Construction Work

My construction work can often be followed by looking at my hands.

Note the right index - yep, you're right - a hammer blow.  Two, in fact, and the second one hurt a lot more than the first.

The white is caulk.  The green is paint.

You probably can't see from this picture, but both hands and all digits are swollen.  Plus, they hurt.

There are a few nicks and cuts that you can't see.  That's just as well.  Typically, it because I've done something stupid.

Lastly, there is a puncture wound on the other side of my left middle finger.  I'm very conscious of where I put my fingers when using the nail gun (a gun that drives nails with compressed air), but somehow I always make a minor error.  I'm usually just happy that it's minor.  There are lots of emergency room visits as a result of nail guns. 

Matt's Garage - Dried In, or Almost

 "Dried In" is a term in construction lingo that means the roof is on and water or snow can't get in.  Matt's garage is almost dried in.  As you can see, there aren't any garage doors.  The two doors in the first floor weren't in stock either.

 However, the windows are in and the upstairs "deck door" is in.  Tyvek is stapled with expensive stainless steel staples since it's going to hang out all winter. Thanks for funding stainless steel, Matt. 

There are lots of windows on the "back" side which looks out toward the ocean.  Not much of the ocean can be seen, but there is a sliver due west and then a view of the cruise ship anchorage in front of Sitka.

The bathroom is back right, bedroom is immediate right, and kitchen is on the left. 

The bedroom . . .

Not a great picture, but you can see the staircase coming up on the right, the expansive windows, and the vaulted ceiling.

Although Matt did a lot of work before he started his teaching year, he wasn't available for the "dried in" picture.  Many thanks to Joshua on the right and Sam in the middle, who put up with me for the duration!  Both men are young smart talented individuals who were great to work with.

Book Review: The Voyage of the Schooner Polar Bear

 Kettleson Memorial Library, our local library, has a great Alaskan section which is great fun to browse.  I found a book of which the full title is "The Voyage of the Schooner Polar Bear: Whaling and Trading in the North Pacific and Arctic, 1913-1914" by Bernhard Kilian.

The text is a journal kept by the author, Bernhard Kilian.  Bernhard (Ben) and his brother were trained machinists and saw a job advertisement to be the engineers for the Polar Bear.  They were instructed to be at the boat at 6 a.m. on the day of the hiring.  They were, and despite the fact that no-one else was there except the watchman who clocked them in - including the owner/captain, they got the job on the merit of having been there at 6.   Let that be a lesson to all of us!

Ben Kilian also learned to take and develop pictures.  Neither the pictures and the text aren't fancy or WOW(!)  or anything, but both of them are an honest depiction of what went on during the trip.  I found it fascinating.

On the left is a picture of the schooner after a bit of snow.  I often think about what is not in the picture.  Ben Kilian behind a large format camera, loading film and taking the picture in the cold.  Then developing it later in the cold with no running water.  Hmmm.  He's a lot tougher than I am.

The voyage took the better part of two years.  The boat was frozen into the ice on the northeast coast of Alaska.  The men moved off the boat and built a shelter with sailcloth and driftwood.  I love this picture of the men building the winter shelter and the camera (which might be a "movie" camera) in the picture over on the right.

This looks like it might be hard to see, but it is a map of the voyage.  The boat started out from Seattle, then all the way out the Aleutian Chain (which ends up being closer to Japan than the continental USA), goofed around the Kamchatka Pensinsula and visited Russia a number of times, then through the Bering Strait, the Arctic Ocean, and on into the Beaufort Sea.  The voyage was a mixture of trading, whaling, and a "charter" for east coast hunters.

The excitement of northern experience doesn't stop there!  The Captain of the boat and a few others decided that they needed to take care of some business in Seattle over the winter.  So they took off on some dog sleds in early November, up the Kongucut River, across the pass to the Yukon River, and made their way south to Cordova where they got a boat.  This is approximately 1000 miles during the dark of winter with no freeze dried food, goretex, down jackets, or toilet paper.  In fact, the notes in the book said they lost their compass after a week and dead reckoned most of the way across the Brooks Range until they discovered some Alaska Natives to give them some directions!

My guess is that this book will not be in your local library.  But, if you like this kind of stuff, request it from interlibrary load.  You'll be glad you did.

P.S. All pictures are digital representations from the actual book.  I hope I haven't transgressed copyright law.

Garage - 2nd level & concept of Square

So far, so good.  The concept of "square" is not really that difficult - you would think.  Four right triangles equal distance apart - right?  But, to me it never seems that easy in practice.  Fortunately, Matt's garage is based on a perfect square square with walls 30 feet apart.  Not that hard, you would think.

