Here is another Kipnuk video that I shot with my good friend Andy. He was here in Quinhagak this last weekend for a Singspiration at the church. So, it was fun to see him. Now a disclaimer on this video, this is not the smartest thing to do on a snowmachine. Really, this is probably one of the worst things for safety and engine longevity. I am not recommending it to anybody, kind of like jumping off bridges, am I right buddies??




Music: Willie Nelson
"Crazy"
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Jimi Hendrix
"Voodoo Child, (Slight Return)"
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Plane Flight - Kipnuk

This short video is a from a bush flight out of Kipnuk. It is a couple of years old and I am posting it mainly for my friends and family down south, who haven't had the pleasure of flying in one of these state of the art flying machines.

Wow, I have had this MacBook for about 4 years now. Wow???You say?? Well, it took me 4 years to figure out how to import movie from our Panasonic PV-120GS video camera. For 4 years, I have been under the assumption that the cord was bad, the port was bad, the camera was broke or that it only worked with the old PC. This weekend the case was solved. The operator was bad. It took a simple Google search and iMovie, and 6 tapes worth of comedic gold was unlocked and is now ready for your viewing pleasure. Over the next few days, I will upload the videos. Stay tuned.

In addition to that news, I am looking for ideas. Pulling a Mike "Dirty Jobs" Rowe on y'alls and asking you to leave a comment on what you want to see, watch or read. I am running out. Please, I beg you. Isn't that what he says?

Caynon Lake - Togiak National Wildlife Refuge

Last Saturday, when the weather was still cold and the snow was not making chocolate slushies. Tim took me for a little adventure. First of all, thank you again Tim. Can't say it enough.

The goal of the trip was to venture by snowmachine to Canyon Lake, which is about 45 miles south of Quinhagak through the Ahklun Mountains. There we would try our hand at catching Lake Trout. A species that neither Tim or myself have had the pleasure of catching. We started out at 8:00 am and traveled across the tundra, as the Arolik River was spotty and we didn't want to deal with open water. The trail was a little rough as you can see. We picked our way along, stopping to shot Ptarmigan when they wouldn't get out of the way.

As we made our way through the pass, the scenery just kept getting better and better. The amount of Ptarmigan got larger as well. They were in the bushes, on the sides of the hills and sometimes right on the path, just everywhere. Thousands. We brought 18 home.

Around 11:00 am we crossed the Arolik and headed up the south side. Now, the mountains that I have pictured at the top of this blog are like the first layer of a cake. After that layer, their is a large, flat valley. Beyond that to the south is another set of mountains- that are a little more rugged and amazing. Together with the flat valley, they look like a dream with low clouds and these island like mountains. The snow got better as we crossed the river and that made snowmachining easier. We still stopped a few times though to gaze and rest our eyes. Snow blindness was a slight concern.

After a little while we came to a decision. Tim knew the lake was up one of two valleys. We couldn't see the lake from our vantage, so we chose the valley on the right and worked our way into a very nice area, void of any discernible lake. All was not lost as we got more good photos. We then back tracked and took the other valley to the east.


We had found the lake (Above to the right) and then set about trying to find a decent place to fish. We picked a spot, thought it was probably about 20 feet deep and started drilling a couple of holes. As you can see from the picture, the ice was really thick. We seriously almost didn't have enough drill. I dropped a line and didn't reach the bottom. I had 75 feet of line on that pole. We fished out of those holes for a while with no fish. Tim went to look for any old holes that might give us a better idea of where to fish. He found some that were really close to the shore and about that time some other folks from Quinhagak arrived and said we were in a good spot. We struggled to get a few holes drilled in this new spot. We kind of decided right there to not do anymore drilling. We spent the next 5-6 hours jigging in those holes. They proved productive as Tim came through with his first Lake Trout, in his 19th year in Quinhagak (Congrats, buddy!!). Not long after, I got my first one as well. They weren't giants, but genuine Lake Trout in one of the most remote places on earth. Extreme ice fishing was the term we coined. We caught another couple of really nice Dolly Varden later in the day before heading home.

The ride back was just unreal. The dream-like mountains were...I can't describe them and pictures seriously don't do the scene any justice. The scale of the area is what a camera can't reproduce, not by me anyway. A need to see it to believe it situation.

We got home about 11:00 pm that night and right in time for another Bering Sea sunset. All in all, this trip was one of the highlights of this Alaska experience.

Click on the all pictures for larger formats.

Spring Flood - 2009

Things are getting a little messy. We had a warm-up a few days ago and it is amazing how quickly thing melt. Now this is no Fargo, ND, not even close, but you get to see what happens every spring in the north country.



Artist: Lightnin' Hopkins
Song: Backwater Blues (That Mean Old Twister)

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10:00pm Sunset

Last night, we hit a 10:00pm sunset for the first time this spring. We are getting 14 hrs. and 34 minutes of sun presently. When the sunset was setting up to be a good one, I snapped these couple of pics for your viewing pleasure. They are from the beach, looking out over a still frozen Bering Sea. Winter errrrrr...I am sick of you. Enjoy

Country Magazine Update

So the "Country Magazine" article with my pictures is scheduled for next year in the Feb/March issue. I talked to the editor the other day and she was happy with everything and a check came today. So it wasn't a prank. Hopefully my agent Eric aka "The Boras" will set me up with a few more opportunities. Thanks again Boss.

http://www.country-magazine.com/

Might make a new video of this sometime this weekend. The crappy camera kept going in and out of focus.

