Observation No. 18: It's raining in Anchorage

The New Girl must keep the posts short this week as she battles the lions of work and a Graduate School Final Paper (threatening music, play here.) Why do professors (oh, Jeremy, are you reading this?) always weight the final papers so heavily? What happened between, say kindergarten, and now that things have changed? Anyways.

It's raining in Anchorage.

I'm okay with rain--but this has been a lot. Not a lot by Anchorage standards. But a lot for a former Colorado resident. I was warned that no one should leave Alaska in the summer because you run the real risk that you'll miss the really, really nice weather for the whole year. I didn't believe it because it's been a great spring and early summer in Anchorage with temperatures hovering in the low to mid 70s and sunny skies abounding.

I had heard some bad talk, though, about last year's dreadful summer... Last summer, apparently, was the stuff of legend in Alaska--something that you'd tell your grand kids when they complain that they have to take the garbage out. You'd tell them all about the summer in Alaska when it rained every single day, a summer without flip flops, without tank tops, without cool beers on the outside deck. Here's an ADN story. It follows the writers adventure on a soggy rafting trip.

We heard about it all winter as people hoped, tentatively, that this summer would be better. And this May, their hopes came to fruition. The sun fell brightly on our shoulders--it was beautiful!

That is, until we broke the sacred rule of "Thou Shalt Not Vacation Outside Alaska During the Summer." It's rained every day since we've been back and the temperature has not even flirted with 70 degrees.

The New Girl in AK has learned her lesson--but she still may be tempted...

Observation No. 17: Artificial Sun

Since moving up from the Lower 48, the New Girl in Alaska has discovered a true joy that she never knew before—that is, the joy of the tanning salon.

I know this is ridiculous. But the power of the sun, or anything that resembles the sun, beating down on you when there’s about 5 hours of light outside in January cannot be understated. There’s plenty of reasons to tan, right? It helped me get through my first winter in this crazy climate. Vitamin D is totally necessary. A little color prevents a bad sunburn. Even Sarah Palin has a tanning bed in her house, for goodness sakes.

But you can get addicted—I knew this was happening to me when the teenage girls working at the salon started complimenting me on how brown as was getting. These girls are typically the color of toasted nuts, the color you have when you return from an 8-week jaunt in the Caribbean. Not the color of a long winter in Alaska.

So I gave up the salon for a few months and returned to my normal milk-colored self—or as a reporter I know once described her untouched skin—the color of uncooked halibut. I’ve remained that way for much of the spring and early summer.

But I wanted to get a good base tan going before vacation so I hit the tanning booth again for the last several weeks. To brown up again. Like any addict, I just can’t go once. Vacation has come and gone now but I’m still tempted to return to the tanning salon—I keep thinking that I could get a little browner. Vitamin D is good for me right?

More on bears...

Okay, I know I'm getting a little bear obsessed. This from someone who's only seen a couple animals since arriving in the state nine months ago. But I found this interesting safety video from Glacier National Park about hiking in bear country. It's good for us novices. Check it out.



By the way, the ranger in this video was not the one that rousted us from our tents at 7 a.m.! But the video did give me more guilt pangs for endangering bears who they've managed to insulate from human behavior for this long.

Observation No. 16: The Problem with Bears

The sound of the park ranger’s irate voice rang out in early morning, last week in the Glacier National Park. From inside our tent, which was soaked by the previous evening’s heavy rainstorm, we could hear the women walking through the camp that we’d hastily abandoned when the drops began to fall the night before. With the storm coming down, we’d quickly tossed everything into our truck in an attempt to honor the campground’s strict rules dedicated to reducing bear-human interactions and protecting the park’s bears.

Evidently in our haste, we’d missed a few things. “What’s this red cooler?” she asked, finding the cooler with a couple of floating bottles of soda, beer and water we’d forgotten. “Bears can get in here and eat the glass —you’ll be fine but it will kill a bear.” My husband called out from the tent that we must have missed the cooler as he wiggled out of his sleeping bag and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “You missed a RED cooler!” the ranger admonished, scathingly. “And what about this bottle of sodapop in the back of the pick-up?” Duly chastened, we set about cleaning up camp—and were thankful we didn’t get the $50 ticket the ranger had waiting.

Bears in Glacier National Park are serious business and the officials are diligent in protecting the bears that inhabit the 1.4 million acre park. A federal study found in 2008 that endangered grizzly populations have rebounded slightly in recent years, with an estimated 765 grizzly bears living in northwest Montana, in places like Glacier National Park. To protect this endangered population, the park rangers have the power to hand out a hefty $50 fine for doing things like leaving out grills and coolers, keeping toothpaste in your tent, burning trash or food waste and other bear-attracting activities. The park website talks extensively about how to be prepared for recreating in bear country without endangering the bruin inhabitants. The method has worked—since 1995, there has been only one human-caused grizzly mortality in Glacier National Park, which hosts 1.7 to 1.9 million visitors every year.

All this came to mind as I read this morning’s ADN story about a man who shot four bears in his front yard (three cubs and a sow) on July 6 and then denounced the misdemeanor charges brought up against him by Alaska Division of Wildlife as “frivolous.” He shot the sow through window, then two cubs as they attempted to enter his cabin. The fourth cub was shot as it stood over the sow. The man said he felt in danger for his life.

I obviously don’t know the circumstances of this incident. It could be that he left out a cooler accidentally like we did and paid the price of four bears attempting to break into his home—a truly frightening experience.

But it also leads me to something about Alaska that I truly don’t get—on one hand, we venerate these animals. You’d be hard-pressed to find an example of Alaskana without the grizzly bear featured prominently on it. These animals are the symbol of the state where untamed wilderness is what appeals to so many of its residents. On the other hand, many Alaskans treat animals like bears as disposable if they’re inconvenienced—like getting rid of trash that would attract a bear or putting away the cooler. There’s a weird refusal by residents to recognize the lessons learned everywhere else in the world—that animal populations can be made extinct by the actions of hum an beings.

The lesson wasn’t learned in Montana and now there is careful stewardship to maintain their bear populations in places Glacier National Park. Will Alaska bring its own bear population to the brink of extinction before federal officials mandate that we pay attention?

I hope we’re smarter than that.

Gone Fishing: Part 3

We found warm (100 plus degree!) weather in Eastern Washington and have the burnt noses to prove it. Back in Alaska on Sunday and we can't believe how quick the week has gone by.

Here are some more "postcards" from our travels.

Wish you were here!

The New Girl

Gone Fishing: Part 2

We're in Beautiful Montana today where 60 degree and rainy weather has shocked everyone. I could have gone to Sitka for this! But we're having a good time with friends who we haven't seen since we moved from Colorado.

Yesterday, we've visited Whitefish, which I've heard is the new Crested Butte, Colorado--the New Girl's most recent hometown. To me, it seems more like Telluride or Aspen-lots of condos, high end retail and happy real estate agents (or they have been happy up until recently.)

Today, we've found a nice cabin to dry our stuff out and we'll take a hike this afternoon. Thanks for your patience and we'll be back to our regular programming next week.

Observation No. 15: Gone Fishing

The New Girl in Alaska is...not in Alaska this week!

We've made the sojourn south for a week of relaxing in Washington and Montana with friends and family.

Of course, visiting another wild and wacky places is the perfect way to understand the wild and wacky place that you currently call home. Since arriving, we've had dozens of conversations about Sarah Palin, land development, permafrost, global warming, guns, fishing and village life. I'll fill my dear readers in later this week.

Observation No. 14: The Birthright

I’ve had more conversations about fishing than I can count on two hands in the few weeks. I am not a fisherperson. I have never caught a fish although I do have a vague memory of going to a fish farm when I was about five and catching something but I could have made that up.

Fishing season in Alaska is like the Super Bowl in the rest of the world. It’s something that everyone does, everyone talks about and everyone has opinions on. There’s different types of fishing here that aren’t allowed anywhere else in the country and have totally peculiar names like snagging and fish wheels. You can set net, dip net or purse and beach seine or… I don’t know what else. It’s a lot. Most people fish for halibut and salmon, although it seems you can get herring, pollock, cod, crab and clams too.

Then there’s the terrifying possibility of “combat” fishing, where fishermen and women stand shoulder to shoulder on popular rivers at certain times of June, casting their rods and hoping for a catch. Now, from what I hear this is a bit of a trick because salmon heading upstream to spawn and die aren’t necessarily very hungry. You literally have to bonk them on their nose with the bait to get them to bite—or so someone told me at a party the other night. My cousin’s wife is a life-time lesson and a bit of an expert. She recently challenged my uncle and cousin as to whether they were going to stay at the preschool or get in with the “big boys” while fishing on the Russian last week. She caught the fish that we ate for dinner (my cousin notes that he cleaned it). Her secret to success? Eye protection and lots of rubber.

In Alaska, fishing is big business and a building block for the state’s economy. So far this season, the state’s fishermen have caught 30,379,000 salmon. On average, the value of Alaskan seafood sold at first wholesale easily tops $2 billion, according to the State Division of Commercial Fisheries. The division reports that the economic impact of the seafood industry is estimated at $4.6 billion five years ago—not counting personal and subsistence fishing.

But fishing in Alaska isn’t just about business—it almost seems to be a birthright. Indeed, the New Girl has pictures of her own parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles in Bristol Bay grinning in front of skiffs full of fish.

I don’t have a fishing license so I’m relegated to sitting on the sidelines for this summer. But a friend did let me practice casting his reel on a blank stretch of river, and I easily cast it out. I’ll be ready to claim my portion of Alaska’s catch next year.

Observation No 13: The country's favorite governor

It is intriguing how the actions of one state’s governor can totally captivate the attention of the American public, and even the world. One week, there’s South Carolina governor Mark Sanford jetting off to Argentina to hook up with a lover http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE56652M20090707.
The next week, my own governor up and quits.

She back to running this state this week, albeit from a variety of locations around the state. Like the ADN and , I follow Governor Palin on Twitter.

Here are a few of the Tweets from the last day or so:
AKGovSarahPalin: The 9th Circuit had to dissolve injunction; barrier to Kensington Mine project is gone- good jobs on the way; stand by 4 press announcement

AKGovSarahPalin: Today,try this: "Act in accordance to your conscience -risk- by pursuing larger vision in opposition to popular, powerful pressure"-unknown (about 14 hours ago from TwitterBerry)

AKGovSarahPalin: Grateful Todd left fishing grnds to join me this wkend; but now he's back slaying salmon & working the kids @ the site; anxious to join 'em! (07/05/2009 3:01:53 PM from TwitterBerry)

AKGovSarahPalin: Refreshing to be in Kotzebue to honor VPSOs; Native dancers, whaling captains, lots of beautiful kids loving the annual Trade Fair- perfect! (07/07/2009 5:01:28 PM from TwitterBerry)

Sigh.

Now, I’d like to tell you that Alaska is not as transfixed as the rest of the country when it comes to our governor. But that would be a lie. By strange coincidence, I pulled into Wasilla during the governor’s press conference on Friday, as she was delivering her “I’m quitting but not quitting speech.” It was immediately the talk of the town, with the grocery store clerks swapping the latest with people as they stocked up on hotdogs and chips for the holiday weekend. Another friend who was on a remote island for the holiday weekend reported seeing herds of people flocking to the island’s tip—the only place where cell phones get coverage—to get the latest news.

I think the state is just as flummoxed as to why she’s quitting as the rest of the country. The best analysis I read of this was a story from Time magazine that suggests reasons why she might have quit. The story features quotes from policy expert and former journalist Larry Persily, who I sat in on a meeting with a couple weeks ago. Persily is smart with the dry sense of humor only developed in a newsroom.

This Time article also discusses what made Palin appealing to so many when they elected her in 2006. Here’s a shock—it wasn’t because she was a gun-toting, hardline conservative. Contrary to popular belief (and the New Girl’s own expectations), Alaska has some blue voters, including in Anchorage, where Senator Mark Begich served as mayor before his successful bid against Sen. Ted Stevens. Many of the rural communities continue to elect Democrats to office.

An source close to Palin suggested to the Wall Street Journal that the mainstream media, including MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow (Here’s the story picked up by the Alaska Standard) has missed the point and Governor Palin was paralyzed by a barrage of Freedom of Information Act requests that prohibited her from governing effectively.

From the New Girl's perch, Alaska will benefit from seating a governor ready and able to work on state issues. We need more cooperation and bi-partisanship and not less. Whatever Governor Palin's story is, Alaska will no doubt wait with baited breath to see what happens next.

Observation 12: Fourth of July, AK style

It was Fourth of July Alaskan style for the New Girl in AK this weekend. I drove up to Petersville area to join my husband at a remote cabin where he’s been working for the last 10 days.

I’ll be honest. Up to now, I didn’t get what the big attraction was to the cabin lifestyle that is a matter of pride for so many Alaskans. This winter, people would earnestly describe the 11 years they spent living in a 10-by-20 foot cabin out of Fairbanks with no inside plumbing and sporadic electricity and all I could think was “Why?” What’s more the accoutrement of this lifestyle didn’t seem appealing either—namely ATVS, diesel, and guns.

Here’s the lesson learned kids—don’t knock it until you try it.

Our hosts, a life-time Alaskan and her husband, were expert guides on a backcountry Alaskan weekend, immediately setting me up with my own pair of the omnipresent rubber boots that every Alaskan woman needs to navigate the marshy tundra.

Everyone agrees they are remarkably dry this year. In Alaska, remarkably dry means you don’t need full waders—just boots will do.

It took a couple of hours in a convoy of ATVs to shuttle me and some construction materials into the cabin after one of the ATVs pulling a trailer was bogged in deep hole that was hidden by grass. After a good deal of conversation, a stop at a neighbor's, one beer for me and some mechanical intervention, the trailer was freed and we were on our way.

The “cabin” turned out to be several times larger than my Anchorage home and was once run as a bed and breakfast before our friends purchased it for private use. There were two smaller cabins on site, one of which was home for me, my husband, and roughly two dozen mosquitoes at any given moment. It looked out on a gigantic meadow that was filled with alders and wild cotton.

After we settled in, we spent a large part of the weekend “visiting” with nearby residents—just stopping other cabins by for a few minutes to share some gossip on the latest with Sarah Palin, borrow coolant for the four-wheeler and check out the newest touches that someone has put on their abode. [Alaska writer Nick Jans had a fun article about his own experiences ‘visiting’ in the Alaska Magazine’s May edition.] While out and about, one neighbor let me drive his ATV, while another stopped to point out the footprint of what he guessed was a 7-foot-tall bear. We didn’t see the bear but I was given a lesson on where the guns were kept in case we did. (See my previous post about guns versus bear spray—our hosts had both on hand.)

When we weren’t visiting other folks, we had our own company that we attempted to ply with all the food we’d hauled in—but of course, they wanted us to come back to their cabin to eat their supplies.

On day two, I shot a rifle for the first time in my life and hit the target on my sixth bullet—I didn’t have to reload! We celebrated the Fourth of July with plenty of food and neighbors but no fireworks. The sun isn’t setting until close to midnight and full darkness doesn’t come for hours after that. We agreed to save the fireworks for New Year’s when night comes early and it only takes a few minutes to reach the cabin on a fast snow machine.

Of course, as I was standing in my rubber boots, with a rifle in hand and an ATV standing by, I thought of Sarah Palin, our soon-to-be former governor. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen photos of Sarah with a similar look. What can I say? She might not know politics, but she definitely knows how to have fun AK-style.

Will I head back to Petersville area this winter if I get the chance? You betcha.

Observation 11: The Bucket List

A friend my husband and I have made since arriving in Alaska announced this recently that he and his wife are moving down south to Ohio after many years here.

I talked to him on the phone this week and he sounded a little wistful, with just a few days in town left. “There are so many things we haven’t done yet,” he said, adding that he’s coming back in August to get their home ready for sale and hopes he can eek out a few more Alaskana experiences before leaving the state for good.

I felt just this way when we were leaving Colorado. There were places that we just didn’t get to during our 10 years there, experiences that we didn’t have that are now much more difficult to achieve then a simple weekend trip. Floating the Yampa River comes to mind, rock climbing at the Colorado Monument, hiking more of the Colorado Trail, seeing more blues shows in Telluride.

This came into further focus tonight with the arrival of my aunt and uncle from the Seattle area. They’ve spent the last week in Alaska, cruising, fishing, rafting and staying in a big cabin in Cooper’s Landing. They were bursting with news and we ate their fresh red salmon for dinner.
Why is it that people come thousands of miles to experience what’s in your backyard but it seems impossible to get a couple days off to see the same when you actually live there? And if we do get those days, we’re more likely to fly off to someone else’s backyard and experience it. It’s one of those real-life mysteries like what’s in Spam.

Anyways, I’m starting to cook up my Alaskan bucket list so if and when I leave Alaska, I’ll have ticked off some of those things. Here comes the brave part: I’m putting it out there for all you readers to appreciate and hold me accountable. And I’m willing to hear some ideas too.

Here's the start of my list:
-Walk on the beach in Pilot Point, Alaska. This is the village where my mom was born.
-Earn my turns at Hatcher Pass.

-Take a flying lesson.
-Splash around in an ocean kayak at Kayakers Cove.
-Catch a King Salmon. Learn how to smoke fish.
-Hike out to Lowell Point near Seward.
-Climb a peak in the Chugach Mountains.
-Do a big river trip, anywhere.
-See the Porcupine Caribou Herd.

I'm anxious to hear what's on other people's lists. Post them here or Tweet me.