Alaska

Craig, Aaska, take two

/ Sheila / 4 Comments

It’s Monday and we’re back in Craig, Alaska. Rob will be working here the next three weeks, and I’m here to do some training for PeaceHealth. I’m winding down, about to enter my last full month of full time. Scary, daunting, exciting, a little surreal. Here we go!

This time we’re staying in a different place. When you do locums work (filling in for a permanent provider), a place to stay is part of the package. The accommodations can vary greatly. We’ve stayed in bed and breakfasts, efficiency apartments, cottages, hotels…The nice thing is that usually the place comes with basic kitchen stuff so you can have coffee and do as much cooking as you choose without going out for every meal. (I like to go out, but on rainy dreary nights, I just want home, and the comfort of getting cozy.) The place we stayed last week for Thanksgiving even came with a Butterball turkey in the freezer, the clinic’s holiday gift to each staff member. However, I did not choose to make the turkey for the two of us. We shared the holiday meal with several others and I brought my southern-style creamed corn and sweet potato casserole. The turkey (still frozen) flew home with us on Saturday and is now living in my freezer in Ketchikan. Hey, I’ll make a turkey dinner sooner or later…just won’t be this month, or in December.

We’re only a half hour flight from Ketchikan, on the island of Prince of Wales. We came over Sunday afternoon and I was surprised to see there is a lot of snow here. There’s a much bigger road system here than in Ketchikan, though not all of the roads are paved. This island was a major logging site years ago and a lot of the roads are from that era.

These little outposts are interesting. You never know what you’ll find in the way of stores and amenities. It can be hit and miss. I’m actually amazed at what is here when I realize that everything is either flown in or barged in. When you can’t drive in, the price of everthing goes up. Way up.

I enjoy the glimpse of small town life. Well, Ketchikan is small, but this is really little. I grew up in a small town, so this feels familiar. What’s different is the degree of isolation you experience on remote islands. Ketchikan has Alaska Airlines flying in and out several times each day, and the major state ferries stop there. You can’t drive out, but you can get out pretty easily. Not cheaply, but easily enough. The ferry from Prince of Wales (POW, locals call it) takes three hours to get to Ketchikan and the connection point for other travel. Or you can fly, but that’s pricey and baggage allowance is limited. Most folks here do an occasional ferry trip to Ketchikan to make a Walmart run or for some specialty need in healthcare. Women go over a couple of weeks before giving birth to deliver in the hospital there. There is no hospital here, just a couple of clinics on the island doing primary care and visiting clinic care.

Tuesday…Today the clinic has a visiting specialty provider coming over, and someone is coming for the day to set up the scanner and computer for the training I’m doing. Weather yesterday pushed both these visits to Tuesday. No planes were flying on Monday. But people around here are used to weather ruling. Ir makes a lot of decisions easy…bad weather, no flying. Really bad weather, no boating, although the ferries are big enough they usually keep to their regular schedules.

Ah, life on the frontier! Some things are so “normal,” you’d think you were on Main Street USA. There’s cable tv and Starbucks coffee in the grocery store and everyone has cell phones. But just when you think you know what to expect you’re caught by surprise…some pieces of life just work a little differently.

I’ve learned to accommodate. I bring my heels for work in a backpack and wear my snow boots. I bring snacks and a few basics. In some of these small communities the grocery closes at 6:00 and restaurants may or may not be open. Some businesses are only open seasonally. I’ve learned the hard way to be self-reliant, at least for the first night in a new place.

I often wonder if life will look different here years from now. Change comes slowly, but it does come. Who knows? But the weather, the remoteness, the ocean…nothing will change that. And for the people who choose this as home, maybe that’s a good thing.

To market, to market…

/ Sheila / 8 Comments

Back in July I posted some photos of black bears that were fishing in one of the coves south of Ketchikan. That location is about seven miles out of town, and those bears were behaving just as bears should. But they do wander into Ketchikan, too, and when that happens, you may see something a bit out of the ordinary.

Check out this little guy:

Don’t worry, he was released after his venture into the produce aisle!

My own little lake

/ Sheila / 2 Comments

Rain again this past weekend. When I say it rained, I don’t mean we had a shower. No, we had a deluge. AGAIN. For all those people in Texas who need rain…believe me, I would send you days of the stuff if I could.
 
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I have a small lake in my basement. This isn’t a new thing. The house was built in 1920 and has been remodeled over the years, so this problem has been addressed before, by others. But never fixed, apparently. When we have heavy rain, we get seeping ground water that comes up through fine cracks in the concrete floor. Not really a problem, doesn’t seem to do any harm. But I’m tired of sweeping out the lake on a regular basis, and I keep wondering what would happen if we had a potential buyer checking us out on a day that the basement floor is liquid. Not an easy thing, I’m thinking, to reassure someone that the water only rises to a certain point and then recedes.
 
