We had an inkling that we were onto something different when we passed over the mountains in southeastern Alaska at midnight at 41,000 feet. On any other usual evening we would be contemplating a night's repose. But here we were at nine p.m. in Alaska, midnight in Nashville, an almost-set sun lit the snow covered mountains. We weren't the least bit sleepy. "Wide eyed" would be a more appropriate description.
We picked up our rental car not far from the Anchorage airport and attempted to navigate Anchorage in the lingering twilight. The sun had just gone below the horizon but as it turned out not very far below. It never did get fully dark during our nine days there.
We arrived at our bed and breakfast late because of a wrong turn that took us twenty miles in the wrong direction. I wasn't satisfied with doing it wrong once so we retraced our incorrect route a second time before encountering semi-intelligent life where we got our bearings.
Our room was on the third floor of a private home. The rooms were great and we slept with the windows wide open. We noticed later that none of the dwellings had screens. Since we had heard of monster mosquitoes in Alaska we wondered where the screens were. We were never bothered by mosquitoes during our vacation.
We used this Anchorage B & B as our "home base," and it proved to be a great decision. The family who ran the B & B were the Eidems, Mary and Jerry: both are retired teachers. Mary is a potter and Jerry is a commercial and charter fisherman during the summer and a heavy equipment operator during the cold months. Mary served salmon quiche and various muffins for breakfast. Jerry oriented us to Alaska and to the Keni Peninsula, that he called, “Alaska's essence.”
We "did" Anchorage the first day to get oriented to the state and to get used to the time difference. In years past Alaska and especially Anchorage was choked under a five-inch blanket of fine volcanic ash. The ash was still evident along roadways and in gravel parking lots. We went to the Alaska State Museum and were astounded at the exhibits and art work. We did a few other tourist things, and in the meantime we discovered Ship Creek on the northern edge of town near the harbor.
People were fishing this little creek and soon we spotted what they were after: Salmon were moving upstream; Big salmon; hundreds and hundreds and more kept coming! It was easy to spot the Sockeye. They had turned bright red except for their heads. The pinks and chum were harder to spot because their colors had not changed. The Sockeye were about fifteen pounds and the others were about six pounds each.
Judy got on the phone to try to get reservations on the ferry to Valdez, but she was unsuccessful. A change of plans was in order. Jerry Eidem, being a fisherman contacted a buddy of his in Homer for a charter trip two days hence. We were to stay at his "camp" the night before our big fishing trip. So it was off to Homer after two nights in Anchorage.
It's difficult to miss your road out of Anchorage: There is one going North and one going South! We went south. Leaving Anchorage toward Seward and Portage a mountain range marches along your left side. It has Tanaina Peak, O'Malley Peak, Flattop Mtn., and Suicide Peak. Then along the Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet a mountain range appears topped with snow fields and lingering clouds. We were awestruck by their beauty and we used lots of film on these “Porcupine Mountains.”
Tidal fluctuations in Alaskan waters are extreme: twelve to sixteen feet, twice per day. On The Turnagain Arm there are warnings to stay off the tidal sands because some are treacherous quicksand. We were also warned that Cook Inlet is also subject to "Bore Tides": A raging flood tide: a wall of water up to six feet high moving upstream at 40 miles per hour. It’s a fact that sometimes the tide comes in so fast that some hearty folks surf on it!
We went through Tunnel, Snoring Inn and had lunch at a most beautiful spot, Moose Pass. We found a small motel with a restaurant that was superb! We stopped there coming and going.
Turning west at Moose Pass and wending our way through the mountains of the Keni Peninsula through mountain valleys we spotted fast flowing, cold mountain rivers, migrating salmon and FISHERMEN! There were people fishing in tiny rivulets and in mighty rivers. There were people fishing in jet powered boats, oar powered boats and in canoes and kayaks. Most of all there were people fishing in boots standing in the streams attempting to attract salmon. It is called "Alaskan Combat Fishing!"
There are strict limits on how one may catch salmon and how many one may catch. The salmon are not that easy to catch because they have other priorities at this time of year like spawning! There are enough caught however to make the effort worthwhile.
You must like salmon or learn to like salmon if you are to live in Alaska. In downtown Anchorage the offshore netters were giving salmon away rather than sell it at a cheap price to the wholesalers and processors. We heard that one day's give away totaled fifteen thousand pounds. It's hard to pay for a fifty thousand-dollar fishing boat doing that.
