Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

About a week ago, as I was coming in from fishing, my fine old captains chair gave up the ghost. The base at the bottom of the legs had rusted out, and with nothing to help support the legs at the bottom they became weak and subject to breakage, which is what they did. At first I just lost one leg. It snapped off where it fit into the seat and couldn't be repaired. I managed to sit on three legs with the right arm resting on the table to help give it a little more support. It wasn't overly comfortable, but I managed. Then, last week as I was returning home, I was entering an area near Flynn Cove where there is a lot of tidal action. The tide was ebbing and the wind was blowing from the west against the tide, so there was a lot of rolling and slamming up and down. Well, the chair couldn't take it any more and collapsed, breaking off two more legs. Of course I went down with it and spilled coffee everywhere, and had to stand the rest of the way in. It was an unpleasant...

 Pt. Adolphus  Pleasant Island   Looking up into Glacier Bay   Since the terrible night that the gunman in Colorado took it upon himself to murder and maim dozens of innocent people, it's been the focus of every news network. While I think it is of much more importance than the death of Michael Jackson or Anna Nicole Smith, and certainly more pressing than the political landscape, and the horror of what has happened has to be reported, my personal opinion is that it can't be allowed to dominate the news to the exclusion of almost everything else. I don't mean to be disrespectful to the family members who are left to deal with the aftermath. For all I know they may welcome a reprieve from the prying eyes of the cameras. As often happens in a situation like this, the reporters and anchormen start picking apart every detail, they interview every possible witness and friends or relatives of witnesses in hopes of fi...

Salmon fishing was a little slow this week, and since I didn't know when it would pick up, and since I had to catch my 902 pound quota of halibut, I figured I'd go ahead and load up the long line reel and get her done. I was fortunate enough to be able to enlist the services of Captain Marc  Miller of the Fishing Vessel Mickey V to come crew with me. There is no way I can do the halibut fishery by myself. The top picture shows three halibut of pretty substantial size. Two of them weighed 111 pounds each. The one in the center is supposed to be 129 pounds. Thats according to the tide book. In the back is a chart that gives the lengths and the corresponding live weight and net weight after the gills and guts are removed. I think the bigges one was about 67 inches long. It might have been longer I can't recall. I don't have a tide book with me at the moment to double check. The gross weight was like 176 pounds or some such thing. It was a struggle to get thes...

 Columbine  More Columbine  Cone Flower  Wild Iris  Lupine  When I got out of bed this morning I was startled to see a strange yellow orb blazing away in the sky. Mothers were frantically calling their kids inside- "kids get in here, it's shining!" "What is it mom?It's hot!"  "I believe it's called the sun, I'm not sure."  It's been awhile since we've seen any sunshine around here. It was amazing how much it bouyed my spirit. I didn't feel the need to run for the vitamin D bottle for the first half of the day, and I was able to walk to the boat without rain gear. By mid afternoon though, things were back to nomal and we had a good shower going. Wouldn't want to have any drought here- that might happen if the sun were to shine for more than two days in a row. As you can see from these pictures, purple seems to be the dominate color around here. Maybe purple flowers don't need muc...

 For lack of anything better to write about I thought I would do another post on my fishing. On this particular day, I happened to  have caught a few. There are mainly Chum salmon in the bag, but I see a Coho or two and some  Pinks as well. These fish are in a heavy mesh bag that is immersed in a salt water slush. It makes them really firm and preserves the flesh and eggs inside as long as there is enough ice in the water. I don't have to clean the dogs ( Chum) because the cold storage wants the eggs. They make a pretty penny on them selling them to the Asian market- primarily Japan I think.    I'm really tired today and my brain seems to be on a vacation. Actually it may be on a sabbatical- an extended sabbatical. I hate it when that happens. I just sit here and stare at the computer screen like one of these dog salmon- a vacant look in my eye. Yeah, not much going on inside here. Botts is in a trance again. I should have a sign on my forehead- space for re...

Every year when I was growing up, usually in the spring as I recall, one of the  TV stations would run the classic movie, The Wizard of Oz. If you recall there was a part when Dorothy lands in Munchkin land and all the little munchkins start singing about following the yellow brick road. It would lead to Emerald City in the land of Oz. Well, we don't have a yellow brick road, but we do have a  greyish-white concrete sidewalk, and while it doesn't lead to Emerald City, the area surrounding Hoonah is pretty green right now so maybe that counts for something. I really like this sidewalk. It gives a little bit of a finished look to the area. I'm hoping that the tourists will utilize it now that it's here. One of my biggest complaints with the tourists is that they walk in the road, seemingly oblivious to the fact that people are using the roads to DRIVE on. What a strange concept that must be to some- or so it would seem. The state even erected signs alongiside the...