Alaska Grown, 2

Remember the post where I started out talking about the "Alaska Grown" symbol that adorns many clothing items for sale here?

While it seems to have become an icon of pride in being raised in or living in Alaska, I presumed it was originally a logo chosen to promote Alaska grown produce.


Last week my presumption was confirmed. I had my first Alaska Grown siting where the symbol was NOT on a piece of clothing but actually on something that was grown in Alaska.

It's almost like another country up here because Alaska is so far removed from the rest of the Lower 48. For a state with such a small population (about 750,000 people living in 6 million acres), Alaska has a lot of locally made, grown, fabricated, or produced industry. While much still comes from the Lower 48, shipping costs are killer. And things can take approximately forever to get here, often coming by land to Seattle and then by barge up the coast. So anything that is home "grown" by any meaning of the word is a real plus for the state. Alaskans are proud of what originates in Alaska, whether it's produce or people.

Alaska, Where....

Alaska, where......

I get to see this whenever I drive down the residential street to the post office:

Aren't they cute?

Little red wagons with flowers in each one!  I love it!

Pretty much every time I drive by this home, these flower wagons are in a different configuration.

Sometimes they're in a semi-circle, either concave or convex to the street.

Sometimes they're in a line. But almost always they're moved. I suppose that's to keep the grass from dying underneath them. Smart.

I wish I had pictures of every arrangement. It's such a joy driving by and seeing them.

I love this little "baby" wagon bringing up the rear of this arrangement. The sun was shining just right the day I stopped and the golden yellow pansies look warm and glowing.

Kenai

The town of Kenai is just about 10 miles from Soldotna. They're often called the Twin Cities around here. Kenai has a great Visitors Center where there's a museum, gift shop, and films about the Kenai Peninsula and Alaska run all day long. There's also usually an art exhibit of some sort.

For one reason or another, at the beginning of the summer I had to go to Kenai a bunch of times. At Kenai, the mouth of the Kenai River enters the Cook Inlet of the Gulf of Alaska. There's a big bluff overlooking the river and the inlet. I found a little park from where I could look out over the bluff at the water and the mountains to the south. Seagulls, water, sea smell, snow capped mountains, and Mt. Redoubt. It's so peaceful there.

One day at the park a whole bunch of seagulls were riding the air current straight out from the bluff. It was so cool to see them almost hovering in the air so far above the water but some of them at eye level for me.

As I positioned myself to look downstream along the bluff's edge, I saw dozens and dozens of seagulls floating on the air current right at the edge.

A little later I saw this:

A local phenomenon in Kenai Alaska is dipnetting. Alaska residents are allowed to harvest a nice amount of salmon per person. The head of the household is allowed 25 salmon per year and every additional member of the household is allowed 10 each per year.

Dipnetting season on The Kenai River lasts about 20 days, so EVERYBODY's there. 

Fisher-families camp on the beach for the weekend or whatever handful of days they get off work for the event.  This year the season was from July 10-31.

It's quite an event that The Fisherman and I would like to experience at least once. But you have to be an Alaska resident to participate.

And the rule is very strictly enforced. In fact, non-residents are barely allowed on the beach during dipnetting.

 Non-residents are not allowed to participate in any part of a resident's dipnetting, not even carrying a tackle box. Of course, Game and Fish has a big presence on the beaches. If your non-resident guest is caught holding a net, carrying a tackle box or touching a fish, you could lose all your catch and probably suffer the loss of your privileges. Alaska is serious about managing their resources. The resources belong to the residents. Non-residents are allowed to share them in to only certain extents.

Even the seagulls seemed to be camped out, waiting upstream for their share.

In dipnetting, fishermen literally dip a net into the mouth waters of the Kenai River and salmon swim right into it.

And the nets are giant. Three or four feet in diameter and very long.

They break down into several segments so they can be more easily transported to and from the river.

One day in Soldotna I saw a little compact car with two women inside and a big ol' four foot dipnet strapped to the roof, overlapping the edges.

Before I left Kenai this particular day I saw this boat smoothly cruising in amongst all the shoreline hubbub.

As I drove away from the bluff, I decided to explore the Old Town a little bit. I came upon this beautiful American flag hung outside an old house. I thought it was so striking looking, against the honey colored siding, that I had to turn around and get some pictures.

