Kurt and I went on the other side of the island to hooter hunt today. I let Kurt off, idled out and anchored the boat, then as I got into the punt, I proceeded to sink it. Had my life jacket on, which was good. I pulled my lard ass over the transom, then pulled the anchor, went to the beach and drained the punt, and tried again. Made it in this time. Kurt had an extra shirt and we wrung out my fleece pants. I just left my wet feet wet. We headed uphill towards the hooter we heard calling.  We hiked about an hour up the hill till we got to the first bird. I saw the bird, and shot with the 12 ga. The bird flushed to the next tree. I tried again, and he flew off. We think the old ammo I had from Sara’s dad was no good, so we used Kurt’s .22 over .410 the rest of the day.

We harvested 5 birds after the first miss – all within about 1/8 mile of each other. The climb down was torturous. I used to scoff when people older than me told me it was harder going down hill than uphill. It now is harder. We came down a different path than we went up, but not by much. But it was much steeper, and killer on my knees.  Must have been at least an hour on the way down. Maybe more.  Luckily, we came out right at the boat, which was lazily at anchor and a welcome site. There was wolf scat and tracks on the beach. Both of us thought we heard dogs up the hill and maybe the wolves were nearby but we never saw them. I only had one Genny Creme in the boat, and Kurt and I split it.   At the harbor, it was a painful walk up the dock to the truck. We got the boat back to the house. I took the wings and legs from Kurt’s birds, and sent him on his way. Then I cleaned my 3 birds and all the wings and legs and put them in saltwater and into the fridge. Could not have a better day when we were hunting. Even after my dunking. Birds hooting everywhere once we got up to them. The trek out was not as much fun and definitely can’t do that hunt two days in a row. Beautiful dry spring walk in the woods and a thunderdome of hooters.

Just returning from 2 weeks in Craig. We got power to our container unit. Paul, a 70 something electrician, Veteran, and rabblerouser, helped us get hooked up, despite our errors. Our big error was wiring from the house directly to the meter side instead of the customer side. Since the conduit was already in, we couldn’t just move the wires over. Paul got his special “Hot Dogger” that is two smoker heating elements in a sort of metal tool box, with a V snipped out at each end for the conduit to lay in. He calculated the angle and length of bends needed, and it worked great. Of course this took about 3 times the time we would have needed so it was building tuition. I took Paul for lunch and he told me his story of how he came from Arkansas to Alaska.

I got two windows cut into the container. The first one took all the worry and thinking and after Brian helped me get it in, we had it figured out and the second one went in easily. Except that I broke one of the big windows trying to do too much of the window install myself, so now we’ll have two big and a medium window on the ocean side, and only 1 medium window on the road side. More construction tuition. When I finally got the second window in with Kevin’s help. I thought that was about what I could do and not be rushed. I looked up the mileage tickets on Thursday, and Friday’s late Ketchikan to Juneau flight was the cheapest, so I made reservations and called it a trip. I was most concerned with having to cut the container and that turned out to be the easiest and quickest part. A metal cutting skill saw blade and it went through it easier than it does two by four lumber.

Working on the container has helped me get more familiar with Craig – which stores have which products. Craig has a Tyler Rental, a True Value hardware store, and a Napa Auto parts store, and between the three, they had about everything I needed, from tools to hardware.

We got out king salmon fishing 3 times. The first day we got 4 (I think), the second day we got one in a quick trip, and today we got 7. When I told Brian I was leaving yesterday, he scheduled a fishing trip per standard procedure at the last minute, and told me through my bedroom door as I drifted off he’d wake me to go. We got up about 540 am and off to the boat shortly after 6. We took the dogs and Mike and Spencer met us to go, too. Of course we got back with just enough time for me to pack up the fish and my few belongings and put things away and I didn’t get to vacuum my room but we made it to the airport in Klawock in time. Mike and Spencer went with Brian and I today and it was great weather. After seeing few whales there seemed to be lots moving north today. I’m taking 2 of the kings home whole from today’s catch. Tomorrow is the first day of a 2 month closure for king fishing near Juneau because of the poor forecast for the Taku and Chilkat rivers, so it’ll be a treat for our friends to help us eat them this weekend. I also brought back a gallon of squid we caught off Randy’s dock. I’ll share those with my co workers who covered my work while I was gone. I called in to the fuel distributor and put money on Brian’s accoun. That saves him from being embarrassed to take gas money from me and me the embarrassment of having to beg him to take it. Not to mention feeding and housing me for 2 weeks. We’ve got enough salmon for the year now it looks like.

On our way home today we went to a landing of an old logging depot to get Brian’s 4 wheeler left there from deer hunting season. We saw a big black bear patrolling the beach on the way there – one of the first sightings of the year.

Brian lent me a bunch of tools for working on the container, and I brought them back to return to his shop. I loaded them in a wheelbarrow, and as I climbed a driveway behind the shop, I found a sharp shinned hawk dead in the path. Freshly dead it looked like. I’d never seen one so close, and Ellen was going to take i. to the Forest Service people to see.

I got to go with Ellen and Mike K to collect some trail cameras near Craig. They were set up to shoot wolves coming to a scent post. Both cameras had photos of wolves, and it was my first inkling of what the cameras could be used for that I thought was interesting. I found out Mike was sending a car to Juneau for warranty work and then back to Craig, so poor Mike is going to have to unload a whole pile of our stuff when the car gets back because it didn’t arrive while we were there but we are grateful for the free transport. Sara has made several trips taking stuff out to the car as I think of it, and she finally cut me off when there was no more room.

