Valdez - Land of the Rich, richer and getting seriously drunk on oil

Kirk Franklin couldn't have said it better, as we walked along the shoreline in the depth of the tropical forest at 98% humidity it was "negro spiritual hot". Sweat was being ingested instead of exiting our bodies. Yodeling like a banshee due to the large "berry filled scant" along our route every few hundred meters, Hal voice was course within 6 mile when we finally reached the ocean. Having arrived the evening prior under ominous clouds we decided to hike what we could under the midnight sun. Local trails around town were strewn with bears, eagles, salmon running upstream, and a few sailors spewing their local dialect of @#$%^.

This photo was taken in the winter as they don't get that much snow directly in town and what the summer doesn't cover is the extensive oil fields and plantations that don't dot the scenery, they are the scenery. The beauty is abound in the vast lush hills that surround this town yet the odor is one of if it doesn't move - kill it. Numerous fishing, and big game hunting outfitters line the sidewalk, the gentle spiritual sense of Haines, is not here.

The Maxine and Jesse Whitney Museum was fabulous, but that too took its tool on the indigenous people that lived in these areas. She came here with her husband in the late 40's and quickly fell in love with the artifacts that the locals were making, and began a large enterprise selling them in the lower 48. The museum has a vast collection of their clothing, tools, living conditions, and animals they hunted, using all parts of it, unlike the white man that almost ran numerous breeds into extinction with the opening of the Alaskan Highway. The nighttime talks at our campsite by locals Natives have been very informative.

Nightly podcasts are keeping us abreast as to the plight of the "immigrants' in the United States, those coming in from Poland, Czech Republics, Philippines, are all stating that even after 2 generations many are not welcome or considered American by many white males. Jobs exist for immigrants but many white men don't want any other nation to take them. High unemployment and 11 million illegal immigrants are causing havoc on their system, yet they are tax paying citizens, so why not have them legitimized?
Here in Valdez, money flows like water yet not much thought according to the locals has been placed into creating a creative space for their kids, a safe place. We saw a myriad of kids high, drunk, and dabbling stupidity, covering all demographics and people. The outdoors doesn't seem to entertain them unless they are on a boat, on a plane, or heli skiing, all expensive and doesn't give them a sense of connection to the land. The only people on any trail we saw were foreigners from Europe or Canadian!

Unable to track down any relatives, we are going to head to the wharf for some fish, as I have been fascinated by the catch, cleaning, and filleting of Sockeye. We've tasted some local fair and it is excellent, if only we'd brought a fishing line. Jonathan Livingston had it made, these birds wait patiently for the remnants to be discarded and then feast.

Godspeed to all as we head to Glennallen tomorrow.

