THE NORTH COUNTRY: ALASKA PART I

   

View of Skagway coming in by plane

     When John’s parents invited both of us to join them to Skagway I tried to play it cool, but secretly I was giddy as a school kid. When I was first perusing pictures in 2007 before my ultimate move to the Alaska, fjords and glaciers from that area dominated the images I pulled up from the internet. Even after four seasons of living in the state I never made it down the inside passage in south east Alaska where Skagway lies.

     So here I find myself in the Portland airport very early in the morning completely oblivious to the fact that our adventures have already begun. I was so tired I missed getting our shoe shot on the iconic PDX carpet. (I’m not one for trends, but some of them are kind of fun. Some how Portland folks have sparked a trend of taking pictures of their shoes on the carpet at the Portland airport before they travel somewhere. I thought this was a national event happening in other cities but I’ve been told it’s more of a local thing. However, the iconic carpet of the PDX doesn’t span the entire airport and by the time I remembered we were in an area with ambiguous dark carpet.)

Dorthia my traveling buddy of course was along for the ride

     It took us two flights to get to Skagway. The second one was in a small Cessna flying the short 30 minute flight from Juneau to Skagway filled with the four us, our pilot, and a load of food. For the first time in my life, and I worked for a flight seeing company with similar small planes, I was able to sit up front next to the pilot! Having tried to get window seats on all our flights, John’s mom asked me “Is this a good enough window seat for you?”  Yes indeed it was. Oh the views from up there. These veteran Alaskans behind me had taken the flight before and were only semi enthused, but I was a kid in a candy store.

     The plane followed the path of an inlet that led up a valley where both sides had steep mountains covered it beautiful pines and the few deciduous trees that were just fading their fall colors. The wall of mountains went on the entire way, and every now and then you got a peak of glaciers making small appearances inbetween their rolling peaks, for the Juneau Icefield was nestled on top of the east side of the water. There were numerous runoffs of water cutting through the trees too, sometimes resulting in waterfalls here and there.  The runoff carries silt from the glaciers and when it meets the sea water you can see the cloud of brown water fanning out, stubborn to instantaneously mix with the dark blue of the sea.

     What made it the most magical was that air was filled with water, and rained for a period, creating many incredible rainbows. Some in front of us, and my favorite kind, the one that encircles the plane and follows you as you fly.

     ***History section. If history bores you please skip to pretty tree pose picture below to continue the story and you'll be rewarded with cute animal pictures*** 

Dyea

     Skagway is a pivotal little city both in history and in modern day tourism and travel. If one were to drive out of SE Alaska, they would take a ferry to Skagway to they can then drive into Canada and connect to the roads leading to the lower 48. It is also where all the gold seekers came for the gold rush to start their voyage to the Klondike back in 1898. That little venture is what put Skagway, and Alaska on the map. At the peak of the gold rush Skagway was the largest city in Alaska with around 10,000 prospectors taking over the area.

     There is another town used back in those days called Dyea (Die-ee) where folks headed out on the Chilkoot Trail towards the Klondike. The trail from Skagway is called White Pass. Both were treacherous, many men and horses died trying to get to gold. Eventually a railroad was put in along White Pass and that led to Dyea becoming abandoned along with the Chilkoot trail. The railroad now is a popular destination for all those cruise ship tourists. Skagway is a bustling city filled with summer employees and thousands of tourists who come in to take the train through the beautiful valley of White Pass (we took a car). Dyea is part of the park service now and the Chilkoot Trail can be hiked for pleasure by those willing to spend five days backpacking out there which I would like to do some day. It is just a land with some trees now where the city used to be, but there are very few remnants of the buildings that once stood there.      

     John worked for the railroad in his formative years so our drive along White Pass I heard the spiel he used to give to the tourists. John’s parents both worked for the park service so their knowledge of the history of Skagway, Dyea, and a lot of the famous people from the goldrush far surpassed that which I would find simply reading pamphlets at the visitor center. I learned more about the the gold rush era (and some incorrect things on signs) than most tourists which was such a treat for me.

