A Note From Your Alaska Blogger

Many of my regular blog readers noticed that I took a few months off last fall from blogging. After three years of nearly weekly blog entries, it was a radical departure from my norm. I was happy to hear (actually!) that my blogging was missed, as I got emails, Christmas cards and word-of-mouth messages wondering what was wrong or what was going on.

Well, what was going on (now that I have a chance to breathe!) was LIFE! It seems that with teaching college classes, homeschooling my kids, having an exchange student (in high school...in sports...), and teaching and directing the faith formation program at our church, that all my time was tied up. From mid-August through October the harvest takes up any spare time I might have. Berries begin to ripen in August. This year the raspberry crop was tremendous and we had so many in and around our yard--many more than we could ever pick--so if I had 20 minutes here or there I would dash out and pick. Or else we would head out for a weekend of camping and berrypicking somewhere on the Peninsula. Or the onions, carrots, and potatoes were ready to pull in before the ground froze. Then we had 800 apples to harvest from our 2 apple trees. Even once the things were picked, I didn't have enough time to process them, so once everthing was 'in' I began to clean, chop, freeze or can.

There was a moment back in November at about 10 a.m. on a Thursday morning that I felt a tremendous sense of relief: I sensed I was over the worst of the craziness of the fall. Everything from the harvest that needed (really needed) to be 'put up' was put up. I snuck in a blog entry that day, excited to be 'back.' Yet I only managed to write another few entries between then and now. Life keeps happening.

When we first moved to Alaska the pace of life was slower. We didn't have a lot of friends, we lived way out of town so didn't run in and out much, the kids weren't in so many activities and neither were we. At the time I just regarded that as "life in Alaska," but now I know better. Life in Alaska can certainly be as busy and crazy as life everywhere else in the world. Pace of life is a choice of activities. Some people complain that there's not that much to do in Homer. Yet for us we have to choose between two or even three different activities going on at the same time some days. Do we go to this movie fundraiser or this sporting event or head out of town for a trip with friends? Or do we go to this concert or just take a few hours off and go home and read a book and chill? Many times I have to drop off one kid, pick up the next, run them home, drop off another kid, then start picking them up, glad to be home by 8 with the running done for the day.

On top of the busy-ness is the 'normalcy' of Alaska now. It has taken me three years to get to the point that what happens here is the 'norm' that I compare the rest of the world to. When I went back to Michigan for Christmas it was Michigan that was different, not Alaska that was different. And yet the biggest difference that I noticed was just the prices of things (waaaaay cheaper!), and everything else just seemed like life...in a different place.

My apologies for leaving you out cold for three months with no news on life from Alaska. If I do it again, it is probably for lack of exciting things to blog about (9 months of the year it's all about school stuff) or lack of time to write. I try not to be repetitious, and we have our favorite spots we go back to and enjoy again and again now. No need to bore you with that again...

Meanwhile, thanks for reading, thanks for your comments, and enjoy!

Ice, Ice, Ice!

One of the standards of living in Homer is the ice. Oftentimes for months at a time there will be 6 inches or more of ice coating all the side roads on the 'bench' (below the ridge that rises above Homer). This seems to be caused by a combination of factors. Because we are at sea level, the temperatures often warm up at some point after it snows (or else it rains instead of snows) and the snow begins to melt. Also, all of the roads below the bench are south-facing and sloped. Water runs off the ridge, heading to the sea, and it freezes into thick swaths of ice. Oftentimes there will be fields covered in thick swabs of ice as the water ran down the slope and froze.

A few days ago my husband and I walked the loop near where we live, with trails connecting between roads. What is normally a boggy trail was transformed into a thick ice trail. Luckily we had our Yak-traks on, otherwise we would not have been able to make it without a number of falls, especially as there were uphills and downhills. And in some places the ice encased the bases of the trees, several feet thick.

Most of the winter our driveway looks much like this: a sheet of ice that requires careful maneuvering and caution and that gets covered with stud skid marks, indication that our studs are doing their job.

When I first moved to Homer I swore I would never live in this area where the roads are so icy, but here I am, living on the bench and dealing with ice daily. It is not as bad as I thought it would be. One learns to live with ice as one learns to live with snow or the cold or whatever other conditions face us!

Visit to Barrow

As principal at the local high school, my husband gets the opportunity to travel with sports teams, acting as the official liaison for the district and preventing problems that might occur with students. Last week when the wrestling traveled to Barrow for 4 days, Douglas ended up going with.