Polynesia Hues

Polynesian music wafts through the visitor center as a large figure gently slides his fingers over the local map inquiring while guiding us through his life. Low clouds hovered seeping into Hal's mood while inclement weather has always brought forth my ability to stay rooted, absorb others and desperately reach into another realm of calmness. Haines highway from Haines Junction, Canada pulled the car over a myriad of times to photograph its grandeur. Massive mountains reached skyward leaving a stark contrast of black granite, glaciers blues, and a plethora of greens only Ireland could compete with. Vast valleys took our spirits one direction then another towering our greatest expectations, Haines seemed so minute when we finally arrived, we both yearned to drive back sooner than later.
Drizzling rain added to the towns ambiance walking up and down roads searching for Church Mass times, brewery's, gift shops, state park camp grounds. The Brewery had all the appeal one could ask with cedar shakes, bluegrass in the backgrounds and local teaching us about how to appreciate their finest hops. The terrace looked up to a glacier framed in fireweed, apricot tiger lilies, and lettuce.
Gifts shops enticed us with a pathway of cherry treess, as the owner informed us "This is a zone 5", to Hal's amazement, raspberry bushes, thimble berries, and bluebells ordained his lawn and inside a litany of literature was discussed mainly early explorers. Satiated in the wordsmith we exchanged authors, titles, and mused in his presenc assimilating his ideals of how he trained as a mechanical engineer 43 years ago, never wanting to destroy nature, turned to sculpting and having visiting Haines at the age of 24, has never left.
Along the ocean front the river from Chilkoot lake to the ocean reels were spinning, fish were being lured, caught, filleted right on the shore lines, with two brown bears challenged a warden on a bridge.
After paying for our campsite fees the "host" informed us that bears frequent the site often. Hal's eyes widened with fear, as the owner now with our funds in hand, seems rather nonchalant in his 5th wheel, as our minds deliberated recent news about  mauling's. That night in the local bar our attention was diverted while listening to the fishermen speak of their "daily salmon catch" as it was high season for hauling in 10-30 thousand fish per day.
Light beer with a double tequila chaser was on tap that night, we stuck to the craft beer, and watched in awe as a party of 25 came in just having sprinkled their mother's ashes over the ocean ordering, "local farts", a concoction of Kalula, Bailey's and Crown Royal, my tongue tasted the sweetness and cringed, yet I could think of many a friend licking their lips on that one, for this gang was ordering doubles and triples.
Hiking on the ocean trails and up Mt. Ripinsky in clouds perspiring out toxins and ingesting a depth of oxygen that was intoxicating.
A short jaunt out to another state park brought us into contact with Rich and his wife that entertained us with his version of what the @#$%^ is wrong with American's and especially Alaskan's that voted Republican and the trouble with youth these days, American Natives, the economy, and local ecology. Hal and l listened attentively as he was well versed, highly entertaining, opinionated, and comedic in one breath. He thought as many Canadian's do, What the heck have we just done to our political system? along with we deserve it! He has lived in Alaska for a decade and loved it, now retired volunteerism is big on his list and trying to downsize to a modest house that doesn't exist in America, "The trouble with American's is we want everything to be big, bigger, biggest....If the entire world was as contemptuous as us, we'd be #$%^.
This trip has truly allowed us to breath in literature as we are now on our 6-7 novel each, and listen to locals, they love it, we enjoy it, in between hiking and listening to our podcasts that Hal downloaded prior to our trip on his Ipod, we've learned about our Natives plight living in distant communities, the troubles in Myanmar, Australian refuges, debates over economies, Immigrants in the States - Germany and Canada, to name a few, daily doses keep our dreams hoping.
Tomorrow we are back to Kathleen Lake in the afternoon to pack up for a three day backpacking trip to the Slims Valley in Kluane.
Hope all are well learning, growing, and loving this magnificent country, planet we are blessed to visit. Godspeed to all.

Rock On !

After multiple conversations in my mind and watching Hal become increasingly nervous, anxious, we aborted The Donjek and sought other hikes. My heart sank as I so...wanted to show him the mist amazing terrain, yet it was easy to give up when the man you love means the world to you, and being in their presence exceeds any vista.
Kimberly Meadows, a gentle 3 day backpack up over a pass and into some meadows, it all was too idealic. 4 kilometres up a trail the route finding started, dodging the ragging river coming down, yodelling to ward off beasts, while grasping branches on the edge to avert plunging into the frigid waters, and thrashing through alders carrened by puffy flowers sap residue that clung to our hair, what more could we ask for.  My mind began to wander within hours if we'd got ourselves into a pickle. Hal's leg began acting up at about 2 pm, 5 hours in, just when we found a mere 30% angle to hang the tent off. Grass surrounded us with massive moraine, glaciers and not a soul in sight to claim we'd made it.
The skies of the midnight sun wasn't a problem for me to sleep through, Hal resembled Zoro wearing an eye mask each night, as I flinches each morning waking up to a stranger.
Day 2 over the pass and down to the passive meadows, right?
Over the pass, a massive moraine brought snow to glide down for 300 meters then the warden cautioned us to keep right, knarly rock, high brush and those blasted alders kept us company for 6 hours. Our lake we so sought had dried up as had the creek on the topi map, a mere mistake the warden forgot to mention, which meant back tracking on a lower contour only to be sought by tundra, tuffs of earth that might cushion your foot if it didn't fall over, our aging hips were screaming. In the back of my mind I kept  hearing Jim Gaffigan, a comedian, rolling on about how his parents loved him and thus never took him camping and we were doing this on our own accord. The vast open corridor was magestic from our camp sight just above the glaciers creek and we celebrated our achievement with an extra ration of hash, silver lining always exist, you just have to look really hard at times. While waiting for a heard of caribou to move through we swated flies watching the colors of the skies change and discussed Irish literature and how to inject it into our next year curriculum.
Day 3 God blessed us with a lovely hidden glacier route up the far right flank and within an hour we were at the pass. I leapt up Mt. Descoli part way as we knew hours of fun lied ahead in the river. Just when we thought we'd out  smarted ourselves the high waters of the afternoon caught us stranded bushwalking, something I'd vowed not doing after living in Interior BC for half a decade and being part of the search and rescue crew that did it all to often. Lest to say we got out, never enjoyed a shower so much in Haines Junction and ventured down the road to Kathleen Lake.
The evening interpretive talks on Inland Salmon, and Grizzlies, 2 nights in a row were brilliant, the warden was extremely well versed for 26 years old, serving tea and intellect were a welcome exchange. We'd decided to hike up the King Thrown, having read the sign stating 1300 gain, it felt refreshing without our heavy loads, albeit, the 500 down hard scree took a toll on our aging knees, today is a rest day as we plan more hiking down in Haines, Alaska. Best of all to you.

