i have a problem. alaska, part 5

I have a problem.

I love Alaska.

I can't stop thinking about it.

I want to go back tomorrow.

I know I would never tire of luxuriating in the delicious views.

But that's not even the best part of this tiny corner of the globe.

The best part is the people. Here are some of them, at our dyeing class in Cordova.

Yarn people are by definition some of the nicest people you'd ever have coffee with.

But the yarnies in Alaska? Horse of a different color.

Nice isn't even close.

Have you ever been to a concert and been thanked by the performer for being a great crowd?

Or been a teacher and just totally clicked with a group of students?

Groups have personalities. And this is a very small town in a remote location, so the group is more cohesive than you might find in big cities.

Gracious, is how I would describe them. Genial. Neighborly. Fun loving.

Kind.

Genuine.

I never felt like an outsider here, despite my schmancy, impractical attire.

I like to sleep with a fan on, for the white noise. The cabin I stayed at didn't have one, but five minutes later, someone else in town brought me one of theirs. I don't even know how she knew I needed a fan. But yet, a need was seen and a need was met. That's just a small example, but people here take care of each other.

People here do amazing things like this.

Sit down.

That is a cake, my friends. A big chocolate cake.

I can't even begin to imagine the work that went into that beauty. (Diane, you are a genius.)

More astonishing still is that she made that at home and then brought it a very long way on a very bumpy dirt road to a potluck here:

This calving glacier periodically sounds like a building is about to collapse as chunks break off and fall into the water.

Ice doesn't look like it can heave mighty groans and trigger small explosive devices. But it does.

I was told by more than one person that the distance across this river is one mile, and that the glacier is 11 stories tall.

How can that be true? How? They swear it is.

I'm not using forced perspective or other photography tricks. The river looks in person as it does in my pictures.

The adults chatted and stood near the fire while the children ran and squealed, just as it should be.

Bald eagles flew overhead, the sky still blue at 10:00 pm.

Then someone -- who shall remain nameless -- insisted that I have my picture taken with the amazing cake in front of the glacier that cannot possibly be a mile away.

(OK, fine. It was Dotty. Resistance was futile.)

While the cake was carefully moved into position, I handed off my camera so someone could take a picture.

My memory card held nine pictures of me making this face. I call it Amused and Mildly Embarrassed.

And twenty four shots of this. I call it My Eyes are Closed and You Can't See the Cake.

The Net Loft -- the store I taught at while I was in Cordova -- is a sanctuary.

I have never seen a shop like it. I would like to set up camp here.

I can move in, right, Dotty? The horsedog would be on her best behavior.

Or, let's be honest. I would just hang around until they gave me a job. I'm persistent like that.

The Net Loft has nearly everything I need to lead a happy life. Beautifully scented everything.

Lush displays.

Large quantities of my very own yarn. This is only a portion of it.

A wall of ribbons.

Sparkly jewelry.

Gorgeous beauty products.

And enough knitted inspiration to stop your heart.

This sweater is an entirely original design, knit from our yarn.  Can you even believe it?

The Net Loft almost has as many knitting books as I do. Between the two of us, we're keeping the knitting book publishers afloat.

I love seeing yarn arranged by color. It makes sense to my brain.

This amazing needle case came home with me.

You know what I didn't get any pictures of? The wall of imported chocolate. Think artisan-crafted chocolate covered fudge caramels with Hawaiian Sea Salt. I thought my way through several bags full.

So, my problem is that I liked it here so much that I want to move into The Net Loft.

I liked the people so much that I want to be their best friend.

I liked the cake and chocolate so much that I want to gain 40 pounds.

What can I do about these problems?

Help?

are you as smart as me? alaska, part 4.

I've devised a quiz that will help you answer this very question.

Circle the correct answer. (Oh man, I think I just hyperventilated a little. I have not written a test in so long! Can we have a multi-paragraph essay at the end? Can we? Please?)

1. When kayaking on the ocean, it is a good idea to wear denim jeans.

True False

2. When kayaking on the ocean, it's best to yell "HEEEEEEEEEEEEERE, FISHY FISHY FISHY FISHY!" every 20-30 seconds to encourage wildlife to approach you for photographic purposes.

