Several years ago, we visited Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks but not the Coast Redwoods.  After our annual NPS trade show meeting in Portland, Redwood National and State Parks invited us to visit and perhaps make a screened print to fit our series.

Here’s our trade show–our 20th year!  We post on Facebook also. This year the meeting was held in Portland and we brought the whole gang.  Chuck Ziga of Ziga Media even attended from Connecticut–he publishes our calendars.  Afterwards, we all (well most) headed for the famous Oregon Pinot wine country to celebrate this anniversary. The next day, Ranger Doug and his sidekick Martina rode south to the big trees….

These are truly magnificent forests–and consider 95% of these trees have been harvested by the timber companies.  In 1918, the Save the Redwoods League formed and began buying up groves assembling a chain of preserves along the northern California coast now managed jointly by the National Park Service and the California State Parks.

These trees were not harvested for fancy wood products, but chopped up on sight and trucked down to the Central Valley and San Joaquin Valley mostly for grape stakes and picnic tables.  The harvesting of Redwoods continues to this day….and so does the League.

When you visit, make sure to stop at the Visitor Centers–this one at Prairie Creek–built by the CCC.

Here is the interior with a beautiful fireplace.

Here’s another big tree called Big Tree.  It’s over 300′ high.  The Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) is 100′ taller than their mountainous Sequoia cousins.  Forest floors are filled with fern and rhododendrons.  This is spotted owl country!

Wow! And we’re looking at about 5% that’s left.

In Eureka, we stopped by an old theater for a photo op. Lots of roadside attractions here.

Here’s one.  A 40′ concrete Paul Bunyan and his anatomically correct “Babe” the Blue Ox.  We stumbled into the little museum here and were blown away by Marylee Smith’s collections of Indian art and artifacts; defined as the largest private collection of it’s kind.

This was worth the drive alone.  Don’t miss this stop.

Or this one–the World Famous Tree House.  We must push on to Wyoming so we drive south, but not before I break my leg tripping on a stage enroute to a piano.   I’ve always been a sucker for pianos and didn’t see the dimly lit raised stage.  Tore my knee all apart so I’m now languishing in Jackson Hole while everyone tweets their skiing to me……Stay tuned!

Tomorrow is the winter solstice–which is the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere.  These panels are located at 56.8027° N, 132.9935° W, the sun rises at 8:26 am and sets at 3:14 pm for a 6 hour and 47 minute long day.  Google Earth just put up a very hi-resolution view of Petersburg–take a peek here on this very cool lat/lon calculator.    And today at least the sun is out.

This is all we get although this was taken about 10:30 am; somewhat less than the 9.73 degrees above the horizon we’ll expect at 11:51 am tomorrow.  The Arctic Circle will see the sun on the horizon briefly at noon–Fort Yukon lies right on this line (which moves about 25′ a year due to the wobble of the earth).

This is the backside of our 12 solar panels.  These wires pack about 132 VDC on a nice sunny cold day.   I’ve made adjustable poles to tilt the panels as the earth swings around the sun to the summer solstice in 180 days.  Here, they’re about 33 degrees from vertical–I forgot to shift them more upright to the winter position in October (about 21 degrees from vertical).   I’ve a summer position, a winter position and a midway (equinox) position.  I’m good til February 18 when the sun is back 11.7 degrees up from the winter low at which time I’ll go back to the middle position and await the summer solstice on June 21.  An equal time thereafter, August 22 when the sun is 11.7 degrees down from it’s solstice, it’s back to the middle again.  Man I’m getting dizzy just thinking about it.  Many plants and flowers automatically track the sun daily–boy is this a crude system but we’re off the grid and must do it manually.  If you want to calculate the angle of the sun from anywhere on earth and any time of day click here.

