Living Large Away from Home

I love camping, and I also believe in comfortable, lightweight camping.  One does not have to go heavy to have a comfortable camp.

On our recent trip the 3 of us brought 2 large rafts, firewood, and enough good food for a week away. The total weight was 1050 pounds - including us 3 beefy guys.  It helps that our wood stove and teepee weigh around 5-6 pounds total.

I'm not one to eat freeze dried food either.  I find that rice and pasta meals weigh about the same as freeze dried meals, but are far cheeper and taste oh so much better.  You just need the wood stove to cook them long and slow.  We also brought garlic, beets and carrots from my garden and roasted them on the wood stove.  We eat well when we are camping away from home!

One day it blew and rained hard all day.  We slept around the roaring wood stove and had roasted vegetables for lunch.  Later we cooked up quesadillas with baby bell cheese and wild collected nettles.  Slow day reading and sleeping by the fire while it raged outside.  This is what I call 'teepee time' and it is always a favorite part of any hunt.
Patrick

Back from the South End

I just got back from a camping/hunting trip to the south end of Kodiak Island.  For this hunt we usually do some sort of river float trip, but with the recent lack of rain there was not enough water for us to raft on through our usual haunts.  Instead we did something different - we mostly base camped and did a lot more hiking than is usual.

The south end of Kodiak is gorgeous.  For the most part there are no trees and the brush is pretty minimal.  There are HUGE vistas and the hiking is easy.  We also found plenty of deer and even mountain goats to harvest.  We actually had to exercise caution not to harvest too much and over load  our return flight to Kodiak.  Our self imposed limit was five animals and we ended up harvesting 3 deer and 2 mountain goats.

Of course we also had plenty of 'teepee time' by the wood stove - more to come in future posts!
Patrick

Chiniak Survey

Yesterday Molly and I completed the last major portion of the Leisnoi land survey.  All spring and summer we have been surveying their land for archaeological sites.  Our focus has been on finding sites and checking on the conditions of the known sites.  The survey will help Leisnoi protect the cultural resources on their land (click here, here, here, and here for some earlier segments of the survey).  Yesterday we finished the last major portion of the survey - the Cape Chiniak area.  It feels good to be mostly done with the fieldwork aspects of the survey, but we still have to check on a few places that we missed on earlier surveys.

Out at Chiniak we did find one new prehistoric site, and checked on a bunch of other already known prehistoric sites.  But, for the most part, it was all WWII bunkers.  We found that most of the prehistoric sites had been badly damaged by gravel quarrying during WWII.  Another interesting observation is that while the sites were all eroding badly when last visited back in the 1990's they are all largely stable today.  This is good news!  Many of the sites were completely destroyed after the land sank into the sea during the 1964 Great Alaskan  Earthquake, but since then the land has been rebounding out of the sea faster than the sea level has been rising.  Patrick

Ravens and Eagles

Just a few pictures from around the block here on Cliffside Road.  My new camera has a zoom lens that also does close ups, and I continue to experiment. Sometimes I do not like the zoom lens because I can't decide if I should zoom in closer or not.  With a fixed focal length lens I just compose and take the picture.  Whereas with the zoom I have to get the frame size - THEN compose and take the picture.  But if I am looking for animal close ups there really is no choice - you have to use the zoom!  Patrick

Bear Mountain Blueberries

Yesterday while Stuey attended a birthday party Nora, the dogs, and I joined Uncle Dicky and cousins Zeke and Leo for a hike.  We did a loop on Bear Mountain starting behind the golf course.  It was pretty hot at the start and all the dogs were panting like steam locomotives.  We came upon some water and there was a minor scuffle between the dogs over water rights.  Tankie REALLY wanted his water.

But once in the alpine there was a cool breeze and more water to be found for the dogs.  Leo and Nora discovered the blueberries and progress slowed considerably.  Both Leo and Nora declared that the alpine blueberries are 'way, way better' than the high bush variety we find at Fort Abercrombie in the trees.  Patrick

Checking on the archaeology

Once eroding now healed prehistoric site on Afognak

For the last 10 years I have been checking on the conditions of the various archaeological sites and buildings in Old Afognak Village.  The village was abandoned after the 1964 Great Alaska Earthquake and the village itself is now a great big historic archaeological site.  When I am checking on the old houses and various parts of the old village I am checking on an archaeological landscape.  There are also a number of prehistoric archaeological sites. 

The Native Village of Afognak (NVA) with funds from the BIA pays the Alutiiq Museum to do the work.  The archaeological resources represent the heritage of the people represented by the tribal entity of NVA.  It is my job to see how the sites are doing and whenever possible to protect them from needless damage.  

One thing I have noticed is that the sites are eroding a lot less than they were 10 years ago.  This part of the island is still rebounding from the 1964 earthquake when the area sank 5 feet.  The rising land is actually outpacing global sea level rise.  Hence sites that 10 years ago were right on the ocean are now set back a bit with even a little grass growing between them and the sea.  Based on my calculations since 1995 Afognak Village has risen a foot or more out of the ocean.  

Rising land levels is great news for the prehistoric sites - they are eroding a lot less than they once were - but, unfortunately, in the same time period all of the historic architecture in the old village has deteriorated badly.  Buildings I could once walk into and walk around in are now collapsed.  These days they are very few houses that I would dare walk inside of.

One cool archaeological feature that I checked on on this trip is the old trail that once connected either end of the village across the swamp at the back of the site.   It was built sometime around 1910 and is known as the 'new trail'.  I have a picture of it (see below) from around 1919 during a Russian orthodox procession.  On this trip I found the old trail and you can still see the old wood footers for the boardwalk.  My picture of the trail is taken very close to the place where the 1919 procession took place.  Kind of cool to imagine.

Patrick

Same site - same view in 2008

Old Village house still in pretty good shape

Old house starting to collapse

Remains of the 'new trail' boardwalk that once connected the ends of the old village

Picture of a 1919 procession on the 'new trail' close to where the above photo was taken

2019 - totally stable with grass growing on beach in front of site

Same view in 2008 - SEVERE erosion with no grass in front

close up of 'new trail' boardwalk

Roasted Garden Vegetables and wild mushrooms

I brought garlic, carrots and beets from my garden to Afognak. We roasted them up in the little 'camp' frying pan with a lid on the woodstove.  It's mushroom season on Afognak so we added hedgehog, chicken of the woods, and angel wing mushrooms to the veggies.  We topped them off with beach lovage greens.  Seriously good.  So good and filling that we turned them into the main dinner course and forgoed the usual rice and beans type main meal.  Patrick

Hedgehog mushrooms

Chicken of the woods

Quick Trip to Afognak

Due to weather we had to cancel our traditional Labor Day weekend trip to Afognak, but for work I still needed to check on the archaeological sites.  So last weekend I made a quick trip up there with my friend Elke and her dog Simon.  We compressed a lot of activities into a short 3 day trip.  We checked on the sites, roasted vegetables, and even harvested a deer.

It was sad not to be up there without Brewster and the kids.  Since we went to Maine for the 4rth of July, we only went to Lipsett Point once as a family this summer.  That is too little time.  It's such a beautiful place.  Patrick