On the Road

Enroute to POW, I first fly to Wrangell, then Ketchikan (where I overnight), then catch the IFA ferry to Hollis and finally an hour drive to Craig and Klawock where the clinic is located. As I leave Petersburg, the Alaska Air pilots give us a very exciting tour up close to the southeast aspect of Devils Thumb–we look up at surrounding peaks and finally turn south and over the Stikine River before Wrangell.

Welcome to downtown Craig which lies on the west coast of Prince of Wales Island, my home for the next two weeks. This is an old fire-tube boiler at Wards Cove Cannery which greets the occasional tourist who finds this isolated burg. Like most of SE Alaska, this is a lumber and fishing town with most of the fish caught and most of the island clear-cut. It’s the third largest island in the USA after Kodiak and Long Island, NY and has the most interesting shoreline and geology.

The clinics are the same here; lots to do. Tuesdays, we drive an hour south to Hydaburg which is across ancient territorial Indian boundaries to Haida country–traditional enemies to the Tlinget. The Haida migrated north from the Queen Charlotte’s in about the 1700s–a move still remembered by the local Tlingets.

On Sunday off I drive to Kassan which has a beautiful totem park and longhouse. This pole was carved in the 1930s by native carvers hired by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) as were many poles in SE Alaska. Old Kassan was located about 7 miles south of the present location and was known for it’s beautiful totem poles along the beach. In the middle part of the last century, Charlie Edenshaw evoked a renaissance of native carvers and totem poles are now seen in most native villages.

If a totem falls where it stands, it is not allowed to be removed from the site and it will gradually be recycled back to nature.  But, in some instances, a totem will be replicated (carved anew in the original design) and then replaced to the same location.   The old totem is then brought back to the carving areas where it is “left to die.”  Here you see about a half-dozen such traditional totems depicting family traditions and clans.

I walk back on the beach where I begin to take a tally of the flotsam scattered about–about one piece of plastic per square yard. When I was on the Island of Namorik in the Marshall Islands (dead center of the Pacific Ocean) I found the same density of trash on the beach–which seems to be a world wide phenomenon. This is an environmental tragedy, especially to our marine wildlife; our beaches should be accorded international protection. One more week and I’m back to Petersburg. Stay tuned….

Our snow-dusted Toyota sits in the parking lot patiently as we ferry fuel and building supplies across the Wrangell Narrows to work on Totland. Our job this winter is to get the electrical system safe which means a new generator, batteries and a 4000 watt inverter–about twice the size as on the Katahdin.

Here my friend Peter Schultz self-loads a 55 gallon drum of #2 diesel fuel while I secure the boat. We then pump the diesel uphill to the storage tank where it will fuel the generator and ultimately, a new heater in the cabin. This March, it dipped to 7 degrees with a very late spring. Here’s the house with a foot of fresh snow–quite a change from the summer isn’t it? It’s a challenge to wire the well house during these temperatures without heat.

In spite of the hardships, every turn presents us with a fantastic views especially northeast down the Wrangell Narrows to Devils Thumb. On the subsequent post (above), the first photo is taken from our plane as it passes just to the right of Devils Thumb–a rare tour accorded us when Alaska Airlines runs ahead of schedule.  Below is our new fast ferry, Chenega, ready to dock at Petersburg a mile from us with the Thumb towering above. I never get tired of this view with every Alaska-bound boat passing in front of our cabin.

The Katahdin, with her new cover, is still our home while we slowly make improvements across the Narrows. With the boiler and diesel galley stove constantly running, we live pretty comfortably albeit a bit crowded.

Our goal is to move into Totland this fall after a 12,000 lb Finnish masonry heater, our container from Seattle and my grand piano arrives this fall. Could have picked an easier place to live, I guess…. Well, I’m off to Prince of Wales Island to help pay for all this nonsense while Martina studies hard in Sitka….stay tuned.

OK, we’re bipolar. But after the South Pole, there isn’t a better place to unwind…. We get the call to save the frozen north from tooth decay so it’s off to Barrow Alaska. Barrow is located as far north as you can go without getting your feet wet (or frozen). This time of year, it’s dark except for a couple of hours at noontime and usually somewhere between -20F to -80F below zero–no problem for a couple of experienced explorers like us!

Here’s downtown Barrow–this is one of the older buildings in town and one built closer to the ground. Most buildings are on high insulated stilts as the entire north slope is permafrost. We’re at latitude 71.4 degrees North with Seattle almost 2000 miles south.

Here stands Martina at high noon at Point Barrow with the lights of the town of Barrow six miles in the distance. A small spit of land extends another 6 miles into the Arctic Ocean splitting the Chuckchi Sea (west) from the Beaufort Sea (east). At the end of the spit whalebones are discarded from the fall bowhead whalehunt which attract polar bears. The local Inupiaq people still hunt polar bears (and also other endangered species) for subsistance but with modern snow machines, high powered rifles and speed boats which is a controversy in itself. I attended the bowhead whale hunt in October 2001 and was impressed how 100% of the whale was utilized. The whales are still hand-harpooned from a Umiaq (walrus hide boat) but then dispatched with modern rifles. Approximately 58 a year are “harvested.”

Speaking of polar bears, here is our only sighting at high noon near Browerville across the lagoon from Barrow. These critters are very hard to spot–just a yellow smudge and black nose against the snow–this photo was enhanced a great deal. There are probably less than 2000 of these animals left on the planet but you still see them stuffed in airports throughout Alaska–many of them shot by doctors who really don’t need to eat these to survive.

We spend a week in Barrow for training and preparing for our clinic in Kaktovik which is located above ANWR about 300 miles east of Barrow. Since there are only candy stores in Kaktovik, we must provision for two weeks at Barrow prices. Here is the dairy section where milk is $8 per gallon! And this is considered a bargain. We buy three gallons at half price since it’s near the expiration date and freeze two for the road. You won’t find Coke expiring on the shelf! Here’s a photo of the “candy store” in Kaktovik, run by the students at the school. No wonder dentists are in high demand here.

Kaktovik is a town of about 350 people located on Barter Island in the Beaufort Sea. We were surprised to find a modern hospital, fire station (the old one burned down) and many other refinements. The Kaktovians receive lots of monies from the oil industry which pay for this infrastructure. Next stop is Petersburg for two weeks and then on to Prince of Wales Island….stay tuned….