Man, it's really nice being back in Alaska. Even though its been raining. A lot.
We managed to get out on the river with the kid sister, booty-ed a kayak (haven't been able to locate the original owner, so hey, free kayak!), and enjoyed troubleshooting an interesting little dam on the upper Chatanika.
A good time was had by all.
Although you might not know that from the face that Mom managed to capture.
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| I've tried to duplicate this face, but honestly have no idea how my face got like that. This is the second picture where I've managed this glorious frown (there's one from moose camp 5 years ago), and I still can't make it on purpose. |
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Last weekend, Nick and I went on an impromptu trip to Chitna to dip net for salmon. We managed to miss the run by 2 hours (a friend who left 2 hours ahead of us reached his limit within 4 hours), and fished for around 23 hours over a day and a half and caught only 28 fish between us. The drive to and from Chitna was beautiful, and the view of the mountains from our fishing spots was fantastic, so it was totally worth it. Even though it was 'busy' on the river, it was easy to feel isolated for periods of time. I didn't realise how much I missed that aspect of Alaska until I had it for a weekend. And we discovered that it really isn't that bad to sleep in the front seat of a Subaru. The back is better, but you can totally wiggle into a sleeping bag, lie the seat back, and catch a couple hours of sleep in the front.
The only bummer of our fishing trip was the lack of a (functioning) camera. In the evenings, the view of the Deltas was spectacular. It would have been nice to have documented it, although no picture can do justice to the actual beauty. So instead of a picture from our fishing spot, here's one of us cleaning fish in the backyard.
I have to admit, dip netting doesn't win any points for being an efficient way to catch fish from the river bank. I'm sure someone thought, 'hey, let's just put a net in the water and let the fish swim into it and then we can just scoop them out! No worries if the river's full of silt and you can't see the fish. They'll swim right in! This is a great idea!'. It's definitely a method of fishing that's super exciting when the fish are running and you're catching 4 or 5 (or more) at a time. But when your average is around 1 fish per hour (and in reality, most of the fish were caught in a 4 hour period), with 2 hour dead periods in between fish, it's a little boring. And just a tad disheartening. But c'est la vie. We definitely got enough salmon to be ok, so there's no stress or pressure if we don't get more.
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I didn't fully understand how important having easy access to mountains, rivers, and the easy sense of solitude was to me when we moved to Europe. I didn't realise how much I'd taken it for granted until we came home and I had it again. Now, being able to escape into the wilderness on a whim, run on the miles of trails easily accessed from my parent's house, drive to the mountains and disappear into their vastness simply isn't something I think I can go without again. I certainly don't regret moving to the Netherlands to do my grad school; I am a much more interesting and rounded person for it. We were able to experience things you simply can't find in Alaska (good public transit, anyone?), and climb places you read about in the climbing magazines. I've gained some perspective, and a greater awareness of global politics. But that said, Alaska is home. It took leaving to understand the depth of its importance to me, and to recognise that it is something I'm not willing to give up again.