We turned south along Cook Inlet and arrived at Homer: "The End Of The World." Alaska has the distinction of having two most famous locations: The Middle of Nowhere and The End of The World. Any number of interior locations could be the Middle of Nowhere, but Homer, Alaska is absolutely the End of The World.
We arrived at our fishing "camp" to find our "crew" busy filleting the day's catch of Halibut. One of the fish weighed one hundred and eighty pounds. The others were just small fish in the forty to sixty pound range. Well, that was the good news: The bad news was that we were to stay in a tiny trailer, a mini-RV, with no water available. The other bad news was that the "crew" would be cooking the crabs caught that day on the stove in our RV. Oh well, we thought it would all be worth it if we were going to catch fish the following day and have Dungenous Crab for supper. We slept fitfully but were ready to go at first light.
We headed out into Cook Inlet about twenty miles to a drop off where the bottom was about one hundred and twenty feet down. The fishing rig was a heavy deep sea rod and reel with three pounds of lead for a sinker. We later found out that a three pound sinker was not enough. When the tide changed it was so fast the bait would not stay on the bottom! The boat swung around on its anchor rope and we were riding a twenty knot tide!
It was a great day: The sun was out and the wind was dead calm. We were in the Gulf of Alaska with Mt. St Augustine, dormant volcano, twenty miles off the stern, glowing pink in the sunrise.
The fishing method was to find the bottom and bounce the herring bait off it. We got bites that swiped our herring, but finally Judy and Kelly each hooked a fish. It was an ordeal reeling up the lead and the darting Halibut, but they each landed their fish. Each weighed about twenty pounds and was rejected by the boat captain as too small. Judy and Kelly hated to see those fish go back in the water, but they continued to fish.
My first fish was a Ling Cod weighing about four pounds. I had made cod for supper about a month before and the smell lingered in the house for days. We kept this one for bait. Kelly and Judy each caught more fish that were returned to grow up. They were frustrated, to say the least. Then finally we began catching "keepers." It seemed fish less than thirty pounds was too small. The crew told us that the object of the day was to catch sufficient fish so that the tourists arms grew so tired that they could no longer comb their hair or scratch: Well, that was us all right!
We kept sixteen fish that averaged forty to fifty pounds each. We caught a great deal of Halibut, but we only brought home to Nashville the filets of six fish. The filets weighed fifty-seven pounds. In all, we caught over five-hundred pounds of Halibut, three large Cod and one huge Stingray. A three-hundred and twenty-five pounder was caught that day by another boat.
Halibut is a flatfish without scales somewhat like a Flounder. Its skin is tough and smooth. Halibut is white on one side and brown on the other. Like a Flounder they start with eyes on each side of their head, but as they lie on the bottom the left side turns white and the eye migrates to the brown, right side. Halibut and Flounder are always white on the same side: the left side.
We could hear Russian fishermen talking on the boat’s radio during our ride back to Homer. We saw Puffins and many other sea birds. Sea Otters drifted on the surface cracking urchins on their bellies and the biggest surprise of all was that a Minike Whale surfaced right beside our boat. He was looking Kelly right in the eye for a split second! What a thrill! What luck?
We had our Halibut processed at dockside and it was flown to the Anchorage airport the day we departed. I worried that our expensive filets would thaw during the flights and layovers in Seattle and Detroit. We worried for nothing: the two-pound hunks were as hard as frozen bricks all the way home.
We declined a second night in the "camp" and climbed a ridge above Homer to a fantastic B & B called appropriately, "Ridgetop B & B." This was our second B & B and like the first we were greeted by a note on the door inviting us to go in and set up since no one was at home.
This place was spectacular! A balcony facing south allowed us to view fields of the last of the summer's Fireweed blossoms along with tall pine spires and the mountains, glaciers and snow fields across Kachemak Bay. Many years ago a glacier pushed a "spit" down Kachemak Bay that became land's end. The Homer Spit is approximately a mile long housing "Spit Rats" camping in one and two-man tents, RV Parks, night clubs, a large marina and port. From our vantage point the spit appeared to be just a spit of rock jutting out into the bay. We were so far away that nothing man-made was visible.
At six p.m. the bright sun was at two o'clock, and the only sounds were the screeches of hawks looking for rodents in the Fireweed and the tall Yarrow. It was a pleasant afternoon of rest in the sun with the world's most wonderful view.
The sunlight there in early August is diffused and pale and reminds you of a sunny winter day in Tennessee. We had four straight days of sunshine, and we learned that on those days Anchorage had set new high temperatures at seventy-four degrees. Cloudy skies are the norm for most Alaskan days because of the clash of the Japanese Current and the Arctic winds.
