Archiving family history on an Alaskan Glacier

Preserving sentimental history in Alaska glaciers

Over the years, I became by default the family archivist of all things sentimental from the past.  I just couldn’t get rid of Grandma Wirth’s high-top shoes or Uncle Woody’s WWII helmet, or Bill’s mom’s wedding dress and fur coat, or my dad’s hand-made vice or my mom’s favorite dishes, or my aunt’s original art, etc., etc.  I didn’t mind it when I was younger and had plenty of space for storage, but time changed those circumstances and I started a process of “thoughtful re-purposing.” Not much stayed within the family, just not an interest there, but I did find good homes for everything.

 

“Freedom Foundation at Valley Forge”…. Honoring Mary Kay Flynn, Editor VFW Auxiliary Magazine, 1972.

However, I was still left with a lot of small things that are not appropriate for even a thrift store donation, but which meant a lot to my family members – the reason they saved them their entire lives.  I just couldn’t throw the things that were so special to them into the garbage when they passed.

National Honor Society pins

Our solution was to preserve them possibly for  thousands of years from now by “depositing” them on glaciers in SE Alaska.  A cold-weather version of putting a message in a bottle and seeing if anyone finds it as the years go by.  Or maybe it is like geocaching but when the coordinates are not given and the find will be totally accidental.   As glaciers retreat, they have given up bodies and artifacts that have always amazed me, like the iceman in Europe.  Well, at some time in the future, someone just may find my families medals and awards and jewelry and they will take on a new life in a special place.

Approaching our selected spot on the icecap near the Canadian border

We are choosing spots near where the rivers of ice are fed, not only for a softer landing for the items, but also an instant burial in the snow.  We put them in two (recycled) stainless steel bottles to help preserve them.

The landing zone. Shoulder harness off (but seat-belt still on), door opened and family packages slipped out of the plane. It felt good.

Maybe in a hundred years or 3,000 years, the packages will be found and those people will wonder what the items mean, how did they get there, who owed them, etc.? My relatives’ keepsakes have been given a life-extension  and I have been relieved of the guilt of throwing sentimental things in the trash. It is a gamble that the items will ever be found, but there is always a chance.

 

 

Take out oysters … quick trip to the “store”

We like oysters and buy Southeast Alaska oysters at the store regularly – which isn’t as regular as we would like because they always don’t have them.  This May in Alaska was the warmest and driest on record – which says a lot for a couple who lives in what technically is classified as a rain-forest.  Although we regularly fly everywhere within a 100 mile range of our home in Juneau, we rarely go further than that, usually because of the weather.  With the weather being sunny and calm and having nothing already planned for dinner, we decided to make the 2-hr flight south to Coffman Cove on Prince of Wales Island.  http://www.ccalaska.com/  very, very early one Saturday morning to load up on fresh oysters.

We arrived so early that the supplier wasn’t even open yet, but that gave us some time to put more fuel in the plane, that we had carried in Jerry-jugs in the floats, go to the local store and buy some cans of the best smoked King Salmon we have ever had, and even take a nap on the seaplane dock.

While we were waiting,  two Taquan Air Beavers came in on mail runs, delivering no passengers, but just freight, including lots of boxes from Amazon.  There is not much you can buy in a small town like Coffman Cove located on an island, other than seafood and the very basics of running a household.

We had come prepared with a cooler of ice for the six dozen oysters that were being air-expressed back to Juneau, but they barely fit into the container.

We are extremely anti farmed raise salmon for all of the reasons that are popularized in the press – and because they simply don’t taste as good.  However, oysters do not suffer the same fate.  The following was taken from http://wtseafood.com/wild-versus-farm-raised-oysters-which-are-better/ … a very interesting read if you want  more detail.