Well, to be honest, it always seems difficult for me.  But, that's why building is a challenge and fun to do - or at least it's fun most of the time.  BUT, we got the plywood on the first floor and we squared it up within an eighth of an inch on the diagonal measurement.  Voila!  Easy!

So away we went building the gable walls.

Here's Matt nailing the northwest wall that looks out over Sitka with a view of Mt. Edgecumbe.  Note the big windows!


These walls are about 14 feet high at the highest point.

See how easy it is to lift the wall up?  Four guys with one finger!

See Matt with his Search and Rescue helmet on to protect that huge brain.

I mentioned earlier that they let people that don't know anything rent dangerous equipment.  We drew straws  to see who got the nod and Sam won. 

Just a little tip for your next construction project, don't fix the beam to the forklift - get a strap and let it hang.  With the system you see in the picture to the left, there's no flexibility to be able to move the beam.  Live and learn.

This beam is big: 24 inches high, 6 3/4 inches wide, and 29 feet, 11 inches long.

It's there, but not quite right.  But it's late on a Friday night and time to go home.

This is the streetside view.

It would have been nice to have some side walls for strength, but the design is based on 4 feet of steep pitched roof with a 22 foot dormer roof.  Matt decided to take out the 4 feet of roof on the back right side - which is why you see two different roof angles in the picture.  Maybe we should have at least built that wall first, but we wanted to see what the gable windows would look like.

This is the "back" of the building.

Whew, a major step forward - roof beam up, Matt had no need for his helmet, and the forklift was ready for returning with no problems.

Matt's "Garage" Project

Last summer or maybe in the dead of winter, I heard my friend Matt say he was thinking about building a garage.  I said, "I might work with you on that."  Then a couple months later he got serious!

He found a real nice plan.  I can't find it right now so I'll have to give you the link later.

We were thinking we would be able to start by the end of May.  Then we thought the beginning of June.  Then middle of June.  Maybe the end?  No.  We started the second week of July.

The excavation took forever, but they did have to put a lot of rock back into the earth.  They had to go down 10 feet before there was solid earth - and then fill it up again with rock.

Hard Rock Construction did the foundation.  It looks good while we wait for the pad to be poured.  They were really good to work with.

The main house is to the right of the foundation.

One wall up, another one on the way.

Three walls up.

Four walls up, and time for the first floor beam, 26 feet long, 2 feet high, and 5 and a quarter inches wide.

It always amazes me that the rental places let me rent equipment that I have no idea how to operate!  But, you give them your credit card, and with a two minute lesson, you're off on your own!  Fun!

Four walls, beam, and the BCIs are in.  Looks ready for plywood.

This was pretty much a week's work.

But it's not done yet.

Mt. Edgecumbe Hike

Doug looks at the view.





Mt. Edgecumbe, an extinct volcano, is a 30 minute boat ride from Sitka.  The trail was originally constructed by the CCC in the 1930's.  The trail wanders the muskegs for 6 miles, and goes straight up the mountain for 1 mile.

Luckily, my friend Bob was one of the leaders of the hike for Sitka Trail Works - he managed to get me a seat on the boat.

For six and a half miles, we weren't sure that we were going to see anything at all - not an unusual occurrence.  But not too far from the top, I got my face out of the mountain long enough to turn around and check things out.  The clouds were moving and the mountains in the distance were peeking out over the clouds.

In this picture, the town of Sitka is off to the left at the base of the mountains.

There was quite a large group for this hike and you can see some of them on the hump and some off the hump to the left.

Depending on the weather, it's fun to walk around the crater.  I kind of like this picture where you can see some of the crater with Sitka Sound and the mountains in the background.  You can see there's still a cloud bank ready to jump back over the mountain when you least expect it.

Mt. Edgecumbe is famous for an April Fool's prank.  It's more fun to read about it here rather than have me tell about it.  It's a great prank, for sure.

Hike: Starrigavan Lakes

The summer hasn't been one for great hiking - but I've been on a couple of great hikes.

A great destination that is off the beaten "Sitka" path (which means you won't see anyone most of the time) but close to town (OK, everything is close to town) is Starrigavan Lakes.

After a long 12 mile drive almost to the firing range, you park and start up through an old logging clearcut.  And focus on the word "up."  Any time you go through an old logged off area, it's miserable anyway.  Luckily, enough people go up that way that you don't have to crawl through the mud with devil's club scraping your back.

Then it gets steep.  Keep going.

But when you break out of the trees, it's all worth it.  This is one direction.



There's a lot of snow from last winter.  Note that it is July 5.








Matt, Bob, and I climbed up on top, about 3000 feet in elevation - and yes, we started pretty much from sea level.  Here they are, surveying the empire.  And what an empire.