Clouds made their expected appearance on our drive back to Anchorage. Seeing the mountains from the opposite direction made our spirits soar again: We had missed the grandeur of the snow spotted mountains.
We headed for The Portage Glacier: whatever that was! The clouds scuffed the tops of the six-thousand foot mountains where we turned onto the Portage Access road. We were "all eyes" because of the color of the ice cold rivers, and because not far along the way we spotted our first glacier. Great hunks of blue ice hung on the cloud shrouded mountains. A torrent of murky blue water cascaded down the mountain side. The glaciers grind the rock to a fine powder known as rock flour. All the rivers and streams had varying quantities of rock flour.
We cleared a small rise and before us were icebergs floating on a lake! We parked and promptly donned warm clothing: The air coming down the valley was right off the Portage Glacier, and the icebergs kept the area very cold.
We were struck by the quiet of the area since it was covered in travelers. Like us, they were probably awe struck by the scene. Low clouds obscured the tops of the nearby mountains; the glaciers of blue ice hung in the mountain valleys; the rivulets of glacial melt cascaded down; the ice bergs lolled and tumbled in the lake: and the river was grey-blue made up of thousand-year-old melting ice and ground rock. Like so much of what we had seen in Alaska, this area was unique and spectacular.
We returned to Anchorage to "home base" and rested from our Keni adventure. The next day we took the other road out of Anchorage, North to Healy and Mt. McKinley. We found our B & B in Healy and were greeted with another note welcoming and inviting us in.
Our hostess in Anchorage being a potter, had asked Judy if we would bring some Healy clay. Our Healy hostess supplied a pail and shovel and we were off to the Healy "outback!" We took the road to the Healy landfill. We soon ran out of paved road and passed by a coal processing plant that supplied power to the consumers in Healy.
We could see the clay deposits from the track and we soon spotted a pristine deposit. We put the Jeep into all wheel drive and proceeded through the soft sand over to the clay deposits. The five gallon pail was soon full, and we started exploring the area.
The surface was a conglomeration of rock debris pushed around and ground down by glaciers. The rock flour had long since blown away in the constant winds. What was left was sand and stone of various colors, chunks of marble and granite and other types of rock. We also saw recent evidence of moose in the area; moose-poop. (We later saw moose-poop jewelry and even moose-poop for chapped lips: "It doesn't cure the chapped lips it just keeps you from licking them!")
The next day we had an early ticket for an eight hour bus ride in and out of Denali Park. I had envisioned comfortable tour busses with good seats and large windows for viewing Mt. McKinley. What showed up was a school bus from the Anchorage school system with small windows and with hard-hard bench seats. As it turned out we got no closer than 35 miles to Mt. McKinley. Fortunately, the clouds surrounding the summit parted for about three seconds, and it shown majestically in the sunlight for just long enough to snap one picture.
The track (no-way this could be called a road) was narrow and wound between hills and valleys until it reached the Polychrome Mountains. There it became a very narrow trail four hundred feet up on the side of a precarious incline. It was hard to grip that hard plastic seat with your butt, but Judy did it! The trip was interesting, in that, we saw moose, wolves, ptarmigan, and marmot (Alaskan groundhog).
We transferred to a returning bus after three hours and drove back to Anchorage so that we would have ample time to prepare for our departure and to let Judy attend a training session at the University of Alaska at Anchorage. Kelly and I completed our trinket purchases, and we all looked forward to getting through the "red-eye flight" back to Nashville.
We left at one-forty AM and arrived in Seattle at sunup. We were on the ground about an hour. We took the opportunity to spread out and attempt to nod-off. I was amazed at the number of avid Salmon fishermen getting on the plane to Seattle: They had heard that fishing was better in Washington!
Then it was six hours to Detroit. Neither of us had had any sleep in the preceding 24 hours. We were grounded in Detroit for three hours, and Kelly finally got some sleep. We arrived in Nashville at six PM: walking was a challenge. It is difficult to work out the time changes, but it seems that we lost a whole day somewhere.
It was a great trip: A once in a lifetime trip. There were many other great things we experienced just by pure luck. Judy did all her Christmas shopping at our "home base," and we got some of the most spectacular pictures you can imagine.
I guess the best part of the trip will be our memories of the clear cold ocean water, the temperatures in the sixties and seventies while over one hundred back home, the "Combat Fishing" while fifteen thousand pounds of salmon are given away in the middle of Anchorage every other day. But most of all we were enthralled by the ever-present mountains, rugged, foreboding and cold.
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