Not much current flowing today even though it’s clear.  Sixty-two volts putting out 233 watts at this time–telling me one panel is off line (I’ve divided the 12 panels). Turns out it’s snow and ice on the first panel seen in the first photo here.  I should be getting about 132VDC.    Ohm’s Law is Amps X Volts = Watts but there is some resistance here.   The total power generated is 100 watts/hour (since midnight) or enough to run a 100w light bulb for an hour–well, this is our slowest solar time.  In peak summer sun, we’ll get 8.1kwh; more than enough to run everything.   All this is stored in eight L-16 lead-acid batteries which are slowly dying off after 6 years of constant use.  They ran dry once–not good but we’ve ordered 40 (yes, forty) new nickel-iron “Edison” batteries which are now produced in China.  These NiFe batteries essentially last forever & can’t freeze; but they’re spendy…..

This big fuel barge happened by this morning–our lifelink to the rest of the world and the reason we’re going solar (and hydro).  All the mountains are proudly displayed here in our front yard.

Here is the moonrise the same afternoon.  Yesterday, I went out and got a shore pine xmas tree–they grow very slowly and have a nice full shape.  I slurried it down the hill with much rigor working up quite a sweat–good exercise.  Then I stumbled upon these tracks:

This slide went on for 20-30′ at a time with little push mark footprints….a river otter simply out having fun.  Olaus Murie, in his book Animal Tracks says these animals will tuck their front paws to the side and skid on their stomachs with an occasional kick/glide much like a cross country skier.  This guy covered a lot of ground!  My snowshoe tracks lower left for scale.  Tonight a solstice fire on the beach with eggnog & friends–stay tuned and Happy Holidays all!

In Europe the best way to get around is by train–and we take the ICE train from Frankfurt to Paris.  This train reaches peak speeds of 315 k/h!  And wait til you pass on oncoming ICE train–wow!  We’re in Paris in about 5 hours.

Paris was overwhelming–we spent a total of two days there–and were mainly sick with the flu.  Mr. Eiffel must have owned an erector set when he was a little boy–we’re awed by the amount of steel here (and the long lines).  What a massive structure.  Our favorite time was walking around Montmartre.

Here we stumble across a street musician; aka “organ grinder.”   I spent last winter rebuilding an Estey portable pump organ and love this music.  We tipped him generously and continued to walk up the hill.

Our next stop was Lyon where we became couchsurfers hosted by a very nice chap named Nick.  Martina found him on the website and we thoroughly enjoyed our evening with him–he is an expert climber/extreme skier and loves climbing in Yosemite.  We will certainly invite him to Alaska!   You rock, Nick!

Being a country boy-camper type, it’s time to move on south to Provence!

It was here that we fell in love with France and most of all our French hosts.  Le Degoutaud is a 100 acre B&B run by the parents of our last summer’s guest, Tibo (see previous post).  We were really in for a treat.  Besides a well deserved mention in Rick Steve’s guidebook, they spoil their guests with home-made apricot nectar, preserves, tree ripe olives, & figs, and of course, locally produced wines.  Le Degoutaud is run by Veronique and Pierre and Pierre’s parents, Hubert and Josefine and we adopt them into our family immediately.  What hospitality!!

How can you top this?  Tibo takes us on a personal tour, through the vineyards around Suzette, and the villages NE of Avignon and Orange.  We drive up Mont Ventoux and see the tip of Mt. Blanc.  I acquire a strong French accent,  and a desire to sample the local wines.

Some of the 100 acres.

Meet Jean David and….

….Chateau Jean David

Martina and Tibo take an afternoon catnap by the pool ala Maxfield Parrish.

Last summer, Tibo and I began an outdoor kitchen here in Kupreanof.  Here he explains the finer points of French country cuisine.    A traditional Provencal dinner is planned this evening.

The outdoor kitchen is fired up, wine arrives along with the best that Provence can offer in culinary treats.  A night never to forget;  and such wonderful hosts!

What else can you wish for…. but a drive to the French Riviera and the southern Mediterranean coastline. Tibo, ever our faithful guide, takes us south to Marseilles and then eastward along the French coast towards Italy. Simply beautiful!

We drive up the tortuous roads above Cassis to the limestone cliffs where climbers prepare to descend.  In the old days, we climbed up, not down but it’s a new world.  Amazing exposure.

