Oxford in October- a collage

I have recently downloaded a new picture program that allows me to edit my pictures and make awesome collages like this one really easily.

I thought I would share my day in Oxford with you. Well the architecture at least. I just thought it was so cool!

Enjoy!

(I'll see about maybe making more cool collages and posting them.) :-)

Moose in Anchorage! ... and everything else ... (including Thanksgiving)

I can't believe all that has happened since the last time I wrote. Per usual, I don't know where to start.... therefore I think I'll start with one of the reasons I think Alaska is amazing.

Moose in Anchorage!!

Only in Alaska, can you live in the biggest city in the state and see moose out your front door! As some of you may or may not know, I am quite the Moose fan. Ever since I did a campfire talk on Moose at the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, I have just been enamored with them. So, when I started seeing moose everywhere in Anchorage, where I'm apartment-sitting you can only imagine how excited I was! Here are a few of the moose I've seen so far.
Lone female moose outside Amanda's apartment? I think not.
This moose ended up having the cutest little calf!

Two male moose outside the Library!
One of the male moose at the library.
All of the male moose I've seen were at night, so I don't have the best pictures of them, but they were AWESOME to see in person! :)

There are a lot of amazingly awesome things in Alaska!


Drive to Soldotna and Back

Another one of Alaska's amazingly awesome things is the drive from almost anywhere in the state to anywhere in the state, but one of the best drives in from Anchorage to Soldotna or Homer.

On the 11th of November my friend, Elise from Katmai National Park, arrived in Anchorage prepared to drive to her new temporary home in Homer. The weather was awful, and I didn't think it was ever going to stop snowing. However on the 12th the weather cleared up and I drove her to Soldotna. It was BEAUTIFUL! (Thank you Elise for the pictures!)

Turnagain Arm The stop right before the Hope turn off on the Seward Hwy.
Thanksgiving

My Thanksgiving this year was spent in Fairbanks with friends. We ate heaps of food at Pike's Landing, went bowling and watched tons of movies. It was a good couple of days in Fairbanks, even if the temperature hovered somewhere around -1'F. It was cold... yet my friends made it very warm and exciting.

Here's a picture of the group at Pikes:

After dinner Carl decided to drive across the river back to the house... it was either my first or second time driving over the ice bridge. Good ol' Alaskans with they're crazy driving on frozen rivers!

I am very thankful for everything I have. I am blessed.

Finally getting a bit comforable

Almost a week after Amanda left for India, I'm finally starting to feel comfortable. I've have even finished cleaning my little corner in Amanda's apartment where I was stashing all my stuff and been able to cook some really good food for myself.

Grassroots: A Fair Trade Store
I have also acquired a job. I now work at a little hippie store near the Anchorage REI store on an almost full-time basis. It's a cut in pay from my last job, but the concept of the store is great and it's a good way to fill my time while I'm here in Anchorage figuring out what to do next. Here's a picture of it snowing outside the store. Trust me, it is snowing.



and a picture of the map of all the places where producers are making our merchandise.



Planning the next big adventure
Another thing I've been working on is my next travels.

I'll be meeting Amanda in Germany in February, but before that, I'll be headed to California to see my family and hang out with Rowan while he's in the states. It should be good. There are no really details as of yet, but I'm hoping that things will all pan out by about mid-December.

I'm also hoping that things will work out with a job that has just been announced here in Anchorage. It's a job as an Environmental Education Coordinator. It would be an awesome job with great benefits! We shall see what happens.

In other news
I voted and Obama won!!
Here's the picture.. oh so proud!!

Anchorage to England and back again

Okay, so it's been a while since I last wrote. Gimme a break, I've been livin' life. Let me tell you about it.

Anchorage at the beginning of October
After being at Katmai National Park from May through the end of September, it was time for me to rejoin society. First stop, Anchorage, Alaska.

I sent about a week in Anchorage with one of my best friends, Amanda. She worked most of the time, but we did have a chance to get out somewhat and even do some shopping. Amanda bought some awesome jeans for me!

Also during that week, Jeff, one of the Katmai Law Enforcement rangers, also stopped by for a little while. Jeff and I took I hike to Flat Top, one of the most hiked mountains in Anchorage. It was beautiful!! We had been blessed with a number of days of wonderful weather.

It was a good week. It was the pre-prep for Amanda's 3 month work trip to India. She'll be headed there at the end of this week, November 1st. It's all very exciting, but I'll get to that. It was also prep time for me going to London! I had very little to carry to London, but then again I didn't have much out at Katmai either.

As soon as I get photos of week one, I'll post them. It may be a while.


2.5ish Weeks in London

It took me a total of about 15 hours to get to London. Thankfully I only had one connection and the flights were relatively empty. I only met two people on my way there; one of them was the flight attendant and the other is a single girl hitch-hiking around Europe at the moment. I think she's crazy!

I was very happy to make it to London and to see Rowan. A good friend of mine that is now my boyfriend.(I must be a glutton for punishment to be back in a long distance relationship.) Anyhow, I had a great time in London! I saw oh so much! I even got to see Oxford with my step-sister's boyfriend, Ben, who goes there.


Awesome photo taken by Rowan.

For more photos see: 45 pictures of London!

Well... it looks like my typing time is up. I need to head to my new job. It's a huge cut in pay and it's kind of hippy-ish, but it's a job. Yay fair trade store.

Termination

9_28_08

Termination

The human resources department is trying to come up with a better word for it, but have been unsuccessful so far. Yesterday I was terminated; therefore I am once again job-less. So goes the life of a seasonal employee.

And another adventure bites the dust, and another opens it’s door, hopefully.

I’ve finally made the decision to stay in Anchorage for the winter (or until another job calls me). Thankfully Amanda is flexible towards my vagabond living and is willing to let me make arrangements for her apartment if I find a job elsewhere. She’s just the most wonderful friend! I do suppose living in Anchorage for winter may be an adventure. (I may even buy some cross-country skis. *shrug*)

Last Days at the King Salmon Visitors Center

My last day was an uneventful one. I did get to talk to some visitors a little about the Valley and about bears which was nice. The number of visitors in the King Salmon Visitors Center has dropped dramatically though. It was only a few weeks ago that the visitors center had about 40 visitors and now it has dropped to about 20 or less a day. Debi, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service woman I was working with says that during the winter the visitors center can drop to zero a day, for days in a row. All I have to say is that it’s a good thing they have projects to work on in the winter.

During my slow days at the center I did get some good reading in though. If you ever get the chance, “Two Old Women”, “This is Coffee Point: Go Ahead!”, and “Shadows on the Kakoykuk” are very good Alaskan stories. The first two are shorter than the third, but all are equally as good.

