Alaska Calling
Welcome to our First Edition
”Alaska Calling” Newsletter
Experience, Adventure, and Information that you can use. Calls to action will always come first. A brief introduction and stories to follow will come next. Unique stories of adventure or events happening on the Alaska Peninsula or in the Aleutians you think we should highlight please let us know.
If you want to be a contributor, use the contact button on our website and we will take it from there.
In our future is a magazine that will provide room for longer articles, stories, pictures, education, even poetry and art. We will need contributors and subject matter experts. Keep that in mind as we grow from a humble beginning.
Welcome to Adventure. “Alaska Calling.”
Lee and Linda Kelley
Many thanks to my friends on Facebook for providing these links to bring us all up to speed:
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1FHQtugYdC/?mibextid=wwXIfr\
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1BmBMAf6Ss/?mibextid=wwXIfr
EXTRA…. EXTRA…. EXTRA
Western Alaskans Need Our Help Now!
Many know of the devastation brought to the Western Alaska Coastal Villages by an extratropical storm formerly a powerful typhon ‘Halong,” followed by a second intense storm straight off the Bearing Sea. Please help if you can. If not today later perhaps.
Winter is beginning its icy grip in Alaska which will magnify this tragedy ten-fold for those not familiar with weather along the Western Alaska Coast.
Long after the media leave these native survivors will remain and if past is prologue, they will be forgotten as soon as the many outside special interest groups get their money shot to start collecting for their various efforts well outside the state of Alaska. These dollars will not be seen in Alaska again. Make your donations count by directing them to Alaska and these courageous peoples.
Many powerful storms are yet to come over the next six months with a solid ice sheet forming over the Bering Sea and griping like an iron fist along most of the coastline. All access from the sea will soon be cutoff.
This is a human tragedy occurring in real time and will be ongoing for the entire winter and beyond. Recovery will take years.
A Mornings Drive to First Bridge
By Lee Kelley
It’s hard to understand or even broach the reasons we do things the way we do. Alaskan adventure for me falls into this conundrum of ideas, actions, and reactions.
First and foremost, I find peace. Not just a calmness but that of understanding. For me Alaska represents the place I go either physically or metaphysically for adventure and understanding. I believe that one does not need to arrive in Alaska to benefit from such a peace and solitude that can reside in our minds alone if they are properly attuned and practiced to the desire for adventure. Alaska for me is a meditation, a familiarity, a challenge, wrapped with friends and family. It can activate my most primal instinct’s, angelic actions or somewhere in between. It does need to be renewed with my physical presence from time to time though. I consider it a medical necessity at times.
So come with me on one recent morning to a place I physically go when I’m in Cold Bay, Alaska. Your hearts, minds and soul are all that we need for this journey. Bring your imagination and join me.
Seven a.m. and I’m off. I take the truck a green ford F-150 my son once owned for a slow drive to first bridge. I like to take pictures. I like to observe all that is around me. I stop along the way to just admire the beauty of this majestic place. Today driving out of the compound my friends own and allow me to stay I stop, roll down the windows so there are no obstructions should I come upon something I want to take a picture of quickly. These pictures are most often bears, the really big ones, the Alaska Brown Bear (Arctos Ursus) second in size only to the polar bear. But there are foxes, eagles, parka squirrels, ptarmigans, all sorts of little birds and creatures to observe. All precious to me. The fox is very curious but also can be very skittish so my first instinct isn’t to jump out of the truck and take pictures. My first response is to slowly come to a stop and observe.
I took some pictures from my truck window as the male gave a tell, tell girdle sound unique to ptarmigan. All along the young ones and the female keep putting distance between them and the truck. Such a delightful interaction. Eventually the male took to wing and flew away. Ptarmigan at this time of year are becoming pretty visible because the bottom of their wings are turning white preparing for a white winter. Without snow ptarmigans dressed for winter are a neon light on the green and brown tundra.
As I approached the turnoff for Baldy, I could see two bears on the road just standing there although a half mile away they had already spotted the truck. They didn’t seem concerned just aware of my plodding approach.