Well, I’m dizzy so we drive down to sea level and have lunch in a Mediterranean seacoast town (there are too many to count or remember). Can you imaging rowboats kept this nice in Seattle?  Never.  These Mediterranean French are perhaps the happiest ever.  Next stop–Languedoc-Lunas where we pick mushrooms and enjoy perfect French hospitality!  Stay tuned.

In mid September Martina and I decide to revisit Bavaria and to partake in the local customs there–namely Octoberfest.  If you haven’t been to Octoberfest in Munich, you haven’t enjoyed beer.  Off we go via Iceland–pictured here is Reykjavik’s huge church built in the center of the city on the highest hill–very unique architecture and with a huge pipe organ in place.

This is a great way to visit Europe.  We flew from Toronto to Reykjavik and spend three days getting rid of jet lag and checking out the local customs.  Reykjavik is a beautiful town with friendly people–we’ll go back.  Icelandic Air offers non-penalty airfare stops for up to a week’s stay, and cuts the airtime in two shorter flights.  You can’t lose.

Octoberfest is simply two weeks of madness.  Grab your lederhosen and let’s go!

People from all over the world congregate in ten huge tents.  Each tent is about the size of two football fields and houses about 7000 beer drinkers with outdoor seating for another 2500.

Believe it or not, we run into people we know–and the beer isn’t bad either.  Wow!  I want to come back the next night and we do.  I haven’t seen this much cleavage since I studied the San Andreas Fault as a geology student 40 years ago!

Oh boy–time to work off all that beer drinking so off we go on a hike in the very south of Bavaria on the Austrian border near the town of Brannenburg.  I expect to see Julie Andrews waltz out behind the next tree with her kids in tow.  Beautiful countryside–the clouds clear from the valleys below about the time our heads clear from Octoberfest.

We work up an appetite and stop at the Viktualienmarkt right next to Marienplatz in downtown Munich.  Every grape here has it’s place at this display.  In fact, everything has it’s place here; every lawn is mowed, every house painted–not a gutter or shingle out of place.  This is Bavaria.

After 10 days in Munich, it’s off to Paris via the ICE high speed trains!  Stay tuned….

Guests drop in for dinner at the South Kupreanof Yacht Club–of which I’m Commodore so I must make a good impression.  Yet our headquarters is a bit shabby.  Time to rebuild!

First is the weathered front of the net shed.  This building is perhaps 100 years old and falling apart.  Fortunately, the pilings have been sistered and the building is stable to a point–only about 1-2 degrees out of whack.  I can deal with this.

First order of business is to order lumber and haul it to the construction site. We get our yellow cedar from Prince of Wales Island and barge it over to Petersburg, dump it in the saltchuck and haul it two miles down the Narrows to the yacht club.  Landed here, it costs less than $2 a board foot.  Here we are on the beach ready to start construction…..

Look at the Yacht Club interior!   Full of everything including boats.  Imagine!  The lumber on the right has been stickered all winter and is dry and ready for nailing up.  Just add a fire in the barrel stove, a cold beer and a good cigar and life is near perfect!

Time to knock off walls and get down to business…..  Great job on a rainy day.

Here I am half done with a new window even!

Tibo, aka Thibauld, from Provence France, a couch surfer, now our ‘nephew,’ aids me in removing panels.  Tibo is 6′ 6″ and strong as an ox and loves to work!  We replace a few beams below him–got to have good fung shui here.

Nearly done!  on the left is a new 6″ X 6″ beam for the kitty-corner (last year we replaced another beam).

Oh boy–nearly done and here I’ve also repositioned the horizontal beams and eliminated a lot of old repairs.  Battens will cover these gaps.

And this is the finished product–new doors and a ‘broken oar’ flagpole for the burgee which hangs in the window.  Time  for some pickled herring, a swig of beer and a dip of snoose.

The doors lock in the open position with the same locking brace–now that’s clever!

Now I fill the shed with boats–there are six in this photo.  Can you spot them?  The Yacht Club now boasts four canoes, one kayak, three wooden rowboats, two Norwegian faerings, three aluminum skiffs and the 73′ tug Katahdin.  Can’t have too many boats.