Saturday we had a contractor come over to give us ideas about effective treatment. Install a sump pump, redirect one of the downspouts behind the house, put a drain in the basement floor with a collection box…oh, all can be done for the small sum of about $2,000. And it is a small sum, as these types of repairs go. But you never know WHAT you may run into when you begin these things, so we are to understand that $2,000 is the least we’re looking at. Could be higher. Much higher.
 
I’m thinking these days of how I can turn anything and everything to income. Maybe I can write about the perils of owning a house that’s almost 100 years old. Maybe I can give advice to other basement/lake owners. Maybe I can become an expert on sump pumps. I don’t know. All I know is that I’m coming to a cliff in a few months, one that I’m willingly walking toward, and I’m jumping off without reliable income. AND I have this little basement issue. What to do, what to do!
 
Fortunately Rob will pay for the basement. In our universe, he usually covers these types of things. The bigger bills don’t typically come my way. But it does make me think a bit.
 
Really, I expect to be ok. I’m having fun learning about portable and alternative income sources. I’ve already committed to relief work at the hospital, and I’m thinking about entrepreneurial options, everything from baking to editing to whatever else I stumble on. I’m excited to try my wings, and if I grow them on the way down, as the saying goes, that just makes it all the more fun.
 
So this week, I’m going to become an expert on basement drainage. I think the contractor’s coming over tomorrow to get started, and if you see a post or two about the intricacies of pipes, collection boxes and drains, you’ll know why. At least my lake should soon be gone.
 
 

Alaska hummingbirds

/ Sheila / 2 Comments

This video features some hungry hummingbirds at a local lodge near Ketchikan. Fun to watch the birds, and keep watching the clip after for some scenes of this area. It is beautiful, even if the rainfall is epic!

Enjoy!

Summer? Did I miss it?

/ Sheila / Leave a comment

Well, well, August 19th, and another cool rainy weekend in the forecast. I’ve definitely had the “summer was on a Tuesday” experience this year. I remember one of the summers we lived in Michigan was like that. You kept telling yourself, believing, that any day now, the full force of sun and warmth would arrive and the glorious summer weather would bring all things good…outdoor cookouts, trips to the park, bike riding, ball games. But no, nothing, it just fizzled before it ever got off the ground. Like this one.

Oh sure, you try to keep up appearances. Can’t tell you how many days in the past few months I’ve worn something more suited to Arizona, complete with a sweater or windbreaker or jean jacket…whatever COAT was best paired with my summer garb. I couldn’t face going through the summer months wearing turtlenecks. But with only a few exceptions, I could have done it and been very comfortable during June, July, and now August. I’m hoping for a bit of an Indian summer season in September. But who am I kidding? I might as well be unpacking my corduroys and wool right now.

20110819-062943.jpg With the exception of a few days spent in California and Arizona (alright, that was a bit warm, even for me), we’ve sailed right past spring and into October. Honestly, some of the rains we’ve had have been wicked! Thank goodness my leak in the bathroom appears to be fixed. (You know the repair has been successful when you forget to check each time it rains.) Many days the temps hover in the 50s. Twice in the next week we’re supposed to hit 60! And this is August!

Raspberries have been impacted by all the wet, or cool, or something. All I know is that the other summers we’ve lived here we’ve had lots of berries on the vines behind the house. This year, there was a dismal, one-cup crop. Yesterday I noticed a few leaves already turning.

Ok, I know for anyone outside Alaska reading this, it sounds petty. I’ve seen the news about the heat wave and the dry spell much of the lower 48 has been living through, and I know my frustration must seem un-imaginable to many. But trust me, if you heard your heat kick on in August, or decided to put your electric blanket back on the bed before Labor Day, you’d be complaining too.

Most days this cruise season, I’ve felt sorry for the poor tourists, trying to have a good time in a downpour. I’ve hardly had a chance to run the AC in my car. I have brats in the fridge. But I need the right atmosphere. I can’t enjoy grilling out when all I want to do is go inside to warm up.

So that’s my lament for late August. What happened to summer? If you find it, please send it my way. It’s not too late.

When you live on an island in Alaska

/ Sheila / 2 Comments

If you’ve ever lived on a small island, (and particularly, a place with a challenging climate…can you say rainforest?…you’ll understand, and if not, you’ll have to take my word for this…

~Every trip out is exciting!
~The Seattle airport seems like home.
~There’s so much traffic, so many people in the lower 48…
~The stores are huge!
~Groceries are CHEAP!
~I fill my gas tank about once a month in Ketchikan; we’ll be at the gas station a little more often this week.
~Aahhh…dinner options…where to eat?! Choice is a bit limited in Ketchikan.
~Time to go shopping in person instead of on line.
~Sunshine returns to summer!
~Rob can golf while we’re “south”
~We can drive from anywhere to anywhere.

