Autumn in Hope

When it isn't raining here in Hope (and we've seen LOTS of rain and wind this month), we try to get out for a hike or a run so we can enjoy the beautiful foliage. The birch and aspen leaves have turned golden and the bearberry leaves on the alpine tundra are now crimson.


We haven't seen much of the black bear lately. Perhaps our local "friend" was the one that got too territorial with someone's backyard apple tree and was shot for fear that its progressively more aggressive behavior was going to become a problem for the inhabitants.

We were invited to have dinner with some friends to enjoy their homemade black bear stew. (That's how it works here - if you help to skin and "dress" the game, you are entitled to keep some of the meat for yourself.) Black bear isn't known as a tasty meat, but this young bear with a stomach full of apples was surprisingly like pork meat. My upset stomach later that evening indicated that perhaps the meat is just too rich or unfamiliar to eat on any regular basis. (well...not terribly likely) Or maybe my upset stomach came from a little bit of guilt about having probably eaten the bear that we had enjoyed watching for several weeks.

Surprisingly, we haven't experienced our first frost yet. It's a bit late in the season for it and maybe further evidence of global warming??? Normally at this time of year, there is a light dusting of snow on the mountain tops (what they call "termination dust" - signalling the termination of the summer). So far, the peaks are snow-free.

This will be our last posting from Alaska. We'll continue this blog as we continue our adventures in the southern hemisphere. Michiel leaves on October 1 for New Zealand and on to Antarctica and I leave on the 6th. We hope you'll keep reading!

Books we've enjoyed reading

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency - Alexander McCall Smith
This is the first of a lovely series of books about the Miss Marple of Botswana. Very enjoyable, feel good and giving you a hint of African life and philosophies. We've read the first three books of the series and liked them all.

Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts
Impossible to put down! Compelling story about an Australian who escaped prison and ends up in India. Living with the people in India and learning several languages. Living and fighting alongside the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan.

Shackelton's Forgotten Men - Lennard Bickel
The amazing story of the group of explorers responsible for laying down the supply depots for Ernest Shackleton's 1915 attempt to cross Antarctica. Very topical, too.

America - Jon Stewart
Not just funny, sarcastic and scathing, but also educational and entertaining account of American history. We enjoyed the audio version on our drive upto Alaska.

Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
A high-tech (focusing on cryptography) thriller set in WWII and the present. Well-written, funny and engaging.

Up Country by Nelson DeMille
A political thriller set in Vietnam. We enjoyed reading a novel in which the action takes place in many of the locations we visited in 2003. Also interesting to read about these locations from the perspective of a Vietnam vet - not something we got much of while we were in the country.

Five Quarters of the Orange - Joanne Harris
A dark story by the author of Chocolat about a family in France during the German occupation in WWII with the author's trademark inclusion of food and recipes interwoven into the story.

Fateful Harvest by Duff Wilson
The incredible true story of the discovery in a small Washington town that commercial fertilizer companies were (and still are) recycling and re-selling toxic industrial wastes (cadmium, lead , arsenic etc.) as fertilizer.

Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
The cover says "prepared to be dazzled"...that's correct! Levitt is an economist who looks at everyday issues from a unique viewpoint. He explains, for example, how the Roe v. Wade (the legal right to an abortion) decision is the real cause of the decrease in crime in America and why some school teachers choose to cheat on state exams for their students.

Various books on running, including: The Lore of Running by Tim Noakes and Marathon: You Can Do It by Jeff Galloway
Michiel is determined to run the marathon in Antarctica this year so he's preparing himself physically and mentally.

As you can tell, we've had lots of time to read. The weather has been gray and rainy and we're hanging out in Hope doing some house- and dog-sitting, so we've worked our way through all the books we can get our hands on. We are, however, saving the other Antarctica-related books we've received as gifts (THANKS!) for the long flights down to the ice.

