Alaska in the Rearview - Yukon Territory

 We crossed the Canadian Border without a hitch, and were promptly stopped by road construction.  There was some kind of agreement when the Alaska Highway was built, that Alaska would foot the bill for constructing the road, but Canada had to do the maintenance forever afterward.  Guess who got the better deal?  It seems that some large portion(s) of the highway are ALWAYS under construction.  People ask, "Isn't that road finished?"  Well, yes, but the moment the tar dries on one part of the road, another part starts to disintegrate.  Most of the highway is nothing more than rocks and dirt pressed into something hot and sticky and left to dry.  It makes for quite a rough tarmac.  That being said, rough texture taken at 50mph is a pleasure compared to being at a standstill, waiting in the middle of nowhere for a pilot car to lead you across miles of un-tarmac'd road under re-construction.

Two other things...why are there two systems of measurement on the same continent?  Kilometers per hour vs. Miles per hour.  I just can't adjust my thinking!  Thank goodness for the little Kph numbers on my car's speedometer.  And secondly, have you ever seen a milepost with so many numbers!  I admit to being a bit daunted knowing that when I reached Mile 0, I was only about half way to my destination.  Dang.  That's a long way.



Our drive through the Yukon was quite devoid of human comforts and the good ol' American abundance of everything, but that was kinda nice.  My boy and I devised games to play in the car to keep us awake and entertained.  The best were Twenty Questions, Would you Rather..., I spy, and a few we made up ourselves.  We took turns starting a string of words that rhymed until someone got stumped.  We tried to say words really fast or loosely to make the other one guess what we were saying (this idea came from the movie John Doe).  Or there was this game I thought up:

Mom: "I'll say a word like 'tree' and you have to make a real sentence of words that starts with each letter of the word I said, in order.  For instance, 'Theresa rakes every evening.' Okay, so try 'road.'"
Izak: "Randy often ate deer."

And so on...you should try it on your next road trip.

What the Yukon Territory did have was a lot of animals.  I've never seen so many bears in my whole life!  Our first one was just meandering along the highway in all his shaggy animal-ness, barely (pun) noticing that we had pulled up to capture his existence on our digital devices.  We saw six bears in one day!  Eight in total.  There were also moose, bison, porcupine, and lots of adorable little hares eating gravel along the roadsides.  We even saw a wolf!  The elusive wild canid was contemplating crossing the road when we zoomed by and, as sightings of elusive things go, he was gone by the time we managed to turn around and go back for a picture.

Between road trip games and taking potty breaks to stretch our legs, we snacked on peanut m'ms, horribly tough salmon jerky, cookies, fruit chews, and other unhealthy things.  In the afternoon, when my eyelids started to feel heavy, my son put a movie in the laptop and we shared a pair of earphones.  I was super surprised how well this kept me awake.  I'd rather not mention how often I found myself watching the movie - which wasn't much, I promise.  But I did find that listening to the action and the storyline kept my brain engaged enough that I wasn't fatigued. This was a good thing, since we decided on the first day that we wanted to put as many miles behind us each day as possible.  We put in about 12 hours driving each day to cover over 500 miles between decent lodgings.  This part of the highway is definitely more suited to motorhomes that can stop and sleep anywhere, than folks like us who depended on lodging with clean beds and food.

I was hoping that Whitehorse would hold some interesting sites and treasures for humans...a good restaurant at least.  This capital of the Yukon Territory was the first real city we'd seen in a thousand miles.  Alas, it was smaller than I'd imagined (or remembered) and not exactly rife with obvious touristy sites.  We parked in the downtown area, which is where I always go to scope out a new place, walked up and down a couple blocks that were mostly closed, and got back in the car. The day was waning, our bellies were growling, and we still had 100 miles to put under our wheels.  In a desperately hungry state, we gravitated toward the only business that seemed to have signs of life.  We entered what felt like the back door of a tiny, dimly lit, Mexican restaurant with patrons sitting inside and out.  I figured that was a good sign, so I ordered a couple things from the menu and then waited awkwardly between the cash register and the kitchen for our meals to-go.  As we drove out of Whitehorse, 25 minutes after we arrived, my only wish was that I'd ordered more food.