Good-byes

Over the last week and a half or so, I’ve been saying “good-bye” a lot. Most of the time I’ve just been saying, “see ya later”, but at least one or two have been an emotional “good-bye”.

The traveling lifestyle really gives me a different outlook on life. You have friends and acquaintances that you know you’ll see again, and you have those that you really feel are on a different track altogether. Then again, who knows what could change.

Life is all about change. It changes whether you want it to or not. It’s probably best if we just get used to change and become familiar with adapting to new situations or new lifestyles. Or is that just me?? I find that sometimes it can be a bit easier to live when I’m comfortable being outside my “comfort zone”. Trying new things can be difficult and sometimes I don’t want to try something new and I don’t, but maybe life would have been easier had I tried that new “thing”.

Life is funny.

9/12/08

I’m not even sure where I left off. All I know is that I haven’t written in a while and there has been a lot to write about.

Yesterday was my last day of work at Brooks Camp in Katmai National Park. Starting Saturday until the 27th of September I will still be working for Katmai National Park, I will just be working at the King Salmon Interagency Visitors Center. I’m glad they agreed to keep me on for another week. It will be good for my resume and bank account.

King Salmon Visitors Center

As a matter of fact, I was working at the King Salmon Visitors Center for a week about 2 weeks ago. It was nice to get out of camp for a little while. I was able to call my mom and family (priority #1), and I was able to have pizza and ice cream. I couldn’t believe that in that week though, I spent about $100 though. It’s incredibly expensive to live in bush Alaska. Thankfully this time around I’ll be taking in all my left over food from camp so I’ll be spending less money on groceries.

The visitors center itself is quite slow, but I was able to find things to do. I spent most of my time giving a bit of informal interpretation and working on an activity for a Story Hour. That Friday I got to read to a group of three and four year olds and do an activity with them. We drew on paper plates with crayons. It was good fun. I’m hoping that with coming week I’ll be able to do Story Hour again, but this time try to focus a little more on the outdoors. I’m also planning or trying to figure out a project that might make the visitors center a little more exciting and different. I really like the staff at the King Salmon Visitors Center; they really encourage me to use my creativity. It’s a bonus that we seem to all be on the same track as well as far as how to improve the visitors center and work together. It’s a very relaxed atmosphere for that reason.

I’m a bit bummed that I wasn’t in King Salmon last week though, because the US Fish and Wildlife Service in King Salmon was doing an Alaskan Peninsula Science Camp. Since the visitors center is an interagency visitors center, I had caught wind of the camp. Actually I had been invited to go if I were in town that week. It’s a week long camp for students in the 11th and 12th grade that live on the Alaskan Peninsula. It gives students a chance to get together with other students from other villages and study the environment like a biologist would study while learning more about Alaskan Native culture. I would have had the chance to see and learn more about the Peninsula had I had gone. The camp takes place in the Becharof National Wildlife Refuge, just below Katmai NP. It would have been super cool.

Last two weeks of work

When I camp back to Brooks Camp from King Salmon I just happened to come during one of the windiest days of the season. My stomach did not appreciate it! Thankfully I was able to make it the 20 minutes to Brooks Camp, but had the flight been any longer it could have been a disaster!

Although my first week back wasn’t too eventful, I did manage to get some overtime. It was just too bad it was the “A” schedule. That has been the most difficult schedule this pay period. It consists of over 5 hours at the “corner”. Basically at the corner you spend most of your time avoiding bears you can’t see. While working at the “corner” (where the trail turns) it’s good to have a radio that works and trust the people who are acting at your eyes. It can be a bit rough when you have a large group of people that’s trying to cross the bridge that may also be closed by bears. I think it’s just something you’d have to experience yourself. It’s hard to explain. Let’s just say, there are a lot of bears and the person at the corner is on the ground floor with them for quite a while. And it’s not so much that the bears will attack, but we are trying not to habituate the bears and if a bear is being chased down the trail they will run you over without thinking twice. The best thing to do in that situation is to jump off the trail as fast as you can!

This week has been sentimental. I gave my last evening program, my last cultural walk, and my last Valley of 10,000 Smokes tour. My evening program was wonderful. I really felt like it went smoothly and all 26 people at the program enjoyed it. My last Valley tour was awesome! I had a great group and on the way to the Valley we saw some wildlife. We saw a pack of 6 or 7 wolves and a female moose. The people that went on the hike with me were totally funny too when they told their group that they saw Lynx (sneeze) scat. Some of them wrote about me in the comment book as well. It’s so nice to get good feedback from visitors. If I could live off just complements, I would. They make me feel so good.

Packing

The past couple of days I’ve been packing up my things from the tent frame. I think it’s amazing that I feel like I’ve accumulated more stuff. How did that happen? It’s not like I had anywhere really to by anything. All I can think is that my uniform takes up more space than I thought it would. *shrug*

It has also been interesting trying to figure out how to get food back to King Salmon just because most of my things will go back on the barge and they don’t want to have food on the barge. I may also be coming back for closing on my days off, but that’s not completely certain either. I hope I do, because I’d like to help my roommate clean-up and I’d like to take part in the Long-term Interpretive Plan meetings. I have some ideas I’d like to share and I’d like to hear what the plan is for Brooks Camp. I think they’ll have to do something different in a few years considering that the visitation numbers are increasing and the number of bears is increasing. It will be interesting.

Over the next month or so, I’ll be doing a lot of packing and unpacking so I better get used to it. I’ll pack here, unpack in King Salmon, repack in King Salmon, unpack in Anchorage, repack in Anchorage to go to England… and then from there who knows probably repeat the pattern. I won’t fully unpack in England, because I’ll be back to Anchorage in a few weeks, but who knows where I’ll be going for a winter job if I get one out of Alaska. I’m kind of hoping to find a job in Anchorage though.

England!

Just recently I have decided to go to England. It’s kind of a long story of why, but I’ll be going from the 6th of October through the 22nd of October. I’ll be there for my 26th birthday. I’m very excited! I’ve never spent time in England other than in the Heathrow Airport. I have a few friends over there that are going to show me around and let me stay on their couches. I think it will be a very nice birthday present for me. I deserve it! *smiles*


Well I had better get going; I have one more dinner at the lodge to enjoy! I’ll have more to write later, I’m sure of it!

The tent frame

More pictures

The view from work one beautiful day!

Steph and I at the pirate party.

Fure's Cabin

Sunset on the lake.

8_15_08

Once again, I have been far too busy to write in my journal. If I’m not working, I’m cooking, sleeping or enjoying the company of others around here. Let me just mention some of the things that have been going on here.