Wild West Wrangles an Eastern Heart

July 16th

Father Joseph from South America gave a resounding message about God's pruning. Gospel was stacotic as he pushed words into being that a congregation seems unable to swallow.
"As a child, he bellowed, I hated being repremanded." His words had hardly left his mouth when a flood of all my follies rushed like a raging river into my mind brimming over the edges, tilting my head to keep them from overflowing into the next seat and loving those that hadn't given up guiding me.
"Do we really know ourselves, he said, or do we enter life, marriage and all relations  yearning never to be chastised. Wow! Another ephiphany.
God was loving sending others to assist us and like stubborn storms we refused to subside, and stampped our feet in defiance. His gospel filled my soul yearning to rest at his feet in his protection, his care, kindness and generosity for the day.

The laundromat was the perfect place to put prayer into practise, as our untouchable decided to have a play date with someone else's, laughter erupted in place of fear, anger, and true embarrassment. Clothing a life of their own tumbling into new beings that spring forth from design, concepts, material, sizes, countries, I'll paid labourers into my hands and for what to ward off inclement weather when all I truly yearn is to be one with nature, to wear her clothes.

Beer, Hal's second friend, depth, tasteful, bubbly, and forever looking for new opportunities to exist. Winterlong - hosted an Alberta crew of barmaids, brew master and clients. Alberta barley swept tastes of prairie into each sip savouring long hues of earthly tones over and over reaching perfection on one's nose. A francophone contingency converged on the fringe of the brewery children drawing, while women folk sipped flavours their men gulped life into their kin. A game of cribbage brought laughter as rules were made up en -route to accommodate victory for moi. Vogue 30 somethings were now becoming beer connosouirs that our generation could have only hoped for. Along with the IPA they slurped, and sucked oysters centuously while making love in their minds.

Libraries are my sanctuary as Hal receives more notes from old students that want to meet up for a pint, they are everywhere, just yesterday in the middle of WHitehorse, he met up with parents of 3 children he had taught. They invited us to dine in their 5th wheels and we could hardly believe the lap of luxury I'd been missing miling around on the ground in our tent. I also saw a story rich in content of a family death, an inheritance, sentiments, not yearing someone else's hardships. Sleep came easy as our pod cast left us deserted on an island of ideas about morality, to what extreme the human mind would go to hang onto it, or alleviate the disappointment of knowing it was easily abated.

Godspeed from Whitehorse.

The Unlikely Passage of Hal and Kate

 

The Unlikely Passage of Harold and Kate

      In the midst of reading the Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry it came to me that our yearly journey’s around the world in search of hiking trails that seek to satiate our wildest dreams, albeit always grand, need something different this year, and thus begins our journey to satisfy God’s wishes instead of ours. Daily time with God will ensure his will is being done. Thus July 4^th is the first day of our migration into the unknown.

      Summer brings a myriad of literature into our eyes realm, and as my eyes feast on “The Trouble with Goats and Sheep,” another message is clearly pressed into my heart, that I am to feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, invite the needy into our home, and look after the sick and visit those in prison, all of which has been and continues to be presented to us this season.

      When our minds our open to his command miracles abound daily. Each day I asked my students to smile at those they don’t know in the hallway, sheep do as they are told, and come back with mysteries unexplained, goats simply disobey and never see the wonders of his world, for I tell them daily, it has nothing to do with me, you will not remember me tomorrow, yet I pray your journey with Christ is forever.

            C.S. Lewis – The Chronicles of Narnia is also on my list again, and timely as always he too will lead us into temptation to see the world through his eyes and not our own. Come along with us, as we begin with a brimming strong cup of coffee out on the back deck just prior to making our final packing preparations. Hal is scattered with one sprig of hair resembling Alfalfa, as sleep lures him back into fantasies that can’t be answered right now, for there are bills to pay, and dancing of the fairies prior to this ship embarking of its maiden voyage.