It was a process getting there, with a cargo plane ride from Homer to Anchorage to Prudhoe Bay to Barrow (the flights up to Prudhoe Bay were full, shuttling oil field workers back and forth). Just a few days before Douglas got there it was 50 degrees below zero, but he lucked out and it was 15 to 30 above the 4 days he was there--the same temperatures as Homer. The current principal at Homer High School was principal in Barrow for two years. He said that when it was 50 below, the two block walk from the airport to the high school was the longest walk he has ever taken in his life. Douglas was prepared with long underwear, coveralls, boots and all sorts of cold weather gear and was fortunate in not needing it.

The sun didn't rise the whole time Douglas was there, and the brightest it got was a mid-evening twilight (I lightened my pictures so they represent how dark it was). The school took the 6 or 7 wrestling teams that were there on a tour of the town. Pictured above is the sign at the highest latitude of land in the U.S. Behind it is the Arctic Ocean. The football field was under snow, which was a bummer because we've heard much about this high-tech wonder.

All of the buildings are built on stilts to prevent the thawing of the permafrost. Douglas described Barrow as "Any American town, a little run-down fishing village." There are 4 schools serving the 5000 or so people in Barrow: 2 elementaries, a middle school and high school. When sports teams come the high school houses them and feeds them, slightly alleviating the huge expense of getting there (approximately $1000 per ticket round trip, Homer to Barrow).

There was one store, with clothes, groceries, 4-wheelers and everything else sold in it. Prices were about 20% or more higher than Homer (which is already 20-50% higher than the Lower 48. For example, a can of soup was $3. A 5 pound bag of fresh apples and oranges was $14. A small container of laundry detergent was $15. Electricity, on the other hand, is relatively cheap because they pump the natural gas out of the ground and right into their generators.

As they were leaving, one of the coaches asked a local if they had some muk-tuk the kids could try. The lady said a whale had just been harvested and the blubber had been shipped in. She gave him a 10 pound box of muk-tuk. He shared it with the staff back at Homer. It was very chewy--impossible to bite off a piece in fact. A lady mentioned to me that her husband worked in Barrow and he would chew on two little pieces of muk-tuk and it had enough energy to last him for hours (despite that he lost 40 pounds while working in the 50 below weather). What you see pictured below is about four inches long. The dark part is the whale skin. I chewed on a piece like this for a minute or two this afternoon. Seven hours later, even after eating lunch and dinner, the taste of the muk-tuk is still in my mouth. It reminds me of a buttery flavor. I can understand how this would be a staple in the Eskimo diet. It is pure energy and it lasts a long time. I can also see why the Eskimo's teeth would get worn down from such a diet.

Ice Skating Beluga Lake

In 3 years of living here, we've never gotten to Beluga Lake in Homer during the 3-5 day window in early winter when the lake freezes over and the ice is perfect for skating. This year, despite having to play musical skates (both our kids outgrew their ice skates, plus we have our exchange student to fit with skates), I was determined to make it out on the lake to skate.

As you can see, it is a good sized lake, and nearly the entire surface was smooth as an indoor skating rink. It was glorious, skating along, completely free, with the sunshine and mountains and a huge expanse of smooth ice. We went skating every day for the past 3 days, and at times there were over 100 people on the ice, but it never felt crowded with so much space to spread out.

From here on out, we will make sure we get out on the lake for the few days a year when it is skateable!

High School Sports In Alaska: What a Trip!

Two events have changed our perspective this fall: my husband got the assistant principal job at Homer High School and we got an exchange student from Mexico. Both of these events have initiated us into a new group: high school sports.

Anywhere else, kids just hop on a bus and ride to their destination. In Alaska, if schools in the bush (not on the road system) want to have sports, they must get other teams to come and play them, in addition to getting out of the bush to go play other teams. Plus, the distance between schools can be immense. The Kenai Peninsula School District requires an administrator be at nearly every home sports event as well as some of the larger away events. Thus, Douglas ended up traveling nearly every weekend from mid-August through October for sports. Our exchange student, who was in swimming, traveled a great deal too. Here are some of their adventures in the name of high school sports.

Kodiak is an island 45 minutes away by plane and 9 hours away by ferry (on a good day, or depending on whether you're going with or against the winds and tide). Kodiak's football program is relatively new. In order to be part of the conference, they have to help pay for teams to come play them. This year they wanted to go cheap and make the Homer football team take the ferry both ways. This would have meant the students would have to take a bus to Whittier to get on the ferry, take the ferry to Kodiak, and then take the ferry back. They would have missed 3 days of school for a Saturday game to make all the connections. After much negotiation, they flew there but took the ferry back.

