Whistling in the Dark

A bit more progress. We have the stem walls pretty much formed and hope to pour the second batch of concrete in a few days.

At the risk of making all the offspring paranoid about allowing the grandkids to come up for the summer......



Each morning when I drive onto the property I look for evidence of what has traversed there since I departed. Some mornings I see strange tire tracks; local folks checking out the progress. Moose tracks are common every few days. Yesterday morning I saw some different looking prints and got out to investigate. Dropping to one knee I observed black bear tracks. After a quick look around to make sure ursa major wasn’t still in the vicinity I proceeded back to the truck and got a camera and tape measure. The rear prints measured over nine inches long, claw to heel. A neighbor was intrigued by the size too. He said they were probably made by a very large black bear as the brown/grizzly bears seldom come down toward town. He tells me moose especially like the area where we are building, and they often see the same moose year after year. (I can’t tell the difference.)

Wolves are elusive. Occasionally they are heard, but almost never seen. Three times recently wolves have taken down moose calves on the outskirts of town or within earshot in the National Park. Realize town is not like a typical city block. There can be dense forest for hundreds of yards between dwellings. The local wolf exposure sequence goes like this: Residents hear wolves howl their eerie call from several directions. Then the sound concentrates on a single location and the crashing of a fight, finally ending in silence. A day or two later, when someone ventures out to see what happened, they find a dead prey. This time of year the victim is usually a moose calf. Moose often give birth to twins but it is not unusual for only one to survive because the adult can only protect one calf at a time. Such is the wilderness saga.

When we first arrived Paulette had a cautious fear about remote Alaska. One can easily get the impression there is a bear behind every tree and a moose around every corner. Then one sees kids playing and riding bikes like anywhere else in the lower 49 states. Gradually the coexistence of wild and human is realized. Paulette actually walked several blocks up a forest road to get water the other day while I was away working on the cabin.

Finally, I wear an old set of pants for work, and another newer pair for relaxing. Yesterday I wore a second set of work pants so Paulette decided to wash the first, not realizing my wallet was in the cargo pocket. Nuts. My wallet doubles as a file cabinet for important phone numbers.