A Hoover Visit - Part III: The Kenai Peninsula

In the business, we call this "sprint photography".  You set
the camera up on the hood of a pickup (hence the reason it's
crooked and not centered properly), hit the timer button, then
sprint up the small, steep hill between the truck and everyone
 else, and strike a pose.  We should probably just bring the
tripod next time...

After the exciting but exhausting Denali marathon, we only had one real destination left (well, four actually within that one overall destination): the Kenai Peninsula.  Since we spent a whole year surviving in a tiny apartment in the Moose Pass area, with only our next-door neighbors keeping us sane, we thought it necessary to show Kelvin and Kathy where we had lived, introduce them to the friends that we made while we were there, and show them the places that we had grown fond of after a year in one of the most beautiful locations in the world.  Our first stop was the Moose Pass area.  Well, actually we just drove straight through Moose Pass and headed on to Mark and Yoly's place, because that was much a much more meaningful location to us than Moose Pass.  We walked around Kenai Lake, ate some great food and simply enjoyed the company of good friends.  The next day we headed into Seward to do some exploring.  One of our first stops was the Seward Harbor.  It may not be the biggest harbor in Alaska, but in our opinion it is certainly one of the most beautiful.  As Mark Ifflander says, people often get off of the boat onto the dock and exclaim, "Wow!  How high up are we?!?"  Mark looks down at the water and replies nonchalantly, "Oh, about three feet or so..."

Homer might be a little bigger and out on the spit, but Seward Harbor is still our favorite...

We had to make a stop at the Alaska Sea Life Center to check out the fishies and seals and what-not.

It still boggles us just how fat Woody is...

Fully wild or not, they are still tun to watch...

 

Not sure why, but this guy would sit there, upside
down, for minutes at a time...

Of course, because of it's proximity and the fact that you can't go to Alaska without stopping to check out a glacier, we made a brief stop at Exit Glacier to check out a giant piece of packed snow that doubles as perhaps the most erosive force on the planet.

Exit Glacier from a distance.

A bit closer...

The Hoovers in their majesty!

And there she be!

After a couple of days in Seward we headed over to Homer.  We took a walk on the beach, checked out the Homer Spit, visited some old friends of Rachel's grandmother and checked out their shortwave radio station, and Rachel's grandmother still has some land back there that we had to make a small pilgrimage to (to be honest it turned out to be not so small, and we have no idea how they made that drive in to town every day for work while they lived there).

A socked-in Katchemak Bay greeted us...

We've never been able to get over all of the eagles.

Homer has quite a harbor, but it's no Seward...

We didn't realize we would need bear suppression
to get out to the homestead.  Based on the signs
all over the camper though, it was a "better safe
than sorry" situation.

That's more like it.

A Hoover Visit - Part II: Denali

After showing the Hoovers around the Anchorage/Wasilla area a little, we set off to see one of the most distinctive and touristy sights that Alaska has to offer.  However, it is so popular for good reason.  After all, even though Montana, which is a place that we both love, is known for its "big sky" (which Ben finds funny because with those mountains sticking up the sky is actually smaller than it would be in, say, Nebraska), Alaska is the true state of "largeness"; it is the largest state, has the largest wilderness areas, and of course has the largest peak in all of North America, Denali (by the way, if you are in Alaska, don't call it Mount McKinley, it's Denali).  Denali National Park was the next target on the Hoover marathon vacation.  In the afternoon we made the three-hour drive to stay in a small cabin, and by the time we got there we were a little apprehensive about the fact that there was no way we were going to get a full night's sleep before we spent the whole day touring the park, and then make the drive back to Wasilla.  However, we were also energized by the incredible view of the mountain that we were greeted with on the way to the park.  Ben actually thought that he was seeing huge clouds over the mountains, but they turned out to be Denali itself!  After a mere four and a half hours of sleep, we got up and headed down to catch the shuttle because a reliable source (Dan Trice) told us that if we wanted to see the wildlife, then we wanted to be on the first shuttle.  He was right about that.  However, we were also told that in all likelihood we would see either the mountain, or wildlife, but not both.  Well, we definitely saw both!  Although we were definitely exhausted by the end of the day, and were sick and tired of sitting on a bus (the tour ended up lasting 12+ hours), we were satisfied in the knowledge that we received a very thorough initiation into what the park has to offer.  However, Ben also spent a fair amount of time staring at the peak with eyes envious of all of the climbers making the summit that day...

