 (Katya, enjoying the last bit of summer on the walk plank to my floathouse--the tide is out.) The best part of this summer was the very last bit when my sister Megan came up to visit. We had a ton of adventures and wore ourselves out laughing. I'm planning to talk about some of that in upcoming blog posts, but at the moment we're bogged down with tons of "Prepping for Winter" projects that doesn't allow me much time online. Once I get a breather I'll get more regular with my blog posts again, I hope! The best part of this summer was the very last bit when my sister Megan came up to visit. We had a ton of adventures and wore ourselves out laughing. I'm planning to talk about some of that in upcoming blog posts, but at the moment we're bogged down with tons of "Prepping for Winter" projects that doesn't allow me much time online.  Here's the link to my latest column, which goes into detail describing what the above photo is all about: www.juneauempire.com/news/sweat-and-driftwood-building-from-scratch/
In addition, since this post is so short after not having put anything up for a while, I asked my sister to add a wonderful short video from her visit here. It was taken after a skiff ride to Meyers Chuck to pick up the mail. My dad and I were loading up the skiff down at the dock while Megan was in the post office picking up the last few packages. Suddenly she heard me and my dad yelling at the top of our lungs: "MEGAN! MEGAN!" She thought someone was having a heart attack and ran out onto upper part of the dock and looked at us. We pointed toward the middle of Meyers Chuck harbor and she started filming. Here is a link to the video.
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 My mom is one of the most easily pranked persons on the planet. She unfailingly believes that everyone around her, despite plenty of evidence of chronic deception to the contrary, is telling the truth. Her sons were quick to realize what fun this could be and have spent their entire lives telling her tall tales and then laughing at her when she believes them. If you're thinking this sounds a bit like the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, you're right. One wintry day my oldest brother Jamie and his school friend Bret, who was staying the weekend with us, trudged into the living room looking the worse for wear and told my mom that Jamie's skiff had sunk on them and they'd nearly drowned. My mom, determined for once not to be played for a fool, laughed. "Sure, sure. Tell me another story." They insisted they were telling the truth, outraged as only chronic tale tellers can be when they finally tell the truth and no one believes them. They went into more detail. Jamie's skiff, a fourteen-foot, riveted aluminum Lund, had sunk when they tried to pull crab pots in that were too big for it to handle. When the skiff went down they struggled out of their heavy winter over clothes to prevent themselves from sinking along with it. And then their boots tried to drag them down when they filled with water. They kicked them off and had to swim to a distant shore through Alaskan waters in the dead of winter. At one point Bret, through chattering teeth, insisted that he couldn't make it, that Jamie should go on without him. Jamie refused to hear it and forced him to keep swimming. When they finally made it to shore they had to walk home a quarter of a mile in bare feet over frosty rocks. "Well, I have to give you credit," my mom said when they finished, "you certainly make it sound real. And I like the effort you took with your outfits to make it look true. But you're not tricking me again, I know it's all just one of your stories." "It's true!" She just laughed. Until Jamie showed her their feet. My brothers and sister and I ran over the rocks all summer barefoot, but Bret was from the nearby village and had lived a more civilized life. His feet were raw and bloody from the walk over the rocks. My mom was horrified and appalled, perhaps as much shocked that they'd told the truth as at what they'd suffered, and how they'd nearly died. It wouldn't be the last time her sons were involved in boating mishaps, as I write about in one of my latest columns. It's about SE Alaskan boating accidents in general, and one of my brothers' (and cousin's) misadventures in particular  CORRECTION: For some reason, the first part of the column is missing and there are no photos on the online version. Here's the missing text: Recently, while my brother Robin was visiting out here from Ketchikan, he took pictures of a non-local boat that went aground on the rocks that festoon the entrance to Meyers Chuck. The marker buoy is on a long tether and the tide was so low that it had drifted far from the rock it was supposed to mark, misleading the boater. A few weeks before that a seine boat sank at the entrance to Thorne Bay, just across the strait from us, where we go to get groceries and fuel. And one of the readers of my blog, who kept me informed of her trip up the Inside Passage, sent me a photo of a small cruise ship called the Alaska Dawn aground not far from Sitka. The sad truth is, if you're listening to the VHF marine radio during the summer months in SE Alaska you'll hear the Coast Guard on there constantly, responding to boaters' distress calls or asking boaters to check their EPIRBs (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) to see if one was accidentally activated. One summer night some years back, the Coast Guard got on the radio to describe a boater who was drifting around in a skiff without power. He didn't have a radio, only a cell phone and the battery was dying. It was all too easy to pciture his loneliness with only a dying cell phone to link him to a connection with other humans and possible rescue. They described his location and we realized he wasn't that far from us. My dad and other locals immediately went to his assistance. For the rest of the column, click this link: http://juneauempire.com/2018-08-15/summer-boating-adrift-aground-flipped-sunk  Imagine that you're hiking along a rocky beach with no sign of human habitation wherever you look. But something catches your eye in the dense forest above the tide line and you push your way through the grappling salal brush. You stop abruptly, confronted with the ruins of a very old cabin made of large, squared logs. You go past it, deeper into the woods, and come across a massive red cedar tree that it would take at least three grown men with their arms outstretched to span its circumference. You circle around it and find that it has a deep crease in its trunk, a crease that goes all the way up into the trees branches. And across this crease has been nailed rungs to form a ladder. Who built the old cabin? What's the purpose of this tree ladder? These are the sorts of mysteries you come across in SE Alaska. My latest column touches on this as I write about The Ladders of Bush Living. You can read it at: http://juneauempire.com/2018-08-30/alaska-real-ladders-bush-living  Photo Credit: The first two photos are courtesy of Robin Neilson.