True False

3. When approaching wildlife for photographic purposes, it is best to kayak to an island, use your bare fingers to grasp the rock slime, and turn your kayak parallel into the wake of oncoming large watercraft.

True False

4. When the wake of a large watercraft causes you to lose your grip on the island rock slime you're utilizing to stabilize yourself, it is best to:

a. Fire your camera shutter wildly in an effort to stabilize your kayak

b. Yell, "HOLD ON A SECOND, YOU STUPID OCEAN WATER" as you throw your arms towards the slimy rocks in an effort to stabilize your kayak

c. Offer to throw your camera overboard in an effort to stabilize your kayak and appease King Triton, who is fathoms below

d. Put your head on your knees and practice deep cleansing breaths -- inforseven-andoutforten-inforseven-andoutforten in an effort to stabilize your kayak

5. Should 16,000 seagulls fly overhead, it is best to:

a. Raise your arms as high as they will go and point your camera at the moving seagulls' feet

b. Imitate the seagulls by flapping your arms and making a loud, squeaky sound

c. Stand up in your kayak to get closer to their beaks

d. Paddle as quickly as possible in the direction of the seagulls to see what all the commotion is about

Let's see how you did!

1. When kayaking in the ocean, it is a good idea to wear denim jeans.

The correct answer is false. In a kayak, on the ocean, in an active fishing channel, near wildlife, with dripping paddles, every seat in the house is in the splash zone. Not only will your jeans help you to drown more quickly should you fall in the drink, they will also need to be surgically removed in a grocery store bathroom when you're done paddling.

Then you'll have nothing to wear except an ill-fitting garment someone loaned you because they're a nice person and you're too polite to say, "Hey, thanks, but your shorts look bad on me. Because I'm nine inches taller than you. And I'm not a size 4."

2. When kayaking on the ocean, it's best to yell "HEEEEEEEEEEEEERE, FISHY FISHY FISHY FISHY!" every 20-30 seconds to encourage wildlife to approach you for photographic purposes.

I tried it.

The results speak for themselves.

False.

3. When approaching wildlife for photographic purposes, it is best to kayak to an island, use your bare fingers to grasp the rock slime, and turn your kayak parallel into the wake of oncoming large watercraft.

Hello? Everyone knows you're supposed to grasp the rock slime with rubber GLOVES. Hello? False.

4. When the wake of a large watercraft causes you to lose your grip on the island rock slime you're utilizing to stabilize yourself, it is best to:

a. Fire your camera shutter wildly in an effort to stabilize your kayak

b. Yell, "HOLD ON A SECOND, YOU STUPID OCEAN WATER" as you throw your arms towards the slimy rocks in an effort to stabilize your kayak

c. Offer to throw your camera overboard in an effort to stabilize your kayak and appease King Triton, who is fathoms below

d. Put your head on your knees and practice deep cleansing breaths -- inforseven-andoutforten-inforseven-andoutforten in an effort to stabilize your kayak

I tried a. This is what a looks like.

I tried option b, c, and d. Those didn't work, either.

So the answer is I don't know. I watched helplessly as the wake and current carried me quickly away from the rock slime.

(Is it just me, or does that starfish look like Rose at the end of Titanic? You can hear her hoarse whispers: come back! come back!)

5. Should 16,000 seagulls fly overhead, it is best to:

a. Raise your arms as high as they will go and point your camera at the moving seagulls' feet

b. Imitate the seagulls by flapping your arms and making a loud, squeaky sound

c. Stand up in your kayak to get closer to their beaks

d. Paddle as quickly as possible in the direction of the seagulls to see what all the commotion is about

The correct answer is D. The commotion was about fish. Imagine that. This doesn't look like 16,000 seagulls, but it is. I know because I counted.

How'd you do? Are you as smart as me?

I hope not.

I also have to make good on my promise. More pictures of the awe-inspiring Alaskan wilderness.

This trail looks relatively well maintained at its mouth.

But then it gets all tricksy. You have to ask yourself periodically, "Am I...? Is this...? Are we...? Where's the trail?"