Yup, totally thought that white mass above the mountains on the right was a bunch of clouds...

Such a happy tree!

Lookin' pretty good considering we were all incredibly sleep
deprived and it was about 5:00 AM!

Doll sheep on the mountain!

Doll sheep in the valley!

Ptarmigan!  That's Alaskan for "chicken" and "delicious"!

Fox!  (And a pretty one, too.)

And the mountain looms ever in the background.

Caribou!  Alaskan ungulates are so goofy lookin'...

Big Mama Moose!  Hidin' in the willows!

Still in their finest Spring felt!

These skulls were found in this position.
Apparently one moose, as it was fighting with
another over the fine lady moosies, not only
stabbed the other in the eye, but got tangled with
him and was unable to get away.  So, they both
died.  Bummer for them, but I bet there were some
happy bears that Fall!

Everyone likes a bear!

He was a little guy!

And lazy too!

"I'm just a bear, lookin' for food..."

As close as we got, but still oh so far.  Ben looked on with envy as more than 200 hundred climbers attempted to make the summit that day.  The day before was considered a 4-star day for viewing the mountain, and today was definitely a 5-star day.  We just got really lucky!  Oh, and the next day the mountain was socked in and completely hidden...

A parting view that same day.  That's it!  Denali!  At 20,322 feet, the tallest peak in North America (and still growing)!

A Hoover Visit - Part I: The Arrival

As part of our summer adventure we had a visit from Rachel's parents.  We had a great and exhausting few days with them, and the fun only ended when we went to sleep because the day was just so packed full of it that we could have no more and needed solid rest so that it could start again right away in the morning!  We started our adventure around the Wasilla area, taking them around to various little places that we had found/been introduced to, and cruising into Anchorage to show them around there a little bit.  We spend some time just checking the are out, took them out the Experimental Farm for a little hike, went to the new Star Trek movie.  They just never got enough of all of the sunlight!  At this point in time it wasn't even getting close to dark until midnight to 1:00AM, and it wasn't getting completely dark at all, and it felt weird to come out of a movie that ended after 9:00 PM, and still see the sun.  One of the stops that we really wanted to make was at Potter Marsh, where Rachel spent more than a few days of her first summer in Alaska, and where we often stopped to take a break on trips to/from Seward.  It was a beautiful afternoon at Potter Marsh...

Not sure what this guy is, but there were a lot!!!

Just your friendly neighborhood beaver here!

Always fun to watch the geese and their nesting activity.

What a fine lookin' family!

Potter Marsh...'nuff said.

Old Friends and Old Haunts

It was a great summer to visit the Kenai Peninsula!  We got to see and catch up with old friends and visit old favorite places, as well as check out a few new ones.  Unfortunately, in true Kenai Pen. style the snow was not yet gone from the mountains in the middle of June, but that didn't stop us from having some fun anyway.

Nothing like months-old snow to cross frigid water!

Oh how we miss the epic mountain views.

Need a bridge because the trail has become a creek?  Yup!

Yoly and Koda leading the way...well, behind Naomi anyway.

This cut across trail may have to be a new haunt...

Had to squeeze in a little fishin' too!  Lilly was worried...

Bear tracks!  Big ones!

Muddy trail, dreary sort of day, but still a great jaunt in the woods!

It's Been A While...

Hey Everybody!

Sorry it has been so long since we have posted (for those of you that actually check us out once in a while)...for the rest of you, sorry it has been so long since we tried to interest you enough to check us out once in a while!

Anyway, we had a CRAZY summer.  We spent it in Alaska for a number of reasons, including Ben finishing graduate school, house-sitting, family visiting, visiting friends, and just plain having fun!  What will follow will be a series of pictorial posts to give you an idea of what kind of summer we had...

Enjoy!
Ben and Rachel


Wasilla and the Experimental Farm (Still love the name.  It makes me think of a place where they grow weird hybrids of plants and animals, like cow-barley or cowrley or something like that...)

View of the mountains, always a plus.

Tons of little lakes with tons of little fishies!  Unfortunately there are also tons of little mosquitoes ready to suck out tons of your blood!

Havin' a picnic.  Lilly didn't understand whose food was whose.

When In the Village...

...Eat as the villagers eat!