I try to drive the same vehicle everyday just to give the bears and foxes the appearance of routine. I think it makes a difference. New vehicles, four wheelers or anything seems to be noticed instantly. I only wear neutral clothing. Smells whether it’s deodorants, perfumes or even bug dope can draw unnecessary attention. Surprisingly mosquitos aren’t my biggest concern when just sitting quietly on the tundra. Flies! I hate these tiny biting black flies intent on laying their eggs under my skin. These I truly mind.
From the top of hill overlooking first bridge the alders give way and the tundra expands in all directions. I can see Amak island which is twenty miles away surrounded by the Bering Sea.
The fog has lifted in that direction but it still cloaks Mt Frosty on my left like a glove.
The sounds of Frosty Creek are a symphony to me. One of the first things I do is prefocus my camera at a certain spot and distance in case some creature big or small, furry or winged approaches. I want to be focused or so close to focused that very little adjustment is needed. I always take an initial picture just to make sure all my settings are perfect for that day at that time under those conditions. Just a matter of housekeeping for me.
I am most likely alone. Even my friends think I drive to slow and exercise more patience than they can muster. So be it. I am doing much more than taking pictures in my efforts. Many years of trauma, depression and PTSD. I am meditating and clearing my mind of distractions. I pray along the way for the beauty and majesty of God’s handy work and I thank the Almighty for safely taking me down this path to this place of healing. The pictures I take and share are just a bonus not the journey. My friends should ride with me more often. What about you? Job 12:7-10
If these animals are amenable, I will at least take pictures from the safety of the truck thru the open windows. If they are focused away from me or oblivious to my presence I may ever so quietly open my door and step out if I feel all necessary precautions are taken. I drive slowly to begin with to avoid startling the animals but I also drive with my door unlatched so as not to activate all sorts of bells and whistles the truck may belch forth.
Today as I nonchalantly drove to first bridge my first encounter was with fog. Pretty thick fog for sure. This is not unusual here. A little drizzle just enough to require me to activate the windshield wipers once in a while. Any motion coming from, on or in the truck could catch an animal’s attention and cause it to sprint away. Just pounding across the tundra and the roads will limit the interactions one has with wildlife in general. Slow and steady is essential for optimal wildlife encounters.
As I turn onto Frosty Creek Road packed gravel, bumpy pot hole infested road. I can just see on the edge of my forward vision shrouded in fog a large porcupine. He wanted nothing to do with my truck and headed straight into the alders which line this road. Around the next bend though a whole covey of ptarmigan is in the middle of the road. A male and female with their brood of I’d say 10 or so. I’m driving now at only a few miles an hour as I approach them. They just keep moving ahead of the truck with no intentions of leaving the road. Eventually they took a left turn and into the alders and on to the tundra as I came to a stop. I watched for a bit. The young ones are still skittery and hiding in the depths of the valleys of the tundra. The female is leading the way through the canyons in the tundra while the male has moved away from the main covey and is standing as big and bold as he can on the top of one of the hummocks of tundra.
As I get to the Baldy cutoff the two bears split. One went up the Baldy Road the other on Frosty Ck road. I stop at the intersection and watch one of them a nice young blond bear wander away. He was in no hurry. Getting pictures is great but observing can be even better and it pays dividends with future encounters. Their behaviors are worth the price of admission. Photography can just wait sometimes.
The bear ahead of me just stepped into the alders and I passed as silently as I could. I couldn’t see him but I knew he was there and he knew I was there. I do not take what the bears don’t give me. Startling the bears does not bode well for future encounters one way or the other.
I’m about half way to my morning’s destination now there’s bear poop right down the middle of the road. Salmon berries so close to the edge of the road I can simply reach out and pick a handful for a quick morning snack. Yummy. I will write about berry picking with the bears in a future News Letter and on my Substack.
I defiantly pause here and spend five minutes or so looking over the area before me. Often with careful observation and patience I will see a bear or two just stretched out on the tundra. Some are easy to see some are hidden in the valleys of the tundra hummocks. Today I didn’t see any critters so I slowly rolled down the hill and came to a complete stop right on the bridge. Ignition off. Bear traffic at twelve o-clock.
THE END
Announcements:
Micah is now retired from the Navy. The poem is his, an original poem written by him while serving in Belgium