I call this Old Man Beard moss. Because I am really, really smart.

And this is Dr. Seuss moss.

The trail soon traverses a bog. The kind with foot-sucking mud, mosquitoes the size of ping-pong balls, and diminutive wildflowers peppered liberally.

Funny story. On Monday, I hiked this trail.

A glacial river, complete with Amazon-style waterfalls pouring off the cliffs.

(Tell me this does not look like a movie set. The color of the water, the shape of the trees, the swags of Old Man Beard moss and Dr. Seuss moss.)

(And, oh, are those wild salmon in the icy water?)

Word UP, Alaska.

By Saturday, I was here:

220,000 square feet of food marvelosity. I had a small seizure of happiness when I entered this new Whole Foods Market in the Washington, DC suburb of North Bethesda.

Everywhere, everywhere were these signs:

Full circle, dudes. From ocean to table in a few days and 4,000 miles.

So, while I was inside this little piece of paradise, I was stopped by a police officer.

"Excuse me, ma'am?" he said.

What did I do? Why are you stopping me? What did I do? Who hit my car? What did I do? I thought.

"You were my government teacher. I'm a police officer now, and I sure learned a lot in your class. I probably slept too much, though. Do you remember me?"

I looked at his name badge. His face looked familiar. "You once called my mom because I wasn't turning in my homework. She came to see you the next day?"

Then it came back: this boy, this police officer? didn't do his homework, tried to sleep all the time, and while nice enough, didn't contribute much. I called his mother. His mother showed up unannounced for third period the next day and said, "My son needs to learn what happens when he does not do his homework. Can I sit here?" She positioned herself at a counter at the edge of the room, waiting for the students to arrive for class.

When this boy walked in the door and saw his mother sitting in the classroom, her eyes shooting daggers, the red did not slowly creep into his cheeks.

Oh, no. His face was a tomato sweating in the sun. I must admit I was secretly -- just a teeny bit -- amused.

His mother sat there quietly but alertly, taking notes for forty minutes. When I assigned homework, she raised her hand and said loudly, "SO WHAT YOU'RE SAYING, MS. McMAHON, IS THAT MY SON SHOULD COME HOME FROM SCHOOL TODAY AND WRITE THIS ESSAY ON FEDERALISM? HE SHOULD DO A GOOD JOB ON THE ESSAY, RIGHT? AND HE SHOULD BRING IT BACK FOR YOU TOMORROW, NEATLY TYPED?"

"The essay is due on Friday, but yes, he should go home from school -- you should all go home from school -- and work on it."

"SO JUST SO MY SON OVER THERE, PATRICK, UNDERSTANDS THE ASSIGNMENT, MS. McMAHON, HE SHOULD WRITE THIS ESSAY AND BRING IT BACK FOR YOU TOMORROW? IS THAT CORRECT?"

"Tomorrow will be fine," I said.

"AND IF HE DOESN'T DO THE ASSIGNMENT, I WANT PATRICK OVER THERE, THAT BOY IN THE BLUE HOODIE, SITTING NEXT TO THAT TALL BOY OVER THERE, I WANT PATRICK TO KNOW THAT HIS CELL PHONE WILL BE MINE FOR ALL ETERNITY. RIGHT PATRICK?"

Ah, mama bears. Gotta love 'em.

The police officer (fortunately, he was off duty and doing some grocery shopping) and I had a little catch up session, and I asked him if he sees a lot of his former teachers around. "Not so much. But I saw you and thought it was you, and then I looked at your shoes, and I knew it was you. You always wore fancy shoes."

He knew it was me by the shoes.

THE SHOES.

He's my new favorite police officer.

I have one more post about Alaska in the works -- and I'm saving the best for last, promise.

The best laid plans. Alaska, part 3

You know what they say about even the best laid plans.

The best laid plans never work. Ever.

I think it's the overplanning.

Overplanning causes you to be hyper aware of every minute detail, which in turn creates an infinite number of additional things that can go wrong.

Like weddings. Some brides want to get everything exactly perfect, down to the Kelvin number of the lights that are illuminating the hand carved swan sculpture that is adorning the raw bar with the beluga caviar and the fontina ciabatta crisps that are golden brown but just shy of amber.

