Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

 I got a call last week from my friend Jim Dybdahl. He said he needed a favor. Jim is one of those guys who is pretty self sufficient. He's got a good mind and can figure things out and if he can't he's got the kind of personality that attracts people to him, so he will know someone who can help. In the almost forty years I've known him, he's never asked for a favor from me, so I assumed it was pretty important. As it turns out, he was asked if he would relinquish a few days of his fishing time to tow a couple of rafts from Angoon to Hoonah. One of the young fellows who grew up here is going to try his hand at oyster farming. I'm hopeful that he can make a go of it. From what I can gather, the rafts we were going to tow were used in three previous attempts at farming. I'm not sure why its so difficult to be successful at it, except that you're combing two very tough professions- fishing and farming. Both are labor intensive,...

There is a general feeling in the writing community that you should write about what you know. If I limited myself to that, I'd have very little to say indeed, so I'm kind of stepping off the deep end here and writing about something I know almost nothing about. The totem poles shown here are located in the Hoonah City Schools parking lot. I'm not sure how it is that they came to be there, except that it was a large enough public area to house them. I do know that they were carved by Rick and Mick Beasley, twin brothers who have a lot of ability when it comes to the art of carving. I can't really recall when these were put in place. I believe they are probably made out of red cedar, which of course lasts a long time. Several weeks ago I spoke to Gordy Greenwald about the totem poles, but unfortunately, he was either somewhat vague or I've forgotten most of what he told me. I suspect the latter. Gordy taught wood shop here at school and also taught a course in Nort...