Category: Nonfiction

Canoeing Around Harding Lake: Beauty, Leisure, and a Touch of Panic

The end of July is not typically when my friend Laurie and I have our first summer adventure together, but this is how it worked out this year. We wanted to go camping, or hiking, or something! We decided on canoeing since we had not done that in years.

Looking through a frame of leaves onto Harding Lake, Alaska. Photo by Laurie L., 28 July 2022.

“I saw a bald eagle in that tree there once, to the right.” I pointed left.

Laurie, wisely following my finger point instead of my words, turned to look left.

This was why we decided to use nautical terms when we got out onto the lake the next day. Sitting in front, I could not tell which side Laurie was looking, pointing, or paddling, so “starboard, please” and “paddle on the port side” made our communication more clear. We therefore did not confuse our directions at all out on the lake.

Dramatic sky above Harding Lake, Alaska. Note the red canoe partially hidden by foilage on the left. Photo by Laurie L., 29 July 2022.
Taking in Harding Lake from the deck later in the day. Photo by Laurie L., 29 July 2022.

It was a beautiful relaxing day. We stuck close to shore for most of the trip, and I would have been happy to glide leisurely near the reeds around the long curve of the shallow side of the lake, but Laurie was the coxswain, the person in charge of the navigation and steering of our little craft. So, we headed straight across one of the deepest parts of the lake to check out the buoys — red, hard plastic balloons, in two straight lines, perfect for a water-skier and/or motor boat to move through. Laurie steered us back and forth from one side of the aligned course to the other, around buoy after buoy.

I would have enjoyed this paddling challenge except for one thing: the dark water that quickly turned black beneath our boat. Who could tell what was down there?! Lurking…in a bottomless lake…reaching upwards towards us…to snatch us down and hold us captive there forever…!

Of course there is nothing in the lake but plants and fish. And while a swimmer might get slowed up for a bit in a thick clump of reeds, the plants will not reach out to trap them, nor me. Fish also are not a credible threat. They have no hands with which to grab, and even the toothy-mouthed pike are neither big enough, nor view humans as yummy, so they will not be dragging anyone under the water’s surface.

I stare down at the blackness, swaying silently back and forth, my breath getting tighter and faster. I can feel my fear drawing me into it. Laurie says something and I make myself force the panic downwards and focus on what she has said, and which direction I am supposed to be helping her direct the bow of the canoe.

We paddled through the obstacle course of our making, and floated around almost every buoyed we aimed for.

Getting the canoe back to the car was the next challenge. Carrying it up the long incline to the vehicle was not appealing at all.

The solution was that Laurie would drive drove her car to the boat ramp several cabins down, while I paddled the canoe all by myself. I took a deep breath and snugged my life vest. The plan was my idea too. Besides, how else am I going to get rid of the fear of the deep, opaque water if I don’t try to paddle atop blue, see-through water?

I paddled off.

It was fun guiding the canoe near the shore past the docks belonging to neighboring cabin owners. I glanced downwards at the soft, silty-looking lake bed merely a foot or so below the canoe. Even that view mesmerized me a bit, and the natural movement of the water’s flow pushed me closer to a metal dock jutting out into the lake.

“No, no, no! Argh!” I lifted up my paddle, trying to think, what can I do now?

The current continued to spin me around — and the starboard aft of the canoe bumped into the end of the metal dock. I eventually managed to direct the bow where I wanted and paddle away, looking towards the small cabin on the beach. Besides no owner rushing out toward the water, dark windows, absent deck furniture, and no vehicles of any kind clearly signaled that no one was home. I would have paddled ashore to apologize if there had been someone there.

Neighbors two houses away sat on their porch and watched me.

Sigh….

The brilliant sun looks over the blues of the water, sky, and opposite shore, 29 July 2022.

I kept paddling and made it to the boat ramp, where my friend was waiting for me. We hauled it up the deeply notched concrete ramp and saw a woman and her tall son pulling kayaks out of their vehicle. Yay! Laurie asked for their help and up the canoe popped! Easily and quickly upside down on the top of her car. I wish I had more upper body strength…

We thanked the kind neighbors, securely tied down the canoe and headed back home to Fairbanks.

With a walk, a canoe trip, and time to sit on the deck and stare at the light blue sky and the deeper hue of the water as it gently lapped the sandy shore: It was a wonderful day.

