Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

    I whine quite a bit about getting older. There isn't a whole lot about attaining the "golden years" that I find very golden. Maybe they're called that because all the gold you might have been lucky enough to accumulate when you were working is now spent on medicine and doctor visits. There is one very good thing though about being retired, and that is, while everyone else is out trying to make a living, I have time to go to some of the places that others can't access during the week because they're at work. This past Friday, Jan and decided to take advantage of the beautiful fall weather and take a drive out to Freshwater Bay. It's located down Chatham Strait, and if I were to take my boat down there, it would take me at least six hours to get there. By road it's only 28 miles. Even so, it still took us the better part of two hours. There is a lot of loose gravel and pot holes, to say nothing of multiple blind curves and hill...

 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,...

 This past Monday was Labor Day- a day of celebrating the folks whose hard work has made America what it is. It's kind of the unofficial end of summer I guess, although by the look and feel of the weather here in Southeast Alaska, summer started giving way to fall during the first week of August. That's when the cottonwood and alder trees started to turn from green to gold. My daughter Liz and her husband and youngest child rented a cabin from the Forest Service out at False Bay during the Labor Day weekend, along with Jen and Kaylahni. They invited us out for dinner, so of course we had to go. When the chance to eat your kid's food comes up by all means take advantage of it. It's payback time. Of course there was hot dogs and chips and soda, but there was also shisk- ka -bobs on the grill, which was an added treat. I noticed that Jen was sitting on a makeshift bench, and the smoke from the wood fire kept drifting right towards her. I...