The next phase will be to build a stairs down to the beach at left–the beams stored on the grid await this purpose.  Behind, our Lund is up for the winter.  The trouble with fixing up the front of the shed, is that the rest of the shed looks terrible now so I’ve got to replace the whole perimeter…..then the floors…..then the roof.  It never ends!  Stay tuned.

It’s time to get the Katahdin away from the dock–it’s been about 5 years since we have taken her out for a cruise.  Last summer we buffed her out and polished up the engine so let’s go!  There are three large bays on the mainland across Frederick Sound:  Farragut Bay, Thomas Bay (featuring the Baird Glacier and Swan Lake) and Le Conte Bay and Glacier.  We visited Le Conte last year so this time we pick Thomas Bay….   Juneau is up to the left and the Stikine River North Arm is on the right here.  The city of Kake is bottom left with Duncan Canal below Kupreanof/Petersburg.

Look at this–with Devils Thumb peaking out under the clouds.  Let’s go!

First we park in front of the house and load up with all kinds of goodies.  Note the new paint–four coats last summer on the house and this year, I splurged and put her in the Photoshop for a week.

It’s a crowded harbor this time of year with lots of current and high tides.  All kinds of fish are moving through and fishermen are anxious to get them.  We are too.

First order of business is to stop at the corner store for some LeConte ice….

Then we pull into Thomas Bay and drop the hook.   Ahhhhh!….this is the life!

Then we dip into the fridge for a nice piece of fresh fish.  Here George is getting ready to convince this halibut that it ought to join us for dinner.

Next morn, we drive around a bit and enter Scenery Cove–aptly named, I might add.  Devils Thumb is right around the corner to the right.

We have a few electrical snafus but most everything runs just fine.  It’s nice to have George on board;  he’s the chief engineer for the Fairweather and knows his stuff.

No, not this one.  This is an old passenger freighter moored in Thomas Bay and part of one man’s ‘waterworld.’

This is George’s boat.  One of two fast ferries serving Petersburg in the summer once a week.  It’s only four hours from Juneau on this one.

What a weekend.  We pick up four fish on the way home and coast right into our slip without so much as a bump.   Here is a nice photo of a typical Alaskan outhouse–”where a straight flush beats a full house.”   Stay tuned….

On our way across the narrows last night, we encountered a pod of Orcas–hunting for dinner.  We stopped the engine and watched….

They circle around Buoy 56 marker support.  We discover a frantic sea lion trapped in this “cage”–imagine another horizontal brace just below the sea level.  The Orcas send in their young to try to flush him out between the bars.

They circle around and around….

Note the two young Orcas here.   They didn’t succeed in capturing the sea lion.   It’s now time for our dinner.

We finally got the hang of smoking salmon and do three batches this one using maple syrup brine.  Delicious!  Here’s our recipe:

1.)  begin with good quality fish–we smoked our last year’s Cohos and tossed out the freezer burned stuff.  Freeze the sockeye first to kill parasites if its fresh.  The bellies smoke the best.

2.)  Pat dry, then slice each fillet into approximately 1″ slices leaving them intact on the skin and soak in a brine/sugar in the ratio of 1 gallon water to 1 cup kosher salt to 1 cup sugar (or maple syrup) for half hour.  Slightly less if you intend to can.  Dry fillets overnight so a slight sheen/glaze is formed.

3.  Smoke with ultra dry alder chunks (we season our dry wood overnight in our Tulikivi)–that produce little visible smoke at 110-140F for approximately 18 hours or until you can flake them to the skin without seeing raw meat.  This is a “hot smoke” and can be eaten right off the smoker.  If you find curds rising from the meat–it’s too hot. Some methods use a cold smoke where the fire originates about 10′ from the actual smoker–this takes about four days and yields a completely different product.