Traditional food is certainly one of the main and most recognizable differences between our culture and that of the Yup'ik village.  It has required an adventurous spirit on our part to try many of their traditional dishes, but we continue to want to try new things, and they are always interested to see how we react to the food that they give us.  Of course, with the continued infusion of our own culture into theirs we often see things that are common to us (especially spaghetti, they love it, and it's cheap), but there are always things that we probably would never have even dreamed of making.  Here are a few that we have tried so far.

Salunuk
Salmon is a huge part of the village diet for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that they can harvest large amounts of it to see them through the winter.  For the most part they treat it somehow in order to preserve it, and many of them smoke all or most of it, but a few still make Salunuk. Essentially the fresh salmon is buried in rock salt until the salt "cooks" the fish.  The meat changes color from the typical reddish/orange of raw salmon to the pinkish/orange of cooked.  However, it retains the moisture of the raw meat, and certainly comes out very salty.  It brings to mind eating sashimi in a sushi restaurant...if you had a notion to cover it in salt first!

Moose Heart Soup
Unfortunately we didn't catch the Yup'ik name for this dish, but this is one that we would make at home!  According to them, if two men are working together and take a moose, there is often a fight (sometimes with fists) over who gets the heart.  We were lucky enough to get to see why.  This soup is really very simple with the only other ingredients being rice and possibly a few vegetables, but the small cubes of moose meat are what make it so memorable.  The meat has the distinctive moose flavor that we got to know through some moose ribs and steaks that we were given, but it is so fine, dense, and tender that it is easy to see why people fight over it.  This is definitely a favorite thus far, and if we manage to take a moose next year it will be a meal that we savor!

Agutuk
This traditional food reflects a number of the needs of living in the cold interior Alaskan wilderness: it is high in protein, can be stored outside during the winter, contains ingredients that the villagers harvest every year (plus a couple of modern additions), and is SUPER high in calories.  This dish is often called "Eskimo Ice Cream", but it is far from what we would recognize as ice cream, because it starts with salmon.  The salmon meat is first boiled, and then fluffed, making it easy to mix with the other ingredients.  Next they add a liberal amount of sugar, berries (usually blueberries but sometimes they use salmon berries), and Crisco.  All of these ingredients are mixed together and then frozen.  In the end, so much other flavor has been added that the fish taste from the salmon is only faintly distinguishable, but every once in a while you remember that you are not only eating fish, but fish mixed with enough Crisco to give it a creamy texture!  Sugar is the one major addition to the traditional recipe, obviously giving a sweet taste and further masking the fish flavor, and Crisco replaced the moose fat that was used originally.  We had an opportunity to try some Agutuk made from moose fat on Ben's birthday, and although it has a gamey taste, in some ways the fact that it was more traditional made it a little less unsettling.  Either way, it is definitely an interesting staple of their diet, and although I actually must admit to enjoying it once in a while, it's not something that we will find ourselves making at home!

There are certainly many things that we have not yet tried, but there is one that we're sure neither of us will be able to bring ourselves to sample.  The kids have told us that this is something that they don't even eat, and the only ones that still make it are some of the elders.  They take the heads of the salmon and bury them in the ground for a period of time; long enough that they begin to ferment and the normally solid salmon head takes on a consistency more like that of cheese.  This is the point at which they eat it...enough said.

There are a number of infusions from our own culture that have become a regular part of the village diet, probably the most popular of which is spaghetti.  Just about every event that we have attended where food was served has had huge amounts of spaghetti available, and it is always gone by the end!

An open mind has certainly gone a long way for us, and we look forward to the surprises that the future will most certainly bring!

So You Think You've Flown...

She took one look at the plane and passed out...

 Let us tell you about the experience of not just leaving remote Montana for even remoter Alaska, but from leaving remote Alaska, for village Alaska. Until you have done it, which we know some of you have, the experience is almost indescribable, but we will do our best. First of all we landed in big city Anchorage. All of the amenities of modern day life are available there. This includes, but is not limited to, restaurants, hospitals, doctors, cars, running water, toilets, pavement, other white people, grocery stores, banks, cell phones, stores, and civilization in general. You then deny yourself of all of those amenities and put your life into the hands of one man who flies a six-seater plane with not jet engines, but with a single propeller, to take you two hours away from all of that. It is about this time that you are thinking there is a possibility that you have made an error in your life decision, but you are too late.