While I was shooting, the owner came out from his garage and I talked with him a little bit.

He told me, "That's the flag of a dead Army man."

It's the flag given to his girlfriend upon the death of her veteran father. They hung it up in his honor.

I don't know if I've ever seen an American flag hanging straight down like that. And because the rod was a little shorter than the width of the flag, it's kind of bunched up. There might be some breach of "flag etiquette" here but I certainly don't care. It was so pretty lifting in the breeze.

I think it's beautiful.

My Favorite Dog Celebrity

Now who would think I'd meet my favorite dog celebrity in Alaska!


Who's my favorite dog celebrity, you ask? 


I'll give you a hint:  Brindle.


That's probably not enough of a hint. Here's another clue:  Bacon.


Another:  Maple.


Another:  Tease.


Yup! It's the Ultimate Dog Tease dog!


If you haven't seen this You Tube video, you simply HAVE to watch it. Click here.

OK, so this isn't really the celebrity dog of Ultimate Dog Tease fame.

But he's the same kind of dog as in the viral YouTube video.

This is Hank.  He belongs to the administrator/teacher at the school where we're camping. She brought him to work with her most days of summer work week. Hank and I got to be buddies. He was given free access to the school including the gym, hallways, and outdoors. With woods on three sides of the school, and a great big soccer field, Hank had a blast running around. I always knew Hank was here when I saw either the back door propped open or his square, hot pink water bowl (a plastic serving bowl of the picnic variety) sitting in the hallway in front of the school offices.

In the photo above, Hank is demolishing a Frisbee. 

I love his brindle coloring:

I must have used the flash for this one, inside the school, because it came out rather protrait-like. With his ears up he doesn't look much like "the maple bacon dog", as his owner calls him, but he sure looks cute. 

It's been fun having a dog around to love up.

When the Fish Come In

What's the number one sign that the fish are in around here?

It's how many RVs are in the parking lot at the Fred Meyer's, of course!

The middle of July is one of the best times to fish the Kenai River. The run of Sockeye (also known as Red) salmon begins then, and so does the increase in tourism, traffic, RVs and population down here on the Kenai.  (Depending on context, "the Kenai" can refer to either the river or the peninusla. Here I mean peninsula.)

Traffic increases so much you can hardly make a left turn out of a shopping center or side street. I had some customers in the shop that week saying, "Yeh, the time of summer has come when we have to leave home by another route, making all right turns."

That's what you get when you have the best salmon fishing in the world right in your backyard.

Seward

Well, I'm certainly behind in chronicling my summer adventure, aren't I?  I'll pick up way back in July when I took a day trip to the town of Seward.

SEWARD - July 6, 2012

I'm on another mission, similar to my Quilt Walk mission earlier this summer. The area Visitors Centers have a contest going on. They print up these little books called "passports" and if you get 10 of the 13 locations stamped in your book you can send it in and be entered in a drawing to win a vacation package on the Kenai Peninsula. I wanted to do some exploring and visiting of favorite spots this summer anyway, so I picked up a passport and am pursuing collecting my stamps. I stopped in Moose Pass, for the very first time, to get stamped there.

Somewhere between the tiny hamlet of Moose Pass and Seward I ran into road construction. It was at a place called Ptarmigan Creek. It's one of The Fisherman's favorite places to stop. There's a little pull-out above a small dam and it's just very peaceful there. There's room for only about three cars. Since The Fisherman was working, I was just considering stopping there for a few moments in his honor when I came to a complete stop in a line of cars waiting upon some road construction. We were stopped for about 20 minutes, during which time I breathed in the view. If you have to be stopped for highway construction, this is the place that turns a frustration into a wonder.

At the Seward Visitors Center, where I was to get my Seward stamp, I saw this sign and laughed. I guess there must be a town called Seward in the state of Nebraska as well as Alaska. 

I wonder if it's named after the same Seward who is responsible for the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867. Secretary of State, William Seward, orchestrated the purchase of Alaska's 6 million acres for just over 7 million dollars. Pennies per acre. Everyone thought it was a crazy idea and that it was a waste of money. The whole deal became known as Seward's Folly. Just about 30 years later, gold was discovered and the rest is history, as they say. She's been a state for over 50 years now and we've been in love with her for over 20 ourselves!

