At the end of each year, we usually summarize it for our family and friends. This is it for 2013.
We had a couple of nice things happen to us this year, and a couple of bad ones, but we’ll omit both categories in favor of weather, which loomed large, since we were present in Alaska for two weather records.
This year, we got back to Alaska in March with the intention of renovating our kitchen before fishing started. Said kitchen dates from the seventies and is a teeny bit inconvenient. This is the British understated way of saying the damn thing doesn’t work. If I was breaking eggs into a skillet at the cooktop, I had to walk the length of the long narrow space to toss the eggshell into the trash and to rinse my hands at the sink. (I guess the work-triangle concept had not penetrated Alaska by the seventies.) The oven was not self-cleaning and would not hold a full-size cookie sheet. I also had cabinets around three corners, which meant majorly - isn’t that a descriptive word? - inaccessible storage at three corners. Plus other less than endearing characteristics.
Anyway, I had talked for years about this kitchen update, but only talk. This was going to be the year. Alas, it wasn’t. I won’t recount the obstacles we met, but they were many and chafing. So we ended our stay in Alaska with the kitchen the winner. Maybe next year.
What getting up there well before the end of March actually did do was remind us of how unreliable an Alaska spring can be. Usually by the end of March, breakup is over, the roads are clear, the snow and ice are mostly gone, and transportation of the sort enjoyed in the Lower 48 is possible. This year, breakup started, but underwent a change of mind.
Thanks apparently to the North Pacific Decadal Oscillation’s taking a notion to go into a cold phase, Alaska had a very delayed spring. All told, we had more than a half-dozen March thru May snowfalls, some substantial. Nothing like waking on a late April or May morning to fogging snow. In fact, Anchorage set a record this year for longest snow season. The first snow of this winter of 2012-2013 fell on about 9/27 last fall and the last one at the end of May this spring. When, before that last snow, the meteorologists alerted us that, if the predicted fall exceeded one-eighth inch, we would set a new record, most of us were thinking that if we had to get snow at the end of May, we at least wanted the record, and planned to cheer the snow on. We need not have worried. Parts of town got six inches.
Worse than the snow was the eight inches of packed ice that topped all the parking lots and sidewalks, and all except the main roads. Since we don’t winter in Alaska any more, we don't have studded or even winter tires. Most Alaskans keep theirs on until all the threat is gone (which is usually about 1 May, though not this year) so driving was very dicey for us, especially when the temperature rose into the thirties at midday and the top layer of the ice started melting on the roads. We had to stay off the roads when we could, and creep around very tentatively when we couldn’t. Even when we started off very carefully at traffic lights, the wheels sometimes spun. Then, somewhere in there, we got a streak of four snows in about a week, the first one six inches, and even the main roads were back to bad. It took more than two weeks to get the roads clear again, and another week to get the sidewalks clear. But there was still snow everywhere else, all the yards, roofs, etc
While we were cowering under unending winter, John Back, a Kentucky neighbor, rubbed salt in the wound by calling to tell us Eastern Kentucky was having a great April morel (aka dry-land fish) season. I've hunted morel mushrooms once, and I quickly discovered that there's a knack to it. Dean kind of got the hang of picking them out of the forest-floor debris, but I never developed that sight trick. In several hours of staring, I think I found just one.
After our one expedition, a friend advised us to soak the morels in salt water overnight, and I was glad I did because the next morning there was about a three-inch worm floating in the water. It must have been sheltering in one of the hollow stalks. I fixed the dozen morels three ways, fried like fish with cornmeal and flour, sauteed uncoated in olive oil and garlic, and sauteed plain in butter, and I think I liked the last one best.
Our morel hunt mirrored our one ginseng expedition with another Kentuckian. He would take us within a few feet of a plant and invite us to find it, and I would consistently fail. I’m about as good at finding dry-land fish as at finding ginseng, and wouldn't want to depend on either for a living.