Pirate party

Thanks to my mom and Carl, I got to host one of the biggest parties of the season… the 1st annual Pirate Party and Salmon bake! Because I am pretty good friends with everyone in camp, I invited everyone I could find. Unfortunately most of the maintenance men were still in King Salmon, but I still had a great turn out. My friend at the lodge, Stephanie, helped me make 4 different recipes of salmon and design a sign for the party. Since the park employees and the lodge employees don’t really hang out too much, the park employees showed-up early in the evening and ate all the salmon and the lodge employees showed-up later at drunk as can be. It all worked out really, because the lodge staff gets free meals so they weren’t really looking for food per se. I had bandanas to give to everyone, tattoos, eye patches (that crushed your eye because they were flat), and tons of candy. I even made a little treasure chest to put the candy in. It was pretty awesome. Good food, good company and a little bit of drinking; what more could you ask for? Yo,ho a pirate’s life for me!!

Plane crash

Late last month we had a plane hit shore here at Brooks Camp. Rumor has it that the water was very glassy that day, the pilot couldn’t tell how far away he was from camp, and by the time he realized he was too close it was too late to pull up and over the trees. He hit the water at about a 70 or 80 degree angle causing him to skip across the water and right up on to the beach. Luckily there’s a tree line between the beach and the dinning hall of the lodge, because had there not been, that plan would have ended up on top of a few people. It was a very lucky crash. Everyone walked away unharmed. The only unfortunate part of the crash was the leak of jet fuel on the beach. Thankfully though it was only a trickle and we were able to keep people and bears away from it. Had it been any worse, I have no idea what we would have done. All of our maintenance that has Haz-mat training were in King Salmon working on a new bridge for the river. All of the people around the plane clean-up really had no clue what they were doing. At least it all worked out. It only took something like 2 weeks to get the plane off the shore. (That my friends is a ridiculous amount of time to be making sure that bears aren’t eating the plane wreck. I can’t believe it took that long.)

Grand Cayman and the Everglades

So, I’ve been looking for a job. Something to do after September would be nice. The first job I’ve applied to is a job with the Ritz Carlton in Grand Cayman doing environmental education. The job sounded pretty interesting. It also sounded like the weather would be nice. However, I didn’t even get an interview. Oh well. I didn’t want to talk about the endangered Blue Iguana anyhow.

Then I’ve recently applied to Everglades National Park. It’s also doing interpretation/environmental education. I’ve never envisioned myself going to the Everglades, no less living there, but then again sometimes new experiences are the best experiences. Take for example when I went to Arkansas for a summer. I thought it was totally going to suck, and parts of it did, but overall it’s one of my best summer memories. Who knows how the Everglades will work out, if I get the job. A colleague of mine here at Katmai NP put in my name and said good things about me for the Everglades job. She’s on temporary assignment from her permanent job in the Everglades so she knows a number of people there. Thanks Katie.

Apartment-sitting

If I don’t end up getting another park job right away, I may be house-sitting for Amanda in Anchorage. She’ll be going on a rotation to India from November through January. She’ll mainly be doing the same thing she does here for her accounting company KPMG, she’ll just be doing it in another country. I’m super excited for her! I’d like to help her out as well so that she doesn’t have to worry about her apartment and car, ect. However in that same breath, I’m not sure what kind of job I could find in Anchorage. I’m not sure if working at a place like REI would drive me crazy or not.

I did talk to the Alaska Public Lands Information Center in Anchorage back in May and they said they might be hiring some environmental education positions at the end of September. I was pretty excited about doing that until I heard from them recently and they said they’ll probably hire a student or an intern if I could swing that. However, I’m not ready to be a student again and an internship just wouldn’t support me I get the feeling. *sigh* What the heck!? I know life works in mysterious ways and all will work out, it’s just the process and the waiting for getting it to work out that’s the annoying part.

In the mean while things are still pretty busy here at Katmai National Park.

Truck rollover and moving the bridge

Bear and people wise things have really slowed down here. We have one bear at the river and maybe 30 people a day. It’s quite nice after the rush of people we received in July… and we’re expecting in September. Just because that has slowed down however, does not mean it’s less busy, there are just other crazy things going on. There’s a lot of construction going on.

It’s been a total pain coordinating with the contractors on the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes road. We don’t all have the same radios, so there always has to be a middle man. I am very surprised there hasn’t been a head on collision on the 23 mile, one lane road out to the Valley. Anyhow, that aside our contractors are working on improving the road. It needs to meet federal “highway” standards. Why a road out in the middle of nowhere Alaska needs to meet “highway” standards is beyond me, but at least they’re putting some gravel down and flattening out the road so it’s safer to drive. The only problem with that is they’re using an already unstable road along a valley edge to transport large amounts of gravel. One of the trucks actually rolled over the edge just a few weeks ago. What I understand happened was just simply that he was too close to the edge and the road gave way. The truck and driver rolled 125ft down into the valley and landed upside down. Incredibly the driver got out of the truck at walked up to the main road to wait for help. His nose was shattered, his ear had to be reattached, and he has multiple broken ribs. I can’t believe how lucky he is. I hope nothing else like that happens again.

In other construction news, maintenance is moving and extending the bridge across the river this month in order to relieve some problems of people and bear management that will arise next month. My sentiment is that the bridge movement and extension will just create new problems. A high number of bears feed in the area where the bridge crosses and they will continue to do so. The interpretive staff job is to stop people from crossing the bridge if a bear is within 50 yard of it. I like many others call bridge closures by landmarks. The landmarks are about to change and there will be more bridge to worry about. I think that the only way to resolve this problem is to not have a bridge at all. I have no idea how we’d get from one side of the river to the other, but at least I wouldn’t have to worry about a bridge. Maybe a zip line would be good… and fun too!

Savonoski Loop

Speaking of fun, I recently got to take part in a set of death paddling and floating exercises called the Savonoski Loop. Actually the Savonoski Loop was full of good times.

Basically it’s a canoe/kayak trip that goes from Brooks Camp through Naknek Lake and the North Arm of Naknek Lake, where you then portage from Fure’s Cabin to Lake Grosvenor (1.5 miles) to paddle Lake Grosvener to the Savonoski River. Once finishing the river you paddle from the mouth of the Savonoski River through the Iliuk Arm of Naknek Lake back to Brooks Camp. Now the maintenance men, John, Mark, Neil, Cal, and I had someone drop us off at Fure’s Cabin, but in total I estimate we still spent about 50 miles in canoes.