Even taking the ferry back can be quite an ordeal. They had to be at the ferry terminal 2 hours before casting off, which was 9 p.m. They were supposed to get out of the harbor at 11, but the ferries carry freight, and the day the football team was heading home it took an extra 2 hours to unload and load the freight, so they didn't even get out of harbor till after 1 a.m. The kids were sprawled all over the ship in any comfortable place they could find. There are often a number of different sports teams or groups on the ship at any given time. At noon the next day, the team arrived in Homer. With a plane ride they would have been home the evening before, but the cost was prohibitive for a team of 40.

The next weekend Douglas got to spend 5 days going to a volleyball tournament in Cordova. The kids took a bus to Whittier, hopped on the ferry for what is normally a short ride to Cordova, but the ferry had to stop by Valdez to pick up volleyball players so that added a few hours to the ride both ways. Once, teams from an entire tournament got stuck in Cordova for a week because of bad weather, and some administrators were ecstatic to get cots in the water treatment plant. The little town wasn't equipped handle that many people for that long.

This year swimming regionals were in Kodiak, so the swim/dive team had to figure out how to get their entire team to Kodiak, house them and transport them. All the other teams on the Kenai Peninsula had to do the same. The swim team coaches opted to charge the students $300 to go to Kodiak, which was basically their plane ticket, and fundraising paid for the housing and transportation. Some kids didn't go because their families couldn't afford it.

Nearly every swim meet that was more than 4 hours away (there are only a few high schools of Homer's size that are closer than Anchorage), students had to pay $50-$60 for the hotel and then they were on their own for meals. This adds up. Our exchange student probably spent $600 or more to swim this year.

Next week Douglas is going to go to Barrow with the Homer wrestling team. He has to figure out when he needs to be there, find connecting flights from Homer to Anchorage to Fairbanks to Barrow. At this point all the hotels in Barrow are full the first night he is supposed to be up there so he has to find a place to stay....somehow, somewhere. Hopefully all the flights won't be full by the time he makes his reservations.

When teams travel, sometimes a the hosting school is willing to house them and even feed them. Homer is good about that: this past weekend they hosted a wrestling tournament for 11 schools from all over the state. All the teams stayed in the high school. When the volleyball team went to Cordova the school there fed all the teams breakfast each day. This relieves the fundraising burden, and as well as family finances, but it is partly because many communities don't have fast food restaurants or other quick food options.

Now our exchange student is on the cross-country ski team. Parents are required to help volunteer and fundraise. The athletes themselves must volunteer at least 10 hours to fundraising during the season, and a chart in the locker room keeps track of their progress. That is on top of training and waxing their skis, never mind about homework. Sports become their life.

I am blown away by the commitment of families to their kids' sports. In Homer High School, 60% of the students participate in sports (not counting other extracurricular activities). Some students are in 3 different sports. I can't even begin to imagine how expensive that could get. This year we have been initiated into this culture, both from an administrator's perspective and as parents. It makes my head swim to think about it, and I don't know if I'm glad that I now know what is in store for me in a few years when I'll have two kids in high school!

Putting Up the Rope: Ohlson Mountain Rope Tow

We got dumped with nearly three feet of snow this past weekend in the Homer area, so downhill skiing and snowboarding enthusiasts were itching to get the Ohlson Mountain Rope tow up and running to take advantage of the unseasonably early snowfall. We are friends with people who are friends with some of the Ohlson Mountain organizers (sounds like a small town thing) so we got a call Sunday that the rope tow was going to go operational. It sounded like an interesting Sunday afternoon expedition, so despite the snowstorm we packed up our vehicle with snowshoes, sleds, snowboards, downhill and cross-country skis, warm clothes and snacks and headed out to Ohlson Mountain.

Luckily the plow had just come through on Ohlson Mountain Road, otherwise it would have been a treacherous drive. As it was, even the parking area for the rope tow had been plowed out (with snowbanks about 4 feet high--as deep as they were much of last winter!). We unloaded our equipment of choice: snowshoes, sleds and snowboards were on our list for the first foray. We dumped all our things in the warming hut and left the kids there to haul firewood into the warming hut and to play.

