Images of Alaska - Draft 3

Images of Alaska 1

August 2005

The idea to create a book based on our Alaska trip came about when I found the Alaskan poems that Ann had written. It was simply chance, as I was looking for a device that would plug into the USB ports on her laptop and found the poems on it. In the first days after she died it helped me cope with the very early starts to my mornings when I couldn’t sleep and filled the space with positive memories of the remarkable trip we made together. We’d been together just over seven years at this time. My biggest regret on reading her words was that I hadn’t said enough about what a talented woman I thought she was. Some of the writing moved me to tears as I thought about the moments and the stories she had told me about her earlier life. It’s still very, very early days and I miss her dreadfully.

During the trip I kept a journal where I jotted down diary entries and sometimes sketches to which I later added thumbnail photographs. I did very little with the thousands of photos I took on the trip, though I did choose twenty five to put onto Flickr under the title: `Alaskan Landscapes’ - https://bit.ly/3lfRvPd The words that provide the context for our trip and for Ann’s poems are mine and I own any errors that you spot. I didn’t have access to my proof reader on this occasion but if you spot any errors in this first draft I’d love to hear from you.

Several of these photos were taken by Ann using her small Nikon `point and shoot’ and one or two by my brother. The photos I took were taken with my first Panasonic Bridge Camera, so the images are relatively small jpegs compared to the images that most modern digital cameras (including phones) take today.

Thinking about your audience is always a difficult choice and it’s easy to bore people silly with travelogues. At least one of the things that happens with digital self publishing is that we can create more than one version. Perhaps in the end the travelogue version will just be for me and the edited version with poems will be of more interest to people who knew Ann as a writer.

Wendy North Saturday, 3 October 2020 2

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I a large man in loud checks holds a dead fish across his outspread hands proudly like a father who not knowing how to hold his newborn holds it like a dead fish II strips of filleted salmon chinook, coho symmetrically ordered on a wooden drying rack while whole fish wrapped in skunk cabbage roast over fire I head upstream in my red canoe What am I? grandmother chants to grand-daughter as they gather huckleberries thimbleberries Sockeye! the child cries On your way to see Creek Woman For the last time!

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Images of Alaska

Arriving in Prince Rupert, BC - 05/08/2005 We travel on a small thirty-seven seat Hawk Air flight from Vancouver to Prince Rupert.

After a long wait at the tiny Prince Rupert Airport our bus sets off for the drive into town.

We cannot understand why our driver stops and pulls over after about five minutes. Some of the Hawk Air staff get off and we are told it is OK for us to get off too. Imagine our surprise as we walk around the corner to be greeted by this view. We are wowed. Two eagles soar over the bay to our left and grey clouds mass over the hills adding to the grandeur of the setting. Our first view of the `Inside Passage'.

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The start of the Alaskan ferry journey along the pan-handle coast of Alaska is the Canadian border town of Prince Rupert. These words were written following the day we spent in the town. It was wet and fairly miserable and after our first excitement of landing on the airport island and seeing eagles close by, our experience of the town was not improved by the rain. We’d met alcohol abuse among some aboriginal young men in Australia and in Prince Rupert we met it again. Reading the second verse of this poem this morning I felt my tears flowing, not just for the loss of the young man in the poem but also for my own loss and for the sensitivity with which Ann has written. Reading her words, I see again that young man in the bushes.

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Raven Prince Rupert sore-throated raven calls from spruce branch over the rain-mottled sound sentinel at the seaward face of the Tshimshian longhouse-museum black feathered gleam in dull blue light the raven steps sideways along the branch and is hidden half-hidden among dripping bushes dripping young red maples his back against the long-house timbers as he sits on the earth the young Tshimshian leans too deep within himself too far lost to himself to hear the raven’s call echoing round the building by green hemlock and spruce and over the sound

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Ferry from Prince Rupert to Ketchikan

06/08/2005 - Journeying onwards through open water, along the inside passage from Prince Rupert to Ketchikan.

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Ferry 1: The Metanuska Prince Rupert to Ketchikan ferry throbs through silver mercury above mercury below, sliding slickly aside exposing a jade-green track sharp slivers of silver leap and flap dark diver shapes, sleek backs of something slide past and away behind as we slip on through and out of silver time islands pass a white lighthouse and the engines’ steady susurration throbs unceasing

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Arriving in Ketchikan

06/08/05 - The ferry travels along a coastline dotted with islands, some far apart and some close together. Before arriving in Ketchikan we travel down a narrow channel where small hunting lodges appear among the shoreline trees. As we emerge from behind the island we take our first glimpse of Ketchikan where small houses, red, blue, pink, grey, ascend the hill above the waterfront. Gradually, as the ferry sails on we see a titanic sized white building to our right. My first thought is why such a huge factory in this place. In moments it is clear. Not a factory but an enormous cruise ship dwarfing the town. Before leaving Ketchikan we witness five such ships on the same day.

