Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

My wife and I were on a drive the other day along towards evening. It was only early September, but fall was already in the air- and on the ground too for that matter. All the grasses are well on their way to turning shades of yellow and brown and the leaves on the cottonwood trees are dropping at an alarming rate. Already one of the trees close by is half bare, and I shudder to think what it will look like in another week or two. Those who have lived here for any length of time know all too well the first signs of fall. You wake up one morning in mid-August and there is a chill in the air that wasn't there the day before. It's hard to explain, but you can even feel it in that first rain after the change happens. It's colder and usually accompanied by a wind that whips the waves into a grey-white frenzy. At first just a few leaves start to color and curl on the ends- the Alder and Cottonwood trees initially. The magenta flowers of the fireweed bushes have dried up and turn...

It's the end of the day for this troller, the Mickey V (five). Like me, he's chosen Flynn Cove for his resting place for the night. It's a popular harbor with quick access to Eagle Point, Point Adolphus, Pleasant Island and about an hour and half away, Homeshore. It's a great place to anchor if the wind is coming from the East, though any Westerly will find it's way into there and you can rock and roll all night. When the coho salmon are running later in the season, it's not uncommon to find twelve or fifteen boats anchored in here. This year though the fish have been hard to come by on the inside. Even the guys outside haven't done all that well that I can determine. There's been a steady stream of boats passing by lately, partially because of the poor fishing, and in part because of the horrible weather we're experiencing now. ( Forty knots and twenty foot seas out in the ocean and Icy Straits isn't much better today, with thirty five knots and...

This is one of the cruise ships that anchor out in front of the cannery. I'm not sure which one this is, I think maybe Vision of the Seas. A week ago last Monday I had a close encounter of the unpleasant kind with her sister ship, I believe it was the Serenade of the Seas. I had a vision of the Serenade of the Seas that I didn't want to have. A dense fog was laying on the water at the time and I was underway for Homeshore across Icy Straits to do a little trolling. I had heard the ship call on channel 16 as she rounded Rocky Island, but that is a number of miles from where I was, so I didn't pay all that much attention to it. Unfortunately, my auto pilot was on the blitz and I was somewhat distracted while I fiddled with it trying to figure out the problem. I had my radar on, but I was so close to the land that I decided to put it on a 1/8 mile scale to keep from getting too much clutter and whatnot on the screen. I had put a line on my GPS from where I was to where I ...

This is a picture of my oldest son Ben. I have two sons, Ben and Brian. They're twins and Ben is only older by a few hours, but because he was born on one side of midnight on July 31, his birthday is different than his brother's, which of course is August 1. They even came into this world differently. Ben was born natural and because Brian was experiencing problems in the womb, he was born C-section. This picture was taken at the end of last month while we were waiting at the Hoonah airport for a plane to arrive. The plane took him to Juneau where he was going to catch a jet to Anchorage and start a new phase of his life as a member of the United States Army. Like many parents who have sent their sons and daughters off to the military, I've got concerns and fears. Not a day goes by that we don't read about American casualties in Afghanistan or Iraq. The stories are devestating. Up until now I have felt bad for the families who have lost loved ones or whose loved ones...