Music is by Tom Cadaret - song is called "Water Song" Enjoy!

This was going to be my fishing hole, until after 10 minutes of chipping ice, we broke through and water started gushing out. It looks very dangerous, but that ice is over a foot thick. Give it a few minutes and this guy is not going very close. Don't worry Mom.

Finally set the hook on a Arolik Leopard Rainbow. I was jigging with a stick in one hand and the line in the other, so I could feel the jig. Felt like a brick wall when he bit.


He is a couple of other pictures from Saturday. These folks were catching some nice Rainbows as well.

Ptarmigan Hunting

Milt, Michael and I enjoyed a beautiful day of Ptarmigan hunting yesterday. Barely a whisper of wind and about 20 degrees, you can't ask for much more. We saw so many birds it was ridiculous. I reloaded the .22 three or four times and only hit 5. It holds 25 shots. Not good shooting. Later that night, I took the gun over to the beach for a little sighting in. The first 4 shots were within 1/2" at 50 yards. So, it was not the gun. Embarrassing.

Furnace on the Fritz

hOur furnace(boiler) may be down for the count. Hopefully not, but it is not looking good. Just look at the pictures - the thing does not look good. It's like a rusty dinosaur.

About 2 weeks ago we had a cold snap that has tried its best to hang on. A few nights it dipped down in the -10 to -15 range. We kept waking up cold and the boiler was not catching up during the day. We had the thing turned up to 80-85, but it wouldn't break 60 degrees. It had a funny smell too. Smelled like wet paint. After a long weekend(spring break), we had the maintenance guys come by to smell "the smell". They filled the glycol tank (the stuff that runs through the registers) and then the glycol started flowing out the bottom of the furnace. That is not where it is supposed to flow.

A gasket is on order and hopefully that is the fix all here. If not, they have to replace the whole thing. That may be the best thing to do, but let's do that in the summer huh? In the mean time that brown thing is spitting out tons of heat. Making the house boiling hot, but it is not a water heater, so no showers. For that, the maintenance guys said they would fill the glycol tank and get the furnace running for few hours, until the glycol runs all out the bottom. Ahhh, the joys. haha. I'll keep you all updated.

Spring!

Well...not exactly. I took this picture on the first day of spring. Here's to hoping it comes soon.

NCAA Tourney

Screen shot here from my espn.com bracket. 99.4% ain't too bad!! Better than Obama. Now if those 27,799 other people would get out of my way.

Simms Fishing - Kanektok River - Quinhagak, AK

Here is a video that I found on youtube. I'm sure they won't mind the link here - more advertising for them. This is the river that is about 100 yards away. It's rough, I know. The guide service that is being interviewed is called Alaska West. There is another one is called Duncan Brothers. Give them a look on the google, there are some good pictures.

In other news, Leelando (my dad) will be making the trip up with me in July. We are coming early to hopefully hit the end of the King salmon run. We will be enjoying 20 hours of sunlight and 24 hours of fishing a day for the 10 days he is here.

Side note: I like how the guy calls Quinhagak "Strange, God forsaken, end of the earth". While it does seem like the "end of the earth" sometimes, I wouldn't say "God forsaken". Fishing is too good. ;-)

Mold!

Not really, those are nails in our arctic entry. Frost is just coming through the outside wall. I licked one just to be sure. jk

(TMI) Too much information - I used to say "Don't go there", but that was so yesterday

Here is our new communal honeybucket. Nice huh? What happened to the old one, you ask?? Well, it was really full and froze on one cold Alaskan night. You know what happens when liquids (some solids) freeze, they expand and crack their old disgusting containers.

We didn't have this beauty for about 2 weeks after that. So...I was hauling the goods down the road, maybe 4-5 hundred yards away. I didn't want to walk that far, so I drove the 4-wheeler. The bucket was in the rack on the front of the Big Bear. So I was wafted with that the whole way. Lovely.

(You know what's in those buckets...popsicles)

(New car shine...but a new car smell???...no)

March 20, 2009	Rise:	Set:
Actual Time	8:44 AM AKDT	9:00 PM AKDT
Civil Twilight	8:03 AM AKDT	9:41 PM AKDT
Nautical Twilight	7:14 AM AKDT	10:30 PM AKDT
Astronomical Twilight	6:21 AM AKDT	11:24 PM AKDT
Moon	7:30 AM AKDT	1:33 PM AKDT
Length Of Visible Light:	13h 37m
Length of Day	12h 15m Tomorrow will be 5m 23s longer.

Jerky

Made up some jerky today and I am waiting up for it to finish. Should be done by about 1 am. Should taste really friggin good.

19 pounds of caribou jerky.
1 jerky shooter.
1 jerky elbow, forearm, and shoulder.

Tomorrow we are going to try for another Caribou. This time I feel more prepared, so if Lord willing...more jerky!!

Here is the blizzard we had last Thursday. At the time of this video, I would say it was a 5 on a scale of 1-10. Later that night a 8 or 9 was hitting us and left quite a bit of snow in huge drifts all over the place. This is not quite a "white out", but if you were on the tundra you wouldn't be seeing much.