I may -- possibly, I can't quite say for sure -- be guilty of overplanning. Occasionally. If I overplan at all, which is still open to debate.

I returned from Alaska on Wednesday evening. I left Saturday morning for Washington, DC. (I have a fun event at The Yarn Spot on July 4th from 10-2. Come! Have coffee! Pet yarn!) I transferred all of the remaining pictures from my trip to Alaska to my cloud storage so I could access them and finish telling you about all of my near death experiences and all of the awesome cake I got to eat.

But the files won't open. I blame the overplanning.

So you'll have to be content with these until I get home.

I have never experienced forest like this. Minnesota is no slouch in the tree department -- we have over two million acres. But this is a temperate rainforest, and the amount of moss and lichen that grows on everything is impressive. I think I took 500 pictures of moss.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Red moss, green moss, gold moss, brown moss, silver moss, black moss. I have it all well documented.

But of course, I cannot open the files from my location near the nation's capital right now. I know this is very upsetting to you, you were just thinking a few minutes ago about how what you're really suffering from is a dearth of moss images.

The forest here is astonishingly quiet. The velvet veil of silence closes behind you when you enter, and the ground, damp and spongy, doesn't encourage the pop of sticks or the crunch of leaves beneath your feet. You don't realize how much noise you're accustomed to until it's entirely removed.

I took another 500 pictures of the color of the water. I wish I could live in a house swathed entirely in this green-blue. I would never leave, and you would find me 100 years later, covered in moss.

I took this picture shortly before meeting a ferocious bear. Just think, this was almost the last picture of mine in existence.

This was a total fluke, I didn't even realize I'd gotten this shot until I got home.

I think I'll have it printed to remind me that sometimes the best stuff happens when you're not planning it.

I'll be sure to share it at my next overplanner's anonymous meeting -- which does not mean I have a problem, thank you very much.

It's scheduled for July 17, 2023 at 11:09 am central time.

Room 3 in the library.

Alaska, part 2. In which I encounter a ferocious bear.

On Sunday, I taught a dyeing class and encountered a ferocious bear. Both in Alaska.

I have some lovely pictures of the dyeing class, but I think the ferocious bear takes precedence. When was the last time we discussed ferocious bears? Like, never.

Plus, I almost died. Which is much more serious than saying I dyed.

Cordova has a road out of town. The road does not lead to another town as roads often do, but instead to a glacier.  People who live here call the road The Road. Most of The Road is not open after November 1st.

I was driving on The Road. Only a small portion of The Road is paved. You then drive for a very long time on The Road before actually arriving at Child's Glacier. This being remote Alaska, there are no signs on The Road that say, "Glacier 43 miles."

No encouragement. No, "You're almost there -- don't quit now!" No, "Next rest stop 5 miles -- you can hold it, you really can!"

If you didn't know better, you'd think you were on the road to nowhere. But really, it's The Road to The Glacier.

While on The Road, you drive through the massive Copper River Delta. The runoff from several glaciers has created braided fingers of fast moving, chalky blue water than spans more than 35 miles.

I borrowed this aerial photo to give you a better idea of the scale.

I was invited to a potluck at the picnic area by The Glacier, which you would have no idea existed unless you actually followed the road to see where it ended. 

It's a bit of a risky proposition. No houses, no businesses, no cell reception. What if your car breaks down? What if you are attacked by a ferocious bear? As you'll see, I soon found out exactly what happens.

So, I'm driving. I'm pulling over to take pictures periodically. This is part of the Copper River. I concluded that if you fell in, you would die.

It's cold and there's a fast current. And people-eating seals.

Usually my conclusions are correct. Sometimes not. But sometimes yes.

I had to stop to take a picture of Sheridan Glacier. Not The Glacier at the end of The Road. A different one.

I found all the bleached tree trunks littered about interesting. Clearly, they had been left there a long time ago when the river ran a different course. In 1964, this region had the largest earthquake ever recorded in North America, a 9.2 on the Richter scale. The earthquake caused a vertical shift of 40 feet in some places.