     The first few days in Skagway were filled with cleaning up the McCluskey house of the massive amount of dirt and mess left behind by some very irresponsible tenants.  It was a mostly rainy summer for Skagway, which was unusual for the area, but we managed to take advantage of one of the nicer summer days and hike up a mountain called AB Mountain with a friend of John’s from highschool, Max. AB stands for Arctic Brotherhood, a fraternal organization formed in 1899 by gold-seeking stampeders headed for the Klondike.  Max had recently gotten into paragliding so he wanted to get to the top to jump off. As is typical of the Alaskan terrain that I was familiar with in Anchorage and Denali, there is a lot of uphill, you’re always hiking up a mountain (or through a pass, but summiting things with views is quite fun). We were all feeling really out of shape headed up, but it felt so good to finally be hiking again. John kept reliving the days he would mountain bike down this trail and point out places where he crashed, or where he did an amazing jump.

      The mountain went from steep to really really steep at some point and we were mostly scrambling up rocks through thick mud. Max got ahead of us, he needed the right wind to take off and he became motivated to get to the top before his window of opportunity closed. When we got above the tree line, the views opened up. Skagway was an adorable little sliver of a town below nestled between the mountains cozying up against the water. John and I slowed down to enjoy the amazing scenery of glaciers peaking out at us from the range to the west. I always loved the colors of the Alaskan tundra and taiga. The short foliage with its greens and rust colors, the grey mountains, the white glaciers, and your occasional blue ponds. 

     We got a call that Max was about to jump so we walked to the  side of the ridge that faced Skagway and waited. And there he went, quite high above us but floated every so gracefully over our heads and out towards the city. It probably took him 15 minutes to get all the way down.

     When the awesomeness of witnessing his jump wore off we realized we needed to descend through that steep muddy mess and it had taken up a long time getting up.

However, luckily John came to the rescue with his tutorial on how to go down gracefully and “safely”. (This technique does not work when devil’s club is present, a thorny horrible plant that would love to impale you with its spikey body).

     After an 8 hour day, 5.72 miles round trip and total 3,471 ft. elevation gain we finished our hike. Phew.

Whitehorse, Canada

     

Caribou antler sheds

This is the place where folks in Skagway go when they need supplies. It’s only just a few hours away and is a bigger city. But it’s also nestled in the Yukon. It was a brisk day and fall had definitely peaked there as we walked through the Yukon Wildlife Preserve crunching on fallen brown leaves.  This place had all your favorite northern animals all bundled into one place. Caribou, moose, elk, wood bison, mule dear, muskox, mountain goats, the unintentional ground squirrels that took up residence there, and my two personal favorite animals the artic fox and lynx. It was kind of a right of passage to see a lynx when I was working in Denali. They were not a very commonly sighted animal and, even if they were, they are just so majestic looking that one is incomplete awe when coming across one. And here, in this place, I got to see a family of six: four playful kittens, and two watchful guarding parents. I actually didn’t get amazing pictures of them despite how easy the preserve made it for us because I was too busy watching the kitten play and was listening to their chirping sounds. I was floored.

Lynx

     

     The arctic foxes, which I’d only seen in documentaries, were very playful with one another racing around their designated area. Not to sound completely gushy but they are just the cutest animals I ever did see.

Muskox

  

      Skagway was a lot of fun, but I think it is only fun as a visitor. The town harbors a lot of history and character but its winters are harsh and cold and dark. I was happy to leave when we did just before the snow arrived. But now that I'm gone I find myself day dreaming about the Alaskan mountains. There is just so much world to explore. 

Green Lake, Canada

A LESSON IN LEAVING BEHIND COMFORT AND PLUNGING INTO THE UNKNOWN

            

            It was on our drive back from Pendleton, OR at the end of June of this year that the plans transpired. The plans that set in motion the complete uplifting of our lives we had settled into in Portland to seek out an adventure of our life times. 

        I officially moved to Portland in October of 2011 after four seasons of work in Denali National Park, Alaska. I had spent a few winters here before the permanent move and I had fallen in love with the city. Prior to settling down I had been moving every 5 to 6 months as a part of the seasonal life and trying to travel when I wasn’t working.  Though I had many amazing experiences in that time from two separate trips backpacking in Central and South America, and took two cross country road trips in my trusty little car I named Little Skittle (documented in previous blog posts in 2009 and 2010), I needed a home and a community. I was becoming very lonely with the constant uprooting and had an urge to do something more meaningful with my life. I knew my love for adventure and travel would never disappear and expected I would leap back into exploring the world after a good rest.

Singing for an event on Mississippi Ave in my friend's patio lot.

