Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

   This week Hoonah has been rocked by another tragedy. A young man with everything to live for decided to end his life. It was so totally unexpected that everyone who knew him is in shock. He was a newlywed, with a beautiful young wife, he had a good job, had purchased a boat recently, was in the process of gathering firewood for the winter, and I understand even had a deer hanging in the woodshed. He was well liked by his co-workers and even though he was quiet, was always pleasant to talk to. He had a great dog that he loved,and I know he loved his wife. What could have possibly have caused him so much distress that he felt like this was his only solution? I would like to appeal to anyone who may have contemplated suicide, or perhaps is thinking that it would be a way out of your problems now, please, please do whatever it takes to get some help. If you're under the impression that no one will care if you're gone, let me assure you, when someone passes in such an unple...

 I need to work on this really fast. I have something running in the backround of the computer that is eating up all my available allotment from Hughes net. Some days I don't even get on the internet and all 250 MB is used up. A friend came down and looked at it and thought that it was Windows 10 constantly updating. I don't know. Anyway, I have to hope for the best. this will either get done now or at a later date. Kind of like painting the house. I started painting last October when Jan was down visiting her mom. I got about half of one wall done, but that particular side is uphill and there is a large number of salmon berry bushes growing on the hill, making it extra difficult to work there. Of course I need to set up a ladder, which I don't like anyway, so I'm kind of hoping that a young man that I've hired to do the dirty work will figure it out.  I did manage to get the front and most of the back of the house painted this year, and as you can see, abou...

  I went out fishing on Sunday. It's something that I seldom do. However, the season is about to end, and this time of year there are frequent storms that pass through, making fishing somewhat dangerous. Unfortunately, most of the fish being caught are over at Homeshore, an hour and a half run across Icy Strait. The winds have a tendency to blow west or east in the strait and it can be a pretty miserable ride at times. Anyway, there was supposed to be another storm coming on Monday, so I went fishing on the only day that I had when the weather was good, if you discount the fog which was thick and lasted until after three that afternoon. While I was trolling around in the fog, keeping an eye on the radar and GPS, I heard a voice on the VHF radio calling for a boat named The Ship of Fools. I'm not real sure why anyone would call their boat by such a name, but it takes all kinds to make up this world. As I mentioned before in a previous post, I thought  the name on one boat ...