All day you have been stressing about making it to your last flight on time and you have finally made it. However, when you get there your plane and pilot are not there. You wait around, on the runway, and wonder when your plane will arrive. Finally you hear something, your pilot has taken on an extra tour for the day. That would be great for you if you had a vehicle in Anchorage, but you don’t, so you sit on the runway for the next two hours to take your final flight out to the village. This wouldn’t be a terribly big deal, if you had gotten more than two hours of sleep the night before. Eventually your pilot comes and informs you that he is finally ready to go. As you help him gas up his plane you are still talking to him about payment. He wants cash or check and all you have is credit. Now you are holding up the whole flight to try to make payment, plus you have to pee, and since you are on the runway you either do it in front of all of the passengers or you try to hold it the entire flight. Fortunately, there is a toilet where you have to run your card. When everybody is finally ready to fly, two and a half hours late, you choose to sit beside the pilot for the flight. This wouldn’t be bad, but when you are already questioning the flyability of this plane, your pilot asks you to hold the door open on the way to take off. You are strong, you can do this, so with all of the strength you can muster you hold the door to the flying contraption open while you prepare for take off. Once again, this is not a big deal, mostly because you don’t know that your husband has leaned against his door in the back and it has opened an inch right before take off. Still not a big deal, until you are going through the mountains and snow is coming in the back of the plane. Just a heads up for any of you out there that are worried that Ben (and Lilly who is sitting on Ben’s lap) could possibly fall out of the plane, apparently this is not possible. This exact position happens again to Rachel three weeks later on her cross country flight to Kalskag and the pilot, instead of freaking out about it like Rachel did, calmly explains to her that with the pressure put on the plane from the wind resistance of flight the door can come open but will never fully open while in mid-flight. We are both now proof that open doors on planes should not worry you while in mid-flight.

Yup, that's a mountain in the clouds we're flying through!

You finally close the door right before take off and sit back and try to enjoy the two-hour flight to your new residence. However, as you get closer, you are told that the fog is getting too thick. For your Boeing 737 this is not a problem, but for your single propeller six-seater this is quickly becoming a disaster. As you land one village away from your destination your pilot informs you that you will try to make it the 10-minute flight to your village. As you take off you watch the fog engulf the small plane and your heart sinks as you pilot gives you the choice to either stay in Sleetmute or make the trip back to Anchorage with him. You decide to stay the night in Sleetmute because that is where your principal lives. You land in Sleetmute for the second time that day and walk to your principal’s house from there. She is excited to see you and sets you up in the school for the night. All of your stuff for the year is with you and you are stuck just a few miles away from where you could finally relax from the hazards of moving, but since you decided to live in village Alaska instead of even remote Alaska that dream is not going to come true today. You go to sleep hoping that the plane will be able to get back to you tomorrow, and if the plane does make it, that you will be able to make it on to your village as well.

Ah, the Kuskokwim River!  We're gettin' close!

You wake up late the next morning and still don’t want to move your body. It is still raining and you know that outside is going to be just as muddy as the day before. You finally drag your travel weary body off the floor and beginning looking for life elsewhere. Your principal has already made it to the school that morning and has breakfast ready for you. You are delighted, especially when she tells you that you can make some coffee to go with it. At that moment, however, the pilot from the day before buzzes the village to let you know that he has made it back. You quickly pack up all that you have and walk back to the airstrip. Your plane has landed and there are two more people with you today hoping to make it on with you as well. It is still rainy, but it is still worth the try. This time you get to sit in the back with the now muddy dog on your lap. The door still does not close fully but you are too tired to care. As you take off the two people in front of you offer you french fries from Anchorage. You know that french fries are going to be a luxury that you will not have for the next five months but you still say “no thank you” and hope that you make it alive to the next village. It is not a nice day, but at least it is clear and you are able to land on your own muddy airstrip which is pock-marked with puddles and has a nice big bump right in the middle of it. You find the only other white person there ready to pick you up and know that you have finally made it to your final resting place for the next year.

 
All in all, it was an experience. The flight was one of the smoothest we have ever been on, but one of the most hazardous as well. Our pilot was awesome and he is going to be our pilot in and out of the village until we move. There were some amazing sights and some life changing experiences. Any of you are welcome to come and spend time with us if you think you have what it takes to make it out.

Our first morning in Crooked Creek, Alaska!