            Turns out doing something “meaningful”  and setting down roots was extremely expensive. I became an EMT and volunteered with Americorps training teens on trail building and nestled in a low paying job with an ambulance company. I watched my beautiful savings disappear and for the first time in my life accrued credit card debt. It didn’t take very long with my attempts at being a real adult to know I landed on the wrong path career wise. But I had fallen even more in love with Portland. Music resurfaced in my life with a vengeance. I drove my electric piano from Wisconsin to Portland and began to play again. I joined a quirky ukulele band 20 members strong where we dressed up in outrageous outfits and performed punk rock covers from venues to the streets for a very welcoming Portland audience. Over the years I acquired a real upright piano, a pump organ, a violin, and briefly tried to learn the cello. My life was filled with bluegrass potlucks, nights of barbeques and jamming with friends, or going to see live shows, usually where I knew the people on stage. I even had the honor of playing with some friends on their Sunday gig playing at a food cart on SE 32^nd and Division. Music was everywhere and I felt more in my element than I had in a long time.

Jamming with Closely Watched Trains and friends at the food carts

Toucan Sam and the Fruitloops playing Uke-O de Mayo

One of our last shows in downtown Portland

Favorite spot in the Columbia Gorge

     

The outdoors was my other love that rooted me deeper in Portland. I spent the summers hiking and biking and playing in parks or along the waterfront. You could find me biking the vast trail systems of the city, riding to commute, or riding with the crazy themed rides of Pedalpalooza in June.  I even biked the rim of Crater Lake last summer which was 33 miles long and did my first mini bike tour of the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington. I hiked numerous trails through the Columbia Gorge, Mt. Hood, Tillamook Forest, and all along the coast and had the honor of summiting Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams last summer. I even snuck in a 10 day trip to Glacier National Park and a week long adventure hiking the Lost Coast in California in the summer of 2013. I never took a vacation day for any of these adventures (the only benefit of working three 12 hour shifts a week, sometimes 6 days in a row to get two weekends back to back).

Top of Mt Adams

Top of Mt St. Helens

The Lost Coast, California

Portland waterfront on the day of bike adventures, summer of 2013

You can see how it would be hard to leave a life filled with all the things I love. But all good things come to an end. Last fall was harsh. The ukulele band retired in July, the food cart where I played was bought out and in its place an overpriced apartment complex was built. A lot of my music friends moved away or drifted into new projects. I began working 50 hour weeks to make more money to afford this dream of traveling again which burned me out and made me too tired to go out and see friends. It was a very cold and dark winter where I kept my house at a brisk 50 degrees and wore fleece and thick wool sweatshirts with hoods to sleep at night. I lived in an old house where the heat leaked right out the walls and it wasn’t worth our money to try to keep the heat higher, just high enough for things not to freeze. Portland’s glory days were over and I realized this is the right time to move forward.

Mt. Adams

     I met John in January and we bonded over our passion for the outdoors. He won me over with tales of his backpacking adventures, one involving a concussion, and together we got ourselves through the winter. We embraced a snow/ice storm that shut down the city and got in a snowball fight with our friends. He taught me how to ski (sort of), and w

St. Helens Mother's Day hike in dresses, a long standing tradition

e went on our own adventures in the gorge, on the mountains, and on the coast. He had a dream of visiting New Zealand, as did I. Just before my 31^st birthday in June I applied for my work visa in Kiwi country just before I was too old (their cut off age requirement is 30). I got the email approving my application and it was like a cloud was lifted. I have a way out. I can do this. I didn’t share this news with John until that conversation driving home from Pendleton when he told me he would be leaving Portland to go backpacking in California and asked if I was interested in joining him. It was time to take the plunge, quit our jobs, and get out of the rut before we became stuck there.

    The next two and a half months John and I moved out of our homes, selling off most of our things in the process, and took up a temporary residence in the heart of SE Portland with John’s friends. In that time we fixed up cars (his), sold off a car (mine), sold our beds, big furniture, my beloved instruments, and began to say our goodbyes. Instead of spending our weekends that were typically enjoyed on mountains, in the gorge, or on the coast we instead spent that time preparing for our journey with said car repairs, trailer building, re-boxing things, and tedious tasks all geared toward leaving Portland for the long term. It was hard of me to let a lot of things go, like my electric piano that my parents bought for me when I was in high school to encourage me to write more music. My upright piano which I felt like a right of passage for me to own. It was my very first real piano that I owned and I chose it carefully for it's rich sound, it's lighter action, and the varnishing on the wood. It was absolutely beautiful. (I sold it to a wonderful friend who's life is full of music so I know it will be loved). I also got rid of things I had carried with me from childhood as a means to whittle down on the amount of things I owned. Often times I was on the verge of tears as I watched possessions I had grown to love over the years disappear into the hands of others. 