Whitehorse is a one horse town.

The only truly interesting sight in the Yukon was the sign city in Watson Lake.  I remember wandering the forest of signs as a kid twenty-five years ago on a family trip.  It has definitely grown!  There are also a lot more homemade signs and things people have simply written their names on to contribute to the menagerie.  Official street and town signs are still my favorite, like "Defiance, Corporation Limit" and "Niederwallmenach."  We spent a good half hour walking through the circular rows and reading the signs.  I loved finding names of places I recognized.  I think my son was just grateful to stretch his legs and have something other than me to look at. Watson Lake had a gas and a grocery store in town, but not a lot else.  Next stop...British Columbia and hopefully some civilization!

**Updated Oct 7, 2014**

Seeking Courage on Hidden Creek

Family is precious to me, but sometimes I have to ditch them.

To be fair, I ditched my family this weekend in order to spend time with my Dad.  So, really, I just exchanged family members.  And that's totally allowable.

I drove the four dang hours to Soldotna on Friday to pay my dear ol' Dad a visit while he's working on a job down there.  We have a really cool father-daughter relationship, which I totally cherish.  We are so much alike: slightly anti-social (yet surprisingly personable), love animals and the outdoors, incredibly determined when we want to be, naturally stick-thin but love health food anyway, and inclined to go on solo-adventures at the drop of a hat.  We understand each other.

Love my Dad! (eatin' at Veronica's Coffee House in Kenai)

Since my Dad was working during the day, I decided to take an afternoon adventure by myself.  After a little research I discovered a short trail with great reviews that seemed just the ticket.  I departed from a FAB-U-LOUS lunch with him at Veronica's Coffee House in Kenai, and headed north to Skilak Lake Rd. (which is a huge loop, in case you didn't know).  My destination was Hidden Creek Trail at the northern end of the loop, almost 35 miles out of Soldotna.  The trailhead is almost 5 miles up the dirt road, but easy to find.  I was pumped to get walking.  Then, reality set in.  Not two feet into the 1.8 mile trail, and I beheld a HUGE pile of scantily digested berries: BEAR SCAT! I just stood there, staring at it, asking myself how important that little adventure was to me.  I wondered if that would be the last hike I ever took.  Was I really brave enough to face a bear and not totally freak out? Fortunately, I wasn't completely unprepared.

Ho boy!  Do you know what that is?!

Earlier that morning, when I made a quick stop at the Raven Tobacco Shop to get some pipe tobacco for my husband, I confirmed that bears would definitely be in the area and I should watch out.  The hairs on the back of my neck tingled.  I wasn't used to hiking in areas that were so heavily populated by bears, so I made a visit to the Soldotna Outdoorsmen's Warehouse and purchased a bear bell (don't call it a dinner bell, please), a can of bear spray, and a stout multi-tool with a knife (mostly because I've been hankering for one for quite a while).  Short of having a gun in my pocket, I felt a bit more ready to face whatever lumbered across my path, though I desperately hoped nothing would.

Back at the trail, I debated with myself in the 20 feet from the car to the trailhead, whether I really wanted to have that obnoxious dinging bear bell announcing my presence at every step.  It seemed so flashy and touristy.  I preferred to walk quietly when I hiked.  But after seeing the giant mess of bear leavings, I decided that I mostly preferred to not get eaten.  So, I released the bell, put the bear spray in my water bottle pocket for easy access, and went dingling down the path toward the unknown.

Yummy low-bush cranberries, pre-bear-digestion.

Within less than 100 feet, I came upon another series of bear scat piles (FYI, bears don't stop to poop).  It was then that I realized the seriousness of my situation.  It was no fluke.  That was as much a bear trail as it was a people trail.  In fact, there was so much bear scat on the path that I could hardly afford to look up and scan the woods for fear of absent-mindedly stepping in a pile of intestinally-processed berries. The relative freshness of some piles gave me pause, more than once.  My searched my primal brain for logic, hoping to tease out some hunter-gatherer survival skills.  I even held my hand over one of the piles, trying to feel for heat.  In the end, that part of my brain (maybe it's in yours, too) which opts to find an iffy situation amusing, rather than daunting, won out.  I began comparing the qualities of the scat based on color, texture, age, and arrangement.  I documented some here for your viewing pleasure.