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06/08/05 - Ketchikan Blueberry Fest We arrive on a sunny afternoon with a festival in full flow. The jazz band stomp out their beat from one side of the field while a scotch pipe-band on the other, squeeze out their wail. We find food, books, home-made bags and linocut cards created by an artist from whom we buy cards and chat together and later meet again on Deer Mountain. I also buy a small zipped fabric bag made made using a traditional design which I still use to store a portable zip drive. It’s a lovely event and we come away having shared lots of memorable stories with people.

Later we eat at the Chinese restaurant along Creek Street and then explore the picturesque buildings on stilts. Once the red-light district of the town this area now caters for the thousands of tourists who arrive on the cruise liners, though the things on sale here are a bit more tasteful than those in the gift shops closer to the ferry terminal.

We follow the creek up to the salmon ladder and marvel that so many fish could make it up and over such a forceful rush of water without the aid of a fish ladder. We find our way back up the hill to our accommodation , `Madam’s Manor’ and try not to notice the furnishings.

The bed is exceedingly comfortable!

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Madame’s Boudoir B&B Ketchikan The room is gloom and mirrors green stained glass defeating all but the most determined light and rampant roses clawing their plump pink weight up heavy drapes, stems lashed back among bed curtains by pink moiré restraints.

Mirrors reflecting mirrors and roses and dripping crystal chandelier and green-shadowed everywhere women’s headless torsos limbless trunks breathing with frills fringes ruffs and a flayed pale woman’s face bedraggled ostrich feathers sprouting from the vacancy where once her brain might have been her eyelids not quite closed 17

at night roses, mouths wide, guard the door scramble and thrust insinuate themselves into the shower and into our dreams where they wrench free of pink bows scale the chandelier crushing its crystals mirrors mirror each other’s cracks and twisted stems spiked with glinting shards reach for unwary sleepers

Words and images - Ann

07/08/05 - Ketchikan morning Around 8am the early morning cloud still hangs in swathes over the top of the hills. An amazing landscape surrounds us and the blue sky provides a perfect complement to the reds, blues and yellows of the brightly coloured buildings below.

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07/08/05 - Ketchikan creek We follow the salmon trail through the town, along the creek until we arrive at the gorge where the water hurls itself through the gap. As we watch we can see salmon resting in the shallows at the edge of the creek before they make their first attempt to swim up stream. Hopefully most will use the fish ladder rather than try and make it through the full rush of the water. We are amazed by the number of fish that have made it past the first waterfall.

Where the water is calm huge shoals of salmon rest before attempting their next struggle up stream.

We find the salmon hatchery and are educated by our guide about their life-cycle and how the hatchery (which is native-run) is working to help more young salmon return to the sea.

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07/08/2005 - Deer Mountain and devils-club plant On such a beautiful afternoon a walk seems like a good idea, so we set off, leaving the salmon hatchery and the totem pole centre below.

Small orange flowers are growing along the trail and we stop to admire the way they punctuate the green landscape along the roadside.

Not really equipped for a long walk we carry on up the hill for a mile and reach the 1500 foot marker. On the way up we see these strange looking plants and wonder what they are called.

We meet them again and again in the forests of South East Alaska.

The Devil's Club plant has been valued by native people for centuries for its range of medicinal uses. Beware its lethal spines though, for if they become embedded in the skin they will fester with very unpleasant results.

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Early morning in Petersburg

09/08/05 - An overnight ferry from Ketchikan drops us off in Petersburg at around 5.45am in the morning. The soft light mutes the colours in the harbour while the stillness of the water reflects postcard views back for our admiration. As we watch, the sun rises quickly casting a diffused pink light across the higher peaks and rendering the distant hills in soft shades of grey.

Bald-headed eagles fly around us in the harbour while small diving ducks disappear for long stretches of time.

From around 8am each morning float planes buzz around the bays and inlets of all the small towns where we stay, providing a much favoured way of getting people to isolated locations along the coast.

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Ferry from Petersburg to Kake - whale watch

09/08/2005 - the MV Le Conte provides us with our own personal ferry from Petersburg to Kake. We share the front lounge with a young Japanese man. A professional photographer perhaps, given the size of his telephoto lens. He is excellent at spotting whales and as we travel along Frederick Sound we are lucky enough to see a pod of around five or six humpbacks travelling through the water towards us.

One of those very special moments in life that no photograph can ever really capture.