 “Unlike fish, oysters don’t need to be fed, and thus do not further deplete wild seafood stocks. Instead, oysters act like a sponge, absorbing and filtering minerals and nutrients from the water around them, no additional help needed. Oysters do not generate waste or pollute the water, even in densely packed beds. On the contrary, they remove nitrogen from the water and improve water clarity, which benefits other aquatic plants and wildlife. In general, they only grow and flourish in clean conditions, so farmers don’t use added chemicals in production and they have strong incentives to protect the regional watershed. Yes – Alaska oysters do taste better. They’re sweeter, for one thing, due to a higher sugar content and a greater exposure to salt water in Alaska gives them a slight tangy taste.”

If you are wondering what 2-people do with 72 oysters, let me tell you the ways:  oyster shooters, broiled oysters with various condiments, including cheese, and oyster stew. Was this a practical trip in the sense of what the oysters cost, considering the price of aviation fuel?  Absolutely not.  Effectively, the oysters cost us probably 8 times what we could have bought them for at a Juneau market, but we had a heck of a time making this trip to “the store,”  and they don’t get any fresher than what we obtained.  And, if you would select the many oyster dishes that we prepared with our stash at a fancy restaurant, we would have come out saving money.  Thanks for listening to my self justification of an impulsive act.  Yummy.

 

 

 

 

What do bears do for fun? Maybe this!

One of our favorite hikes on Admiralty Island includes crossing an abandoned logging bridge.  We have done it probably hundreds of times.  When you think “bridge” do not picture the Golden Gate or Brooklyn Bridge.  Rather it is a bridge constructed totally out of wood … some rough-cut, some treated, some logs … with no regard to the remote chance there would ever be pedestrians on it. It is a purely functional bridge to get massive log trucks over the creek with their load of trees.   We have taken many a nap on this bridge just because it is smoother than the road, less rocks. We eat our snacks on this bridge, we even scattered some of Bill’s mother’s ashes off this bridge – and where I intend to go when it is my time.  We have set-up the game camera at various points overlooking this bridge since bears seem to like to take the easy way to travel if available, just like us.  Along this bridge is a long ago started deeply imprinted bear trail, proof of the repetitiveness of their travels.  That is why we set up a camera at this point.

Deep impressions made by bears taking the same route over scores of years.

We caught a bear I have nicknamed Peanut Butter, probably a younger bear weighing around 800 pounds.  Over time, we have caught pictures of him tearing one of the 12″12″ side beams off of the bridge, not all at one time, but gradually.  Who knows what is going through his mind, but I like to think he is just having fun, like adolescents will, by tearing something up.  At first, there were just claw marks up and down the support.  Then there was bite marks, with bits of the beam being pulled off.  Sometimes, he left a little of his fur behind, from rubbing on it.  One time when we came back, he had pulled a piece off and the time lapse on the camera showed him tossing and playing with the piece of wood.  Another time, we came back and the beam was nearly pushed off the bridge – and then it happened, he tore, pushed this huge beam off the bridge and into the creek below.   There is no logical reason for him to do that, other than just “having fun,”  There are pictures of him rolling around in the pieces, so contorted that it is hard to recognize that he is a bear.  The one piece of word that remained on top was kicked around on later days.  I have included a lot of these pictures in this post, but the game camera did not always take the sharpest shots, but I think you will get “the picture.”

 

 

 

 

Alaska take-out-food …fresh halibut recycled

I guess if I lived in a big city like New York or Boston or San Francisco, I could ask the hubby to run down to the local deli or specialty restaurant and pick up dinner, or go by the market and select the best looking, not farmed, not frozen, USA caught fish he could find – which would probably be difficult. However,  in a town of 32,000 people the restaurant choices can be counted on your fingers (well, maybe, a few toes too), but we do have fresh & wild & local fish that can be bought or caught . We even now have an awesome fish market called Pinkies   http://pinkiesmarket.com/    that supplies the city with all kinds of seafood from local boats. If we have to, we buy the area’s seafood bounty, but our preference is to catch it ourselves, however UN-economical that is – or  life threatening.

The balancing act … why we need calm water

Sport fishing isn’t usually considered very dangerous, but it takes on more of that element when it is done while balancing on the floats of a sea plane on the ocean.  We have recently been obtaining, cleaning, cooking, preparing, and eating so much crab (and some king salmon and clams) that I really wanted some halibut, my personal favorite.  The conditions have to be “just right” for a successful halibut trip:  calm water, low tide during daylight hours in the early morning or evening, and good visibility, plus a few other secret ingredients.  We thought that was going to be Friday, but ended up being Saturday.Nothing really special about this trip because the weather just couldn’t be better.

Juneau tennis shoes, alias rubber boots.

When you land a seaplane in the ocean and just start “going with flow,”  it really is a meditative experience, the ultimate clean air and only the sounds of nature.  Even the method of catching halibut, jigging, is relaxing because it is so repetitive.  Which reminds me, I need to confess, I wear a fitbit and to get my steps in, I made sure I jigged with my left hand (up/down motion).  Hey, it all comes out even for a lot of my steps are over rough terrain and uphill, for which I get no credit.  Anyway, back to fishing.

We went out with the intent to catch a few dinners and have enough to give away to friends…. and that is what we did.  No giant halibut, no bragging rights, just four perfect “chicken halibut,”  the small kind that are absolutely the sweetest and best according to my taste, and many other locals.  We achieved our goal in less than an hour of fishing with no ancillary catch of rockfish or any other bottom dweller.  Into the hatch.

But after the catch comes the processing and as unpractical as it sounds, we decided to fly to a lake on Admiralty Island to clean our fish and do some recycling.   If we would have taken the halibut back to Juneau, the carcasses would have ended up in the landfill, so my logic was it was better to spend more money on gas and to risk our lives landing on a lake known for it tree-stumps in the water in order to give the wildlife the chance to eat the parts that we don’t. Anyway, something like that. There is no-one else on this wilderness lake, just the brown bear,  wolves, foxes, marten, beavers, eagles, etc.   When I had  finished filleting the halibut and we had them in bags in the float hatches, Bill took the remains and put them out in the open for easier visibility, as if a bear would need to see the free-meal, they probably smelled it the moment we taxied to shore.  We pushed out and hadn’t even started the engine yet when I looked to my right and an eagle was already tugging hard to pull a carcass bigger than it back into the forest.  It was a stealth attack – we never saw it coming.  Unlike a bear which uses its nose to locate food, eagles use their sight, the phrase “eagle eye” is quite accurate.  I am sure he had been watching us all along from some far off place and as soon as we indicated we were leaving, he was upon his free meal with vigor.  I would like to think, the dreamer that I am, that he took some home to family and friends, just like we were going to do.  Nothing got wasted.  Within hours, we had our first fresh halibut of the season, simply pan sauteed in a little garlic butter.  Some time next week, though, we need to get our meat fix, maybe a steak or even a hamburger ……. and then back to fresh from the sea.  What a life.

Catching sand sharks … instead of halibut

It is usually not hard to catch halibut, especially if you prefer the “chicken” (small) ones like we do.  We just wanted some halibut for the week, not for the freezer.  We jig for halibut off the floats of our Cessna 180 (N8208V), making it a balancing act as well as a fishing trip.

The water was perfectly calm and I was trying out a new halibut rod and reel.  Bill and I always have a friendly rivalry going on about who will catch the first fish – correction, the first “keeper” fish.  I thought I had won the contest that day in about 30/minutes of fishing and “felt” it was a good size halibut tugging on my line as I brought it to the surface from approximately 75 ft.  Wrong.  As the shape of the fish began to come clear nearer the surface, I just thought it was a large cod, some of which are very good eating and would have been classified as victory for me.  However, as I got it to the surface and ready to gaff it through the gills to enable removing the circle hook, it was apparent I had a shark, though a small one.  The teeth on the underside of the head/body and the pointed snout was proof positive that I had caught a sand shark.

This happens rarely to us, although I understand sand sharks are quite common in Alaska.  I had trouble holding the rod and trying to get the hook out with a pair of pliers in the other sand, so Bill came across the wire in front of the plane to give me a hand, literally.  Your fingers are literally a few inches from its jaw and the shark did not exactly take kindly to being out of the water.

It was constantly flipping and flopping and making our ability to release it even more difficult.  At one time, it even did an acrobatic maneuver that caused the line to twist multiple times  around its body.  Finally, Bill was able to get the hook out of its mouth and even though it appeared disoriented for a few seconds, it quickly disappeared from site.

Back to fishing.  Put a fresh herring back on my line and dropped it over the float again, sitting on the 1.5″ airplane step, not exactly comfortable, but it does add some sense of stability.  No bites and slow fishing, though a very beautiful day to listen to the sounds of nature including waterfalls in the distance and eagles. Suddenly, another bite and this time it was strong and aggressive.  Got the fish to the surface and again it was a sand shark.  I don’t recall catching two sand sharks in 30 years of fishing and today I caught two in one hour.  Can’t explain why, since all else was equal to previous fishing excursions.  A good excuse for about anything up here nowadays is global warming, so maybe I will use that one too. We actually went home empty handed – which is very uncommon.

I was curious to find out more about sand sharks when we got back home and had access to the Internet (smart phones do not work where we were fishing). It was then that I discover that some people consider the flesh of the sand shark quite delectable. Guess I could have one the friendly contest, after all – the sand shark could have been a “keeper” and on our dinner plate that evening.  Next time.

Bears: An un-scientific experiment

Over the years, we have spent a lot of time in bear country, choosing to take hikes where cell phones don’t work and no one can hear you talk – much less scream for help.  There just isn’t anyone else around …. except the bears. 

Fish and Game claims that there is one brown-bear (a coastal grizzly) for every square mile on Admiralty Island – and that they are territorial. We have seen our fair share of bears in the wild, but we always felt that they saw us much more frequently, and that we probably walked within feet of them many, many times – and didn’t even know it.  So we decided to set up a Bushnell Trophy Cam on an abandoned logging road near a lake that we fly into.  Because it is difficult to access (plane only), it gets few human visitors this time of year.  We have seen bears over and over in the area (see other posts), but never more than a few times in one year.

One or more ate nearly all of the plastic off of our motorcycle and seemed to take pleasure in knocking it over.  We were chased in this area by a sow with cubs and we have seen enough bear scat to fertilize a large garden.  But still, it was rare for us to see them – and we want to see them, not to kill, but to take their picture and just stand in awe of them. From a safe distance, of course.   So we figured that if we put up a “Bear Cam,” that we could discover how many different bears are in the area – as well as what time of day they move in the space that we frequent – making it easier for us to observe them in the future. 

It took a little experimenting to position it at the right angle and to get it in a good spot, but we are already getting some pretty good shots, and very good data as well.  We set it up on a tripod and my brother bet us that it would be knocked over immediately.  That has not been the case, at least so far.  We have many pictures of bears being so close to the camera that all we see are its ears or tail, but they haven’t knocked it over.  One did take a bite on it, causing a small puncture that superglue fixed. Since the camera is set off by motion, every time that we retrieve it, we get our own picture taken.

The camera is located about a 30/minute flight from Juneau.  It almost has become an addiction to go out and check it, even when  experience might say that we shouldn’t because of the weather – like last night.  But we can’t help ourselves, we always think that we will get that one “best shot”, like one more pull of the slot machine and I am going to win the grand prize.  We somewhat justify the expense and risk by saying that it is good exercise, since we have to walk several miles to the camera location  (but we could walk in town, right?).    What might be even more wacky is that we take a laptop with us so that we can get immediate gratification by not having to wait to look at the pictures until we get home.

I never thought that I would be in a Wilderness Area carrying both a gun and a computer (and in my pockets, a handheld aircraft radio and point and shot camera).

Bears are habitual and they walk the same paths, some say as their ancestors did.  The camera is currently positioned a few feet back from such a trail, where the bear prints are indented in the ground much deeper than one impression.    The fish are not in the creeks and the blueberries are not even out yet, so the carnivorous bears are basically eating plants – never did figure out how the could get filled-up on eating greens, but obviously they do.  Just yesterday, we did notice a whole deer hoof in some bear scat, so they are getting meat every now and then.  The game camera takes pictures of anything that moves in front of it, and that include deer, lots of them.  You can see how alert they are to noise, always looking over their shoulder.  They have to be.

There is a sow with two cubs that comes by regularly. 

There are also several males that are hanging out in the same area, which surprised us.  One of them, which we have named “Broadband” for the dark stripe on his huge humped back, just looks plain mean and dominating.  Another male seems to be much younger, but very muscular, we call him “Toy Boy.”   The third male that also hangs out in the area is lighter and scrawny for a brown bear, but we still call him “Rump Roast” because his hind quarters just seem huge compared to the rest of him.   The camera records not only the date, but also the time of day.  What we have noticed so far is that there is no pattern to when they are out in the open, on the road.  We have recordings at midnight, as well as dawn to dusk – with more probably during the daylight hours than at night.

To ourselves, at least, we have proven that there are a lot more bears out there than we ever see.

Tide Pool Crab Picking

A very low tide in SE Alaska can mean a lot of things, good and bad, to  a seaplane pilot.  We look forward to the opportunity to find Dungeness crab that are trapped in pools left when the tide goes out.  It is not as easy as it may sound, nor is it necessarily a safe activity or even an economical thing to do. Some may even say that it is stupid.  But it is legal and it is a challenge and it sure beats watching TV or someone else play a sport.  There are hundreds of islands where we live and that means a lot of beaches, inlets, bays, harbors, etc.  In some areas, the mountains seem to almost drop immediately into the the ocean, with no beach, but in other areas, almost the  opposite is true – where there is a beach that can go for half-a mile at a negative tide, but disappear completely at high tide, which can be 20+ feet around here.  If all of the pieces come together perfectly, we go crab picking.  First there has to be a negative tide, the lower the better, but at least minus 2-feet.  Then, the low tide has to be during daylight hours, and preferably not to early in the morning or so late at night that there is not enough time to fly back home. There has to be a tidal beach that is safe for a seaplane to go dry, or protected enough that a person can “babysit” the plane without it being blown into rocks. Most importantly the weather has to be good, which mainly means that it need to be less than 5K winds, calm is even better.   That doesn’t happen much in SE Alaska, but when it does, it is a heck of a lot of fun to try to find some crabs.  We have a few favorite spots that we have used over the years where you have to use either a plane or a boat to get to – no road access.  It is not like “combat fishing”  up near Anchorage where it is wall-to-wall people along the beach going after the same thing.  We have never run into another person crab picking off the beach, it is just too remote of a place for it.  It is like having your own private seafood deli to walk around. Speaking of walking, there is a lot of it when you crab pluck, usually wearing heavy hip boots, a sea-plane pilots version of a business man’s wing-tip shoes. Of course, there are always bears around here, and they like the tidal flats as much as we do, so carrying a gun is a necessity. You also have to carry bug spray – the bugs can be quite nasty in the tidal flats with little wind.One of us always stays with the plane, whether or not we allow it to go dry – or choose to keep it afloat. The later option gives us more options for when you can leave – don’t have to wait for another tide cycle for the water to come back in.  However, keeping a floatplane floating when the tide is coming in or going out is a constant effort that requires attention, especially if there is any kind of wind.

It doesn’t take much equipment to find crab.  All you need is a bucket, usually an old plastic paint bucket, a pole, and maybe a small net.  You walk around the tidal flats looking for a pool of water that also has vegetation in it.  The crabs that were not able to follow the tide out to sea and find themselves left behind, try to protect themselves by burrowing under the weeds and somewhat into the sand.  You really can’t see them in the pools and that is why you need a pole, to poke around until you feel one.  You can only keep males and they have to be at least 6.5″ across, so every one you get, is not a keeper.  Sometimes you get a lot, sometimes not, but you always have fun.  This year, we can buy  three Dungeness crab for $35 in town.  We spend quite a bit more than that just on gasoline to fly Cessna N8208V out to the crab grounds – but there still is nothing like providing your own food for the table – and just simply being outdoors.  Usually, we use the floats as our cleaning table so as not to have as much of a mess back home – if the good weather looks like it is going to last. It depends on the size of the crab, but three usually produce around two pounds of meat, and that is after eating your fill as you are picking the shells.

M/V Kennicott from Bellingham, WA to Juneau … “roomette”

Instead of flying to Juneau from the Midwest this year, we decided to drive our old van up so that we could have a vehicle to leave and use on some of the remote islands around Juneau.  Nearly three weeks and 4,000 miles later we made it to the port of Bellingham, arriving at the dock many hours before departure, nearly first in line with our vehicle. In all of our years in Alaska, this was the first time we brought a vehicle back on the ferry  – and the first time with a pet, our cat Dexter.  Both facts made the trip a lot more “interesting.”  Although it was early April,  we had nice weather and we enjoyed walking around town and stocking up on what we thought we would need on the ferry, mainly food items.  Once the van  was in the correct line for the ferry, we had several hours to blow.  Most of that time was spent watching all of the people jockey their vehicles into position … and it was quite an assortment of vehicles, each one loaded to the absolute maximum with purchases from down south.  I don’t recall seeing any but Alaskan license plates, all locals going back home after being outside for the winter, our younger people coming north for the summer to work.  Definitely no tourists like in the summer months who are driving to Alaska for the trill of it …. these vehicles were all utilitarian and some looked like they should be movie props they were so unique.  Each vehicle was checked and re-checked for drugs by two teams of dogs.   Only after we boarded and were talking to other passengers did we find out that TSA was training one of the dogs and intentionally planting drugs  to see if the dogs could find it.  Nobody seemed to mind the multiple rounds that were made – actually interesting to watch.  After a few hours, I decided to walk back into town and along the way saw a sign pointing down into the industrial area of the docks that said “outlet store.”  It ended up being the only outlet store in the US for “Yak Magik” clothing that is hand crafted in Nepal.  I had seen the brand at Nordstrom’s and the jackets were always several hundred dollars, but at the outlet, more like $30.  So glad I had an entire van rather than just a suitcase that I could fill.  The Alaska Marine Highway system is just that, a system … and they have it down fairly well on how to efficiently load hundreds of passengers and vehicles.  Employees are government employees, work for the State of Alaska – everyone, from the captain to the cook or the cashier.  Ferry jobs are generally coveted jobs – not enough of them for the number of people that want to work on the ferry.  The fact that ferry employees are government employees means that tips are not expected and if given, the money is turned over to charity.  To the person, every employee on the Kennicott was excellent – polite and efficient. No complaints.  It probably helped that the ferry was not full, perhaps 60% of capacity.  I don’t like being on the ferry for many days when it is packed, like in the summer …. the lines, the smells.  Taking it in the spring was perfect and even the weather could not have been better.    We only had a roomette, which is just a place to sleep and leave your things … no sink, no toilet, no shower.  We only slept there & once we pulled the sleeping racks down from the wall, they stayed there for the entire trip.  With the beds in place  (the table converts to one of the bed racks), there was little room but for two small carry-on bags.      It did have a porthole so we could see daylight. 
When we were younger, we would sleep out on deck in “pool” chairs under heat lamps.  The roomette was definitely a step up. We spent our time either out on deck or in the dining room reading, visiting or doing computer work.  Unfortunately, the ferry system does not provide wireless Internet access on their ships, so unless you have your own access point, you are out of luck until you are in one of the ports.  I used tethering on my Blackberry as well as an ATT wireless card – and both worked, but not reliably. Also, a good part of the trip is within Canadian waters so long distance or roaming charges could apply.  Cell phone coverage existed only when in a town.  There is no TV and every now and then they will show a kid type movie in the “theater.”    Never did get bored, though.  Plenty to read and lots of people to visit with and scenery to watch go by.  One thing that I noticed was much improved since the last time I took the Seattle/Juneau ferry trip was the food that was served on board.  It is actually good and not as institutional as in the past.  There is not a dining room on the Kennicott, but there is a cafeteria and grill.  Lunch and dinner had two entree choices and there was always soups and sandwiches.  Since I am a big coffee drinker, it was great  that they had a self-service espresso machine that made a decent Americano … and it was available 24/7.   Pets are not allowed off of the car deck, so we had to leave our cat in the van for 4 days. 

The ferry has “car deck” calls every four hours on the long haul through Canadian waters when pet owners can go to their vehicles and walk their dogs and take care of their needs.  Dexter did much better than we thought he would, but we did do the ritual visits.  The noise and the dogs walking by did subdue him, but he would still purr when we would stop by to visit.  We arrived in Juneau on time and the off load was painless.  Our house is only 5 minutes from the ferry terminal in Auke Bay and arriving there was actually the best part of the whole trip.

Cube Cove Runway

There use to be a logging camp at this location on Admiralty Island and the only one that we are aware of that had a landing strip. They are not exactly easy to build on a mountainous island.  When they closed the camp, they removed all structures.  Over the years, you can hardly see any traces of the community that once was there  – except for the runway.

Friend taking picture of us taking picture of him

They “ditched” most of the roads to make them unusable, but for some reason they did not choose – or have to – destroy the runway.  That is good news for the flying community in the area.  It provides an emergency landing space if you are on wheels and the weather comes down, but it also provides a great place for private pilots to recreate and have access to the ocean, just a few miles away, or hunting on the abandoned roads.

"over the hill" runway

It is not the perfect landing strip and the great majority of private pilots in the area have never even attempted to land there.  It has an uphill slope and if the winds are not from the right direction, you wouldn’t even want to try to land.  We understand that a superintendent at the logging camp died while attempting to land at the strip.

Little Shaheen Cabin – little is better

There is the Big and the Little Shaheen Cabin on Lake Hasselborg on Admiralty Lake,  just a few hundred yards apart.  The big cabin is old log and has two “private” bunk rooms.  It is dark and dingy and earlier in the summer, the roof was in bad need of repair.  Although it looks nice on the forest service Website, I would never rent it.  The Little Shaheen is a pan abode style cabin and is on the point with a nice beach.  It has been recently renovated. The Forrest Service completely gutted the interior and put in a new cabinet, benchs, table, and bunk beds.  There are also new windows that work and actually have screens – as well as a new door.  They also did a few touches that were very nice – like copper tubing above the oil stove to use as a drying rack for wet clothes, a fact of life in SE Alaska.  They replaced the wood stove with oil – the first time we used one. It is nice to be able to have consistent heat throughout the night without having to get up to put more logs on the fire.  The downside is that you smell fuel oil rather than wood burning – and you can run out of oil on an October/November hunting trip that was planned for just 3 days but turns into 5 or more due to bad weather and the inability to fly out.  Since it is not a wood stove cabin any longer, the Forrest Service does not keep the wood shed full.  That is OK for the cabin, but one of the things we like about camping out is the ability to build an outdoor fire in the pit and sit around it as night falls.   One of the first things we did was cut up the scrap lumber from the remodel  into pieces that would fit into the fire pit.    Many years ago we stopped at a remote lake in the Yukon Territory to grayling fish.  There was a log cabin on it, a newer one.  On the unlocked door was a sign that read something like “you are welcome to use my place, just leave it as good as you found it – or better.”  We didn’t use it, but I did walk in and it surely would have been a comfortable place to stay, especially in an emergency situation.  I liked the owner’s attitude and we have adopted it as ours.  There is a LOT more wood now at the Little Shaheen cabin than there was when we arrived.  We also trimmed  back some of the alders and brush that was blocking the views around the cabin and the trail.  I don’t know why the Forrest Service doesn’t equip the cabins with a pair of pruning snips – like they do with a dustpan and a mop.  I think that many people that are staying a few days would have no problem with helping to keep up the cabins by snipping the brush.    We cooked 2″ New York Steaks outdoors, but honestly the spinach/raisin/cashew salad & homemade dressing I brought was the best part of the meal.  Bill is not into fishing that much any more, but he did try for maybe 10/minutes just off the point of the cabin.  Someone had said that they had caught a big cutthroat trout there in the past.