I concluded that this could also alter the course of a river. Several people told me that the fingers of the river change course regularly, and portions of The Road get washed out and have to be rebuilt.

I stopped to take some more pictures when I noticed several very large bones lying off to the side. I concluded that they were the bones of weary travelers whose cars had broken down on The Road.

Then I looked closer and decided that it was actually an entire moose leg. Femur, knee, lower leg, hoof. Like nearly as big as me.

Maybe bigger. Most things are big in Alaska.

As I continued on my drive, I spotted something in the distance. After ruling out a three-legged moose, a mountain goat, and a human-eating seal, I concluded that the dot on the horizon was a ferocious grizzly bear, with razor sharp claws and fangs the size of my head.

I slowed to a crawl, hoping that if I drove by quietly, the grizzly would not notice me.

As I got closer the grizzly -- who must have been protecting her triplet cubs -- reared up on her hind legs and roared so loudly that the windows of my vehicle shook from the vibration.

I stopped the car, uncertain of how to proceed. Clearly, the mother grizzly did not want me coming any closer.  I couldn't just turn around, as the river lies just off The Road, and there are not exactly friendly signs that say, "Next turnaround spot 7 yards!"

Suddenly, the grizzly charged at me.

I flinched. Her aim was clear: to render me immobile by maiming my limbs, followed by slowly being eaten to death by triplet grizzly cubs.

Again and again the bear charged at me, its breath so close I could smell the stench of half-digested salmon.

Since the only weapon I carried was a pair of jumper cables, I concluded that I would be unable to fight off my attacker.

My only choice was flight. I drove my car in reverse, slowly backing away from the bloodthirsty -- probably rabid, possibly schizophrenic -- mother grizzly.

She responded by disappearing into the underbrush to man her carefully concealed sniper rifle. All the better to shoot prey for her triplets. People don't travel The Road that often. Giant grizzlies have to eat while the eating is good.

I concluded that this near-miss with a ferocious bear was more than I could take. I needed to eat chocolate to steady my nerves and steel my resolve to ward off any future attacks.

My only hope was that potluck waiting for me at the end of The Road.

As I drove past the ferocious bear's outpost, I rolled down my window a crack and threw my "In Case of Emergency" skein of yarn out the window, as a sort of peace offering.

From the safety of my rearview mirror, I saw a lone paw slowly pull the yarn (Bellini on McClellan Fingering) from The Road and into the dense forest.

I concluded that the bear's cubs will at least have something warm and pretty to wear this fall.

And my conclusions are usually correct.

What are the morals of this story, you ask?

I'll tell you.

1. Everything in Alaska is big.

2. Bears will shoot you if given the chance.

3. Always carry a skein of In Case of Emergency yarn.

Alaska trip #1

I'm back in the studio today, after a week away in beautiful Alaska. Rather than write up a full report this morning, I'll share some pictures with you over the next few days.

Because I am a geography/history geek/weirdo, I'll start with some maps.

The town of Cordova is situated in a remarkable place. Glaciers, mountains, and ocean converge to form a temperate rainforest that is only accessible by air or by sea.

You can see the town of Cordova on the right-hand side of this map.

Tell people where you're headed and they first picture dogsleds and igloos, ptarmigans and tundra.

Instead, this is what you'd find. Many people here make their living as commercial fishermen, catching salmon and halibut.

Everyone in Cordova has a view of the mountains. These are not a couple of peaks far off in the distance, either. Every window has a view.

Because my visit was just after the summer solstice, there was 24 hours of daylight -- something I haven't experienced before. This picture was taken at 11:30 pm, outside the window of the cabin where I stayed.

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I live in northern Minnesota, and that we have more than our fair share of forest here. But the forest in this part of Alaska is nearly all old-growth conifer.

Because much of it has been set aside as protected, logging operations haven't clear cut the 200-year old trees. And the deciduous tree population here is sparse, which means that this region isn't peppered with barren poplar and birch six months of the year.

Translation: it's green year-round.

The fresh water lakes come from glacier runoff, and the color is right up my alley -- muted turquoises and teals.

Duty calls, but check back later for some more highlights.