Tips:  See our smoker here.  Every Indian here in SE says to use an all wood smoker.  I don’t like glues in plywood so used plain locally cut lumber.  The firewood must be dry–wet woods produces creosote which will mar the flavor.  Ventilation is the key–you needs lots of air circulating to keep the fire even.   If we need to smoke an additional day, I scoot all the filets together, skin down and cover with foil right on the racks and relight in the morning.  With our smoker, we get a column of hot smoke so orient the fish around in a circle at the edge of the direct smoke with the thickest parts towards the column of smoke and tails out–that way you get an even smoke. Next time I fire up, I’ll post our step by step process on this blog.

This is admittedly our first try but it came out fantastic and yielded about 25-30 lbs. of wonderful stuff!  We shrink wrapped  most of it and  put it in the freezer.  Patience is the key–a virtue I’m noted for.  Finally, there as many recipes as smokers and chefs–experiment with fragrant wood, spices, etc.  Enjoy!   (OK–back to work….)

There’s lots to do at Totland this summer; among the projects is to rebuild the old net shed.  I’m using 1″ X 10″ yellow cedar and will batten the gaps as this is all rough cut (actual dimensions).

Here, the doors are finished but I ran out of stain.  Skookum!  I’ll post the finished product when it stops raining and I can continue.

We also get the hang of subsistence fishing with our SHRC “Shark” cards which are for halibut, not shark–the City of Kupreanof qualifies.  We’re allowed 30 hooks on each skate.  No halibut though after four days of trying.  We use Chum as bait and fish right in front of our house lured by an old photo of Harry who caught a ‘barn door’ here about 30 years ago.  We’ll try again.

Life is good here in rural Alaska.  Our guest house has been full all summer with couch surfers and friends.  Here we sit on our outdoor swing for an authentic Alaskan breakfast and plan a trip on the Katahdin to Thomas Bay.   Stay tuned!

Once again Spring arrives in Alaska–or it tries to arrive.  It’s mid-June now and it’s still no more than 55F.  We’ve planted our greenhouse with tomatoes and cucumbers and the usual root crops outside, but they are growing slowly.  The ferry Matanuska rams Ocean Beauty Seafoods dock and then things start to warm up……  Here’s a You Tube video of the crash.

One morning we get a call from our neighbors about a moose running down our beach.  Now, we haven’t seen a moose in the past 6 years here…..and all of a sudden we’ve several (see below).  This one swims from Petersburg to Kupreanof, then decides to swim back but……look what’s coming.  At this point, she again turns around and heads for Petersburg Creek.  We call the harbormaster who in turn radios the tug/barge and the moose escapes……

Here’s a You Tube video:

Then our friends arrive.  A high school buddy of mine made the third ascent of Devils Thumb and 30 years later his son arrives hell bent on flying this magnificent peak which towers 9000′ above us here.  Chris is an extreme paraglider and methinks he might want to include this trophy in his collection.  The three guests strap GoPros on all surfaces of this plane and off they go…..   I’ll post their flight here at a later date.

This winter I completed my faering project and while Chris, Hanna and Karson might be extreme youth, they are no match for us old geezers in a viking boat!   Every Syttende Mai here in Petersburg, I challenge the moribund Norwegians to a rowboat race and this year has three heats:  1.  open class, 2. wooden rowboats, and 3.  faerings… which I handily win.

This year we have a lot of moose in the yard.  These three  came galloping through one morning like a bunch of camels.

then a wolf!  He walked up within 30′ of the house, then sauntered off.

and finally a bear.  We’ve had a dozen sightings over the past two weeks.   Unfortunately, a local kid cruising the narrows spotted one of our bears and beached his boat and killed a boar, taking only the hide….until the local game warden informed him he must also harvest the meat.  I hope he chokes on bear steaks….not exactly a delicacy.  What a waste!

Here’s a photo Martina took coming back from Juneau–looking SW–still lots of snow this June.  The blue dot is Petersburg, and we’re the red one across the narrows.  Frederick Sound is at the bottom, Sumner Strait at the top.  Hope the weather warms up–stay tuned!

After visiting the Iditarod start in Anchorage last month, I just must see the finish-line (shown here) so I call up my good friend Fred in Haines and we meet in Juneau for an exciting trip to Nome.