Back to Seward, Alaska...

Seward has always had a charm for us. It's on Resurrection Bay with a giant mountain behind and mountains across the water. It has the Alaska Sea Life Center where they do research and rehabilitation of orphaned or injured wildlife. There's lots of aquariums, sea lions, harbor seals, and water fowl such as puffins and eider ducks. It's quite educational and well worth the visit.

Seward also has an exciting marina. I love marinas. Seward is a cruise ship destination and, out past the small boat harbor, there's always one of those behemoths docked. There's a cute downtown strip of tourist shops. The Fisherman loves to fish for Silvers (Coho Salmon) from the rocks of the bay.


During my day in Seward, I visited some of my favorite shops. The Ranting Raven is one of them. It's a cute art gallery and bakery.

The Sea Bean Cafe is a cozy internet cafe from where I've posted to this blog in years past.  I love their slogan:  "Sit. Sip. Surf."

Then there's the Liberty Theater. This is not your typical movie theater, as you can tell from the outside.

You enter by the Coke machine shown above and are met with a set of stairs. At the top of the stairs is an old fashioned ticket booth. You receive an old fashioned paper movie ticket, dispensed from the old metal desktops with the little trap doors from where the ticket spews out after your purchase is rung up in the register.  Just before we left for Alaska this spring I found a ticket from a movie we saw there several years ago. I taped it into my journal.

I love the Liberty Theater.

This is the "marquee" -- a poster -- revealing there is only one nightly showing of one movie per week. Oh, and they're going to be closed for four days. Small town theater owners have to go on vacation, too.

Just outside the theater, I saw this scene. It seems the old fashioned theater is right next door to

an old fashioned hotel, with lovely lavender lilacs in between.

As you drive "out of town" behind the Sea Life Center, there's a big rushing waterfall that's quite exciting to drive past. If you get out of your car, you might just feel the spray. The roar is tremendous. At the waterfall you think there's simply no more of Seward to be had, but a drive down a narrow pot-holey gravel road -- with the bay immediately on your left and a cliff immediately on your right -- will lead you to Lowell Point. When The Fisherman and I first went to Seward, we drove out to Lowell Point and there were only a handful of funky houses of odd shapes and construction. Now, over 20 years later, there's an entire village of cabins, summer shacks, and an RV campground. Charter businesses have sprung up and a little tackle shop/general store oversees the whole point. It's still rather funky, sort of hippie-ish, in appearance. Rather ramshackle, really. It's definitely not the upper class place to camp.

But we still love going to the beach there. It was a few years ago there that we met a goofy dog intent on getting us to throw sticks for him, even when those sticks were 5 foot long branches carried in his mouth as he merrily followed us.

What I love most about the beach at Seward's Lowell Point is it's black sand and millions of black shale rocks. It's so cool.  This year I had an idea. I wanted to collect some of those black rocks and put them in a jar to keep at our cabin. Maybe even a second jar to take home to Arizona. I went to the beach with gallon sized plastic bags in my pocket. I filled two of them with rocks and one with sand. And then I found some driftwood. You should have seen me trying to lug all those bags back to the van with me! It was about a 150 yard walk and those bags were not only heavy, they were slippery. I loaded my arms up so my hands were free for the driftwood. It was quite a trek back to the only legal place to park. It was raining and I was clompping along in my cute new rubber rain boots. I was sure glad to get back to the van and set everything down!

See how black the sand is compared to the typical Alaska gray rocks?

(Here's my rocks & sand all jarred up back home, sitting on the gravel outside our little trailer in Soldotna.)

I headed back up the rickety road to make the 90 mile drive back home to Soldotna. But wait...what are all these cars stopped for? I'd better pull over (at a thankfully wide spot in the road) and see.

WHALES in the bay!

The group on this charter certainly got their money's worth!

A mama and baby were swimming all around the center of the bay.

There was even a kayaker out there to the right of the boat, but he maintained his distance. Wise. I never could get the whales, boat, and kayak in the same picture frame. What a thrill for that guy!

After spending about 30-40 minutes watching the whales and staying longer than anyone else who'd stopped at my section of road, I looked up ahead and saw others parked aways up. Now, what are they looking at? The were looking down.

And then I spotted him. A sea lion. I watched him dive and resurface farther away from them but closer to me. Oooh, how fun! I wonder if he'll come closer enough for me to get a good look at him.