P.S. My sister, who usually posts my blog from Florida, since I can't do it from here with my poor signal (it's taken a dozen attempts just to get this blog to her), will be spending the next two weeks up here visiting family and figuring out construction projects for her MAD Island home in Meyers Chuck. But you'll have to wait until she gets back home before I can post stories about that!  One day, much to my surprise, I got a 1-gallon Ziploc baggie in my mail that had a business card with a picture of a boat on it named "Always Friday." In the baggie was a beautiful, hand-knit muff. Fortunately, the card had a name and email address and when I contacted the mysterious gift giver it turned out to be a reader, named Sue Oldham, of my friend Jo's blog, over at www.alaskafloatsmyboat.com. My blog was mentioned and she subscribed to it so when she passed through Meyers Chuck she kindly dropped off the gift. She described her travels up the Inside Passage in emails to me and when I asked her if I could use them as a Guest Blog, she agreed, and sent along some photos. And here they are!  Hi Tara, sorry for the delays. I got your email in Sitka, then we traveled back on the outside, into Lisianski canal to Pelican and Elfin Cove and Hoonah for the 4th of July. What a spectacular route! The outside passage was 2 foot seas and glass. The marine life was everywhere although we saw the most whales in Tenekee Springs on our way to Sitka. Each community has its own special personality. I loved Sitka for all of its efforts to preserve its musical and artsy roots. It didn’t do everything just for the cruise ships. Pelican is a community trying to reshape itself after the closure of the fish processing facility. It’s residents had warm and generous hearts. We were greeted by a small lodge owner with dog biscuits for Ike. The couple who run the cafe are so sweet. I left a new flag with them we had bought but didn’t fit our flag stand and they were so excited because they wanted the city to have a new flag for the 4th.  Elfin Cove is a beautiful community. We bought a freshly caught king salmon from a fisher woman who came in to sell it to the tender barge in the harbor. The Stolis vodka boat rising sun stayed out of the harbor and had the owners of the local lodge send fishing guides out. I couldn’t help but think how much is they were missing by not visiting this beautiful community and ordering home made chicken and rice soup at the little cafe. Their boat is 246 feet with a crew of 26. I’m sure the meals are fine restaurant quality but if you miss the people of Alaska, you have missed Alaska.  Hoonah somehow made me sad. The people are suffering at their new cruise ship dock facility. They pay minimum wage and take 60% from the vendors for rent and fees. It feels like the hope that was there two years ago was gone. We took the tender out for a visit of the cannery and probably would have spent some money but we went through 3 people who did not have the authority to let us tie up to the back of the dock only to find a supervisor who said coast guard regulations would not let us tie up or to land on the beach. They are cruising for trouble I fear. Juneau is nice but over crowded. We rented a house from a local owner and brought our kids and their families in. The harbor is full of fishing boats that are not being allowed to fish. Most of the private boats ended up in Harris Harbor or Aurora Harbor because Auke Bay is first come first serve and filled with cruise ship vendors and docked fishing boats waiting to be sent out. We finally got into Auke Bay after one Harbormaster did some rearranging for us. I read one of your articles in the Capital City Weekly. It also says you are related to Artist Megan Duncanson. I love her art! You do have a very artistic family. I’ll attach a couple of good whale shots we got at Tenekee Springs and an oops by one of the local cruise ships just outside of Sitka.  We are in a 64 foot troller named Always Friday. It is white with a green cove stripe and it has a “back yard” with a 4 foot square of AstroTurf and a sack of petunias for the traveling needs of our chocolate lab, Ike. Every day is a new blessing whether it is a bag of beach asparagus from Jo, or an evening watching whales break from the dock in Tenekee Springs. Our brief visit in Thorne Bay still floors me. We were immediately given 5 crab then 10 lbs of halibut by Jim Silverthorn then the same day Jo brought us a bad of beach asparagus. I went to a dog show during a hale storm put on by Bear , a young tween who lives there and loves dogs. You live in an amazing place with amazing people. Keep writing, I want to buy a copy of your first book.  |
AuthorTara Neilson (ADOW) Archives
August 2018
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