The adults, about 7 of us plus a couple who had been planning on skiing, grabbed the thick pads that are attached to the rope tow poles. We got those snapped on and headed up the slope on snowshoes. The snow was mid-thigh to nearly waist deep in places and the incline near the top is steep, making for a tricky climb. I was gasping for breath and sweating most of the way and was immensely relieved to get to the top.

There we were met with a huge pile of rope that needed to be dragged down the mountain and then threaded onto the rope tow machinery. After figuring out which was the top rope and which was the bottom, each person grabbed a section of the rope and started dragging it down the mountain. Ladders were found to climb the poles. Luckily we had a couple young guys who were willing to climb them with the heavy, frozen rope over their shoulders and heave them onto the wheels. Each time they climbed, the rest of us would pull the rope to give them enough slack to get the rope up, with at least one of us holding the ladder to stabilize it for the climber.

It was a messy process carrying the ladders through the deep snow from pole to pole, setting them up, getting enough slack for the person to carry the rope up the pole and then moving on to the next one. We got into the rhythm of it, though, and the project was completed in a little over two hours.

Much to the kids' disappointment, the snow was too deep to snowboard well. The couple on skis were able to get to the top of the hill where it was steeper, but they were having a hard time turning in thick, waist-deep snow. They looked like they were swimming. The kids weren't able to make it very high on the slope (it takes considerable strength to hold onto the rope tow, and it seems to take specific muscles, as attested by our upper body soreness at the beginning of every rope tow season) so they ended up boarding down on the rope area where they came up.

After a week of compacting, we're hoping that the snow conditions will be better this weekend! One of my friends posted pictures (better than mine!) on his Facebook. I will include the link here (not sure if it is public or private; you'll find out!): http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=2101590&id=1210874850&fbid=1722964833205

Crow Pass-Eagle Eye Retreat

Fr. Nathan from Ohio is the founder of the Eagle Eye Retreats which he puts on for young adults around the country each summer. This is his third year leading a backpacking retreat in Crow Pass.

Each year a couple of monks come up to Girdwood (one from Ohio and one from overseas) and lead the Eagle Eye Retreat for 18-40ish year olds. It begins with 4 days of backpacking Crow Pass, 26 miles from Girdwood to Eagle River. Then there is an additional 3 days of theology and education at the Our Lady of the Snows Chapel in Girdwood, interspersed with hiking and socialization. Last year my husband and I did the 3 days of theology; this year I wanted to do the Crow Pass hike with the group but my husband couldn't make it. We managed to swing it for me. It was the best retreat I've been on in many years.

Nearly everyone on this hike was from the Lower 48 and had never backpacked before in their life. This made me one of the more experienced people in the group. I was also one of the oldest people, and I was the only mother in the group of 19 people. The retreat organizers spent $600 on food for 19 people for 4 days. Everything was weighed (2 pounds of food per day per person) and was all add-water-only food. Each person carried their own supplies and food. There were 3 campstoves for the group plus fuel, which were dispersed among everyone. Nine tents housed 17 people, with the 2 guides sleeping under a tarp.We packed up and slept in a school Sunday night and headed to the trailhead in Girdwood Monday morning after mass.

The first day was a relatively easy hike for me: 3-4 miles, 2000-2500 foot climb up to the summit of Crow Pass. (I got different answers from various people on distances and elevations, thus the approximations.) When backpacking I am used to grueling 8-14 mile hikes, so 4 miles was a piece of cake even though I had a 45-50 pound pack on my back. I was just getting warmed up when they said we were camping at the top of the pass for the night. The only wildlife we saw that first day was 4 sheep far off on a mountainside.

The group coming off of Raven Glacier.

We set up our tents, and then headed to the Raven Glacier about a mile further along the trail. Our guide, Beav, has experience ice and rock climbing among other adventures, so he took us out onto the glacier. Apparently last year the group could walk comfortably all over the glacier, but this year it was icy (I know, that sounds silly, but the surface of glaciers are not consistently the same) so we settled for a short expedition, cautiously choosing our footing and avoiding crevasses and black ice under the gravel.

The weather continued to deteriorate from cloudy to windy to windier, with the cloud cover lowering and misty rain covering us. I put on layer after layer, finally ending up with a thermal undershirt, long sleeve thermax shirt, short sleeve shirt, rain jacket and wool-lined rain/wind jacket. On the bottom half I had 3 layers on. On my head I had my bandana, winter hat and rain hood. At times I was still shivering.