We left camp at about 7pm that night and after finishing a grueling portage we paddled the last few hours of daylight. We ended up setting-up camp in the dark, on uneven ground, somewhere on the shore of Lake Grosvenor that night. Lucky… or unluckily, depending on how you look at it, Neil had brought his ipod and ipod speakers and woke us up at 8:30am the next morning to start paddling. Thankfully we had a BEAUTIFUL day, because that day we paddled practically all of Lake Grosvenor, floated the Savonoski River, and paddled part of the Iliuk Arm. The trip was wonderful, but I think that all of us (except Neil) felt like our arms were going to fall off. We counted 18 bears and 3 cubs on the river and watched some beautiful alpine glow from the sunset that night. I even made somores over when we built a fire that night. It was super good. The next day, once again Neil woke us up with blaring music; we picked up camp, and started paddling. We paddled from 9:30am to 4pm. Once again we had a beautiful day. I couldn’t believe how blessed our trip was! After arriving back in camp and organizing a bit, we had a wonderful dinner at Brooks Lodge and went to bed.

Carl Roberts Visits

A few weeks before planning started for the Savonoski Loop, I got a letter from my good friend Carl saying that he wanted to come out for a visit. I wrote him back saying that would be great and for him to let me know when he got the tickets. It seems like I waited forever for his response before I had Amanda call him to confirm that he got the letter. Amanda then relayed to me that Carl had received the letter, was working on getting the flights, and would write me when he finally bought them. I waited and waited, until the opportunity came up to do the Loop. I knew that I might not be able to do the Loop at any other time this summer, so I took it thinking that Carl wasn’t coming. Sure enough though, Carl showed up only about an hour before I left on my canoeing trip. I couldn’t believe it. Carl was really good about it though. He hung out with some of my friends here at camp and went fishing all weekend. He said it was just nice to not be at work.

That following Tuesday was his birthday, so I took him to the Valley on my Valley tour. We had dinner that night at the Lodge. All was right with the world. I even had the Lodge put a candle in a piece of desert and sing “Happy Birthday” to him. It was good fun.


The boring stuff

Other than that, I’ve just been working. There aren’t many bears to watch, but I’m okay with that. I’ve been working on adapting my evening program into a walk and developing a new evening program, “An Explosive Topic: Volcanoes of Katmai National Park”. I find it really fascinating. I think this will be a lot more entertaining for me and the visitors than identifying animal evidence.

The sun is starting to set earlier in the day and the days are already starting to get cold again it seems. It seems like our 10 days of summer was all that we’re going to get. That’s okay though I suppose, like I said, who knows I may end up having a summer type thing in the Everglades this winter.


I hope everyone is well and everyone finds their days as exciting as mine!

Many smiles till next time I write.

7_26_08

Where do I even start?

With the huge amount of bears and people, the month of July has really taken a toll on everyone in camp, not to mention that we’ve only had one nice day in weeks. This can be a very stressful job with all the people management we do around the bears.

Yesterday was beautiful though, just gorgeous. There were very strong winds on Thursday night and on Friday the clouds had all been pushed out to make way for blue skies. It was nice to finally have a sunny day. It was so nice that I decided that after work, I would head to Brooks Lake to spend my Friday night there. Brooks Lake is about a mile or two away from camp, and is where some of our maintenance employees live. It’s very nice. The best part about it is that it’s away from camp. This weekend was even better, because I had one of the maintenance cabins to myself. Some of our maintenance is in King Salmon working on projects there. Well, I was hoping to wake up to sunny skies, but I had no such luck. At least it was nice to wake up to a quiet cabin. There were no planes flying over head and no people walking past.

My Saturday has gone quite well. I slept in for a number of hours to try to catch up on sleep. Then I had bacon and eggs with one of the maintenance guys; thanks T. Kay. Then I went into camp to do some email/apply for jobs. So far I haven’t applied to too many jobs, but I have applied to one job teaching environmental education in Grand Cayman. It’ll be interesting to see what they think of me. I’d apply to more park jobs, but I haven’t seen too many openings.

I found a box from my gram full of goodies in the mail/laundry room. That was a nice surprise.

After being surrounded by too many visitors and bears at camp, I headed back across the river to Brooks Lake. T. Kay and I had planned to have dinner together. I thought it was going to be just a simple dinner together, but then some other people had the same idea as me. We ended up having some lodge workers and some of their friends come up for dinner as well. We had the best bear battered halibut, mash potatoes, and veggies ever. I haven’t felt that well fed in a while. It was nice to have a real day off and enjoy it.

Everyone says it slows down in August. I am excited to see that. I might actually get to do interpretation/environmental education like I’d like to do. Right now we just don’t get the chance because of the bear traffic. It’s a bit hard to understand how this place works if you aren’t living it. It’s way fascinating. I’m not sure I understand it completely myself.

Anyhow, after a good day like this one, I’m ready to have some very sweet dreams.

I hope all is well where you are!

The Falls Pictures

The wolf at the falls is quite the angler!!
Here I am smiling because the bears aren't eating me. There are so many bears!! (Honestly though, the bears don't even seem to care that we're there. I would bet I don't taste that good anyhow.)

07_20_08

I am so glad that I’ve made it more than half way through the month of July. With as many crazy people and bears there are, I have been starting to wonder why this place exists. Most people that come here seem to be focused on bears and can’t see anything else. They have “bear” colored glasses as I like to say.

I, on the other hand, have started to see more and more beauty in other things at the park. I believe this is due to the fact that some days I just can not stand that some people do not have an appreciation for the small things. For example, there is a very pretty and very small white flower on the trail to the falls (which are filled with bears) that has its stamen pointed towards the ground; it’s called a Shy Maiden. Very few people even know the flower exists. As a matter of fact, most of our visitors come only for a couple of hours and only have time to cross the river, go to the falls, view bears, cross back across the river and fly back to where they came from. We’re getting some odd 250 to 300 people a day and most of them are just here for the day. Now, from looking at that number, it doesn’t seem like a lot of people but, for as small of an area that these people stay in for the day (maybe only a couple of miles) we do get some big crowds of people with “bear” colored glasses. It’s enough to drive anyone crazy in my opinion.

This has been a great adventure, but I’m still sitting on the fence about whether or not I’d like to come back. I think I’ll wait till the season has been completed before I make up my mind. From what I understand, next month will be completely different and I’ll have time to focus on things other than people management and bears.

Currently my evening program is about identifying animal evidence, but I was asked to focus my program on bears, so a large portion of my program is now about bears. I don’t like it. So, I have begun to plan and research a new program focused around Novarupta and volcanoes. I’m much happier about doing this subject.

I really enjoy going to the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. I enjoy talking about the geology of this area. It’s fascinating. Actually on my last Valley Tour, I saw a moose as well!! It was my first moose sighting in about two and a half months; my first sighting since Anchorage even. I’ve also recently seen a wolf on the road to the Valley! Wolf sightings are very exciting. I saw wolf fishing at the falls about a week ago. They are really good at fishing.