I can’t leave the issue of the no-spring without giving you the Alaska definition of the seasons. According to Alaskans, there are two in Alaska: winter, and Damn-Late-in-the-Fall. It sure seemed like that. But the weather made up for the infernal spring in June. We had long sunny days all month. In fact, we set another record. We virtually leapt past the old record for number of June days over seventy degrees, and a lot of us were complaining about the heat. For some reason, the seventies in Alaska feel more like eighties or maybe nineties feel in the lower 48 (sun closer? atmosphere thinner because of the ozone hole?) and Alaskans aren’t used to those extremes.
The late spring did do us some favors. We got some wonderful video of a pair of trumpeter swans that also arrived in Alaska too early. They landed on the ice at Eastchester Lagoon near here, and since they didn't have any open water to use for take-off, they had to hang around on the ice waiting for a lead to open and give them a long enough reach of water to flap and paddle their way into the air. That happened after a couple of weeks of cooling their feet on the ice, and they went winging northwest toward their breeding grounds, likely with frostbitten feet. We were hoping they'd establish summer residence there, as some very occasionally do, but no such luck.
Fishing was a mixed bag. The first run of salmon had decent numbers, but the water was a foot higher than normal and the current horrendous. To wade out far enough to get at the fish was taking your life in your hands, especially on a bottom as unstable as the Russian River’s. Dean went into the river four times, and once you’ve done that, you can’t get out on your own. You just can’t get up with that icy current pouring over you and pounding you down. Fortunately, there was always someone around to help. He was not close to drowning any time, but there were several close calls in other cases. In one case, a man’s chest waders filled with water and took him under, and it was a near thing. We’re used to falling in the river, but it’s usually not dangerous, at least to the extent we experienced this year. I had a hard time standing against the current when I was out no further than my calves, so I took the coward’s path and stayed practically on shore. Dean, however, will get out there nearly over his hip boots, with the inevitable result.
The bears made up for mixed fishing. We saw a lot on the river, and captured some very good footage, especially of a huge, blonde-colored brown bear (coastal grizzly) sow with a very tiny brown cub. He had a struggle following her around the river, but he was dauntless and plugged along.
Have a very good 2014.
Dean and Nina
We had a couple of nice things happen to us this year, and a couple of bad ones, but we’ll omit both categories in favor of weather, which loomed large, since we were present in Alaska for two weather records.
This year, we got back to Alaska in March with the intention of renovating our kitchen before fishing started. Said kitchen dates from the seventies and is a teeny bit inconvenient. This is the British understated way of saying the damn thing doesn’t work. If I was breaking eggs into a skillet at the cooktop, I had to walk the length of the long narrow space to toss the eggshell into the trash and to rinse my hands at the sink. (I guess the work-triangle concept had not penetrated Alaska by the seventies.) The oven was not self-cleaning and would not hold a full-size cookie sheet. I also had cabinets around three corners, which meant majorly - isn’t that a descriptive word? - inaccessible storage at three corners. Plus other less than endearing characteristics.
Anyway, I had talked for years about this kitchen update, but only talk. This was going to be the year. Alas, it wasn’t. I won’t recount the obstacles we met, but they were many and chafing. So we ended our stay in Alaska with the kitchen the winner. Maybe next year.
What getting up there well before the end of March actually did do was remind us of how unreliable an Alaska spring can be. Usually by the end of March, breakup is over, the roads are clear, the snow and ice are mostly gone, and transportation of the sort enjoyed in the Lower 48 is possible. This year, breakup started, but underwent a change of mind.
Thanks apparently to the North Pacific Decadal Oscillation’s taking a notion to go into a cold phase, Alaska had a very delayed spring. All told, we had more than a half-dozen March thru May snowfalls, some substantial. Nothing like waking on a late April or May morning to fogging snow. In fact, Anchorage set a record this year for longest snow season. The first snow of this winter of 2012-2013 fell on about 9/27 last fall and the last one at the end of May this spring. When, before that last snow, the meteorologists alerted us that, if the predicted fall exceeded one-eighth inch, we would set a new record, most of us were thinking that if we had to get snow at the end of May, we at least wanted the record, and planned to cheer the snow on. We need not have worried. Parts of town got six inches.
