Play It Cool

At first we thought Jerome was messing with us so we would speed up, 

but there really was a baby goat!

In other news, the dirt track in Kenai is amaaaaazing fun.

Now this is more like it—cool and rainy.  I’ve pulled a fleece on over my sweatshirt here in the tent.  Layer upon layer of cozy protection is what I want, twelve months of the year.

My parents are great parents, don’t misconstrue the following anecdote.  We usually kept the thermostat at a cool 68 degrees in winter, which lasts five months in northern Michigan.  My room was at the northwest corner of the house (read: the coldest part), and by the time the furnace air reached my room it was lukewarm at best.  My complaints of cold toes were many times met with the rejoinder, “Well of course, you’re only wearing one pair of socks!”  

When December rolled around during college in New York City, I’d wear two sweaters, like you do.  Actually, it turns out, like no one does; you could practically hear the record scratch as people openly gaped while I peeled off coat, then sweater, then sweater in a steamy bar.

When Matt and I bought our house, exciting new avenues of frugality opened up.  Leaving it at 45 degrees was just a hair too low to keep the lesser bathroom pipes from freezing, unfortunately.  It also meant two sweatshirts and thermals before diving under the ice-cold bedding, carefully tucking the down comforter all around without even a hole for your nose.  The olive oil solidified in the kitchen cabinet, and since it was silly to heat the whole water tank just for the weekend, we’d boil some on the stove to wash dishes.

This is not to say that I like being cold.  Rather, I understand and appreciate it, and can work with it.  Wear a third jacket; eat some chocolate; run around; breath in deep and think about its quieting effect.

Yesterday I hiked up Mt. Cecil with friends, a classic pointy peak just across the street, a familiar feature we look upon every day.  There are still some patches of snow near the top.  I sweat buckets up the steep path but above the treeline we had a bit of rain accompanied by gusting winds blowing ethereal clouds of fog.  On the jagged shale summit perched a family of mountain goats, the baby eagerly hopping and galloping about.  We noticed hunks of shed fur clinging to sharp-edged rocks, whether trading their coats for lighter or heavier ones, we weren’t sure.  The three of us huddled above, double-coated and hooded, and the goats clambered down a bit to huddle below.

Spruce Moose

hazy Martian sunset

skies clearing a bit at Lost Lake

You know how delicious moose tracks ice cream is?  It’s so satisfying mining those surprise veins of fudge, crunching on the ‘lil peanut butter cups, the salty-sweet combo melting around the edges as you devour bowl fulls.  Actual moose tracks in the mud are pretty neat, too, shockingly large dinosaur-deer hooves, prints that pique the imagination.  Witnessing their making, however, is rather alarming: before your very eyes, 10,000 pounds* of sinewy muscle, deployed with the agility and speed more commonly associated with pumas or sharks, press those angled toes into the ground.  (*Okay, more like 1,000 pounds.)  There is a particular fellow (gentleman moose?) (bulls are extra intimidating) who frequents the bog alongside our property.  There is a gravel path next to the highway that we use to travel between base camp and additional tent city housing.  Mr. Antlers greatly appreciates the ease of movement afforded by this path, the better to nibble on grasses.  I hadn’t seen him for some weeks when, about midnight, a companion and I chanced upon him in the dusky gloom.  Without meaning to be rude, he made it clear that he wished to occupy the path undisturbed, and we were only too eager to oblige.  The distance across the highway, however, proved inadequate to soothe his wary distemper, and so we prudently retreated to formulate an alternative campaign.  Each passing vehicle caused Mr. Antlers to nervously toss his head, like a horse but with a giant bone-chandelier-cudgel.  There was no choice but to appeal to our species’ superior technology.  I flashed my brightest smile and hailed the next car, and explained our predicament to the two confused fisherman within.  That fifty yards was short ride, but just as life-affirming a hitch as any I’ve ever landed.

Mr. Antlers (or an associate, perhaps) still felt a lot of consternation that evening, and trumpeted or roared or moo-ed or whatever, back and forth with a cohort, in the pre-dawn.  It was an arresting sound, reverberating through the night air, that animal bellow of simultaneous aggression and defensiveness.

I could tell you about our 4th of July In-Depends-Dance party wherein we donned adult diapers and drank ham-aritas in a clearing in the woods, but it’s really fun writing about moose encounters.  The other day I walked several miles to the big bridge and back, and just as I approached said bog, I heard strident splashes.  I hustled to a break in the trees and—quick!—peered down the slope to spy Mr. Antlers clomping around his backyard pool, squelching his hooves in the muck and snacking aimlessly before meandering back behind the spruces.  None of the cat-calling SUV idiots or doughy RV tourists had any idea what a kingly creature they motored by.

Spittin’

We had to stop in Soldotna to ride this homemade Alaskan animal carousel.