Wolves are a lot better anglers than I am. As a matter of fact, don’t tell my friend Olin, but I have yet to catch a salmon. I am so slack, or I’m just a really bad fisherwoman. My line has been messed up for a while and I never know how to feel if I have a fish on or not when I’m fishing. I suppose I did snag a fish in the dorsal fin the other day, but I’m not allowed to keep fish I snag anywhere else than in the mouth. Fishing for salmon is so difficult, because by the time they’re coming up the river they’re not feeding. It doesn’t matter what you put on your line fly wise, because you’re just snagging the fish anyhow. In my opinion, I think if you live in the bush you should be able to have a subsistence fishing license, because I like eating fish, I just can’t seem to catch them. I’m lucky that everyone likes to share their fish or at least most people do.

Tomorrow I’ll be hosting a pirate party and salmon bake. I’m very excited about it. I think there will be lots of different and good foods to eat including many different salmon recipes. It’ll be good fun. Thanks for getting all of the pirate stuff for me mom! I even covered a small box in foil to make it look like a silver treasure chest, and filled it with candy.

Time is still going by very quickly here. Soon enough it’ll be July 31st; Katmai Halloween! That should be good fun as well. With time passing so quickly, I need to start applying for a new job also. I haven’t seen too many job openings that I’m interested in, but I have applied for a job in the Grand Cayman doing environmental education. I figure if anything, it gives me more experience doing applications. We’ll see how that goes.

I can’t wait to go into town. I’m starting to have a bit of island fever. It’ll be nice to go into town for an interview actually when I get one.

I hope all is well were everyone else is. I need to get back to improving my new program. It’ll be good to talk about something other than bears. *smiles*

More pictures

The Valley from the sky!
Finally a picture of Kate in Uniform!
A mink I saw by the bridge. Mink comes from the Finish word "Menk" meaning a stinky animal from Finland. Hahaha...
In the plane again with Steph and Elise in the back.
It was a beautiful flight!!
I will get out to Novarupta at some point!
I probably won't make it to the Katmai Caldera, but it's still pretty dang cool.

6_29_08

There is just way too much excitement here at Brooks Camp. I’m not sure where all my time is going. I’ve been working too hard and having too much fun!

A while ago, I gave my first bear orientation spiel and it just happened to be in German! I couldn’t believe how tired speaking German on and off during the day made me! It was good fun though. The five older German men were here only for only a day on their world trip in hopes that they would see a Grizzly Bear. Unfortunately for them they didn’t see a single bear, but fortunately for me, I seem to be bear repellent. Almost every time that I’m on duty to be bear look out the bears seem to disappear. I’ve only seen a bear once, a few weeks ago, while standing on the platform by the river and all he was doing was eating grass. I was happy with this encounter.

Then a few days later, we, the interpretive ranger staff, got to fly over part of the park to see what it’s like from the air. It was incredible! The weather had just been beautiful for a number of days and it made all the scenery look awesome. The best part of the flight was flying over the Mt. Katmai caldera and Novarupta. It was just so cool to see ground zero! It really put some things in perspective as well, the eruption site is massive! The Katmai caldera was so massive that I couldn’t take a picture of it all at once, even at 5,000ft.

I also gave my first evening program. It’s not the best evening program in the world, but it’s okay. I hope to brush it up a bit, give it a few times, and then create a whole new evening program. I think being able to track an animal is really cool, but it’s difficult tailoring the program to focus on why Katmai is so unique, without talking about bears for more than half the program. I’m not saying I dislike bears (all that much), but I just see them all the time; I don’t want to talk about them all the time as well. I think my next evening program will be about volcanoes. That seems to hold my interest a little better. I was really meant to do something with geology. I don’t know what it is with me and talking about rocks here at this park. I think the geology here is so awesome. Then again, apparently I’ve always liked rocks. Ha!

The other programs I do are alright. My cultural walk could use some help. I think it’s neat that Brooks Camp is considered a National Historical Landmark because of the number of archeological sites (There are over 900 of them!), but I want people to see that our culture isn’t so different from Alaskan culture and the way people lived over 2,000 years ago. As you can see though, I even have a hard time explaining what I want to do. I have no idea how I’m going to get in the information that I want to. How do I connect little depressions in the ground to the world as a whole? Anyhow it’s still kind of cool to think that people once lived in a home in that little depression about 2,000 years ago or so.

My favorite program by far is the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. Of course there I get to talk about geology and get out of camp… and maybe see a moose! We see way too many bears around here!!

Speaking of the bears though, they’ve really started to come out in force to eat the millions of sockeye salmon that are coming in. The people are starting to really come out as well. We have easily over 120 people a day now! I jump into that mess starting tomorrow. I hope I haven’t forgotten all my training!!

Like I said before, I’ve been having too much fun. Hopefully that hasn’t affected my memories from training too much. Today I went fishing with my friend from the lodge, Stephanie. We caught a HUGE (okay, medium) salmon and then spent the day cleaning it, cooking it and eating it! It was beautiful! I love fresh salmon! A week ago we had our Solstice party. Yay for the longest day of the year! It’s just too bad that the days are getting shorter now. We seem to have a lot of parties out here, both the lodge and the NPS staff. There’s a lot of food and drinks to go around… and movies to watch… and dancing to be done. A good time is had by all.

It is such a good time that it wears me out. It’s time for bed.

Send ice cream :-)

In the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes

The Valley of Ten Thousands Smokes is a pretty incredible place!!




Me, banded pumice, and the confluence in the valley of ash.


At Ukak Falls where you can see how much the ash covers the valley from the floor to the top of the flow... and this is over 20 miles from the eruption site, Novarupta.

Fun in the... snow?

06_08_08

Another week has come to an end and I’ve realized that this last month has gone by incredibly fast. I’m still amazed that out here there is enough to do to keep busy. Although, I suppose my job is made up of a lot of standing around looking out for bears. I think this past week I must have spent about 15 hours standing on a platform looking for bears. Supposedly by mid-July we’ll be spending 20 to 25 hours a week standing on a platform.

We do this because there is a rule that states that visitors must be at least 50 yards away from a bear at any given time and we have to keep an eye on areas where there is a high concentration of bears and people. Now, we do the 50 yard rule for a few reasons; to give the bears some room and give people reaction time if a bear does charge. According to our bear orientation video, a bear can run 50 yards in three seconds. That is way fast! It’s starting to get very exciting around here with more and more bears starting to frequent the river.