Some bear got into the Kool-aid.

Interesting choice of color and arrangement.

Hidden Creek Trail was shaped like a lollipop.  The first mile of the trail was like the stick; it was the way in and the way out.  The last 0.8 miles of the trail was the round candy loop that just barely touched the end of Skilak Lake at its furthest edge.  My plan was to take the western (to the right) part of the loop first, explore the beaches of the lake, and then continue around the eastern part of the loop to connect back to the stick of the lollipop and the safety of my car.  It made me feel better to have a plan.

The trail environment changed regularly from birch forest with golden leaves fluttering to the ground, to an open area of burned ghost trees, to a marshy wetland with stunted spruce and alder.  The variation enhanced the enjoyment of the walk and distracted me slightly from my bear worries.  Despite the three cars parked next to mine at the trailhead, I only saw one person that afternoon.  He was a gray-haired, wiry fella with two armloads of long, curly, bleached driftwood sticks headed out.  He was breathing heavily from the weight of his treasures and his quick pace.  We exchanged pleasantries, but before he got out of earshot I asked him if he saw any wildlife (a.k.a. big scary grizzlies hungry for a skinny girl lunch).  He knew exactly what I meant.  "No," he said, "but there are bear tracks all along the lake."  And with a little chuckle he disappeared around the bend.

The middle-portion of the trail that burned in the 1991 Pothole Lake forest fire provided relief to my nerves with its vastly more open views.  I relaxed my vigilant scanning of the forest and took in the extent of the 8,700 acre blaze.  I breathed more easily and enjoyed the easy hiking.  Soon, I reached the shores of Skilak Lake, the true treasure of my hike.

Driftwood galore on the shores of Skilak Lake.

Be brave, I told myself.

My first glimpses of the lake were perfect vignettes framed through the golden-leafed trees.  Hiking reviews warned of vicious winds on the lake, but I found it perfectly calm.  I emerged onto the smooth-rock beach and witnessed a scene worth every fearful step of the trail.  Except for a boat in the very far distance, I was alone in the landscape and it was a beautiful thing.  I found myself on the eastern tip of Skilak Lake, stretching 15 miles below me and about 2 miles across, near the effluence of Hidden Creek.  I marveled at the tons of bleach-white driftwood trees rimming the upper portion of the gunmetal gray beach.  The mountains of Kenai National Wildlife Refuge stood sentinel over the scene wearing snowy caps and yellow-flecked socks.  It was a paradise.

The mouth of Hidden Creek was a mecca for birds (on the far right shore).

But the wiry driftwood-picker I had passed on the trail was absolutely right: there were bear tracks everywhere!  The first track I encountered was so big that I froze.  Then I started scanning the beach in both directions for movement.  I consoled myself with assurances that I could see anything coming from quite a distance and then forced myself to explore.  Again, my curiosity and amusement over the number of bears signs kicked in and diverted my panic.  It's funny how a person can become comfortable with threat of danger as long as the danger itself does not materialize.  Have you experienced this?

My Dad says Grizzlies leave claw marks, but black bears don't.

Yep, that's a big one.

If Dad's right, then this be a black bear.

Mystery track: maybe a wolverine?  Any guesses?

For over an hour I strolled the beach photographing swans in the slough, claiming two twisty driftwood sticks and about 3 lbs. of smooth beach stones, and puffing on my pipe with a bit of blackberry cavendish tobacco.  It crossed my mind that producing a sweet-smelling smoke might not be the wisest choice in bear country, but I couldn't resist going all-out-woods-woman on my little adventure.  I used my pipe maybe only three or four times this year, so I hope you'll forgive the indulgence in such a splendid setting.

