Atka

Atka is a village on Atka Island almost to Adak on the Aleutian Chain in Alaska.  It has a latitude just above 52 degrees north and 174 degrees longitude west- 280 miles south of Ketchikan.  It is WAY out there - closer to Japan or Russia than the continental United States.

I read a fascinating book by Ethel Ross Oliver.  Here she is on the book cover.

 

For the most part, it is her journal record when she and her husband, Simeon Oliver, helped rebuild Atka Village after World War II in 1946 and 1947.  The reason it needed to be rebuilt is that our own military burned the village to the ground so that Japan could not occupy it.  I can understand that but I think it might have been nice to allow the villagers a half hour to get their packed suitcases out of the houses before they had to get on the boat to Southeast Alaska.  (The conditions that they faced there is another story for another time.  Suffice it to say the conditions were awful.)

Ethel Oliver was a renaissance woman: teacher, collector of local flora for 5 botanical museums, excavator of several archeological sites, recorder stories of inhabitants, nurse/doctor, and writer.  The journal style gives a glimpse into the people and the day to day life that they all shared.

The book is organized into chapters that are also the 12 months that the Olivers were on the island.  Here is a picture of the newly "rebuilt" village.  


Ms. Oliver was also not only respectful and understanding of Native Aleut culture, but appreciated the people and culture and tried to integrate culture and language into her classroom.  This was quite unusual at the time.

While Ms. Oliver was there, she meets two Aleut prisoner of war survivors who were captured and transported to Japan in 1943: Mike Lokanin and Alex Prossof.  These unedited stories, in the book Appendix, were fascinating all by themselves.  


The whole Alaskan war theatre is interesting in its immensity and complexity and its notorious bad weather.

Winter Ferry to Hoonah

The day after Christmas, I was feeling just enough better to get on the ferry with the rest of the family to visit my brother and his family in Hoonah.  Luckily, I was under the influence of modern drugs like tylenol and advil.

Riding the ferry in wintertime is great.  Usually, there are few riders.  It's warm and dry.  You get to hang out and watch the wilderness go by.  Sometimes, you'll get a glorious evening like this:

I was too sick to bother going outside, so this photo is taken through the thick plate glass window.  And, of course the ferry is moving, so it's nearly impossible not to get a blur.  But, this might be as good as it gets under the photographic conditions.  What a night.

Sick as a Dog over Christmas!

I'm not sure where "sick as a dog" came from, even though I'm sure that I could google it and find out.  No matter where it came from, I was sicker than I have in a good 35 years - and of course it was over Christmas.

But, one of the reasons that I write to myself in this blog, is to notice the little things.  Here I am lying on the couch trying not to tremble from a 102 degree fever, and the sun is doing it's winter thing - not very high in the sky but wandering low across the windows.  And since it is so low in the sky, it's shining back in the living room.

There's this little display that ML had put together that was downright beautiful in the sun.  I hope you like it too.

I confess that the picture isn't as green as the reality.  The green of the bottle set off from the light green of the wall made my sick heart feel fine, for a few minutes anyway.

This is another picture that was a lot prettier in reality.  Again, with ML's artistic ability, she had put some dried flowers in a vase.  The silhouette against the light green of the wall paint was beautiful.








I wouldn't have been staring into space looking at the walls if I hadn't been sick.  Maybe it was a good thing.

Happy Solstice!

ML and I went for a walk today.  It was a glorious day.  Have a great solstice.

What a nice place to sit if you have a sitpad and warm clothes!

Snowshoeing

Luckily, my friend Bob was off from work and was interested in a trip up the mountain.  Time to strap the snowshoes on the backpack and see how much snow was up on top.

We have a nice little winter route that starts up Cascade Creek just at an old dam that must have been used as a water supply at one time or another.  You have to go straight up through some of last year's salmonberry bushes.  But then it opens up in big trees.  Pretty soon, take a right hand turn and follow the ridge up - and up - and up.  

Just before the trees opened up, we strapped on the snowshoes.  By that time, the snow was plenty deep - in fact it was time to do some slogging.  Bob had some excuse about "not sure where to go."  That just meant he wanted me to break trail.  He's a pretty smart guy.

 

We break out of the trees.  Mt. Edgecumbe is in the background.

Then we just walk the ridge.  

This looks out toward Biorka Island.  

From the top, we hung a right and walked down Gavan trail.  The top of the trail is mostly wooden steps because it's so deep.  It's always a challenge to make it down in deep snow - too deep to walk and sometimes you can't see the steps.  But on snowshoes, you have to alternately ski or slide or fall.  We did our share of all three.

Toward the bottom of the trail, the sun came out.  In the winter time, the sun is so low in the sky that there it seems to glow.  With the big hemlock and spruce trees spreading their green branches and the sun filtering through, it's like being in an outdoor cathedral.  As Bob's friend Don says, "I attend the Church of the Outdoors."

I'll leave you this photo title, courtesy of Led Zeppelin:

"Stairway to Heaven"

Winter in Sitka - a bit of snow and 30 degrees

ML and Hannah decided that we should spend Christmas in Sitka and Hoonah this year.  So we did.  I admit I had my reservations - mostly due to the expense and holiday travel, but so far I think they did great.  The reason?  Right now we have some glorious winter weather.

This picture is from our front glass doors.  It was taken exactly at 8 a.m.  It's already getting light!  But, the light level is a little more illustrative when you see the much brighter light from the streetlight in the right of the picture.

Here is the house with blue sky in the background and a beautiful layer of snow on the tree branches.  Luckily, we were here to brush off the snow from the rhododendrons and few other trees whose branches might break if it turns rainy (which it will).

Time to go to the grocery store, which has one of the best views in town.  Mt. Edgecumbe is in the background.

As long as we're on our "back to town" rounds, we may as well go to the library.  It has a nice view from its parking lot too.









When you're in a rain forest, any weather can happen - but mostly it's rainy.  This is great luck to have 4-6 inches of powder snow and just below freezing temps.  Get out the snowshoes!