Spring Colors

Fall is the season we generally associate with bright colors.  Fall is all about the reds, yellows and oranges of dying vegetation.  Spring has her own colors and, in their own way, they are equally impressive.  The colors of spring are mostly various shades of green, but there are also the bright and vibrant colors of flowering plants. The colors of spring are moist and alive.

To be honest, I am more of a Fall/Winter guy.  I prefer bleak landscapes, low light, and stark snow.  Black and White.  But I also appreciate the green of spring.  And this year Kodiak has had a particularly green spring.  I have never seen the spruce pollen so thick.  Patrick

Sometimes Island

Yesterday afternoon the kids and I took the dogs to Sometimes Island for a walk.  It's called Sometimes Island because at high tide the isthmus connecting it to the mainland is under water - hence 'sometimes' it is an island.  Technically it is known as Frye Point.  The Frye family had a farm nearby in the early 20th century.  But while it says Frye Point on the maps - no one local calls it by that name.

I have not gone for a walk there in years, and it is a surprisingly long walk given that the island looks so tiny.  I took photos of plants and a compliant raven while the kids and dogs ran ahead.  Patrick

North Afognak Beauty

The view from the door of the teepee

Not much to say in this post - it's all about the pictures!  This past week I got to camp and work at another beautiful spot.  North Afognak is right up there with my favorite spots on the whole archipelago.  I love camping and living amongst the trees.
Patrick

High tide at dawn

Documenting petroglyphs in the intertidal zone

Devil's club

Brook Saxifrage

Low tide at Dusk

Petroglyph Survey

Thursday night I got back from a 4 day petroglyph survey to North Afognak.  I mapped all the prehistoric villages near the petroglyphs and documented the petroglyphs themselves.  We had hoped to  find fish traps like we did on the survey a couple of weeks ago to a nearby lagoon.  It seems that these tidal lagoons are associated with villages of a certain age, pit and slash petroglyphs, and often fish traps.   The lagoons are also all associated with big salmon runs.  This was our third survey of such a system and we are beginning to see some interesting patterns - more on this in a subsequent post!

This year I have been in the field practically continuously.  It's been pretty tiring but is also a field archaeologists dream.  And I have been to some gorgeous places!  Last week was no exception.  The big difference this past week from the other surveys is how green it has gotten.  Spring is now turning to summer and everything has gotten so so GREEN.

Pretty soon all the vegetation will be too tall for good surveying - obscuring the surface features of the archaeological sites.  Archaeological work will then shift from survey to excavation!  From looking at sites on the landscape to focusing on particular sites and digging under the surface to examine particular features in detail.  Patrick

Documenting petroglyphs

Alex documenting petroglyphs

Camp breakfast

Pit style petroglyphs

Spruce tree pollen - really thick this year!

Incised pebble from the beach - these stones are often found in sites associated with the pit and slash style petroglyph

Sharatin in June

Yesterday I did a quick climb and ski up Sharatin Mountain.  We have lost a lot of snow since I last went in late April - just a little over a month ago (click here for post).  At the start of the hike down by the ocean it is now all green.  The cow parsnip is already knee high.  Summer has arrived.  But on high winter still lingers - there is still plenty of snow for skiing.  Just a lot less than there usually is for early June.

Pyramid Mountain (pointy mountain in distance in top picture below) is basically done for the year when in a normal year I generally ski through June.  Last year I climbed Sharatin with Nora a week later in June and there was a lot more snow (click here for post).  Last year Sharatin had about the same amount of snow in early July as it does now in early June (click here for last year's July post).  This year in the mountains it seems that summer is coming about a month earlier than usual.
Patrick

Activities on the Beach

Just a few last pictures from our Memorial Day trip out to Afognak.  Carving, cooking hotdogs and enjoying the hot tub.  The hot tub is the only permanent fixture at our place.  Every time we visit we bring propane and a crab cooker type stove to heat up the water in the tub.  We put the heater directly under the tub and in the tub you sit on a piece of wood to keep from touching hot metal.  Everything else comes home.

I much prefer the 'portable' camp method over a cabin because it keeps the place free of clutter.  On my surveys I have noticed that most places with cabins are littered with clutter.  Also cabins require maintenance and are a source of worry.  Much much better to take the hour and a half and set up a comfortable teepee camp!   No muss no fuss.  Patrick

Life on the beach

There is nothing better than camping on the beach.  Walk out the door to your teepee and there you are - on the beach.  Our place on Afognak has a variety of beaches - rocky coastline, cliffs and classic pea gravel pocket beaches.  Best of all, it has beaches on either side of the point that face in opposite directions.  This means there is always a protected beach to hang out on.

During our visit is was quite windy but we still had a protected beach where we lit a fire and cooked hotdogs.  And then there is the teepee and wood stove.  We brought the beach to the wood stove.  Every visit we set the teepee up in the same spot and it started to get a little muddy.  So we used buckets to carry up beach gravel for the teepee spot to make a floor.

First time we did it there were beach fleas jumping everywhere, and the kids had a field day catching them.  These days I add new gravel when we leave so the beach fleas are all gone when we return!  Patrick

Admiring the petroglyphs

S'mores on the wood stove