He dove, swam, and came up closer still. It was so fun.

Next thing I knew, he bobbed up directly in front of me. 

I only got one shot off before he got scared and slipped under the water. I didn't see him again.

I had a really nice day.

Redoubt Mine

Certain mountains can speak to our souls and lay claim to our hearts.

My mom loved Camelback Mountain in Phoenix. We lived about a mile away from it and it's central peak was dead center in our view. We were privileged to live there. Mom loved Camelback so, and after moving away to a completely different neighborhood for the last four years of her life, she would often remark that she missed seeing it.


My Aunt Adeline, whom we affectionately called Hazel, loved Camelback, too. She used to call it "her mountain."

Georgia O'Keeffe loved El Pedernal mountain claiming God told her that if she painted it enough, she could have it.


If one can claim a mountain as their own, I think I've found mine. While I love Camelback Mountain a whole bunch, too, and nothing can compare to Denali (Mt. McKinley) at her 20,320 feet in Alaska, I think the volcano named Mt. Redoubt is laying claim to me. When leaving our camp spot at the school and I check traffic to the left to get on the busy street, I see it.

I see it, that is, when it's actually clear. This particular summer, that seems to be a rarity.

Mt. Redoubt is 10, 197 feet tall, and because we're at sea level here, you can see every bit of it.

It's often hazy, like in this photo.

Or cloudy as it seems to be most days this summer. Often I look toward Redoubt and see nothing but grey sky. It amazes me that a giant stands hidden behind a veil of cloud that looks like it stretches out to eternity.

Redoubt lies across Cook Inlet from the Kenai Peninsula. I suppose it's about 50 or 60 miles away,

though I'm not sure.

There are mountains all around us here. I love them all. The range to the south and the ones to the east are so comforting to see day in and day out. I love being around mountains. Growing up in Phoenix, AZ there are "mountains" visible from most parts of the valley. The Fisherman has always said he's not fond of the city of Tempe because you can't see any mountains from there; it's just flat with trees. At first I didn't know what he meant. But now I feel it too. I love seeing all the mountains around here. Rugged mountains with snow still on them. But Mt. Redoubt jutting up from flat land along the coast is just spectacular. Photos just don't do it justice. It is so much bigger and impressive in person. On a clear day, it's presence is commanding.

So many days have been cloudy this summer that sometimes I forget Redoubt is there. On a sunny day, I casually look left to turn out of the school's parking lot, and wham! There it is! My heart skips a beat and a a broad smile comes over me. I can't help it.

Clear days offer glimpses of Mt. Redoubt through the trees and on certain roads. Driving down city streets, like from church, from the fabric store (on Redoubt St.),

there it sits at the end of the road.

Beautiful.

I think I'm falling in love with a mountain.

Redoubt mine.



More Alaska Grown

I had a blast at Trinity Nursery in Soldotna. I'd gone there to see the quilt on display for the quilt walk but when I was greeted by the giant hanging pot of flowers I had to go back for my camera. Turns out there were a lot of gorgeous things inside that were just begging to be photographed. And once I started, I couldn't stop snapping! Everything was so beautiful. So big and so beautiful!

Fuschia was everywhere, bigger than I've ever seen it and in so many varieties.

I loved this one! I took so many pictures of it.

I really like this photo from underneath.

And then there was this one! This must be the official flower of the ladies' Red Hat Society!

 I like seeing the various stages of bloom on this plant.

There was a climbing rose bush trailing up an arbor about 8 feet high. The blooms were so big!

 Outside there was another gorgeous fucshia. Love all the spikey things.

(A gardener I'm not. Otherwise I'd know the name of those spikey things.)

This is the largest geranium I've ever seen.

The blooms were huge.

It must have won an award and it looks like it's called Kenai Carmen.

A final stroll around the outside for two photos and then I'll take you back inside for my favorite photo.

This one below is my favorite. Though all the wide open ruffles of some of those exquisite fuschias I showed you earlier take my breath away, for some reason I am in love with this one.  I love how it's tighter, making it look...drippier. Ooooh, I just love it.

Here it is bigger.



I had a wonderful time at Trinity Nursery. I am definitely going back to see more of the

big, beautiful flowers that are Alaska Grown!