The other thing that is frequenting the river is fisherman. The sport fishing season started last night at midnight. I couldn’t believe that there were people out there last night fishing. I guess I don’t really understand sport fishing either though. If I’m fishing, I’m fishing to eat the fish not to release the fish once I’ve caught them. The Brooks River at the moment is a catch and release only river. It is weird to me that fisherman would spend all this time and money to come out here to not eat any of their fish. It’s expensive to come here for even just a few days. Crazy. Even if they were to catch a fish to eat, they wouldn’t be able to eat it until they got home. People can’t eat or cook food (except in designated eating areas) or clean fish within a mile and a half from Brooks Camp because we don’t want to temp the bears. I haven’t asked the law enforcement how much a ticket is for not paying attention to that rule, but I can imagine it’s not cheap. I’m glad that employees can clean and cook fish in their cabins. I wouldn’t clean or cook fish in my tent frame cabin considering the walls are made of tarp, but I go over to one of the bear tech’s cabin to have fish. It’s super yum!

Speaking of super yum, we’ve been having a lot of pot lucks. It’s amazing what people come up with, and what dishes can actually taste good. I make a mean corn and tomato casserole apparently. Thank you www.cooks.com! My roommate made a beautiful pancake volcano for the last pot luck we had. It was basically a pancake with Nutella on it followed by a pancake with raspberry jam on it… all stacked with the biggest pancake on the bottom and the smallest pancake on the top. It was interesting… but good. Why was she making a volcano you ask? Well, because it was the 96th anniversary of the eruption of Novarupta on the 6th. That’s right we were having a Novarupta birthday pot-luck. For those of you that don’t know, Novarupta is why this park was first created as a national monument. The eruption was the largest of the 20th century. At the time of the eruption there were 3 days where the people of Kodiak could hold a lantern out in front of them at arm’s length and not see any light from it. The eruption was said to be 10 times bigger than the Mt. Saint Helens eruption. If the eruption had occurred in New York City, it would have covered Chicago in over 2 inches of ash. The 1912 eruption was said to lower the temperature of the Northern Hemisphere by 2 degrees that year. The left over ash is incredible to see! So as you can tell, I’m a bit fascinated with the volcano. It works for me.

Another fascination here at Brooks Camp at the moment is the weather. We have been having insane weather! A few days while I was standing on the platform it was raining, when all of a sudden it got really cold and started to snow. For the rest of the day it snowed on and off. It’s June, why is it snowing?? Then the next day, my colleague was standing on the platform and a lighting storm began. It was a decent size lighting storm as well. I couldn’t believe how close the lighting strikes were. I’m glad that my boss told my colleague to go home. No one should be out in weather like that. Today however is very nice and sunny, and there are lots o’ bears!

Well, I suppose I should get going. I need to finish up my evening program, because I give it on Monday and I’m not at all ready for it. I think that maybe I should have done a program on volcanoes instead of tracks and scat. We’ll see how it goes. I may have to change my topic. I also have my cultural walk on Tuesday. All I have to say about that is, I’m glad I have an archeologist as a roommate.

I hope all is well with everyone on the outside (not that this place is a jail… far from it, but there really is no way out of here unless you have a plane). :) I’m missing you all heaps!

Much love and hugs!!

Picture Time!!

My first Rainbow Trout!


Me eating my first Rainbow Trout!


The crew I went camping with.. eating Lake and Rainbow Trout! Can you tell I'm proud of my Rainbow Trout that I caught?


Bears; Sow and three cubs about 3 feet from the window I was standing at!


The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes.


My roommate Stephanie and me on the fight to Brooks Camp for our fist day in our new home!


From the NPS plane.


Landed on the icy shore of Lake Naknek our first day at Brooks Camp!


The view our the visitor center front door, practically. La Gorce, the (glacial) moraine, and Mount Katolinat from left to right.


Me at Brooks Falls. This where many many bears will catch fish in July!

I got my boxes!!

05_26_08

This week we did vigorous two day training for bear management. We were taught everything from how a bear mates to what to do if a bear thinks that you are food; fight back by the way if the bear starts eating you. (Although from what the bear techs said, that doesn’t happen very often.) Bear mauling usually happen if you come around a corner, see a bear, and yell, “SURPRISE!!” Just kidding, but honestly bears don’t like to be surprised or have you in their personal space… they’re no fun. Ha. Bear management training was really interesting though. I knew that bears were complex, but so complex that we had to talk about them for two days straight, that’s just crazy.

Funny though, because just the day before as the interpretive rangers were getting training for the cultural walk, a sow and three cubs went running past us while we were in the building that contains the reconstructed archaeological site. It was incredible. I usually call all the bear followers around here “bear stalkers”, but at that moment I could see how someone would want to be a bear stalker. Generally though I like to not stalk the bears; let them do their own thing.

We were giving bear mace training as well, but I’ll be honest, I don’t believe in the stuff. I’m not sure a little bit of pepper would deter a bear if it really wanted you, and the likelihood of spraying yourself instead of the bear is way too great for my liking. I don’t want to be a tasty treat for the bear thank you very much.

Speaking of tasty treats though, I do like getting tasty treats in the mail!! It’s amazing how happy people get when Alan, our pilot, comes in with lots of boxes! The other day when I received food from Amanda and my mom I was so ecstatic that I thought I was going to cry. Hehe… I wasn’t really going to cry tears of joy, but I was really really happy! Oh my gosh are Betty Crocker Fudge Truffles good!! For a person that doesn’t really like sweets, Amanda did an amazing job picking some out!

Over the weekend we all meant to do something fun and exciting, but once again the weather dictated everything we did, including going out on a boat to the Bay of Island. It’s supposed to be beautiful there. I can’t wait to see it at some point.

It’s ridiculous how the wind can blow out all the clouds and make Brooks Camp and its surrounding area beautiful, but make it miserable to go anywhere in a boat or a plane… or out to the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes for that matter, where the ash is blowing around everywhere.

A group of us did get out of camp on day trips though. We hiked to Mortuary Cove on Saturday and to the Three Forks Overlook on Sunday. Mortuary Cove is known by that name, because no matter how hard the east winds are blowing, that cove is very calm. It was nice not to have the wind cooling everything down. It even looked and felt as if in the middle of summer I may want to go swimming there. The Three Forks Overlook overlooks the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, so we had to take the NPS Excursion out to kilometer 32 and then hike the rest of the way to the overlook. It was a good hike and the view was completely worth it! I already have the idea that this summer at some point I want to go to Novarupta (the site of the 1912 volcanic eruption that the park was formed to protect). I think it would be just incredible to hike over the ash that is 200 feet deep in some areas and see what has and hasn’t recovered after 96 years. It’s an incredible sight to see, even from the overlook!
The most excited news as of late though, is… get ready for it… I RECEIVED MY MISSING BOXES! Yay! Now my hair doesn’t smell like Pert and I have chips to eat! I got a bunch of other things as well, but I’ll be honest, I was pretty excited about the chips. My roommate also got a few things including sausage… mmm so good! It’s like Christmas!