Perspective: This week, it’s all a matter of place!

~The food court at the Seattle airport…

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My cash-free life

/ Sheila / 4 Comments

So, I’m traveling Friday, and of course I have a list of to-dos before I leave…plans for work, plans for packing, plans for a few things I’m taking care of around the house. The most important thing on my list? Now don’t laugh…this is a reflection of my cash-free lifestyle…I have to stop at an ATM and get cash for the airport ferry.

Airport ferry you say? What’s that about? Well, some very clever engineers, way back in the 70s, decided to build Ketchikan’s commercial airport…on a different island. Yep, that’s right, the ONLY available location for an airport that was feasible in this area had to be on a separate strip of land, across the Tongass Narrows that separates the island Ketchikan is on from the island home of the local airport. And how do you reach the airport? Is there a bridge? NO, there is not. If you recall the infamous “bridge to nowhere” issue from the last presidential election, that was about Ketchikan. No bridge across to the airport, but the local government graciously runs a small ferry that crosses twice an hour, for the small sum of $5 per person if you walk on. If you drive across, the fee is higher.

Now aside from the irritant that I have to back up my time to leave to include the ferry schedule, which is annoying in itself, the ferry operates on a CASH ONLY basis. How is that possible in this day and age? I don’t keep cash, don’t use cash, literally go for months, unless I travel out of town by myself, without seeing so much as a nickel, much less a dollar. The fact that I have to obtain cash to get to the airport is a special irritant to me. This isn’t about the $5 fee, which seems reasonable enough. It’s about the fact that it has to be paid in cash.

I keep a $100 bill in my purse, an emergency-only fund. But if I break it, that defeats the purpose of it being for emergencies only. Because then it would only be a matter of time before it would be nickled and dimed away, on this, that, or whatever. I learned a long time ago, before the earth’s crust cooled and when I had small children who loved happy meals, (and before fast food chains accepted credit cards) that if I didn’t have cash on me, I could be firm and say, “not today, Mommy doesn’t have any money.” And they didn’t know I could have gotten money. It was an effective way to keep us out of fast food restaurants, and to keep money from flowing out of my veins.

But wait, you say, you don’t have to actually be cashless to resist spending money. Well, that’s true, and being cashless doesn’t mean I don’t spend. Of course not. But it helps me be thoughtful about what I spend, and how I spend. One of my personal spending guidelines is that I don’t buy anything on a credit card for less than $5…that just seems unfair to the merchant, who has to pay a fee for credit card usage. For small expenditures like a Starbucks coffee, I buy a Starbucks gift card so I don’t have to pay in cash or ask the merchant to pay a fee for a very small credit card charge. Tips for meals or services go on my card, and there is really nothing that I buy, no where that I shop, that I can’t pay with my VISA.

The benefit to me, besides giving me an almost complete history of my spending habits and actual expenses, is that I use a card that gives me airline miles. And I use those miles. I pay the balance each month, so I’m not in credit card debt, and I make the card work for me. I figure, if I’m buying a gallon of milk, I’m flying on that milk. Or someone is. It’s a way to get a little more bang for my buck, and when you live in Alaska, flying becomes an important part of life.

I use direct deposit for my salary. I get a digital copy of my pay stub. I write a few checks each month, primarily for charitable contributions, with an occasional check written on a health savings account for routine care. But that’s it. Everything else is paid through my credit card. Except the airport ferry. They got me, and I can’t fight city hall. What would happen if I forgot to have cash on hand? Well, if I’m with Rob, not a problem. He seldom uses cash, but he always has cash. And if I’m not with him? Well, I might be stranded. You pay the ferry fee after you ride across to the airport island, but before you enter the airport…a real no man’s land. No ATM, no credit or debit cards accepted, and nothing but a grouchy woman in the booth to say, “Sorry, but rules are rules!” No, I’ve never gotten caught in the ferry wilderness…but I wonder what happens to poor souls who do. They’re probably still wandering about on the airport side, looking for a friendly face, an ATM, a five dollar bill on the ground.

And I wonder…how many people out there are like me, going through life without seeing, touching, or using real money on a regular basis? Sometimes I read about saving for purchases by emptying your change into a jar, and that amazes me. Do people really still have change every day? And why? I’ve lived this way so long, I’m not sure if I’m in the mainstream or an oddity.

Alaskan Afternoon

/ Sheila / Leave a comment

Monday was a postcard day here. After a cool and gloomy weekend, Monday was bright, and even better, warm!

I was so energized when I got home from work, I:

washed my car
trimmed my hedge and cleaned up the clippings
planted two tomato plants
harvested my rhubarb
did laundry
tidied the house
wrote a blog post
caught up on email
placed an order on line

Why can’t I do that every afternoon? I usually need morning energy to be that productive, but this was after work. Must have been the extra Vitamin D!