More wildlife encounters

On the evening we returned to Hope from the Pet Emergency clinic in Anchorage, we had another visit (nearly nightly) from our local black bear. The bear seems to be a pre-teen (based on its size) and is still quite wary of dogs and humans (which is a good thing). He is busy eating as many berries as he can stuff himself with before winter comes and seems particularly fond of the devil's club berries that surround our landlady's property. Now that we are also house-sitting (thus, actually living in the big house and using the outdoor hot tub (woo hoo!)), we can get very good views of the wild area that she calls "backyard" and the critters that wander through.

This time, however, he preferred the front of the house and sniffing around the driveway. He allowed us to watch him for a very long time.


A few days later, Michiel and I were going to do a hike in the Anchorage area, but were running short on time. We opted to drive towards home, stopping at a hike along the Turnagain Arm. I mentioned to Michiel that we hadn't seen any bull moose this year.

The McHugh Creek hike is a pretty steep climb into the forests overlooking the Arm of the Cook Inlet below. We climbed in a steady rain up to a common stopping place at Table Rock for a sweeping vista. As we decended off the plateau to continue onto the trail that would take us higher into the Chugach Mountains, we nearly ran smack into not one but TWO bull moose eating and occasionally butting their huge racks against each other.
We quickly snapped a few photos after getting to a safer location and left them to their business. Since the trail onwards was blocked, we decided to turn back towards the parking area, but first had to make it past the cow moose, who had snorted to make her presence known.

A few days later, we were treated to a sighting of the beluga whales that travel up Turnagain Arm at the beginning and end of the summer. The group of 20 or more white (adults) and gray whales glided gracefully through the water while groups of tourists and locals pulled their cars over on the highway to catch a glimpse.

Recreating?

Our recreation time in Hope always includes hiking on the various trails. If we are dog-sitting Cooper, we bring him along and try to let him off the leash for a while. Big mistake! During our last trip up the Bear Creek Trail, Cooper discovered the delicacy that is porcupine (stekelvarken). Michiel ran him back home with half a face full of quills and we later had to drive him to the Pet Emergency clinic in Anchorage (1.5 hours away).

The vet put him under (narcose) and removed the quills while we went out for a pizza. He also gave him enough morphine to make him basically comatose for the ride home, the transport from car to house and into the following day.

Over the next two days, we discovered that more of the quills had worked their way through his fur/skin/muscles and Michiel held him down while I yanked them out with needle-nose pliers. Quills are evil things - barbed on one end and about 2 inches long.

All is well now and Cooper is back to chasing black bears up trees.

End of the Season

The tour season ended fairly early this year as we didn't have any bookings for the last week of August. It was just as well, really, because the weather turned gray and rainy (as is typical for late summer).

I had five tours in all - two tours that had little physical activity, which are geared towards those who might otherwise do a cruise but wanted a small group, van tour type experience. For me, these tours are tough because they require lots of driving and eating and very little exercise. I end up the week feeling fat and lazy. However, these tours do end up with a wonderful boat tour in Seward. I normally don't go on the tours, but I had a nice group and decided I'd go along. I was thrilled that I did because we saw puffins, sea otters, Steller sea lions and cormorants (aalscholvers) and we were surrounded at one point in the trip by a whole pod of orcas. We also had a portion of the trip in which we had at least 4 humpback whales (bultrug walvissen) in sight. One of them was playing by flapping its tail against the surface of the water. Excellent!

I also led two day hiker tours, which include 5 days of camping and 1 to 5 hour hikes each day. One of the trips (with Michiel) was great and the other was awful (bad weather and a difficult group, who bonded well with each other, but treated me like a servant. The highlight of THAT trip was getting stuck at a road construction stop and talking to a father and son from the Netherlands (Drenthe).)

The 5th trip was a new 7-day itinerary that included 4 days of camping. The weather was incredible! Hot, clear and sunny in all parts of the state. I couldn't believe that we could see every single mountain, including Denali, throughout the week. We even breakfasted at our campsite while watching the colors of Denali change from pink to white.

Now that the season is over, Michiel and I are enjoying recreational time in Hope and soon, we'll start packing and preparing for our ice departures.