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Early morning Kake

09 & 10/08/2005 - We sail into Kake, on the North-east coast of Kupreanof Island, on a mill pool calm sea, on a brilliant blue day at around noon on the 9th. The setting idyllic. An archipelago of small islands stretched out across the bay while in the distance snow-capped peaks fringe the horizon. The view from our lodge doorway simply wows us. We wonder why we are not staying for a week.

We wake the next morning to this scene where Bald-headed eagles and Great Blue Herons, three of them, are fishing in the bay. It feels as though we are sitting on the set of an excellent nature video.

As an added piece of colour a barge with its load of containers makes its way slowly across the bay bringing fresh supplies for the island supermarket. Most goods are transported in this way around the inside passage, even on the main-land many settlements have no road access into them.

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Bearbait The Genevan Student’s Tale

Still

by Russian River I wait for salmon Little bear comes – small – like this …

I wave my arms – like this …

It goes away Then a big bear comes – huge – like this … and I wave my arms – like this … and it keeps on coming and I run up the mountain Look at the tears of the claws in my rucksack Big bear – big paws – like this …

Now I am stitching up the holes from the claws in my tent I am the one that got away

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History, culture, people and story

We were both very interested in discovering more about the people who lived along the coast, what brought incomers to settle and what the impact was for the people who were the native inhabitants.

Central to our learning was the importance of story , the way it shapes us and helps us to know who we are. We learned from the people who told us their stories and from the stories that were presented in the museums we visited as we journeyed up the coast. From our visits to Prince Rupert (Canada), Ketchikan, Kake, Juneau, Sitka, Skagway, Valdez and Anchorage we were able to build a picture of life on this part of the coast, some of which we were able to share in the work we were doing with children and their teachers.

The story that Ann took away from Juneau can be seen in her poem, Eskimo Girl.

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12/08/05 Juneau Museum 31

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Sewing Kit, Juneau Museum.12/08/2005

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Eskimo Girl My brother’s gift the fastener for my sewing bag took his first seal carved from her tooth a tiny image of herself black nostrils flared lampblack lined curves to show her layers of good fat wobbly round her girth tail flukes together behind she’s travelling fast flowing through live waves racing the hunters’ paddles My mother has a salmon carved by her father dots patterning its pale skin She cut out shapes for my bag from winter-bleached and mottled salmon skin I stitched gut onto gut in careful arcs setting twisted cords down with chain stitch, stem stitch fitting arc around arc sun-cloud yellow through mist-cloud white proving my skill

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Inside will fit needle case, carved hollow bone light from a seabird’s wing threaded with a leather thong to hold my ivory needles safe ivory thimble, piercing awl hide-scraper, skin-stretcher my spinner for twisting sinews into cord my ulus, my women’s knives I place my tools inside my bag Roll and fasten with my tiny seal The ancestors watch I am a woman now I am ready

18/08/05 - Approaching Valdez at around 7.30am in the morning the low cloud shrouding the bay and masking the mountains. Occasional glimpses through the cloud reveal high mountain peaks with snow locked in deep rock crevices and glaciers pointing their fingers towards the sea. The stillness broken by this small boat zipping across the surface. The images taken on this morning are among the most memorable of the holiday.

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Valdez - looking across the sound to the TransAlaska Oil Terminal 18/08/2005 - The incongruity of setting! Would you expect to see a major oil terminal in this beautiful and tectonically unstable location?

The Exxon Valdez oil spill has left lasting images in my memory. Apparently much of the oil still remains along the coast, though nature in her inimitable way is doing much to repair the damage and vegetation is growing over layers of deposited oil.

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18/08/05 Early morning Valdez 36

Biker Chicks Glenn Highway ordinary women, middle-aged and spreading in the service station rest-room queue hang on to our every word - we are the black leather biker chicks in our fifties and our Harley tee-shirts forgot to pack my electric vest put your chaps on or your lowers and away we roar in a cloud of blue black racket with our biker dudes between spikes of black spruce crowding the yellow line charging the horizon driving back the dark Vignettes - Ann, Valdez

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18/08/05 - On this miserable wet afternoon we eventually arrive in Whittier where my brother waits to meet us from the ferry. Our arrival much delayed by the `exercise' being carried out by the Coastguard in the name of `Homeland Security'. As we approach Whittier, after being accompanied from Valdez by a US Coastguard cutter, we are surrounded by armed inflatable boats and several helicopters. Then black clad figures carrying automatic weapons board the ferry. Scary but quite spectacular! My brother waits, watching the show, in the pouring rain.

In Whittier we find a harbour-side cafe and drink tea while we wait for the hour when we can pass through the tunnel and carry on with our journey to Anchorage. There is only one single tunnel through the mountains that takes both cars and the train. Consequently journeys are scheduled for the hour or half hour depending on whether you are coming into or out of Whittier.