Brian and Ellen have a brand new chocolate lab pup and are also taking care of Melissa’s little beagle while she’s been on extended travel in the South Pacific. The dogs are a lot of work at this age and lots of cleaning up after them.

Lots left to do on the container and the property to get the water hooked up, a septic system installed, and finish filling the trench Brian dug with the skid steer for the electric line. Summer season is on it’s way as our first whale watch company meeting is next week. I kind of dread the summers now as it’s both my regular job and the weekend job on the whale watch boat, but of course I only do the captain job because I like it. Still, it means fewer trips to the cabin. I’m looking forward to retirement from my state job so I can go fishing again.

Our electric car is already in Juneau. Sara test drove one I saw on Craigslist in Monterey when she was down there, and even with the $2,300 freight to send it by truck to Seattle and then up on the barge, it was still a good deal compared to other used Leafs I’d seen for sale. I’m excited for the first time to own a particular vehicle – before this, automobiles were just transportation. This electric car seems like the perfect option for Juneau.

Another highlight of the trip was being in town for Island Air Express’s annual customer appreciation day that I attended with Ellen. From a start of about 12 people their first year, some 500 people attended this one. Really, really good smoked pork sandwiches, coleslaw and beans. Then a bunch of door prizes – mostly free flights, but also hats and a Stihl chainsaw. Ellen won a shirt and a hat. I met some fun friends of Ellens that are parts of big families in Klawock, Craig and Juneau.

We didn’t get over to Etolin hooter hunting but Brian got his four wheeler today and sounded like he would soon go over. We thought we might go hooligan fishing up the Stikine, too, but they didn’t show up in numbers enough to make him want to go just yet.

Went to the cabin on Fri night. Cabin haulout not working right and I think gummed up with barnacles so have to get there at a minus tide to see. Boat still not accelerating right at times and I’m 99.9% sure now it’s the cable. I tried adjusting it again and putting some Kroil and grease on it but need to just change the cable as it’s not a big chore. Post holed into the cabin and it’s deep and wet snow for a deer. Deer tracks only along the beach and none in the deep snow in the woods. Saw tracks in the snow on Admiralty Beach but no deer on the beach. Hopefully this warm weather will move enough snow that the deer will be okay. I’ve heard these big March snows are hard on them and it looks like there’s a lot of deer reported dead in Kodiak. No hooters hooting yet, either. They are a lot later this year than in previous years it seems.

March coming in like a lion.  Saw a big avalanche come down towards Thane today.  It was a “controlled” avalanche where they shot a howizter cannon from across the channel to make it go, but it was a dandy.   Sara said we were out of burger so we got out all the scraps I saved for burger from the fall deer hunts.  I defrost them until I can just barely cut through them with a knife.  Then take the pieces and through the grinder they go.   I packed the burger in bags and Sara vac packed and labeled.  We put about 30 lbs of packages in the freezer.   Not supposed to get above freezing for at least week now, so we should have snow till April for skiing.

I arrived in Fairbanks in August 1983.  I had come to attend the University of Alaska, Fairbanks with 2 classmates from SUNY Cobleskill, along with a 3rd friend who came up to work.  One classmate (Scott) and the worker (Ozzie) grew up over the hill from me in Cuba.  The other classmate (Bob) grew up between Albany and NY city. I didn’t get a spot in the dorm, but Scott and Bob did.  Scott came by the second day and said hey – you wanna go clean salmon for $5.50 and hour.  That was more money than I’d ever made.  You bet I did.  That job spawned (get it?) some of the longest lasting friendships I have to this day. Norm was the foreman of the processing line.  He was a UAF student and working for fellow Wisconsinites who were buying chum salmon from the Yukon, flying them in to Fairbanks in this plane that was sort of like a 20′ connex with wings, processing and freezing them at Chena Marina in Fairbanks, and then trucking them to Wisconsin to sell. When I got there the first day, Norm gave me a job on the line.  He introduced me to every one.  Buddy, Lisa and Todd were three that remain friends to this day, along with Norm.    A pretty petite lady with long curly brown hair was also helping.  Norm introduced her as Roxie Wright.  Norm took me aside during a break with a – don’t you know who this is?- kind of proclamation about Roxy.  She was a multi-winner of the North American Dog Sled championship.   Having been in Alaska less than 72 hours, I don’t think I knew they raced sled dogs.  I know I never heard of a Roxy Wright.  All I knew is she was a hard worker in Carharts that took all the fish scraps home to feed her dogs. Well, she just won another championship 24 years after the last one.  I emailed Norm, who is a gym teacher and coach in Fairbanks.  He said when he saw Roxy in the news he thought the same thing – about us all working processing fish in Fairbanks when we were young.  

I forgot to mention a little aside in my last entry about my trip to the cabin on Friday.  I went to launch our new used boat on Friday after over a month of gale winds every weekend keeping us on land.  I backed down the ramp, put the drain plug in, and untied the safety lines holding the back to the trailer.  Then I took off the safety chain.  Then removed the hook holding the boat to the trailer winch.  And then watched my boat glide right off the trailer.  Onto the launch ramp.  The stern was on the ramp and the boat keel on the end of the trailer about midships at a 45 degree angle skyward.  The boat was about 10 yards from the water and tide not yet quite all the way out.  I had a spare tire in the truck, so I put that under the keel about where it met the concrete ramp and slowly pulled the trailer forward to let the boat keel down onto the tire.  Had to wait about 5 hours for the tide to go out and come back in.  Only had one person come that launched after me, and he was able to launch off the beach next to the ramp.  Luckily no damage to the hull.  Only my ego.  I am lucky at being unlucky.