Humor me, I only do this on rare occasions.  It seemed appropriate.

A silly selfie that took more tries than I care to divulge.

It was after 4 o'clock when I rejoined the trail loop to head back.  I wasn't sure I was on the trail at first, which was much narrower and densely forested by scraggly black spruce on either side.  It gave me the creeps so bad that I chose to carry the bear spray in my hand, finger on the safety trigger, through that portion.  I walked quickly, racing the sun that dropped lower on the horizon by the minute.  My fun was over and I just wanted to get back to my car in one piece.  I put extra bounce and wiggle into my steps to increase the dingling of the bear bell.  Danger felt more imminent on this eastern part of the loop closest to the creek. Bears are more active at dawn and dusk, right?  I tromped up the trail so vigorously that I began to sweat and had to peel off all but my base layer. Gratefulness is an understatement for what I felt when I reached the burned-out open area and rejoined the familiar lollipop stick portion.  I speed-walked the rest of the way back, never once glimpsing a real, live bear.  No regrets there!

Perfect camouflage for a bear?  I thought so, too.

Satisfaction is what I felt.  A sense of achievement.  I was afraid, but I overcame it (with a responsible amount of preparation, too).  I gave myself a gold-star for courage and solo-adventuring as I threw my gear into the back of my little hatchback and hurried back to meet my Dad for dinner.  When he saw me, he said my cheeks were rosy and I was glowing.  We looked at my pictures together and I felt pretty glow-y on the inside, too.  I felt vibrantly alive, not just because of the hike, but because I'd ditched my routine at home, stepped out of my comfort zone, lived to tell the tale, and had someone special to share it with afterward.  That is the kind of stuff I live for.

Catch and Release Mousing

The trouble with cats is that no matter how tame they may appear, there is still quite a bit of wild animal in them.  Everyone knows that a cat is liable to turn on you if you don't pet it the way it likes, or if you taunt it by wiggling your fingers under a blanket, or if you don't share your tuna sandwich.  They can switch from purring softness into biting, clawing, blood-letters in the blink of an eye.  Does this sound familiar, or is it just my cats?

 A big yawn reveals that cats are not just purring and cuddles...they still have bite!

This wildness about cats is not my favorite part, though I admire it in them.  I will gladly take an aloof cat over a needy dog any day!  My dear departed mutt, Samson, is the exception of course.  This love of cats has led our family to adopt three little lions who permit us to share the same space and serve their needs.  During the long winter in Alaska they go into a sort of "couch hibernation" in which they mostly sleep and occasionally eat.  With the recent return of Spring, their hunting instincts have awakened and they have become restless.  Generally limp and listless, they are now sharpening their claws on our furniture, staring longingly out the windows, and making short excursions into the brisk outdoors to acclimate themselves to the new season.

As Spring creatures emerge, so do the cats' curiosity.

On a recent outing, our Siamese named Nina (short for "nincompoop") demonstrated that despite her age she still has the hunting skills of a lioness.  And the fickle mercy of a well-fed hunter playing with its food.  Rest assured, no animals were harmed in the making of this blog post.  In fact, Nina has an unusual, and strangely endearing, habit of bringing live animals to the house and releasing them after we've acknowledged her triumph.  I have personally watched her trot up the driveway, mewing a muffled call around some furry creature dangling helplessly in her jaws.  It goes something like this:

"Nina, what do you have?" we ask.
"meuwf," she answers.
"Awww.  Is it a little mouse?  Poor thing," we lament.
"mm-mreowf."

When she has sufficiently elicited our attention, she places the creature on the ground and sits down contentedly next to it.  As if afraid to temp fate, the creature twitches just slightly.  Nina glances calmly down at the shivering animal and then shifts her gaze off into the distance at an imaginary distraction.

"Mreow?"

And then the lucky little rodent makes a run for it.  It dashes off the edge of the driveway and into the grassy undergrowth.  Nina doesn't even acknowledge its departure, as if she's saying, "Scamper away little one.  We will meet again.  I know where you live."  At this point she saunters off in the opposite direction from us, tail swinging side-to-side like the king of the African plains.