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22/08/05 - Monday: Denali Highway - Paxson to Denali. We are on a 1000 mile circular road trip travelling from Anchorage back to Valdez. From Valdez, via Paxson along the Denali Highway and from the end of the highway up to the entrance to the National Park. We look out across the McCarthy river towards the distant McCarthy glacier.

Denali Highway, the original route into the park is a gravel road. I have to confess some initial trepidation at the thought of travelling 130 miles along such a potentially bumpy and uneven route. As it turns out I had little to fear, the route is well maintained and the journey quite spectacular.

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Chitina

Map Chant Names for Water

Edgerton Highway

McCarthy Road

Squirrel Creek Willow Creek Tonsina

Kukuslana Strelina Chokosna Gilahina

Nadina Dadina Copper River Chetaslina Cheshnina Horse Creek Three Mile Lake Two Mile Lake One Mile Lake Town Lake CHIT(I)NA 45

Muskrat Lake Tooth Lake Skull Lake Moose Lake Lakina Nizina Kennicott McCARTHY

23/08/05 - Polychrome Point, Denali National Park. Up at 4.15am and out at 5am, we head for the Park entrance to catch the 5.30 bus for our visit through the park. The early morning light and clouds silhouetting the mountains are amazing. On our way into the park we see tiny specks, Caribou on a distant hillside. When we return another herd is crossing the wide river bed below Polychrome Point.

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23/08/05 - our bus takes us further into the park where we see this spectacular view of Mt McKinley or Mt Denali as the indigenous people called it. The mounting clouds add to the grandeur of the setting and lends an air of mystery to the mountain view. On our way in we spot Grizzly bears, a mother and two cubs on one side of the river and two solitary males on the other side, one of which is still there as we return.

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Wilderness She only needed to see a wolf That morning bears, heavy pelts swinging blonde-haloed against the light tore mouthsful of tundra and lumbered out of sight up the gully putting up ptarmigan, chestnut-bright whitening rumps predicting white feathers from the sky He said, “You’ll never spot a wolf. You never see what’s right in front of you.

Oh, you’ll say you did – seeing things – like you always do.”

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Afternoon a moose lowered his burden of antlers as he drank and caribou in line, tiny black ants, crossed the stream far below It was evening when she saw a strong shadow circling black line along its shadow spine lifted shadow head yellow eyes met hers She said nothing That night she packed and left

In 2005, while my brother was working in Alaska, he suggested we organise a trip to visit him and see the country.

He would meet us in Vancouver for a few days and then fly back home while we travelled up the Alaskan coast using the Alaskan Highway ferries. After we crossed the Gulf of Alaska on the overnight ferry the plan was that he would meet us in Whittier and take us back to his home in Anchorage for a few nights rest. Then we would make the road trip together to Denali National Park on the Old Alaskan Highway - 130 miles of unpaved road and a thousand mile trip in total.

Our visit actually began in Canada, in a way that didn’t quite go as expected. The plan was to fly from Manchester to Toronto and then change planes for Vancouver. We landed just as a enormous thunderstorm was about to hit the region. I’ve never seen clouds like them before and because we were in the air we could see them towering for miles above us. We landed safely but only to find the airport in lockdown. We could see smoke in the distance and soon discovered that an Air France plane (the one that had followed us down) had skidded off the runway. Fortunately everyone got off that plane and no one died. However, it did bring chaos in its wake. All flights were cancelled and everyone was panicking about finding over night accommodation. After a worrying few hours we eventually managed to get through to someone who was able to find us a hotel but we were unable to rebook our flight for another two nights, so we had an unexpected stop over in Toronto. My most memorable experiences were of our visit to the art gallery which contains many of Henry Moore’s full sized plaster maquette’s which I found much more visually satisfying than his bronzes and a trip up the CNN tower (Ann stayed on the ground as she didn’t like heights). We finally managed to get on a flight to Vancouver, where we had only one night to meet up with my brother and see a few sights of the city. The next day he had to catch his flight back to Anchorage and we had to set off for Prince Rupert (still in Canada) where we would catch the first of our ferries up the coast.

For this book I chose to start our Alaskan journey in Prince Rupert and not include the two poems set in Canada (though I might change my mind later). If you look carefully at the dates, you’ll also notice a few more gaps when we visited Sitka and Skagway. I decided that as there were not any poems linked to these two visits I would not include them in this first draft. Whether I change my mind about including them is a decision I’ll make later. Sitka in particular was very special to Ann because of the Russian Orthodox settlement in this location. Our visit to the museum in Sitka was one of the highlights of the trip for Ann and we both found the stories of the Gold Rush settlers in Skagway added another layer of meaning to our understanding of the way the country had been settled in the past. We did glaciers as well, which also don’t feature very significantly in this edition.

Wendy North

Saturday, 3 October 2020

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