With the price of gold skyrocketing, miners are pouring into Nome to dig up the beaches again.  The sand is only 12 feet below the icepack, so people are cutting holes in the ice, donning scuba gear and using big vacuums to harvest what was left behind 110 years ago.  We don’t want to miss out on this fun…..

We must stop over in Anchorage–this is the view out of the top floor of the Captain Cook Hotel–one of the nicest places to stay in Alaska.   Now, this hotel has a wine bar so they must ‘card’ everyone who enters the bar.   Well, Fred, at 60, doesn’t like to be carded so pretty soon the hotel manager comes over and it turns out to be the owner, Wally Hickle Jr.  He turns out to be a nice guy and we have a nice discussion about Alaskan politics.  Fred presents his ID.

Captain Cook sailed all the way to this place in leaky old ships over 200 years ago–this guy had what it takes.  Even Vitus Bering didn’t make it this far.  This view out into Turnagain Arm shows the setting sun in March.

The ice is breaking up in Norton Sound as we fly along.  They have snowmachine races on Norton Sound every year and these machines reach speeds of 120 miles per hour.  There are no polar bears down this far south.

Alaska Airlines just introduced a bunch of these half cargo/half passenger planes.  If you use frequent flyer miles, it’s only 15,000 miles to fly from Petersburg to Nome and back!  Such a deal.  Fred and I get down to business–investigating all the bars in town.  Wyatt Earp opened a bar here in the early last century during the Nome Gold Rush and we’re anxious to visit there.

This isn’t it, but most of the places look like this–little doorways into warm interiors.  Two weeks earlier, this place was packed with Iditarod sight-seers.  You must prepay for one week at the hotel a year in advance if you want to see the finish.  My name’s on the waiting list.

Meet Fritz–one of the dogs that lead the team transporting diphtheria vaccine to Nome in 1925.  His reward was to be stuffed like Roy Roger’s horse and stuck in a plastic box so tourists like me could take pictures.    Hmmmmm.

If you visit Nome, be sure to visit their wonderful museum.  Besides this famous dog and Wyatt Earp, the early polar explorers visited Teller (near Nome) via dirigible.  The Gjoa, Nansen’s first ship, and the first ship ever to traverse the NW passage sailed here in 1906.  His second ship, Fram carried Amundsen to Antarctica.  These were exciting times!

I worked in Nome (also Shishmaref and Elim) about 10 years ago during the Idatarod.  Here is Igloo #1–a new building in town.

Helping dig out from the winter snow at Anvil City Park–it’s about 12F this day.  Gold was discovered by the “Three Lucky Swedes” on Anvil Creek in 1901.  Actually one was Norwegian….  The name “Nome” is debatable–here’s Wiki’s read:

“The origin of the city’s name “Nome” is still under debate. The name may have been given by Nome’s founder, Jafet Lindeberg: within trekking distance of his childhood home in Kvænangen, Norway, there is a Nome valley (Norwegian: Nomedalen).

An alternate theory is that Nome received its name through an error: allegedly when a British cartographer copied an ambiguous annotation made by a British officer on a nautical chart, while on a voyage up the Bering Strait. The officer had written “? Name” next to the unnamed cape. The mapmaker misread the annotation as “C. Nome”, or Cape Nome, and used that name on his own chart;^[1] the city in turn took its name from the cape.”

Local merchants wanted the name Anvil City, but it was the Post Office that refused to change the name.

Two things the locals like the most–drinking and pull tabs.  And this is after they swept up.  This bar has been in continual existence since the original Gold Rush.  An Eskimo woman sitting next to us won $400 and began to tell us her life story–truly riveting for Fred and me.  The Eskimo language and culture is becoming rapidly  extinct.

In normal towns, rednecks have dogs in the back of their pickups.  Not in Nome.  This one will give you a taste  of his antlers if you get too close.

Of  course, I can’t resist playing (and completely dismantling) this old piano–I’ll bet Wyatt Earp played this one too.  Fred listens politely in the lobby of the Nugget Hotel.  Stay tuned!

