Spring in Alaska Maybe

Spring in Alaska Maybe?

Craig Wilson

Still commuting by small plane into Juneau every week to work for the state environmental conservation department. This job lasts until June, then I'll probably take another one year position to teach the Alaska Rail Road how to clean up oil and hazmat spills.

Commuting by small plane is fun, but hard on the eardrums. I've started wearing little foam earplugs during the flight. There were some early tourists flying with me a couple weeks ago. When we hit some turbulence they started making weird noises, moaning and religious chanting. At first

I thought they were saying either "We're doing too fine" or "We're going to buy", neither of which made much sense in a little Cessna going through the wash cycle of a snowstorm at 2,000 feet. Then I hit my head on the ceiling of the cabin and one of the earplugs fell out. Never try to put an earplug back in your ear during turbulence. The most likely outcome of the attempt will be that you will jam the earplug up your nose so far that you'll have to use needle-nosed pliers to get it back out. Anyway, hearing the hapless passengers in the back seat chanting "We're going to die!", and me in the front passenger seat with a piece of orange foam stuck up my left nostril, and the plane bouncing all over the place with snowflakes going every possible direction outside the window struck meas extremely funny. So I started whistling Christmas carols, which is difficult with only one working nostril.

Most of the time the flights are quite that dramatic. I've seen some beautiful sunsets coloring the mountain peaks pink with alpenglow. Coming into the Gustavus airport one evening I counted over 30 moose hanging around just outside the security fence at the airport runway. I've also seen mountain goats on Excursion Ridge way up on the windswept ridges after a strong storm has uncovered some lichen and mosses.

The wild geese are pairing up again, flying all over the place looking for nesting sites. A pair of wild swans took up winter quarters in the salt march at the mouth of the river this year. And last years hatch of chickens has started laying.

The roosters and cockerels had a rough time this winter. First the rooster kicked the bucket due to frostbite and a respiratory infection. Then one of the cockerels got eaten by an owl. The last two cockerels also died, probably by owls, but also possibly due to other causes. That left me without any males for this year's hatch, so a friend in Juneau gave me a buff cochin cockerel, whom I have nicknamed "Bubba Sam". At slightly less than a year old, Bubba is already over 10 lbs. He's a typical teenager, he knows he's supposed to do something with the hens, but he's a little confused about the details and his technique needs practice. Unfortunately, most of the hens have seen better (the old rooster was a complete gentleman, ever brought the selected hen flowers and candy (bugs)). The black java's give him about 5 seconds to get his act together, and if he doesn't connect on the first try they basically kick him off and out. It will be interesting to see what kind of mutt chickens come out of this years crosses.

Bear season hasn't started yet, although there have been a few reports of bears coming out of their dens further west. We have had a couple grassfires already though. One woman started burning her garbage in a burn barrel and then went into her house to take a shower. When she got out we were housing down the side of her house. The only reason her garage didn't go up in flames is that there was so much junk piled up behind it that the fire sputtered and died out before it could get through all the rusted metal.

Old man Swenson out at 2 mile on Rank Creek Road almost caught the Bear's Nest Lodge on fire last weekend. He wasn't going to call the fire in, probably because of embarrassment. He planned to burn his front yard so the grass would come in greener, but ended up burning over two acres of his neighbors yard. An airplane flying overhead reported the flames. The flames got to within 15 feet of the lodge, a massive log structure. That would have made a big bonfire.

More later....