The Last Fronteir - Part 6

Saturday we drove back across the Kenai Peninsula to Seward. Once again, it was a beautiful drive, but the kids wouldn't have known it, they were *POOPED*. Seward is a quaint little touristy town, which had been major port of Alaska before the great quake of 1964. It reminds me of Newport, OR... just colder.

We visited the Sea Life Center and the kids had a great time.

The highlight for me was Woody, the Sea Lion. He weighs 2,200 lbs (give or take a few), and was highly interactive. He spotted Abby alone by the window and got her attention, then preceded to do tricks for her. When the rest of the patrons figured out what was going on, they completely crowded around her. I was so mesmerized that I didn't hear Lisa telling me to film it. He was great and made a vivid and lasting memory.

To be continued...

The Last Frontier - Part 5

We had a few more days of relaxing and hanging out with Brent and Nichole and their family before heading across the peninsula to Seward.

We spent a little more time fishing and the kids played on the beach in the driftwood forts.  We were given the tour of the town and ate halibut hamburgers at a Kenai mainstay, The Burger Bus.

Friday evening Brent built a campfire down on the beach.  We had all the comforts of home with all the fun of camping out.

The Last Frontier - Part 4

On the clear days, we saw the mountains on the other side of Cook's Inlet.  A beautiful view.

Thursday morning was a scheduled fishing day. I was invited to "come out and play." Start time was 6am. This is my view from the old loading deck, up on the deck. We had nice weather once again and it was a relatively slow day, which meant that a lot of attention was given to our experience.

The crew was ready to roll at 6:00 low tide. (They were too kind in posing for their touristy friend - me)

I am unskilled at the picking of fish from the nets, but I quickly learned that I am highly skilled at pulling rope and nets, so that is where I put my energy.

Ryan's Journal:

Well, today is a new day!  I ate some Cheerios for breakfast.  Then mom took Audra to swim lessons while I was going FISHING!  It was like one of the best days of my life.  It was soooooooooooooo fun. Like we caught some 3 pounders, some 12 pounders. We caught a lot of sockeye salmon, we caught some silvers, we caught some humpies, we caught a jack (little king salmon), we caught some dog fish, we even caught a little sand shark.

Ryan was really intrigued by the sand shark's green eyes, so he let him live and threw him back (go Celtics!)

OK, guess what my job in the boat was.  So Brent, Nichol, and Dad would pull up the net and shake all the fish out, and I would get all the fish and throw them into the sack, but a couple would be alive and try to escape, and they got slime all over me, but I took care of it.

Ryan really got after it in the boat.  He was a fish-pickin' maniac.  Brent commissioned him to make sure all the fish were off the boat floor and into the basket in the back of the boat.  He was unafraid to get under the net and grab whatever fish were there.  He was slimy from head to toe.  He was so fun for us all to work with because he was impressed and amazed with every fish that was pulled into the boat.

Fishers of fish

Lisa took pictures of the process from the bluff.

The kids had fun helping with the fish.

We fished a number of shifts that day and had great fun hanging out with our friends, knowing we had a unique experience and had a chance to contribute. 

We made great memories that day.  With such great weather, a river full of fish, and time together with friends we could not have planned a better day for ourselves.

The Last Frontier - Part 3

We made it to the Deakins' place by late afternoon and found them heavily engaged in fishing. Since homesteading five acres on Cook Inlet's bluff in 1969, Brent's grandfather, and subsequently his daughters, son-in-laws, and his grandchildren, have been using gill nets to fish sockeye salmon (aka "reds") as they return each summer to spawn in the Kenai river. Fish and game had unexpectedly opened extra days for the commercial fishermen, so they were hard at work, picking fish from the nets as the tide changed.

We got acquainted with the process in a hurry and were intrigued with each step of their process and how well they work together.  Over the years they have perfected a number of systems and the nuances to maximize their efficiency in getting fish from the water to the buying station in very little time.

They have twelve nets they can place 600 ft from one another to cover a large off-shore portion. Each one is about 100-150 ft long. They harvest or "pick" the fish from the nets one of two ways: they can drag the net up onto the beach or they can pick the fish directly into aluminum boats.

Although it is quite a bit of work, the atmosphere on the beach is relaxed.  The weather was great and the kids were playing on the beach, in forts they had built from drift-wood, while the family was tending the nets.  We were excited to witness the work in progress and thought it sort of a treat that as soon as we got out of the car, the action was under way.

Our kids paired up, the way they do (each of our kids is within a year's age of one of the Deakins girls) and played for a bit, then Ryan and Audra came to where the fishing was going on.  The following is from Ryan's journal.

So then we were just walking along trying to find treasure and then we saw the boat come in and there were a ton of sockeye salmon!  I thought they were big cause I usually fish trout!  And it was cool how they put their finger up through the gill and just throw them straight into the big buckets.  Then the tractor came over and carried the fish over so that they could wash them.  Cool, huh?!  I helped them a little by putting into the buckets, but all I had on was gloves, no gear or anything, so my shirt got slimed like nuts!  So I wasn't up for cleaning the fish although I did touch them with my bare hands.

We had great fun that day.  It felt so great to know that we would not be a distraction for our friends.

In fact, we were excited by the opportunity to be a part of their process and be able to fellowship at the same time. 

We arrived that Wednesday and would stay until Saturday before our excursion to Seward.  We knew that we had much to look forward to.

The Last Frontier - part 2

Wednesday morning we traveled from Anchorage down the Kenai Peninsula to the Deakins' place in Nikiski. The drive was fantastic and we were amazed at the beautiful landscape with mountains, one after another, reaching as far as we could see.

We made a number of stops along the way. Here, I would like to mention that Ryan carried a journal and documented the entire trip.  It was a great idea and has been an excellent resource for my blog entries.  He has granted me permission to include his intellectual property in my blog, so I will intermittently include excerpts throughout the remainder of "The Last Frontier" entries.
Today is going to be fun. We didn't do much this morning. We went down, ate breakfast, packed our bags and took off!  You won't believe this view!  Pretty, or what?  There's all sorts of cool waterfalls all over the place.

 We're here at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center.  The Bison are huge and cool too!  Next we went to the mooses.  One got straight up close to us and then it started peeing.  It was disturbing.

Then we saw something cool, even though everything here is cool.  We saw a porcupine that was a house pet for two years.  And in the cage by it were a bunch of elk.  There were muskoxen and there's only 2,500 left in Alaska.  And there was all sorts of caribou.  There was a bald eagle and I got a real feather right off the cage!  There was a great horned owl right next door!   

 

There were even two brown bears, but they were lazy-butts and and just kept sleeping.  Then we went and saw the black bears.  One of them was a show-off and just kept walking back and forth.  We even got a little stuffed animal that was a black bear.

We drove eight miles south of the wildlife conservation to view Portage Glacier, which you can see way-back behind the kids in the picture.  Lisa visited this same glacier fifteen years ago and walked out onto it.  It has "receded" (aka melted) to leave behind Portage lake and is now only a finger between the mountains, leaving the lake and the valley you see.

Lisa's sandwich was crab and shrimp - yum!

We spent most of the day traveling and stopping to see these attractions.  Following a terrific lunch on the Kenai lake, we drove the remaining hour and half to Nikiski.