Worse than the snow was the eight inches of packed ice that topped all the parking lots and sidewalks, and all except the main roads. Since we don’t winter in Alaska any more, we don't have studded or even winter tires. Most Alaskans keep theirs on until all the threat is gone (which is usually about 1 May, though not this year) so driving was very dicey for us, especially when the temperature rose into the thirties at midday and the top layer of the ice started melting on the roads. We had to stay off the roads when we could, and creep around very tentatively when we couldn’t. Even when we started off very carefully at traffic lights, the wheels sometimes spun. Then, somewhere in there, we got a streak of four snows in about a week, the first one six inches, and even the main roads were back to bad. It took more than two weeks to get the roads clear again, and another week to get the sidewalks clear. But there was still snow everywhere else, all the yards, roofs, etc
While we were cowering under unending winter, John Back, a Kentucky neighbor, rubbed salt in the wound by calling to tell us Eastern Kentucky was having a great April morel (aka dry-land fish) season. I've hunted morel mushrooms once, and I quickly discovered that there's a knack to it. Dean kind of got the hang of picking them out of the forest-floor debris, but I never developed that sight trick. In several hours of staring, I think I found just one.
After our one expedition, a friend advised us to soak the morels in salt water overnight, and I was glad I did because the next morning there was about a three-inch worm floating in the water. It must have been sheltering in one of the hollow stalks. I fixed the dozen morels three ways, fried like fish with cornmeal and flour, sauteed uncoated in olive oil and garlic, and sauteed plain in butter, and I think I liked the last one best.
Our morel hunt mirrored our one ginseng expedition with another Kentuckian. He would take us within a few feet of a plant and invite us to find it, and I would consistently fail. I’m about as good at finding dry-land fish as at finding ginseng, and wouldn't want to depend on either for a living.
I can’t leave the issue of the no-spring without giving you the Alaska definition of the seasons. According to Alaskans, there are two in Alaska: winter, and Damn-Late-in-the-Fall. It sure seemed like that. But the weather made up for the infernal spring in June. We had long sunny days all month. In fact, we set another record. We virtually leapt past the old record for number of June days over seventy degrees, and a lot of us were complaining about the heat. For some reason, the seventies in Alaska feel more like eighties or maybe nineties feel in the lower 48 (sun closer? atmosphere thinner because of the ozone hole?) and Alaskans aren’t used to those extremes.
The late spring did do us some favors. We got some wonderful video of a pair of trumpeter swans that also arrived in Alaska too early. They landed on the ice at Eastchester Lagoon near here, and since they didn't have any open water to use for take-off, they had to hang around on the ice waiting for a lead to open and give them a long enough reach of water to flap and paddle their way into the air. That happened after a couple of weeks of cooling their feet on the ice, and they went winging northwest toward their breeding grounds, likely with frostbitten feet. We were hoping they'd establish summer residence there, as some very occasionally do, but no such luck.
Fishing was a mixed bag. The first run of salmon had decent numbers, but the water was a foot higher than normal and the current horrendous. To wade out far enough to get at the fish was taking your life in your hands, especially on a bottom as unstable as the Russian River’s. Dean went into the river four times, and once you’ve done that, you can’t get out on your own. You just can’t get up with that icy current pouring over you and pounding you down. Fortunately, there was always someone around to help. He was not close to drowning any time, but there were several close calls in other cases. In one case, a man’s chest waders filled with water and took him under, and it was a near thing. We’re used to falling in the river, but it’s usually not dangerous, at least to the extent we experienced this year. I had a hard time standing against the current when I was out no further than my calves, so I took the coward’s path and stayed practically on shore. Dean, however, will get out there nearly over his hip boots, with the inevitable result.
The bears made up for mixed fishing. We saw a lot on the river, and captured some very good footage, especially of a huge, blonde-colored brown bear (coastal grizzly) sow with a very tiny brown cub. He had a struggle following her around the river, but he was dauntless and plugged along.
Have a very good 2014.
Dean and Nina
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