Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

  I went fishing last Friday. It was my first trip for the season and actually, the first time in years when the boat was ready to leave the dock so soon. It seems that normally I'm waiting on something to be fixed or finished or some such thing and never make it out this early. Last year I was waiting on the mast to be done. The year before I was hauled out for months while the bow stem and some planks were replaced. I can't remember what the problem was in other years, but it's always something. I was speaking to my friend and fellow fisherman, Fagan Skafelstad. He had gone up into Port Frederick the day before and reported seeing a lot of feed and whales and fish on the screen, but he didn't catch anything. If he didn't get a fish, I was quite certain I wouldn't, but I needed to try out the gear anyway, so I ran on up. Always, in the back of my mind there is that fantasy that somehow, against all odds I'll do what countless other

The busy season is upon us here in Alaska so it's going to be increasingly difficult to be able to keep up on the blog entries for awhile. The only reason I'm able to do it now is because it's raining outside. I've got the boat out of the water to do my annual maintanence and I've been painting it while the weather was good. It wasn't supposed to rain today- only a 20% chance of rain according to the forecast, but we do live in a rain forest and of course I'm using latex paint which is water soluble- go figure. If I wasn't trying to paint it would probably be sunny and dry as a desert. I can't really complain too much though. It has been pretty good weather-wise up until today, and so far no bugs. Hallelujah! Usually when I'm trying to paint it's either cloudy without a breath of wind and the gnats are swarming me like flies on crap or it's sunny and the horseflies are buzzing me looking for an opening so they can swoop in and take a ch