This is a true story.

My little wildlife biologist.

A similar event took place last week involving a tiny Red-backed Vole that Nina brought to the window where I was standing.  After bringing Nina indoors, the short-tailed rodent slowly gained its faculties and crawled under the leaves of a freshly sprouted weed in my patio garden bed.  There it rested in the sunshine, curled up and dreaming furtively, until my son came home from school.  I love to give my boy every opportunity to interact with nature up close, and with three cats the opportunities are fairly frequent (though not all of them have such happy endings).  But this day, my boy gently captured the vole in a kitchen container and we walked it to a safe place to release it.

The furry tidbit seemed pretty comfortable in it's plastic container and needed prompting to escape.

Once it was out in the dried grass it became instantly invisible due to its perfect camouflage.

It soon got its wits about it and scurried back into the wilds where, hopefully, it learned its lesson about playing with miniature domesticated lions.

Every huntress needs her beauty sleep.

Crane Couple

If you've read any of my earlier posts about birds, you'd know that my tolerance for birdwatching is fairly limited.  I don't like how they are always flying away, or flitting from branch to branch, making it difficult to get a good look at them.  Here in Homer I've learned to bird by ear, but I still prefer to see my singing subject so I can connect a face to a voice.  Songbirds rarely cooperate in this manner, so I get frustrated and move on to something else.  However, if the birds are as big and beautiful as Sandhill Cranes, I can easily muster a bit more patience.

The view from my bedroom window.

Back on the homestead in Wasilla we are visited by a pair of Sandhill Cranes each year, usually in the late summer and with a young colt in tow.  My hosts here in Homer are also visited by a pair of cranes each summer, but these are Lesser Sandhill Cranes.  They are a subspecies that is slightly smaller than the birds back home, but not by much.  The pair began spending their days on my host family's lawn just a few days ago.  I awoke in the morning to a partial view, through my parted window shade, of a strange black stick poking out of my patio bricks.  After focusing for a moment, I realized that the stick was actually a leg.  I crawled out of bed to find a crane balanced on one foot just inches from my patio door preening itself.  I took the opportunity to get several photos and view these graceful and alert birds very up close.

Although the pair of cranes were very aware of my presence on the other side of the window pane, they clearly felt safe enough to not be frightened away by my peering.  In fact, I've found it nearly impossible to sneak a peek of these regal birds from any window in the house.  They always see me first.  Luckily, they appear more curious than scared.  This keen eyesight makes sense given that these birds hunt insects and other small prey.  They high-step methodically across the lawn picking at minute prey with their long pointed beaks.  The patch of red skin on their foreheads gives them a distinctive look, which they can alter to show more when they are excited.

During a rare sunny evening yesterday I decided to eat dinner on the deck outside.  Halfway through my meal I noticed a loud purring noise out in the yard to my left, similar to a cat but more rumbly.  Not until then did I notice the pair of cranes bedded down on the lawn in the sunshine, their legs folded and tucked neatly underneath their long rust-colored bodies.  The sound was coming from them!  Almost as a way of reassuring each other, they made a subtle purr/growl noise whenever I moved or a bird fluttered by.  Later, they did a bit of dancing with each other; they bowed their heads, stabbed at the ground, and jumped into the air with wings spread.  All the while, trumpeting loudly.  It's this trumpeting that most impresses me.  It's SO LOUD!  But it's a wonderful sound.

So, for me, if I were to be a birder, I'd go for the giant species that can't hide in a tree easily or fly away without being seen.  I'm a fan of cranes.  Not only are they beautiful, but also majestic and full of character.  These birds look you in the eye and seem to know exactly what you're up to.  They are tremendous migrators and very social.  Sandhill Cranes will mate for life and often return to the same grazing and nesting grounds each year.  When the summer is over, they will meet up with other cranes at designated launching points and begin their journey south together.  They're organized and I like that.  I've felt privileged to be so close to this pair of cranes this week and hope to see them a few more times before they leave for the winter.  It's not a bad sight to wake up to in the morning...