Tomorrow we meet the concession people (Katmai Land) and have an all Brooks Camp employees’ meeting. It’s quite exciting really. We’ve been meeting people here and there, but it’ll be good to meet everyone. I’m not too happy with the Katmai Land people at the moment though. They woke me up at 9am this morning cutting down Spruce Bark Beetle killed trees. It’s probably my only three day weekend this summer and I didn’t sleep well. I was grumpy this morning. Oh well, the day turned out alright after all.

Just like I might say on the radio… it’s time to go. 625 clear. :-)

Fishy!

5_21_08

It feels great to be alive!

It’s amazing how fast days go by here. One would think that living out in the middle of nowhere would give me more time to write in my journal or write letters to people, but it’s just not true. On work days I get up, eat oatmeal for breakfast, and work from 8:30am to 5:30pm, with an hour long lunch (which is not enough time in itself), then after work there’s always something going on around camp. On my days off I find that there’s always been something to do as well.

For example, tonight we had a pot-luck dinner that lasted a little over an hour and now there’s a movie on in the auditorium that I’m missing out on. (I thought it was time to write about my adventures and do some long over due reading instead of watching a movie called King of the Corn, or some such thing.) Yesterday after work I showed one of my favorite sitcoms; Coupling. Thankfully Amanda was willing and able to send it to me. Yay for very funny British comedies!! Then I chatted with some of the other crew in camp until about 11pm. The day before that I went fishing right after work. It was wonderful! Well, mostly wonderful; I wasn’t too happy about having to throw both of my Rainbow Trout back because they were too big. The regulations say you can only catch and keep one Rainbow Trout a day as long as it’s less than 18 inches in length… or something like that. All I know was that I was fishing with one of our law enforcement rangers and the first Rainbow I caught was 20” and the second one was about 23”. They were awesomely big, and would have been tasty fish!! Dang law enforcement! Oh well, Ralph, the very sweet and smart law enforcement ranger I was with caught a Lake Trout so we did end up with fish for dinner. It was a very late dinner at about 10pm, but it was yummy!

I haven’t been getting to bed until about 11pm every night. It doesn’t really matter though, because it’s still dusky at 11pm. Gee I love Alaskan summers!

Speaking of Alaskan summers, I’m living this one up! Last weekend a group of about 8 of us went camping on a little island in the middle of Lake Brooks. It was a bit of a learning experience. We only had one day off because our schedule has been weird, so we left on Saturday after work and hung out on the island/hiked Mt. Brooks on Sunday. On the day we left we couldn’t get the boat situation figured out, because the person who had the boat hadn’t seen that it was already checked out by our group. I therefore ended up sitting in the middle of an aluminum canoe so that we could get some people out to the island to set-up while the others waited for the motorboat to come back. The first thing I learned was not to assume that the pants I think are waterproof are actually waterproof. After what I think was about an hour or longer in that canoe, but butt was FROZEN. The only thing I could think about when we got to the island was building a fire. It was really too bad that I sucked at building a fire though. I couldn’t remember any of my Girl Scout training. Ha! Lucky the motorboat pulled up at that minute with my collogue Mason who gave me his rain pants to wear. Unluckily though he had forgot the big tent at Brooks Camp. We had to boat back to get it and then we were going to go fishing. As we headed out, I realized that I didn’t have a lifejacket, so we had to go back. When we arrived at shore I should have gone with Mason to get the tent and a dry pair of pants, but I wasn’t that smart. Instead I tried to warm my butt by the heater in the cabin by the lake. It wasn’t helpful. When Mason arrived back at the boat we finally headed of to go fishing… only to realize that Mason was the one without the lifejacket now. We of course had to go back for it. Another lesson was learned; make sure you have all the gear you need before you head out to go camping or fishing.

Fishing was good though. I think we spent about two hours and forty-five minutes on the water and caught a total of two fish. I caught the first fish. I was so proud of myself, I was the only girl on the boat, I caught the first fish, and it was a Rainbow a little under 18”! That night we had a feast of one Rainbow and one Lake Trout. Lake Trout is pretty good, but along side a Rainbow Trout it didn’t taste like much. Rainbow Trout is really the way to go.

The next morning we had a very nice camp breakfast. It was great! Thanks all to Mason, the backcountry chef!

As you can see though, I’ve been up to a lot. Training has been going well and I can’t wait to meet the visitors. Tomorrow is more bear training… or should I say, people management training. One of my main responsibilities as a park ranger is to make sure people don’t get in a bear’s way. It sounds very complicated and stressful if you ask me. I’d rather just be giving hikes and talks, but guess this people management will give me more experience with other things I may do in future parks. (Then again I don’t feel like I know where my life is going at the moment. It’s a bit scary at times.)

Signing off for now. I have to get up in the morning and be prepared to learn more about bears. I hope everyone is well!

So much to say

05_13_08

I’ve now been at Brooks Camp in Katmai National Park for about 5 days, but it feels like I’ve been here a month already because of all the things that have been going on.

Day one started with weighing myself and all my gear in King Salmon, Alaska to prepare for a flight on the single engine NPS (National Park Service) plane. All the rangers headed out to Brooks Camp on Friday were allowed themselves and 100 pounds of gear (enough food, clothing, and other items to live on for a couple of days to a couple of weeks, if needed). It was very nerve racking to try to pack 100 pounds of essentials. Luckily though, the pilot, Alan, didn’t seem to care that I was carrying 115 pounds of gear. As a matter of fact I think we were able to get about 200 pounds of my gear onto the plane. Apparently I don’t weigh much. Sometimes it is a bonus to be little.

The flight itself was awesome! It was a 15/20 minute flight from King Salmon to Brooks Camp. I did not get motion sick and I saw a lot. We saw moose, bear, and even a dozen caribou. We also saw the landscape change dramatically. It was gorgeous to see the flat bland lands and little ponds turn into mountains and huge blue ice covered lakes. The best part was the landing though. We really did a dive bomber move. Alan cut the engine and practically pointed the nose of the plane at the beach (we did an off runway landing). Thankfully I felt completely confident with Alan behind the yoke, otherwise I would have thought for sure that I was going to die. I think my confidence in him, and myself, was boosted by the water ditching training we had the days leading up to the flight. For your information water ditching went well… for the most part. (I need to get the photos and videos from my boss, Roy.)