At the top of Crow Pass near where we were camping there is an A-frame and doorless pit toilet, the only "facilities" the entire length of the trail. We women-folk took turns holding the door closed for each other (we were above treeline and there really was no out-of-sight spot in the area). Dinner warmed us, and then we had a group discussion about the use of technology in our lives. For bedtime, each person got their water bottle filled with hot water to put in their sleeping bag. I had the misfortune to have my water bottle leak, scalding the bottom my foot and soaking my pants, socks and sleeping bag. It was a slightly uncomfortable night with the wind howling and tents flapping.

Next morning we were up early, got breakfast, said morning prayers and headed out down the trail, retracing our steps towards the Raven Glacier. Past the glacier the trail began to descend, crossing several snowfields. We saw two bear foraging on a distant hillside and we began to see bear tracks on the muddy trail. We took frequent breaks (again, by my standards), taking our time. We had 8 miles to go that day, down to the Eagle River. We saw numerous marmots and tundra squirrels, and were blessed to see a moose with a huge rack napping in a field (In 3 years in Alaska I have only seen a moose with a rack that size once before). The trail had pushki, alders and other shrubs hanging over it, and there were some muddy spots, but overall it was a pretty good trail.
At the Eagle River we decided to stop for the night rather than cross the river and push on another mile to Thunder Gorge. A group was put in charge of building an altar of rocks, decorating the cross of branches we'd made the first day and had been carrying. Everyone else set up their tents, set up the group tarp, gathered water for dinner and otherwise helped out. We had evening prayer and mass and turned in. There were 4 bear scats in the vicinity of our camping area, so we put our food out of the way (no trees to speak of to hang the food from) at night.

The next morning we had morning prayer and mass and then got ready for the river crossing. Most of the group seemed nervous about it. Beav gave us instructions for how to cross (3 or 4 abreast, arms locked, with the upstream and downstream people with poles, and with packs unclipped in case we fell). We had to head slightly downstream to the white post, cross a gravel bar, then cross a couple more side streams to the white post on the far side. The water was up to mid-thigh on most of us, and the rocks underwater were large, making footing tricky. In addition, the water is fresh from the Eagle Glacier a few miles upstream, so it was extremely cold. When everyone had crossed there was a great deal of enthusiasm, and most everyone agreed it wasn't as bad as they thought it would be.

Day 3 was a long 8 miles following the Eagle River downstream. There were many streams to cross, and there were ladders to climb and ropes to hold onto. The trail went up and down as it followed the contours of the land. In one place there is an upper and lower trail, with either being acceptable routes. The lower route was washed right out--gone--and quite recently from what our guide said (he'd hiked the trail just a few weeks prior and it was still there then). Thus we followed the upper trail, picking our way across the base of talus slopes.

We ended up camping on a gravel bar at the confluence of 2 rivers that night, in sight of the Eagle Glacier. It was bittersweet, with many retreatants feeling sad that their Alaskan backpacking adventure was about to end. A group of girls, rebelling against the lack of showers, washed their hair in the glacial river, joking about "glacial facials." Sharing time that night was insightful and special, creating strong bonds of caring and friendship. The weather was relatively warm (only 2 layers instead of 4 or 5) and there was no wind or rain, making it an enjoyable evening at camp besides some bugs.

Thursday morning we took our time getting up, packing up and hitting the trail. More river crossings were on the docket for the day. It was a fairly easy 6 miles in to the Eagle River Nature Center, with the last 3 or 4 being on wider, hard-packed trails. The berries were ripe along this section, so I was grabbing raspberries, blueberries, high bush cranberries and watermelon berries as I walked. The final couple miles to the end it began to rain, though not hard enough to drench us. We were relieved to finally reach the nature center and civilization.

Busses and private vehicles transported everyone back to the school where they picked up extra gear, and then we headed to a chalet in Girdwood where we were staying. Showers were welcome, as was a hot dinner of grilled chicken and corn on the cob. Everyone felt a sense of accomplishment and was filled with the beauty of Alaska. It made me appreciate the beauty that surrounds me every day as everyone was ooooohing and aaaaaaahhhhing over things that are a regular part of my life now.

I had to admire our guide for being willing to take 19 mostly-green backpackers on a 4-day, 26-mile trip. Some of the people had never been out of a city before in their lives, never seen berries, never exercised. And yet no one complained. There were smiles and small kindnesses shared the whole way, with stories and laughter standard fare. It filled me up in a way that conventional retreats don't, and I found myself aching to be back with the group the past few days since the hike ended. It was a special time.