It’s time to warm up again–February is always a good time to consider alternative lifestyles in Hawaii and our good friends in Kona invite us down.   There is now a direct Alaska Air flight from B’ham to Hono-town (hate this place) but we hop over to Kauai, pour a couple Pina Coladas and begin to unwind…..ahhhh!  feel the ocean breeze?

First stop–Waimea Canyon, Kauai.  One good thing about living in a rain forest here in Alaska is you’re used to rain–and rain it did.  Kauai hold the planet’s record for rain at over 400″ but at least the waterfalls run.  Grand Canyon of Hawaii???… not even close, but it is beautiful.  We discover a nearby CCC camp and visit there and even make a donation for their restoration.  Visit our new website here to find out about this place.

I take surfing lessons from one of the best……   No wipe-outs for me!

Over on the Beeg Island, Kilauea is still erupting.  Can you imagine, after publishing our Hawaii poster two years ago, this volcano re-erupted and last year we sold over 800 posters compared to about 10 the year before!  Pele’s still happy and so is Ranger Doug.

Here is a typical Kona sunset, filtered through volcanic smog or vog…..

All this vog makes my head spin but I find relief in these pills, or are they suppositories–yikes!  There is so much fufu on these islands.  We visit the Avocado Festival where a silent auction lists custom “Light Infusions,”  at $350 each–or two for $750….later changed to $700, the correct amount.  And get a load of this scam:

I don’t mean to mock religion (OK, I do)……so we tour  a 600+ acre paradise where 23 monks (ex-California hippies) live tax-free and the land was donated by the state!  I’m OK with all their messages (I even wore a sarong for three hours because they didn’t like my knobby, sunburnt & bare knees!), but do they really need a multi-million dollar hand carved granite tax-free temple too?  I say tax all religions.  Read more here.

Then, there is the average Joe on the street–actually, this guy was very nice and let me take his picture.  He ran a piercing shop and tattoo parlor in Hilo.  Now, I attended about 10 years of college before I could pierce anyone (I’m a dentist as you know) and I never could figure out why and how these businesses can possibly be legal….  Time to head back home to sanity….

All flights directly from Hawaii to Anchorage were fully booked so we ferry back to Petersburg and immediately fly to Anchorage to view one of the last great races on this planet–the Iditarod.  Man, was I blown away by the crowds and commercialism.  Not sure this is any more sane than Hawaii really.

People are now ‘training’ 365 days a year for this and spending tons of money doing it.  The top winner so far (this was the 40th anniversary) is Jeff King at over $750,000.   With incredible lightweight sleds and top-science dogfood (12,000 calories/day/dog), this race has been pared down to just under 9 days.  The original “Great Race of Mercy” in 1925 took only five and a half days, but began from Nanana; 674 miles from Nome–today’s race is 1049 miles.  Follow the race here.

Here is Lance Mackey, who won both the Iditarod (four times) and Yukon Quest in the same year and is a heavy favorite this year although the competition is fierce with 67 teams entered.  Over 1000 dogs will run.

And everyone dresses up–Alaska style…..

Move over Pamplona–here is the queuing up for the “Running of the Reindeer.”  Never seen such pandemonium, drunkards, and tattoos since my college days.   Oh, their ‘Queen of this Madness’ was none other than Bristol Palin (white coat).  Pity the poor reindeer.

Here is Martina and friends where we watch the Fur Auction–now this is not for the squeamish.  I doubt PETA was invited.

What with all this global warming, animals are turning in their fur coats by the hundreds and this is where you can buy one.  One wolf fur went for $500; bobcats about $100; beaver about $50.  Actually, fur is quite simply the best insulation there is for ultra cold weather.  I’ve picked up several items from native Alaskans in many of the villages during my travels.

All this madness makes me thirsty and one of the best places to ‘cut the dust’ is Club Paris in downtown Anchorage–all the festivities you just witnessed are right smack dab downtown (4th Avenue)  and so is this watering hole (actually on 5th).  They serve probably the best steak I’ve ever eaten.  One thing about Anchorage is it’s a fun town to visit, especially when you live in South Kupreanof.   Stay tuned…..