Walkin’ and spittin’

Some super solid bread, for sure

We’ve been here almost two months and the tighknit nature of our community is starting to grate on some people.  You wait in line with a plate for dinner; you hope no one “borrows” your personal shampoo in the showers; you find yourself socially exhausted because there’s always a friendly face around — ten of them in fact, asking how your day was but they already know because they heard about the bear you saw or the fish you caught from someone else already.  Yes, there are actual millions of acres of forest and mountains to retreat into, but our tents are six feet apart and no one can hide who they’re sleeping with.  And we’re all pretty supportive and team-oriented, but of course there are spheres of influence and power, favor to bestow and future jobs to angle for.  

You would never think it, but some of the best possible preparation for remote seasonal work is a) living in a densely-populated urban center, and b) the behind-the-scenes ego, gossip, and plundering at a church.  When people here get exasperated about the lack of personal space I think fondly/glad-it’s-over of the 12’ X 15’ office Matt and I illegally lived in, toting drinking water up two flights of stairs, showering at the gym, and wedging myself in and out of subway cars every stop for other people to enter and exit because it was packed so full.  And while it’s regrettable that seasonal jobs end up employing people who embellished their resume or aren’t the brightest bulbs, I’ll take them any day over a spiritually bankrupt, money-grubbing, selfish, sexist, piece of shit liar of a minister and boss.  (According to Dante, your special place in hell is a ditch full of vengeful reptiles whose ceaseless biting disfigures you and causes you to repeatedly spontaneously combust, Greg.)

Even the dense forest fire smoke is like so much city bus exhaust.  I’m glad neither really bother me, but I’m slightly concerned by my high tolerance.  Ok, ok, I digress.  All of this adds up to four of us hightailing it to Homer for a day and night.  Even allowing for Alaska’s excessive beauty, Homer hit a home run (one might say, a homer).  Mountains and glaciers meeting the sea in a quaint-sized town with a three-mile spit of sand to walk out on and enjoy gelato!  And an idyllic farm-campground just far enough out in the country, with charming paths through wildflowers and seashell-driftwood cabins!  Not to mention the first haze-free sky we’d seen in three weeks.  Alright, I do relish my own stretch of beach with sun-sparkled waves, fresh salt breeze, and nature’s good news unfiltered through words yet communicated crystal clear.

The Sunlight Clasps the Earth

Near the top of Hope Point trail with lovely humans (not pictured)

Best evening lit rose ever

There is a lot of light emanating from the sun.  It barely dips below the tree-limb horizon, so sometimes we forget when to go to bed.  And it is relentlessly sunny — the forest fires burn on, the moss is dusty and the woods bare of mushrooms, and my hair is almost blond.

Peak zenith should be celebrated.  About thirty of us trooped singlefile alongside the highway to a bridge over a creek to enact the rites of Troll-stice.  We puzzled ye riddles three; we guzzled libations and feasted on fat buttery things; we ornamented each other with glitter to symbolize the sun’s glinting rays; and at midnight we submerged our limbs in the creek to commemorate the cyclical passage of seasons and time and meaningful stuff.

The dandelions know how to make the most of their time, stretching their stalks a foot high, proudly above the feathery horsetail, to nod their at first gloriously golden and now (so swiftly!) wizened gray heads.  The salmon, too, make haste through these elastic days and nights of light.  Furiously swimming, leaping improbably high and far out of the water, their instinct drives them to their impossibly Sisyphian task to climb treacherous rocky falls.  Not infrequently, the foaming white water churns up a ragged orange-pink meat chunk, one of their fellows filleted by the pounding river.

It’s interesting that the salmon exhaust their own lives to spawn subsequent salmon.  Not only their upstream exertion but also the nutrients from their carcasses sustain their hatchlings and the biome of the river.  The process is simultaneously productive and destructive.  I sang a song a few months ago about the inevitable changing of seasons (“Gatekeeper,” by Feist).  The buildup (preceding the breakdown) goes: 

June, July, and August said,

“It’s probably hard to plan ahead.”

June, July, and August said,

“It’s better to bask in each other.”

Buds, Bugs, and Baguettes

kayaking in Aialik Bay

fairytale moss charm-carpeting staff housing

When I was little, mosquito bites dotted my limbs in summer.  At one point I counted 37 on my right leg.  Northern Michigan is in the troubling insect big leagues for sure, and the swampy terrain surrounding my grandparents’ cabin could compete with the Deet-proof skeeters of Southeast Asia and the sand fly-ridden South Island of New Zealand.  When I canoed yesterday through veritable clouds of bitey fly-y things, I thought, “This is legit.”  Congratulations, Fjordlands National Park — you too are insanely beautiful and pestilent!

That’s about the only negative thing to say, though, about my little weekend getaway to our sister lodge.  If you can tolerate some bugs (and rain), your heart will thus with joy at several-hundred-foot-high granite cliffs spiderwebbed with cascading waterfalls, tucked into boulder-strewn coves reachable only at high tide.

That was kayaking.  Canoeing took us across a lagoon dotted with various species of loon, some playful harbor seals, a chirpy bald eagle, and a wilderness of dense spruce.  We walked through willow and alder, admiring flowering lupine and wild rhubarb, and emerged on the shores of a second lagoon.  This one was fed at its far end by a calving glacier.  Distant thunder rumbled, and massive chunks hurtled down into the water.  Bobbing and melting, they transform over time, gracefully carved swanlike curves floating placidly by.  Miles up the surrounding peaks, a few mountain goats cavorted, presumably unaware of a black bear lumbering across a ledge a hundred feet below.

I could go on and on.  The moss!  The lichen!  The rich dark brown chocolate lilies that smell bad!  And the kind, interesting people that live and work out there, relying on supplies by boat and semi-functional radios.  To cap it all, I slept in my own cabin, with actual walls, for ten hours a night.

Lest this laudatory account of my time in Aialik Bay cast shade on my fantastic regular camp life, let me report that this week also included:

- an impromptu after-dinner hike to a panoramic lake overlook
- pretty successful baguettes (with the exception that I omitted salt)
- rather successful baguettes (this time still nicely proofed, golden, and with salt)
- campfire visit with Ice friends
- foot-stomping country/bluegrass tunes by a good local band
- innovative pickle mixers with gin

Sorry for a formally uninspiring list, my baking muscles are crowding out my editing muscles.

Tent City

It’s my room!

It’s my island for a night!

So I live in a tent, but I should elaborate.  It consists of a plywood floor and roof, 2x4 framing, and waterproof canvas walls.  Previous residents built a few basic shelves and bedside table.  There’s even a rack and hangers for clothes.  My bed is a giant piece of foam on a raised wooden frame, with plenty of space underneath for camping gear and extra boots and a case of beer.  I brought with me an actual Turkish rug I got in Turkey, and a few other decorative touches.  My roommate is great, friendly and tidy.  I love the wind rustling the leaves and the play of their shadows on the canvas in the afternoon.  The only downside to my tent is that at any time there are upwards of thirty other people nearby, walking, talking, picking banjo, snoring—really just existing.  Any and  all sounds are perfectly audible.  

My tent affords just about the only solitude short of hiking up a less-popular mountain (which is a dicey prospect, what with bears and increasingly ravenous insects).  So I try to soak it in when I find the lounge momentarily unoccupied, and my tent in the mid-afternoon when my roomie is still at work.

Last night it was a treat to sleep in a tent-tent, the usual kind, my own little pod of nylon, out on Porcupine Island in Kenai Lake.  Four of us that share weekends motored a raft out across the tears-of-joy-beautiful aquamarine water to a pine-covered chunk of rock surrounded by steep mountains.  We made a driftwood fire, had cookies and beer, and watched as, instead of getting dark, the sky just grew misty and pink.  I know I slept well because I drooled a lot.

Our return this morning included the opportunity to row the raft (the lake narrows down to the river we live next to, which is “drift” only).  My stint at the helm took us over some minor rapids, which was fun, and illuminating to realize the raft will handle almost anything, with or without much steering.  It’s tempting to become a raft guide, but for now I’m satisfied fussing with bread dough and casting dubious glances at various sugary concoctions while whisking.

Sugar High

Some for real Alaska stuff

Aialik Glacier (sooo many vowels)

It really shouldn’t have taken so many attempts, but I’m pleased to announce that I finally made a perfect (well, damn near perfect) apple strudel.  Important lessons learned:
- you want a less-sticky dough
- a cloth is essential for rolling
- heat the apple pieces through and cool before filling the dough and they won’t collapse
- brush dough with clarified butter and a sprinkling of powdered sugar to get better layers
- your coworkers love anything with sugar, no matter how short of your own expectations it may have turned out

Also in baking success this week was the ideal blueberry crumble: the filling cooked down just right, the notes of lemon and almond and cinnamon superbly balanced.  I made enough for 34 instead of 14, but can you have too much of a good thing?

Something awful and fun about a cooking job is that you’ve never done stuff before.  On one hand, I’ve made various crumbles hundreds of times and have a good idea of how much I can mess with ingredients — but I’ve never made ten pounds of it at once with industrial equipment.  And on the other hand, I’d never made strudel before.  So that’s cool that I get to learn and try it out, and even when it sucks the fifth time, I can think “Well, this is only the fifth strudel I’ve ever made.”

Fun fact: I’ve been going through about 75 pounds of flour per week.  That’s not that crazy, especially considering the volume of cookies we churn out.  My collection of egg whites was getting pretty unwieldy, so I made a couple hundred meringue cookies that we plan to artfully crumble atop...something.

As I write this I’m struggling not to fall asleep at 7pm after an action-packed weekend.  Unprecedented levels of sunshine and blue skies correlated with being in an 8.5 hour fjord sealife boat tour.  It takes s surprising amount of energy to sit and watch otters paddling, orcas feeding, humpbacks breaching, sea lions sunning, puffins diving, glaciers calving, rock formations gleaming, and other tourists scampering around the boat.  Then this morning an overeager friend tapped in my door and motivated me to go on a “strenuous” hike with willpower-testing ascent and rewarding views.  It was sooooo beautiful.  I’m not surprised, but I am quite sleepy.