The colors of the view and the clouds reflecting in the open water of Little Harding Lake take my breath away. This lake would be its own obstacle course to canoe in! Photo by Laurie L., 28 July 2022.

Woodpecker, Wind, and Want of Power

The day started with a rapid metallic rat-a-tat-tat. I froze and listened. Rat-a-tat-tat, like miniature gunfire. Or something much more impressive.

Hairy woodpecker on roof, 9:09 a.m., 25 July 2022. Sadly, the photograph does not capture through the window’s screen the bird’s coloration, including the red mark at the back of its head, showing that the bird is male.

I tiptoed to the window and peered through the tulle curtain. There it was. Long toes, red cap, narrow sharp beak. A woodpecker. I was surprised to see it sitting on the metal porch roof, not a common place for a male hairy woodpecker to pause. I drew my head back because I did not want to scare it off. Could I get a video of it?

Rat-a-tat-tat.

Drat. I missed seeing him drum on the metal. I hope his wrap-around tongue provides a good enough cushion for pounding on the hard substance.

I leaned forward once more, setting the curtain to swaying, and he flew off, dipping slightly and two other winged shapes darted away from below the porch roof. I was not sure if the three were all woodpeckers, but it made sense. They were all headed in the same direction, and the flash of tail color was similar. 

Was the metallic drumming a way to signal to the other two?

How strange to see three woodpeckers not in the trees when I so rarely hear much less see one when I’m out walking trails.

Chirping brought me to another window. Birds were darting in and out of the ground vegetation, pecking on the chopped wood, swirling through the air. A couple (at different times) hit the windows. Ouch. I peeked downwards, hoping I would see them fly away or at the very least first stumble then fly. I felt blessed that so many birds had chosen my yard to stop on their way to their next destination. The family of grey jays that occasionally visit whirled around near a spruce tree. I noticed but did not wonder too much about the birds each flying relatively close to the ground. None winged halfway up a tree much less touched the treetops. Gliding and soaring were also seemingly not in their repertoire this morning.

Five hours later I started to understand why: The winds started trying to push the trees onto their sides.

There was not a bird in sight or within hearing. They had all wisely found other places to be. The winds swirled in the treetops, sending broken branches aloft and littering the air and ground with twigs, needles, cones, and leaves. Dust devils churned and gusts of winds caused dry soil to move along the ground like mist across low waves. My wind chimes played musically and at times manically. The clouds swelled and undulated, slowly rolling out curved, stretched, and bulging shapes in every grey shade. The wind rattled the treetops and snapped the weak.

A fat trunk crashed on to a main road, and vehicles stopped so their people could chunk the shattered pieces to the other side of the sidewalk. A couple people in jeans, a woman in a spaghetti string tank top and shorts, and a woman in a flowing garment and a head scarf all worked in busy coordination to clear the street. By the time I drove down the other side of the road from the three vehicles, the road was littered only with some remaining chunks of bark and broken off twigs in a brown chalk-line shadow reaching over nearly three lanes. The drivers and riders climbed back into their vehicles.

Earlier in the day, I headed to a cafe for breakfast later than I had planned. I wished I had arrived early so I could have been ahead of the wildfire hotshot crew and had asked the cashier to put their coffees on my credit card. Working 21 days on/three days off all summer long, they had flown up to Alaska to help out the local crew. As it was, the last man was collecting his coffee as I walked up to order.

Now, here too, I had arrived too late to help.

Due to the winds, my house had lost power by 5 pm., when I returned from the day’s errands. By seven o’clock, a dead, needle-less spruce had taken out three lines, which draped across the dirt road, the only vehicle exit my house has. I was grateful that someone had placed a road emergency triangle as a warning, yet was displeased that the property owner had not cleared away the trees as is their responsibility. I checked the service drop leading to my house in case I was being hypocritical. 

Zoom in to see the shattered fallen tree on the left and the still-attached-to-the-pole lines draping across vegetation on the right. Note the thick storm clouds swirling above, 25 July 2022.

Yep, all clear since my last tidy-up. There is one alder that has sprouted up surprisingly fast and so sometime this week or next I need to chop it down. It is directly under the power line and in a year or two will be able to touch it. So, technically, I admit: I haven’t maintained the 4-foot-wide path (ground-to-sky clearance) after all. Better to take care of it (safely) this summer.

The camera lens captured the sunset more brightly than the naked eye, giving a heartening light to the heavy, swirling storm clouds, 20:43, 25 July 2022.

All of my friends told me via texts that they had to eat their ice cream to keep it from melting…

A loud honking from my phone startled me. I flipped it over and read:

This was when I started to feel a little scared. Not because of the unreachable 911 system (because now I know to call the department I might need directly — I still have phone books in my house! Yay, old school!), but because the 911 dispatch system was not getting electricity. If it wasn’t, then what other important facilities could go down?

If there was a time for a criminal to commit crime, now would be the time.

At 22:38 I received another honk-alarm notification saying the 911 system was back online and people were NOT to call 911 to test the system. Really? People would do that? Yes, of course they would. And some probably still would even after receiving the alert. Sigh…

I heard a bird chirp, although it could have been a squirrel squeak. The first wildlife sound since the birds dropped to safer ground. 

22:58 The house clicks and whirrs. I forget how loud electricity is until it comes back on after a power outage. No wonder people are hesitant about being out in the world without the familiar electric sounds. Wind continues to stir the air. The sounds turn off, then pop back on. So far, they seem to be on for good. A good end to the day for me.

Hopefully the others will soon have a good night, too.

Here is a screen shot of Golden Valley Electric Association’s outage page at 23:25, 25 July 2022. 26,127 customers still affected by outages. The crews have their work cut out for them!

Pollen Pictures

Spring is gently here (I haven’t sneezed once yet), and pollen from birch and spruce trees make pictures on the hoods of every car I see.

A Jackson Pollack painting of lines and circles appears on my truck’s hood.

Pollen creates lines and small circles on the hood of my truck, 29 May 2022.

Pollen grains have rolled down the incline of this vehicle’s windshield, creating tire track-like paths, while the verdant green pollen-creating trees themselves are reflected under the shiny black Jeetah’s spots.

I could not see the beautiful reflection of the spruce and birch trees in the Jeep’s hood until I looked at it through my camera’s lens, 29 May 2022.

April Showers Bring May …Snow?

Sun, clouds, rain, snow, wind, and a combination of all but the first struck against my windshield on the drive home. The sunlight (had I really seen it?) was a glimmer of memory from the school parking lot only ten minutes ago. I kept expecting hail or even graupel to fall (just to round out the list of precipitation types). Slush was forming on the side of the front window where the wipers raced to push the falling aqua, both liquid and fluffily crystalline. 

I had chuckled last night when I saw snow falling at midnight, and now I had to laugh out loud. Mother Nature still rules supreme. Us humans have no might in the greater scheme of it all. I push back the irritation of the needy parent, the one who is not letting his daughter grow up taller than the wall of his nest. I let the frustrating indolence and inefficiency of certain of my students evaporate. I forget about the vying workplace personalities and my enervating list of things to do. Instead I listen to the susurration of the snow on my sleeves, breathe deeply, and enjoy the unanticipated beauty of the large, fluffy white flakes falling unruffledly from the gentle gainsboro grey May sky.

Watching the snow fall and listening to its serene, halcyon susurration on this lovely May evening, at 17:52, 9 May 2022. Note the blister of snowplowed snowpack still unmelted in my yard.

Spinning Along the Cliff of Stress

I was going to call to order a water delivery this morning, but then after receiving a call about a family member’s medically needed trip to Portland, I decided I would contact the company tomorrow morning. That way I would be able to put the order in before the weekend and the company could deliver on Friday or on Saturday with no stress from me about running out of water over the weekend.

Why is it that I knew it was Friday when I woke up this morning, but then at 8:30 a.m. I thought that tomorrow was Friday? 

Result: I did not call for a water delivery. 

Well, now to use the Adam’s ale sparingly over the next few days…

The days blend together and I feel like I am a step away from stepping off of the cliff of stress, or at the very least in danger of dropping one of the many spinning plates I am attempting to keep in the air while walking along the cliff edge.

I have three more weekend days to get necessary things done, including detailed substitute plans for the days I’ll be out (and in Portland).

This weekend I will have to make a point of putting those spinning plates down and looking out over the landscape. The view from a cliff is always breathtaking.

Not off the edge of a cliff, but the view is still quite nice, and the expansive sky makes me want to float free, and float away above Murphy Dome, near Fairbanks, Alaska, 26 July 2021.
An early afternoon view over Fairbanks, Alaska from a snowy deck, at 12:15 on 30 December 2016.

Goodly Sidetracked by a Munching Moose

A benefit of waking early so that I can attend a virtual conference is that I have the chance to look outside and notice visiting moose. (Due to the Fairbanks/New Orleans time difference, the conference starts at 5 a.m. here! My eyes blink slowly before the first session starts…)

During a break between sessions, I watch a sturdy moose slowly chew through the willow in my yard and I feel my shoulder blades loosen and my breathing slow. I carry that calm back to the computer screen, prepared for another 300 minutes of today’s professional development.

There are then three more full days of screen time to go….

Moose browsing on willow, Fairbanks, Alaska, 0843 a.m., 16 February 2022.

Moose Under Cover

Thursday evening, 13 January 2022

Usually in December I see a cow moose and her calves browse through my yard. I have been thinking about her and her babes — the deep snows make travel difficult, as does that layer of ice hidden half way down in the drifts. Potential ankle twisting steps and the work it takes to slog through the windswept piles must surely have effected many a moose out in their territories…especially if young legs are not long enough yet to lift up and over to make a fresh step. It squeezes my heart to think of the new calves and the yearlings slowly starving to death. It will be a good year to be a wolf, but not a moose.

Today when I turned into my drive I saw the telltale track of a moose. Yay, they’re back! (Or at least one…) I glimpsed a dark shape by the side of my house, at the area where the roof’s eave shields the ground from falling precipitation. Cautiously, quietly, so I would not spook it, I carried my bags inside. Now safe up on the porch — startled or cornered moose who cannot run away have no choice but to kick out with their front hooves — I tiptoed (as quietly as one can in cleated winter boots) to the opposite end of the deck and peered over. 

Beyond some disturbed snow along the house’s “foundation”, there is no obvious sign that a moose spent the night there. Note the hill behind the house with spindly willow trees, an often browsed meal. Photo taken at 16:34, 14 January 2022.

The dark shape seemed to be partially under the house. Odd behavior for a moose, but if it’s a young one and can fit part of its body under, then perhaps it was eating…? The chickweed grows lushly under my house each spring and summer. Sadly, I’m not surprised that this hard-to-reach ground cover might be considered a delicacy now, but is it even edible at this time of year? There are several willow trees directly behind the house, growing up and over the hillock made by the leech field. There’s sustenance there if it can be reached….

An odd crunching brushing sound caught my ear. I blinked to see the dark shape of the moose teeter forward as a back leg folded under it. It’s laying down! What an odd thing for a moose to do half way under my house. The area is like a valley between the drifts of fallen and plow-pushed snow and the bare area near the house. Perhaps the moose is bedding down for the night here.

Or this is the only way it can reach the food. 

Or it is dying… 

I hope for one of the first two possibilities. I am wondering about the last one, however, because this is the only moose I see, and for the last five winters I have always seen a moose come leading one or two youngsters.

Moose nuggets next to tracks leading from the side of the house, Friday, 14 January 2022.

The next morning I see moose droppings that were not there yesterday. No dark shape fills the space between snow and empty “basement” space under my house. The moose has moved on, alive and well. I breathe a thankful sigh of relief, yet I still ponder about the other two Alces alces…

Snow, Snow, and Snow Again

It’s 07:46 on a sunless morning, but it’s a relatively warm one (35ºF/1.6ºC) — it has just snowed AGAIN after all — and I take this photo while taking a break from dragging the white blanket off of my truck with the snow brush, 29 December 2021.
I think it’s time to shovel, scoop, excavate(!) out my truck’s bed of the snow that has accumulated so far during this winter season. My plow guy has been and will be busy! There are still three more snowfall months yet to come because it’s only 29 December 2021. The whiteness you can see in the background are not covered structures, but snow piles pushed there by the plow as he builds the mounds higher and wider with each snow event, hoping that he will not run out of space to put the snow — or turn his truck around.
The path of a tire showing the depth of the most recent snowfall of the season. The driveway had been completely cleared before these white flakes began to fall. (January and February are historically heavier snowfall months, yikes…) 11:17 a.m., 29 December 2021.
This year’s snowfall has nearly obscured the external water tank which the water company fills in a timely manner whenever I call for a delivery. Naturally, I shovel out a path and brush off the hidden ladder and dig out the fill hole for the delivery person before the truck backs in. Only three weeks ago I had prepped for a delivery, but I can’t tell that now… In late May there will still be a chunks of thick ice floating on top of the water.
(Photo taken at 11:17 a.m., 29 December 2021.)