my new area!
On Sunday, my mom and I drove back up to Anchorage. Her flight was early Monday morning, so we got a hotel room to make sure that there were no complications getting to the airport. It takes a good 3 hrs to get to Anchorage from Soldotna. Because it was raining on the way down to Soldotna, this was mom's first time really seeing the mountains on the way, so we made some scenic stops to see the views.
The Seward Highway drive was named one of the world's 10 most beautiful drives, and it is incredible. On one side are the mountains of the Chugach range, and on the other side is Turnagin Arm, which connects to the Cook Inlet, and where beluga whales have their babies in early summer. Because of that though, it's also really dangerous. 8 people have been killed on it since May, and we haven't even hit winter yet. Part of the problem is if people try passing in dangerous areas and hit on-coming traffic. If someone is driving towards you, the options are to drive into the cliff-wall of the mountains, or down a cliff into the water, neither of which are ideal. This also makes the drive to and from Anchorage take much longer than it would if there was a standard interstate to drive on. Not to mention the wildlife in the road....
But the views are spectacular:
(Notice mom wearing capris, even after I warned her to pack warm clothes!)
Hi there, I'm a little behind in posting about my mom's last few days with me. Friday we had done the incredible tour in Seward. It had been a full day with the cruise and glacier and about 4-5 hrs of driving, so we had a light day on Saturday.
We drove to Kenai, about 10 miles away. Kenai is the largest town on the peninsula. I will be working in the behavior schools there, and it's nice that the drive is short. It is right along the Cook Inlet, and has beautiful views of Mt. Redoubt- the volcano that was active this spring. I was in my new school office yesterday, and we have emergency plans for Severe Weather, Earthquakes, Tsunamis, and Volcanoes. I bet no one in other states have so many emergency plans!
We went to Holy Assumption Church. A retired priest was there, it was neat to see the little church and the architecture.
This area of the state was highly settled by Russians, until the battle of Kenai, in which the Dena'ina attacked a Russian fur-trading fort- it was a really influential battle and resulted in reduced Russian settling in the area, and probably greater preservation of the Native Alaskan heritage in our area. See- I'm starting to learn the local history.... I now know that we say Native Alaskan, NOT Native American- a critical distinction.
We also went along the shore in Kenai- there wasn't much to see because of the thick fog, but it was really pretty:
We stopped by the Soldotna airport- there are little bush planes EVERYWHERE on the peninsula- every town has an airport, and there are floater plans all over. The sound of the small planes is a constant background noise here, and are vital for the villages who need supplies and mail from them. My school district has four fly-in villages, so some of the school psychs get to fly. Nick- I'll look for pilot jobs!
I also wanted to show a few pics of my backyard:
The view of the river:
Mr. Darcy and Bear's view: There are tons of wild bunnies here- some look like they were pets who were released. My landlord fed them scraps, so they are all over in the yard- they are super cute. Usually there's a big group of them, but generally at dusk, and my camera can't get good pics of them. They keep the cats occupied at the windows though. Also, sometimes I'll hear the cats give low growls, and look out and see moose in the yard- usually at dusk though, and because the mamas can get really protective, I havn't taken pics because I don't want the camera flash to call attention.
I wanted to post more videos for the last blog entry, but downloading one took so long, that I didn't have time for more. I have a little more time, and so thought I would try loading a couple more videos.
The first is of some ice calving from the Aialik glacier. They were incredibly loud when they hit the water, the boomed like nearby thunder. The video doesn't capture the sound the way it was, but it's still cool to see the ice falling:
This next video is being posted for dad, but is cool- it's a video of the bear swimming across the channel, he's about halfway across at this point, and it's amazing to see how powerful a swimmer he is- his back is fully out of the water the whole time, no doggy paddle for him:
My mom came to visit before I started working, and while the weather was still nice enough to justify traveling all the way up here. A lot of shops and other 'tourist' things close after Labor Day weekend, so there is a short window to visit and sight-see.
Wednesday, I had my mom set up the kitchen. I hate moving, so we left all the boxes of kitchen things unpacked, and I let mom go at them. She did a pretty good job, and now I'm ready to start cookin again on my new professional range.
We drove down to Homer Thursday. It was really cloudy at first, but it cleared up enough so that she could see the mountains and volcanoes. Homer is really beautiful, and seeing it again made me kind of sad that I'm not living down there. Soldotna is definitely flatter and feels more like Brainerd than Alaska. Dad, you'll have to come visit- we think you'll love the ocean/mountain mix!
We walked the spit and did a little shopping. But the catches coming in were impressive:
The next day (Friday) we drove down to Seward. The sky was sunny, and it was absolutely beautiful. We took a cruise through the Kenai Fjords National park. This was a different one than what Katie and I took, and went further into the park area. We saw more glaciers, and more wildlife up close, including:
Sea otters:
Dall Porpoises played in the wake of the boat, but were too quick for me to get a picture of. They were beautiful though, and have similar markings as Orca whales. We did see some Humpback whales, in the back is the Bear Glacier:
The mountains were absolutely breath-taking. I don't think I will ever get used to seeing them.
We had a special treat on our trip- a black bear was seen running on shore- they think he might have been running away from a larger bear. He jumped in the water, and swam right past the boat to an island next to shore. He swam up to a shear rock cliff, and climbed up like it was nothing. It was incredible to see how strong he was- I attached a video, hopefully it will work- this is the bear climbing onto shore after swimming for a good 5 minutes- and he swam fast. We could hear his breathing from the boat. It was pretty incredible.
The bear was one highlight of the trip. But another was the Aialik glacier. It was right on the water, and we watched chunks of ice calve into the ocean. Each time they entered the water, they crashed and sounded like thunder. It was amazing. The glacier moves three to six feet a day. There were seals on the ice floating in the water- apparently this is a safe place for them because the Orca whales don't like to get too close to the glacier ice. I couldn't get any really good pictures of them though. They just looked like big brown slugs on the distant ice.
I like this picture, because it helps to gain a perspective of immense size of the Aialik glacier. Notice the catamaran next to it:
We also saw alot of seabirds, and a sea lion rookery. If you look close, you can see baby sea lions in with the juveniles and adults. They were realy noisy, and now I can see why they got their name.
At the end of the day, before heading back to Soldotna, we hiked up to the Exit glacier, so that mom could get close to one after seeing them all day:
