Tuesday July 9, 2013 Day 42
A gorgeous, perfect, sunny day in Alaska. They do happen. Rarely, maybe. I can?t say. But it sure does perk me up and make me want to be outdoors all day!
I took my trusty little coupon for a 15% discount of all purchases from the Beluga Lookout gift shop and went shopping early today?I wanted a couple of gifts for very special people, and I had discovered yesterday that the Native Alaskan carved figures of whale bone, whale baleen, jade, caribou antlers, walrus tusks, etc. were far less expensive here than at the souvenir places along the streets of little Alaskan towns. And they?re nicer quality, too. Aha!
I found the absolute cutest little Inupiak tribe (Eskimo) ?Billikin? carvings for these two people?little cherubic figures with round cheeks and round little bellies that are fetishes to bring good luck, especially when the holder rubs the little round belly of this billikin thing. It?s carved out of walrus tusk, and is only about 3 inches tall. Quite charming. And there?s a neat little poem?more like a jingle, really? that goes with it: ?As a blues chaser, I?m a honey ? To bring good luck just rub my tummy.?
Naturally I couldn?t resist buying a great little carving for myself, too. Kind of like Christmas shopping ? One for you, one for me! The carving I bought is of whale bone, whale baleen and walrus tusk, depisting an Inupiak seal hunter of the far north in a kayak holding a harpoon above his head, with a ring of sealskin fur around his face and the ?rope? attached to the harpoon made of whale sinew. This whole scene is perched on a big green soapstone rock base, at an angle that makes it look as if the seal hunter is riding a big wave. The kayak is about 10 inches long. It?s very artistic and nicely done. About a third of the price I saw for similar carvings in Anchorage, Seward and other places.
We walked down the cliff path to the beach again. We walked down the path with a local guy who was going fishing. He pointed out a number of interesting birds to me while we walked?a cute little yellow bellied ?wobbler? as he called it. Warbler, maybe? Across the marsh he spotted a herrier (member of the falcon and eagle family) going after small critters. Don spotted the same bird later as we walked back up the path to the top of the bluff.
The tide was out, allowing me to walk far out on the flats looking closely for interesting rocks, pieces of driftwood, feathers, maybe even some sea glass. Oh how I love to do the beachcombing thing! I didn?t find any sea glass (darn it!) but I soon had a good pocketful of polished egg-shaped agates, a nice chunk of lava, some marble-sized stones full of copper in a burnished turquoise color. And an eagle feather!
Fine of the late stragglers among the commercial fishing vessels entering the harbor after a long day in Cook Inlet had become grounded in the channel at low tide late last night. They were running their engines, probably to keep the fish refrigerated in their holds. But it looked as if they would be sitting there til at least 2 in the afternoon today. Seems like a costly mistake because of extra fuel consumption.
We walked a couple of blocks to visit the old Russian Orthodox church. I wanted to see the original icons inside the church, which was built in 1840. Along the way, we happened upon Veronica?s Coffee Shop & Caf?, in a very old frame building of logs with dove-tailed joints, surrounded by absolutely gorgeous gardens. The globes of purple flowers topping the bunches of chives were huge; the brightly flowered stems of pink and yellow snapdragons planted in old barrels were about 16 inches tall! Soebody here really knows gardening! We ordered coffee and a goodie, and went to sit outdoors at a picnic table for our little snack.
Don?s 3-berry cobbler, freshly made this morning, was outstanding. I ordered something that looked somewhat croissant-like that turned out to be fluffy and incredible croissant bread pudding with dried cranberries in it that had puffed up like giant raisins?toped with drizzles of their homemade caramel sauce. OMG! Was this delicious or what? The place does quite a big lunch business, we could see.
Blessed Virgin Mary of the Assumption church proved to be quite fascinating, for me at least. Don could have cared less. It has been beautifully restored; the large icons (painted images) of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John are lovely paintings that have been cleaned and restored as well. There are at least a half-dozen other smaller icons of the Virgin Mary and events from the New testament. Father Thomas, the pastor, was there to tell visitors about his church. He is an extremely handsome man of 55, grey at the temples, who looks very Japanese. He is Native Alaskan, of the Yu?pik tribe from the western part of Alaska, who attended Russian Orthodox seminary in Kodiak, Alaska. He is married and has 4 grown children, all of whom still live near Kenai and of whom he is very proud.
Father Thomas?s parish consists of only 12 people now, all of whom are older folks. The diocese he?s in has 99 parish churches in Alaska and northern Canada. Father Thomas has a wonderful, exuberant sense of humor and is so patient with all of us from The Lower 48, most of whom know absolutely nothing about the Russian Orthodox church or its role in the settling of Alaska, its doctrines, its priests or its traditions.
I know a lot about the Russian Church from my past reading and studies, its similarities and contrasts to the Roman Catholic Church, and having just read the excellent section of Michener?s Alaska about the Russian Orthodox Church in this vast country, I felt I could ask semi-intelligent questions at least. It was also fun reading some of the ornate Russian Syrillic documents in the church, several of which were protected in enclosed cases because they are hundreds of years old?Bible excerpts beautifully designed and painted by hand, probably by monks or priests, and done in hand-lettered script with old quill pens. Lots of red ink and gold leaf. Hanging above and in front of nearly all the icons in the church are highly ornamented gold censors used with lighted incense inside when in procession while blessing the church, the people, and during the Mass. Before leaving, I tossed $20 into the pot for the upkeep of the parish.
As we walked around the corner to go back to the Rollin Home, we met Father Michael Orlikovsky (very Russian, yes?!) being pushed by his young companion in a wheelchair. Father Michael, slim and ancient with white hair and a neatly trimmed white pointy beard, must be in his late 90s, has had strokes and can?t speak much. But his eyes twinkled when we greeted him warmly and remarked what a gorgeous day it is, prompting his companion to introduce him to us and tell us he was pastor of this church for many, many years. We thanked him for keeping the church up so beautifully, and restoring all the artwork. He shook his head as if to say, ?It was my pleasure!? and we walked on.
The western coastal shoreline of the Kenai Peninsula has many towns with Russian names and picturesque Russian Orthodox churches perched high on hills overlooking Cook Inlet. One such town is Nikiski?we took the ?less traveled path? along the river to ?Old Nikiski?, down close to the shore. A few newer houses are visible, but the Old Nikiski is a picture-perfect jumble of flowing river, tall weeds, wildflowers, fallen-down buildings in weathered grays, junked rotted old fishing boats with blue and red paint peeling off, rusted old fishing gear along the road. And, amazingly, a parking lot with an RV park right down next to Cook Inlet at the end of the road that runs through Old Nikiski.
The highway runs very close to the Inlet most of the way south. There?s scattered population all the way down to Homer, nearly every residence with a travel trailer, rv or 5th wheel for camping parked in the yard. And almost every house has a boat parked in the yard, too?sometimes large, sometimes small, but always a boat for Inlet fishing.
Oddly, the quality of houses varies considerably. One house will be a small frame place about 30 years old with junk scattered around the yard and driveway. Next one will be a recently-sold parcel with a larger, fancier house on it?clearly the ?new rich? of Alaska who stepped themselves up or who recently built a vacation home as a second home and who fly in for long holidays (my suspicion). Small space of treed area, then a double-wide mobile home that is poorly maintained, has probably been there 20 years or more, and maybe belongs to a subsistence hunter or fisherman or someone who moved to Alaska many years ago to get away from civilization. And now civilization is once more encroaching, isn?t it?
As we continued down the Sterling Highway towards Homer, I wanted to stop as a place called Timberline Creations that is written up in The Milepost. Michael Lettis and his wife make jewelry, carve antlers and tusks, and sell a zillion different kinds of artifacts out of a cute log cabin. They used to be located in Soldotna, but when the highway was widened it went right through the middle of their store, so they moved farther down the peninsula and have been there for 10 years now. Michael is a really great fella, grew up in Anchorage and has been in Alaska most of his life. Not a native, but close. Definitely a country guy ? hunter, fisherman, boater.
Michael does his ?harvesting? of caribou and moose antlers to carve every year when he goes hunting in the fall & winter, gathering up the racks that have been shed in the late fall by the animals as part of their seasonal renewal. He has stacks of huge antlers in the far corners of his store waiting to be cut and carved, or made into something.
I bought some pieces of woolly mammoth foot bones he had in a basket, that are between 12,000 and 40,000 years old ($20 each or 3 for $50). The Natives up here find them when ridges near rivers erode following winter thaws or rainstorms, causing the old preserved bones to fall out of the bluffs into the rivers and creeks; the Native Yup?iks and Dena?ina people who live here on the Kenai supply Michael with these things. (It?s all legal, by the way?I wouldn?t buy anything that?s illegal or that endangers any archeology or paleontology.)
I also found a fascinating big bone from an ancient steppe bison, an enormous beast about double or triple the size of today?s bison. Steppe bison are also a log-extinct species, and Michael think the bone is probably about 30,000 years old. Don?t know what I?ll do with these, but I like having them?like the jewelry I bought a while back that contains ancient walrus tusk pieces, it feels as if it ties me to our ancient past. Somehow a good reminder of where we came from, in case urbanization ever threatens to transform us into weak, shadowy images of what we once were, hearty souls who could survive in even the cruelest environments. Do you think we?ll ever need those skills again some day?
We passed the turnoff to The Russian Village of Nikolaevsk, which I want to visit, but I think we?ll go in there on our way back up the peninsula as we return north and head for Whittier on the 14th of July.
Michael carves a spectacular little caribou scene using teeny-tiny drills and knives into a slice of caribou antler that is 2-3 inches in diameter. The only ones he had in the case were marked NFS, though, and he said he is planning to do several more in the next few days if I would care to come back. His pendants typically are used as jewelry, but I can picture this lovely piece hanging in my kitchen window over the sink on a tiny chain or some copper wire, either in Silverthorne or in Greenwood Village?with sunshine coming through it. Each day it would remind me of this fabulous trip and the places we have loved? This is quite close to Homer, so I said I would most certainly be back! For $40, this is a great memento, and a wonderful piece of art.
In the course of our long conversation, I had mentioned to Michael that I was a watercolor artist and he told me of a very special place that I should definitely stop to see on our way south to Homer. A well-known Alaska artist named Norman Lowell homesteaded here in Alaska many, many years ago. He is now in his 80s and does beautiful paintings, Michael told us?the gallery is stupendous! Be sure to stop there! So we proceeded down the road, pulled in at Norman Lowell Road and met white-haired Mr. Lowell watering his spectacular gardens at 5:30 pm. The gallery and shop had just closed, but he was so gracious and said his staff had just left minutes ago. I said we?d come back the next day. Mr. Lowell started as a watercolor artist many years ago, and works in all mediums at different times. He said he ?returned? to watercolors about 8 years ago for a period of time; he does mostly oils these days. I just can?t wait to see his work!
The drive into Homer is gorgeous, coming in on the high bluff. The first view of Homer down below on the shores of the Inlet and Kachemak Bay is breathtaking. Sterling Highway into town has turned into a bit of a ?strip? however, loaded with inns, motels, souvenir shops and burger franchises. It?s discouraging that every town in America, whether up here or in The Lower 48, fails to retain its unique look ? its character -- any more as burger franchises move in. I?m certainly NOT against commerce in all its forms, and I can understand every fast food place, bank and gas station wanting to be on ?the strip? entering town, BUT?.is there possibly a way to do the zoning and/or land-use regulations that would avoid the homogeneity that is so depressing? I guess not, really.
Nonetheless, as we drove out onto Homer Spit to our RV park, bordered on the southwest by Cook Inlet and on the northwest by Kachemak Bay, we could see that this is indeed unique! Lots of wind, quite cool and brisk as stiff breezes come off Cook Inlet, which is covered in whitecaps. The waves are probably 2-3 feet. We registered at Heritage RV Park about 1/3 of the way out the spit, positioned alongside to the north of what is famously known as ?the fishing hole?, a little lake that forms every day at high tides and gets full of wonderful fish, then becomes landlocked as the tides recede and the fish can?t escape. We want to walk tomorrow to the hole and around it to inspect the fishing scene there.
Our spot #83 in the park, a pull-in on the shorefront, faces north towards Kachemak Bay and an enormous glacier?I think we?re looking at Grewingk Glacier straight ahead of us across Kachemak Bay. I can vaguely discern Glacier Spit down low to the water across the bay too. We can see two other big glaciers to the right of us across the bay ? the Wosnesenski Glacier and the Doroshin Glacier. I think I can see Ismailof Island and the headland of Peterson Bay, which are the points of land behind which is well-known Halibut Cove. This RV park is worth every single penny of the high cost, $73 a night. We?re here for 5 nights. I?m in heaven!!
We drove toward the end of the Spit and parked easily in a free lot to walk around, find some halibut for dinner and finish the day off with a beer & wine at the Salty Dawg Saloon! Not very crowded right now, thank goodness. The tide is in, a few people are wandering around. Our park is only about 2/3 full. This is such a delight! Smells like ocean, feels like ocean air, looks like big water. Perfecto!
We had the famous cod fish & chips and halibut fish & chips at The Boardwalk caf?. Don?s cod fish & chips were substantially less expensive than my halibut. Both were good, but I have to say I?ve had better halibut! This was okay, very fresh, but battered a bit more than I prefer and a little bit dryer than I like?could have been more succulent and juicy considering the high price. Not worth the $18.95 they charge out here.
We spent dinner hour at an indoor table at The Boardwalk talking with a wonderful young man originally from Colorado who owns a private hunting & fishing lodge far north of here, west across the Cook Inlet and inland a ways north located at Lake Clark, adjacent to Lake Clark National Park and Preserve. Preston and his wife Stacie have been out here in Alaska for 13 years, and they?ve owned the lodge 10 years. They can handle up to 12 hunting and/or fishing guests who fly in and land on Lake Clark. Most of his guests stay for 2 weeks. Each year, Preston gets some of the very limited number of brown bear (grizzly) hunting permits that are granted in his area of Alaska. Preston flew down here from his lodge to pick up a newly-purchased 18-foot jetboat (shallow draft, no prop, fast) that was just trailered to Homer from Anchorage. He would cross the water with it to get it ?home? to Lake Clark taking quite a complicated route, taking several days to get there, hoping the weather would remain clear and stable for his run. He was eating dinner, sitting with a sailor?s charting compass and an atlas, figuring out his course while waiting for the day?s winds straight out of the north to die down, followed by the settling down of the waves so he could start out for the north. We asked if we could join him at his table and he graciously said we could.
I forget how many miles Preston said his trip would be. In good weather and light winds (with correspondingly few waves) he could make the trip across Cook Inlet in about 3+ hours; if winds picked up unexpectedly and waves rose, the trip could take as long as 8 brutal hours. His trip would require heading straight west across Cook Inlet past Augustine Island to land at the foot of a bay where there?s a short stretch of road leading to Illiamna Lake, a large freshwater lake located between the Aleutian Range and the Taylor Mountains. The boat will require trailoring once again overland between Cook Inlet and Illiamna Lake, on the short stretch of road that the map shows is available there. Then Preston would take his new boat on water again across Illiamna and to the north again (on a map it looks like this might be another 20 miles or so), where there?s a long river he can take (maybe 10 miles?) that gets him up to Lake Clark. Lake Clark is a very long, narrow lake that looks to be more than 75 miles long, maybe 5 to 10 miles wide. His lodge is at the northwest end of Lake Clark, so his journey is far from finished once he reaches Lake Clark.
I can?t wait to tell my old friend Dave about Preston?s place?I know Dave would just love going there to hunt bears and caribou.
Following dinner we strolled toward the small boat harbor and watched people, fishing boats unloading their day?s catch, and the general activities of the Homer Spit. We went into the famous, grungy old Salty Dawg Saloon to have our beer & wine for the day?s finale. It?s a rough log cabin, grey with age and sea mist, with very low-slung doorways where guys bang their heads about every 5 minutes. Inside there are long heavy wooden tables carved with about 55 years? worth of names and places, long log benches on either side for family-style groups. A big bar with old stools. And dollar bills pinned, mailed, and tacked to every rafter, stud and wall, some very old and yellowed, all with markered messages and names on them. Must be at least 5,000 bills papering every inch of the place.
Good people-watching in there too. It?s a hangout for locals?a bunch of 5 fishermen laughing up a storm with at least 25 empty beer bottles crowding their table. More locals wandering in as the evening progressed.
Happy and mellow, we headed for home. Next door, I was happy to see, is the Salty Girls gift shop, bookstore, etc. That?s me Salty Susie! Home and to bed we go. Nice day! Lots of walking and activity! We?re exhausted.
When we were in the Kenai last year, we hired a fishing guide, fly fished the Kenai River and saw a young grizzly eating salmon on the banks. That is such a beautiful river. BTW, eagles are very lazy, they steal the fish and anything eatable that every other bird catches. When we were camped in Seward along the bay, some sea gulls had retrieved the insides of a fish that a fisherman had discarded. Smart eagles just flew in...swiped the goodies and flew away. Poor Sea Gulls.
