July 18

If you have been wondering about pictures and an update we have been without internet for six days. The wi-fi at the library appears to be down. I started typing this on the ferry heading for Juneau (to pick up more building supplies) and this post is from the comfort of Mick & Sherri’s home. The pix are not in proper order, but you will get the idea.


The boys sorting and trading candy from the 4th of July haul. The parade participants throw candy at the kids.


Grandma, aka Gammie, got to hold all the candy and coats during the games.


This moose track in front of the cabin has a stride of 54 inches! We didn't see the moose or calf but a neighbor did.


The boys (red shirts) pulling for all they are worth in the first round of tug-of-war on the 4th of July. They lost to the girls!


The boys checking out the ROV ocean explorer in the repair shop.


Jonah at the control panel while Micah and Jayden "check" the functions before launch. Only in Alaska would kids get a hands on experience like this.


You will have to ask the boys about the "mine" pushups done on the trail.


Gammie and Jayden at the trailhead to the airplane crash. You will have to ask the boys what the forest was like.


The first few days saw rain and wet conditions, so Paulette came up with a makeshift clothes drying rack in the cabin for jeans.


This bear is named Gus and is a favorite climb aboard for kids.


A sneak pix of Jonah sitting on Gus.


Papa (foreground), Jonah (red kayak), and Jayden (middle) on the river in kayaks.


I liked to tease Jay about trying to hide this puppy in his jacket pocket and take it home.


Jon and Jonah coming through the narrows at high tide. There are a lot of barely submerged rocks just below the surface.


We were given a few of the largest Dungeness crabs I have ever seen. They provided Jon and myself two meals each.


Mr. Porcupine walked through the morning after the boys left for home.


Each of those dark objects is a salmon. Pink salmon are spawning thick in the river for the last few days. All that white junk on the water is from the shedding cottonwood trees.


I guess we are sentimentalists. We think of areas now in terms of the grandson’s visit. We drive past the trail we all took to the airplane crash, or, we are sitting on the ship in the same booth were we took them for lunch. Jayden intentionally left his boots here and Jonah left a pair of tennies. That empty footwear tugs our hearts when we step out the door. Paulette saw Jay’s boots this morning and talked about Jay begging to do an errand for her, any errand that could be reached by bicycle. She came up with sending him to the store, a two mile round trip, for cookies. The fire pit by the river is another touch-point. Many evening memories were made there with smores and firecrackers and boys burning sticks. I would have hidden the sticks so no one got burned, but the forest has no shortage of suitable sticks. One evening I snuck off with Micah and put him in the back of my kayak and we went up river as far as the tide would let the two of us go. I hope he enjoyed that as much as his grandfather did.

Time of day is important, but a lot also happens here based on tide; boat launching, fishing, and river access to name a few activities. Most folks here own a boat or two. A few own airplanes also. These are ways to get around despite being on the perimeter of the largest road-less area left on the planet. I have a boat in mind for our five year plan. Can’t say about an airplane. By the time an aero machine would be on our horizon Paulette would probably have to pilot my wheelchair and me around. On the other hand I cannot say enough about the kayaks. A truck gets us to the regular road places and trailheads. But the kayaks have expanded us (uh, me, though the neighbors are intent on getting Paulette in one. I tell them good luck. I wasn’t even able to get her in on the back lawn in California for a picture). There is at least as much water here as land. Kayaks are a way to somewhat access the waterway and deeper wilderness. They have doubled our wilderness horizon. I am told the Beardslee Islands rank as some of the best kayaking in the northwest. There are no motorized vehicles allowed in the area. Whales, sea lions, seals, dolphins, and even an occasional orca are visible via kayak. Last afternoon a friend called and wanted to know whether I was up for kayaking the Bartlett River with him to do some fishing. The two of us went in through the narrows about 90 minutes before high tide and spent the next 3½ hours fishing. There has been a lot of bear activity in that area as the bears need salmon protein to lay on fat for winter hibernation. An aggressive brown bear recently worked the banks where the sockeye salmon are running, taking fish from fishermen, and even charged a group of six fishermen back into the woods. (We kept the grandsons in the kayaks in mid river while we had them up in that area.) Once John and I exited the kayaks for the riverbank bear evidence was prevalent. I kept my bear spray in a chest wader pocket, finger hole on the canister exposed, and even thought about the times I played gunslinger as a child, wondering how long it would take to draw and fire the bear spray for real if necessary. John was literally “loaded for bear” with two cans of bear spray, an air horn, and a pistol. I found one eye regularly checks the riverbank or the tree line, except when a fish on the line holds the attention. Despite all the precautions and bear sign we never saw a bear (Murphy’s Law?). I caught a fat dolly varden, a little under two feet in length. John, using a fly rod and wet fly, had a sockeye salmon break his pole (it was an old pole) on his first fish of the afternoon. He was bummed as the fish then broke the line and took his only wet fly with it. I was using a middle weight casting rod and thought about loaning him my old flyrod, also in the kayak, but quickly realized it also is too old and light for these fish. We had a great time and lost a lot of fish, and after all the standing my back was tired and I was ready to head back on the outgoing tide. As a cap on the day kayaking back I counted at least nine whales in the cove or at the mouth of Bartlett Cove, with their blow mist beautifully backlit by the evening sun. We beached below the NP lodge, carried the kayaks to the truck, and headed for the lodge were we met our wives for a simple dinner. Life doesn’t get much better than this. At times I wish we had bought up here ten years ago.