Vitamin D

photo from here

First days of summer

/ Sheila / 1 Comment

It’s almost July, and I still hear the heat kick on some nights. I still wear a light sweater or windbreaker jacket every morning. But real summer heat is on the horizon. The summer season here is July and August. If we’re really lucky it might stretch into September.

This is the brief season when I wear summer sandals, strappy little heels, tank tops, sleeveless dresses, when my hairstyle becomes a ponytail and my house heats up with the afternoon sun. This is the time of year when I remember that my car has air conditioning, and I wish my house did. This is when I make up reasons to go to Wal-Mart to enjoy the cool indoor climate. This is the full-price season for cruises in Alaska, because you’re more likely to have a postcard day for your stay in port than a rainy day.

I think about summer traditions in other places I’ve lived: Rockies baseball games, summer gardening season when the earth produces home grown tomatoes that are warm from the sun when you pick them; farmers’ markets; rambling drives “in the country” just because; kids playing in the sprinkler, and trips to summer camp. I think about road trips and vacations to the beach.

Hhmmm. Alaska is more about coastline than beach, although there are a few beachy areas here in Ketchikan, and you can get in the water…probably not for too long. But summer fishing is always popular, and there are great hikes around Ketchikan. You can camp in backcountry Forest Service cabins, and if you’re lucky you might see black bear. Summer is the season when it rains less, and people whose homes are on a rain collection system for water may have to have their tanks filled by truck. Seems hard to believe, but you can actually run out of water here, in the rain forest.

Summer is the season the ferries are full, and if you plan to take a vehicle on a ferry, and haven’t reserved space for your car, it’s probably already too late. Walk-on passengers usually don’t have space issues, but vehicles are another matter in summertime.

Summer is about the commercial fishing industry, and the addition of crews who come up to man the boats and to work in the processing plants. (Workers who clean the fish and remove the un-edible parts work on the “slime line” and all wear the iconic footwear of Southeast Alaska, Extra-Tuff boots.)

Summer is about tourists. And in Ketchikan that means the jewelry stores open downtown…don’t ask my why cruises and jewelry stores are such a popular combination. It means the return of summer workers to support the tourism industry, the influx of summer construction crews, road crews, shipyard crews. Even the Forest Service brings in summer workers. That’s when they are busy out in the field monitoring wildlife and forest and water conditions. Alaska Airlines adds flights to the daily schedule. Even the hospital sees an uptick in volume (never thought about it, but quite regularly, cruise passengers who come through are admitted for all sorts of illnesses that occur after boarding, and Ketchikan is the first port on the way up the Inside Passage).

Summer is the season you’re more likely to have visitors. It’s the time for town activities like the Fourth of July parade, the Blueberry Festival, the Salmon and Halibut Fishing Derbies. Summer brings the looong days and short nights. On Wednesday evenings sailboats dot the waters I see from my windows.

There’s a quote I like from Henry James:

Summer afternoon – Summer afternoon… the two most beautiful words in the English language.

We’re not quite there yet, but soon…soon, the magic of the summer will be here again.

photo from here

Community at The Point

/ Sheila / Leave a comment

There’s a little art gallery/beading store/restaurant that I love here in Ketchikan. It’s called The Point, Ketchikan’s only “waterfront art cafe,”

The Point

and it is housed in a building that overlooks the water. You can have lunch and watch float planes landing, or see the big ships docked down the way. On a nice day, the water looks so blue it’s amazing.

The food is just the simple fare of lunch: soup, sandwiches, quiche, cookies. They serve artisan freshly baked bread with their soups, and the cookies are baked in house as well. In fact, from what I can tell, everything is done in house. Which is amazing, when you realize that it is more an arts business than a food business. Or at least that’s the way it began. Not sure these days that the restaurant side of the business isn’t taking top billing.

You can eat at The Point, or if you have a work meeting and want to order, they’ll deliver their full menu for the day to your office. Simple as a phone call and a credit card. And the food is so good, if you let staff know where you’re ordering lunch, they’ll show up with appetites.

But the best thing about this restaurant is that it’s local. Owned and operated by people who have been here for a long time, it reflects the personality of the place. Local artists are prominently featured in the gallery displays. Classes are held there, and at lunch you see a mix of people from town, from all ages and walks of life.

I think the success of the restaurant side of the business is a bit of a surprise to the owners. They seem to be growing in popularity and in menu offerings. I and others have asked if they plan to publish their recipes. I have a sense that they’re on to their own little “overnight” success story. And it’s refreshing to see a small town enterprise doing well…not a chain, another fast food place, not linked to national advertising: just a local effort that is paying off and is the result of hard work and risk taking.

Good for the entrepreneurs! And good for me at lunch!