Tree posing with Mt. Hood in the background
(John is doing the flying crane pose)

On September 19^th we boarded a plane with his parents and went to Skagway, Alaska where he had spent the latter part of his youth to help sell his parents house that they still owned there. This was the first part of our adventure/pseudo retirement that should hopefully bring us to many national parks in the US and eventually over to New Zealand and Australia.  It has been 3 and a half years since my last blog post and I look forward to plunging back in to share with you tales of inspiration and adventure.

Biking around Crater Lake

Lunch Counter part way up Mt. Adams looking out towards Mt. St. Helens

Our campsite at lunch counter at 3am just before we trekked up to the summit

The top of Mt. Adams, I joined a spontaneous 80s dance party. Mt. Jefferson looking quite lovely in the background

Part way through our bike tour of the San Juan Islands (off the coast of Washington, that's Canada in the background)

Music is What Makes me Happiest in the World.

I've had a lot of down time in the past few months and have been doing some recording of songs I've been learning by ear. I decided to post a few today because a band member from one of the bands I covered commented on my video. I am so honored and proud.

Samson: by Regina Spektor. Really simple and just trying out having my keyboard in Portland


Say Goodbye: By Girlyman. I worked something like 40 hours to make this. I did all the parts myself and took a lot of time in coordination and recording. I only have a point and shoot camera with video option and a computer for playback so the sound isn't professional. Plus the lowest part of the three harmonies is sung by a guy in the real song. I had to transpose it up to a different key so I could sing it. But that made singing the main part difficult. I lost momentum to record a flawless version, but this is close. I am very embarrassed by mistake though. :(


Monpelier: by Girlyman. Same situation, but this was much easier. I just love this song for some reason. My guitar skills have gotten so much better since trying to learn Girlyman songs, but still far from considering myself a guitar player.


Enjoy.

Fall 2010: Ridin' Dirty

Well, I will be surprised if you read the past two of those blogs in their entirety, but I am going to keep moving forward with story telling and hopes that someone is being entertained out there somewhere.

I get to experience many falls in terms of the season. Fall in Alaska starts in late August and peaks only briefly before everything goes brown. I stayed in Denali a little later this season because I decided to volunteer with the trail crew, as I had been throughout the summer. I enjoyed working outside and learning how to cut down trees and break trail. I got to see the snow fall in the park and had to try to dig up frozen dirt everyday I volunteered. It was cold but fantastic. I tried to talk pictures of Jupiter on a clear night and found that the sky moves awful fast that far north. Holding an exposure open for even 10 seconds causes a descent streak.

That frigid cold and brown was kind of depressing so I was pretty excited to land back in Portland where I was graced by a whole lot of warmth for the first few days and the leaves were still partially on the trees. It didn't quite feel like a good ol' Midwestern fall, where you could rake up the leaves and play in them. The rain kind of destroyed all the crunchy goodness. I got to experience one more fall when driving through California in December. December! An old friend from college had just moved to Portland and suddenly I was exploring Portland with new gusto with a new/old friend. I participated in the Thrill the World dance where I joined a few hundred folks dressed like zombies to dance to Thriller downtown. Then went on the zombie walk.

I'm one of the people lying on the ground

You can see me in this video. I am front right, but not all the way right. I have an off-white long sleeve top and a black skirt, my hair is down and frazzled. It's just like where's Waldo in a slew of zombies, good luck!

Scaring people on the public transportation

And out for a bit to eat after

My only really awesome adventure in “Fall” was my road trip from Portland to the Midwest to San Francisco to Portland. Remember that cute green car I drove out of Alaska? I drove that same very one on this trip too, and let me tell you, it's a junker car so how incredible she has made such an amazing journey. I was so proud I photoshopped a map of her biggest distances driven. The line in blue is when her first owner drove from New York to Alaska. He then sold me the car and it has been history from there.

Red and purple lines running East/West are the route from this road trip

I drove from Portland to Missoula (couchsurfed) to South Dakota (stayed with friend) to Minneapolis over the course of six days, taking my time, enjoying the sites and people. Minneapolis I got to see old college friends, old high school friends, my brother, and even a buddy from Alaska. Walking around Minneapolis, a place that was my home for three years, brought mixed feelings. The place was as familiar as it was unfamiliar. I recognized the smell, the city noise, names of places, and even had an bummed feeling that went along with the sloshy dirty snow on the highways and constant overcast that was a reminder we are in the dead of winter. As much as I was happy to have left the Midwest January 1st, 2008, I actually began to miss this place a little.