As a side note, make sure your seat belt secure when flying in a small plane. When we did the simulations for a water crash in a small plane there was one time that my seatbelt unbuckled itself and I really got thrashed around in the PCP simulator. Also learn to hold your breath for a very long time … they practically rolled us half way across the pool in one of simulations that my partner and I did. I was sure I was going to try to take a breath if I had to stay under water for much longer. That would have been no good. I was totally panicked. I do not want to do that training again for a very very long time.

Back to what I was saying… Once my roommate and I landed in Brooks Camp it was off to our tent-frame “apartment” to set-up. It wasn’t very cozy to begin with, but it now looks colorful and lived in! We also had the bonus of some cool Christmas lights that were left behind that helped! That night we had our first on the ground bear sighting; a courting couple. They were about 100 yards or more down the beach from where we have camp. I feel like the rangers are bear stalkers though, with the way they try to get a good look at the bears and figure out which bears they are.

In total since Friday I’ve seen something like 6 bears since being here. At least 5 of them were stalked by the rangers. The other one was seen moving through camp. He was so close!!

Day two of Brooks Camp was a day off. Stephanie and I spent the majority of the day organizing our tent-frame just a bit more and hiking. It was good to see Lake Brooks and the Brooks Falls. I’m pretty sure we saw a river otter while we were at Brooks Falls. We had seen one the pervious night as well. I wish I could have taken a picture, but there’s not even a chance that I could have taken a good picture with my camera. It was way too far away. With how beautiful of a day it had been, we were wiped out at the end. The only problem was that I wasn’t able to sleep the whole night through. I’ve been sick with a deep cough for the past couple of days. It gets worse at night.

Day three was very windy!! It was so windy that some of the flights that were scheduled to come out weren’t able to. I also was beginning to think that I could be turned into a human kite. For training we did go on a hike again to Lake Brooks. The shelter from the trees kept a lot of the wind at bay. That was nice. It was nice to get a tour of camp and the 3 trails we have around here as well. Yes, 3 trails, the rest of the trails you make yourself. For a post hiking activity, we sat in the one and only well heated cabin (the management cabin) and watched a movie about Salmon. It was interesting for the most part. I was just happy to be warm really. The wind was coming off the still frozen lake and nights in the tent-frame are awful so far. They are very very cold, even with two space heaters… and me being in the loft.

Day four was tedious… unwrapping little pins from plastic, cleaning buildings with no heating because the electricity to them hadn’t been turned on yet, and trying to stay out of the wind. It wasn’t very exciting at all.

Today was nice. It was a day off for the most part. There was non-mandatory training that was supposed to be going on, but because of the winds the planes with all the people weren’t able to land until later in the afternoon. We did finally get to part of the training at the end of the day. Tomorrow will be a full day of boat training. It will be interesting to see if the have us boating at all tomorrow. It’s a bit cold and windy. Also part of the training is swimming in the lake. You know how last journal entry I said I wasn’t ready to swim in the lake… I better get myself ready, because it’s going to happen sooner than later. I can’t believe I’m doing this voluntarily. I just keep telling myself, “it’s free training and it’ll look great on my resume.” It’s really just too bad that I’ll be sick while doing it. I hope it doesn’t mess up my body too bad!! I like learning the information though.

Well, I suppose this is long enough to bore anyone, myself included, so it’s time for bed. I look forward to another day here at Katmai National Park.

By the way I think I may do my evening program so that it’ll involve SCAT! Hahaha… I was thinking “Moose Poo: What does animal evidence say about an animal?” or some such thing. My program is a whole other journal entry though.

Peace out!

P.S. I've decided to spend my day getting healthy instead of jumping into a freezing cold lake. Also pictures are taking forever to load... so I need to figure out some other way to get pictures up or I need to sit here for a long while... or I need to take less quality pictures... hmm I'll work it out.

Written 05/06/08

Wow, where to start… Things here in King Salmon have been very busy! It was only a few days ago that I flew into King Salmon with a hang-over, but it feels like it’s already been at least a week.

My last day plus some in Anchorage was fun filled with Olin and Amanda. While Amanda did her crazy accounting job (which is actually a decent amount of hours at the moment), Olin took me out to do last minute shopping for fishing gear… and anything else I had forgotten earlier. By the time I shipped everything to myself I truly did feel like one of those Master Card commercials:

$300 for food
$800 for gear
$200 to ship food and gear to myself
A summer at Katmai National Park…. Priceless (at least I hope so)

I can’t believe how nervous I still am, and I’m already half way there. I guess my nervousness comes from the fact that I haven’t received even half of the food I’ve sent to myself. We leave for the camp on Friday and I am allowed to only take 100lbs of food and gear with me. It has to be enough to get by for one or two weeks. I have no idea what-so-ever how I’m going to do it! Also, the lakes are still frozen. This does not help my decision to fish for supplementary food. I can’t ice fish! Long story, short, I hope that the rest of my food gets to me and that I figure out how to pack it.

I’m a bit stressed you could say. Not as stressed as I was when I was working on my masters… but stressed enough.

Training has helped keep some of that stress under wraps, because the park service keeps us very busy. So far we’ve filled out paper work, watched a bunch of videos, took a tour of the King Salmon area (not the “city”, because that takes 3 seconds… literally), and flight safety training. Tomorrow we will be doing the “water” part of Water Ditching Training. Basically what they will be doing is simulating a water plane crash using some weird pc pipe rig. We will have to show our trainers that we know how to escape a plane if it crashes into a lake. I’m not sure how I feel about it yet, but we are doing it in a warm pool according to the rangers. I suppose that’s a bonus. I can’t even see me in a lake here… at least not yet.

The only other thing really that is causing frustration in my life is my uniform. It is so not fair that I have to order all of my uniform using the crappy internet here and not knowing how it’s going to fit when it gets here. There is a return policy of 30 days, but if you keep returning items it will be the end of the season before you have all of you uniform.

As far as good things go, I have a great roommate, I’ve been to a Naknek beach party, I’ve already had salmon for one dinner, and my co-workers and I went to the King Co for a Cinco de Mayo party.

My roommate is wonderful so far. :) She’s an anthropology major. She finished her masters in New Zealand. She speaks German. She plays flute. She’s creative. It seems like we’re a pretty good match. I’m excited! I think it’s amazing that our supervisor randomly put us together and we just lucked out.

I suppose it’s time for me to make dinner… with the little amount of food I have. *sadly shakes head* Dang post office.

I hope everyone is well. I miss you all immensely already. It’s weird being disconnected. I think it’s something I need to get used to though. Hopefully I will. *crosses fingers*