Badlands National Park, South Dakota. This marks the 7th National Park visited in 2010, not including Denali

 I guess I have a thing for animals that scratch themselves

 

Sunset in Badlands National Park

I then drove to Wisconsin and stayed a week there between my dad's new home in Mosinee and my friends Ann and Jeremy's home in Stevens Point. It was wonderful to see family again at Thanksgiving. It had been just over a year since I had been back, so this was a long over due reunion.

I packed my car up with things I planned on bringing back to Portland, picked up my long time buddy Dann and headed towards San Francisco. Dann and I met when I was 14, and he was 15 so we've known each other for a good 13 years. He recently moved out to San Francisco from Chicago to change things up and I called him before we all merged in the Midwest to see if he wanted to road trip back to California. Thus Bakken and Porrey's excellent adventure came to be. Our motto because "Ridin' Dirty".

We drove to Minneapolis first and stayed the night with Colleen, another high school friend. I had injured my back lifting heavy boxes and was crippled and barely able to move, sit, be a functioning member of society, etc. I had never felt that kind of pain before. Slow stretches helped, but for the most part, I was useless. Dann took shifts in the morning and we would stop occasionally at rest stops where I would find benches and things to stretch on. When there weren't any I would hang myself on the stalls and let my feet dangle to pull my spine straight. There is no explanation to give when someone walks on you doing that. You just shrug and give them the look like “yeah, you just caught me doing something weird” and go on with stretching. But despite the pain Dann and I still had a good time jamming to tunes and answering deep questions about life.

 

 We stayed in Nebraska after driving through the most amazing storm ever. It lacked the spectacular lightning I so very much love, but seeing the ominous cloud ahead and suddenly have rain hit your windshield as such force it sounded like marble pellets were smacking the glass. Thank you Rain-X, I didn't need to use my wipers at all! In Wyoming we drove through such high winds it blew fluffy snow around causing pretty patterns on the road, but mostly creating “white out” conditions that got us screaming in amazement and fear at the same time. In Salt Lake City I got bit on the foot by something mysterious causing horrendous swelling of my big toe. So aside from walking like I have a metal pole for a spine, I got to ad a limp to my battered body. Salt Lake City was beautiful by the way, very very beautiful. I also happen to come across something kind of ridiculous fake bullet holes shaped like a Jesus fish on the back of the vehicle of a Packer fan from South Dakota. I found it ridiculous to see mini vans sporting these fake gangsta bullet holes in the first place, but then to see them shaped as a Jesus fish? What message does that give exactly? Gang violence is the bees knees, as long as you're shootin' for Jesus!

Driving into the white out:

With Dorthia Salt Flats, Utah

I gambled for the first time in Reno and broke even. Drove through the Sierra Nevada Mountains without a hitch and arrived in San Francisco at last. I saw Dann's play and we played on the beach by the golden gate bridge. I went to see some Alaska friends close to Santa Cruz, California where they lived amongst redwood trees and so close to the beach we went hunting for sea glass one day. I imagined with each tiny sliver I found of blues and reds and greens that these were once a part of a bottle that touched the lips of a pirate somewhere in yesteryear. Last stop was with one more Wisconsin friend in the Berkeley area before I drove north. Driving through the heart of central California is where I saw trees with their leaves turning brown. I was blessed with foggy crazy weather that created some neat views, or no view at all. Getting to Portland was matched with an arrival of one of the worst rain storms they have ever had, and here I just thought I was back to the norm. There was immense flooding everywhere in the city. Welcome home. This was the most amazing, self discovering, emotional, laugh inducing, adventure having, good time road trip I have ever had. Thank you Little Skittle for being such a tough little car.

Border of Utah and Nevada

With Dorthia in Reno

At the hotel in Reno

With Dann at Golden Gate Bridge Park

Alaska friends in California

Space museum in Berkeley

I'm surprised I managed to get this out before the year was up. Congratulations to everyone who read. The other night I spent re-reading old posts. This blog really picked up in 2007 into 2008 and I wrote on a farewell post to '07 that I was looking forward to the new change in my life (Alaska) and the adventures in my future. I have had many in the last three years for which I am very thankful. I don't where I will be, or where I am going, or what I will be doing in 2011, but I will continue to find adventures, be a more productive citizen of the world, and like Chris McCandless I will continue to “engage in unconventional living” and hope for the best. Happy 2011 everyone, and good luck to all of you in the New Year.