We got pavement

For this tiny town, there is quite a bit of development going on.

Here is the first bit of pavement was laid down in town last week. We have had dirt/gravel roads up 'til now.



We have a new ferry and ferry terminal that goes between two other islands, one has a town of about 3200 the other has a pop. of 2500 people. This photo was at the inauguration/christening last January in Seattle. I will try to get a picture of the terminal up here, that was a huge project in itself.



They are also developing the road that comes into camp and connects to the rest of the island towns. This has been a major project going on for the past three summers. It was a one lane dirt road, very narrow and curvy. It will now be two to three lanes wide and less curvy. Lots of people who live in camp work on this road. There are also alot of people from out of town that come to live here during the constuction, which leaves a bit of a housing shortage in the summer, but it seems that everyone found a place. The work that is required for this job is amazing, even after seeing the Big Dig for so many years. It is raw, wet and remote land on an island much larger than Long Island but with less than 4,000 people. This the only part of southeast Alaska that you can actually drive to other towns, there are 9 towns that you can drive to with populations that range from 30 people to 1500 people.



The road on the right is the old road, the road on the left will be the new road.



The city also got a $1 million grant to expand the harbor. This is very exciting for me because one of my jobs is harbormaster and there is a shortage of space in the summertime at the dock. We are gong to run another finger out the middle and then a dock parallel to the existing one. We probably still won't get electricity out there. There is a new school and a clinic in the works, but that may be a bit down the line. We did get a new post office this year and they are building a new seaplane float this month. They are in the process of putting up street signs. Nobody ever knew what street they lived on. We just made up addresses and the post mistress would sort by name. Our mail comes by float plane three times a week, so Fed EX definitely does not apply here.

My camera still works!!!

I went to town the other day to go food shopping and register for a class. On my way home, my drink fell and I guess some of it fell into the pocket where I had my camera. It soaked in cider for an hour until I found it when I got home. But look it still works. Here's some of the stuff from the greenhouse.









Good thing because groceries can be expensive. For example, 1 gallon of milk = $4.83. A loaf of Orowheat bread = $3.75. Head of cauliflower = $3.76. My total bill for groceries was $290.22 for 104 items. I can't remember if that is expensive or not. But that will last us for about 4 weeks, 2-3 meals a day with no restaurants to get out of cooking a meal. Shopping here, you don't have the selection like in the lower 48. And what ever is in stock is what you get. I think it all comes by barge, so produce is hit or miss. There is no significant agricultural farming up here. I think a bale of hay is around $20. So we are enjoying the greenhouse and plan to expand it this winter.

Camping High and Dry

We went camping for a few days this week to get out of town. We took the boat, a tent, a chainsaw (for firewood), and a really crummy map. The crab pots had few crabs in them so we brought them alng for the trip. Jonathan really liked old barnacle eye.





We went into every nook and cranny that we could. The first night we found a really cool spot that you can only get to at high tide.








We did a bunch of exploring and got back out of the next day to find ourselves in another spot that you can only get into at high tide. This one had a Forest Service Cabin with boat access. This picture is of our boat high and dry.






The little island you can see under the corner of the sign is where we beached our boat and then walked the creeekbed to the trail head. That trail is supposed to go to a cabin 1.5 miles away on a lake. Well, a few hours later we still hadn't found the cabin or the lake, and the the trail just sort of stopped. Back to the boat in case it floats.It was a nice hike though.

Floathouses

I seem to take a lot of photos of float houses around here. This first one belongs to Jonathan's family. I tis in a cove near here. The water has just about reclaimed it. We have salvaged a bunch of stuff from it for the cabin.


This one is also on (well just offshore) the island. It is one of my favorites with a separate floating chicken coop, greenhouse and workshop all floating in a beautiful cove. My friend Jenny and I dove around this one a bit.




Floathouses can also be for community business, this one is the community center and postoffice. The school district is housed on a floathouse and Fish and game have floathouses scattered around to use as bases in the field.

Cabin Interior

Just wanted to show some details of the inside before we slap up some insulation this week. This is the ceiling of the entry way that extends into the bathroom and the pantry. I cut most of it with a chainsaw and a template so that the notches would all fall into the same place. Jonathan was so romantic back in Marshfield when he told me the first thing we were going to do when we get to Alaska is... teach you how to use a chainsaw. Well he followed through. So half way across the floor, he says "you're going too slow, give me that chainsaw" and he cut a hole right through the spalt. I finished the rest of the floor. Dat da da da.

The hearth is still under construction. Most of the beaches around here have rough angular rocks but we found a beach that has these nice smooth round rocks. We hand picked each one. We still have to put up the back wall but we ran out of cement. We will get it the next time we go to town, about 1.5 hours away on mostly gravel roads. Please tell me you can see the flower pattern. We still have to put Coca Cola on it to get the cement "dusty glaze" off the top. Coke eats cement. Do you eat Coke?
The smaller room will be the computer room. That floor in there is the top side of the spalt ceiling I cut from the chainsaw. The bigger room is the bedroom. The wood stove pipe goes through the room, we hope that it will help with heating. The door in the bedroom goes out to a little deck that looks over the creek. It's really there so Jonathan can pee outside at night, old habit I guess. The bridge is made of two more spalts. The center pole was around 25 feet long. Jonathan found it floating in the cove. We stood it up by ourselves, in the snow, very tricky. There will be some railings around the upstairs floor, and I am sure by the time anyone sees them they will be covered with laundry drying. We aren't sure if our plan for electricity (a pelton wheel, like a water wheel in the creek) will produce enough power for a dryer. It rains too much for a clothes line. Jonathan's family had a wall behind their wood stove on the floathouse that opened up and had rows of line for hanging clothes. Just one of the details we have to figure out. We'll cross that bridge when we get there, thank god we already built the bridge. For now we are off to put in the wiring, switches and plug-ins. Even though we are not sure how we will get power to run through those wires, it is good to have wires in your walls before you cover them up.

No Frills Gas Prices

A glimpse of life around camp. This is our no frills gas station with a view... This is our no frills gas price... Yup that's $3.70/gallon. We have our own key to the pump so it's 24/7 service and they just send us the bill every month. Whoopeee.

More Meat

We did some smokehouse work this week...salmon and deer jerky. We used alder with the bark peeled off for the wood. The smokehouse is over at Jonathan's father's house so we had some help keeping the fire going for a few days. The fish and venison were both marinated for a couple of days. Then it was in the smokehouse for a couple more as it has been raining, alot.

Home Processing

This is our processing spot . This afternoon I am going to go do some canning. The smoker is already started up. Jonathan is going to go shrimping with a friend tonight. Oh my gosh, there is a lot of food moving through here. The greenhouse is also needing attention. I should be able to can some stuff from there. Then we can focus on the cabin again for the winter when things slow down.

A Subsistence Skateline

I broke away from the computer last night to go check the skateline with the guys. A skateline is a series of 20 hooks that are clipped onto a main line and stretched out and anchored kind of deep to the bottom. We pull ours by hand. Fortunately, Jonathan had some friends come help pull and bait the line. I just had to untangle hooks and pass them to the guys for baiting. We got 2 good size halibut and a yelloweye (red snapper or rockfish). I am not sure how much they weighed whole but after they were filleted we had a five gallon bucket overflowing that must have weighed fifty pounds. Between halibut and salmon and crabs we have had to set up a fish processing area on the front deck of our trailer to get it all together. We will smoke a cooler full of marinated salmon, can some salmon for sandwiches, freeze some fillets. The halibut will be frozen into dinner portions. The crab will be cooked, cleaned and frozen. We have also begun on deer meat. So far we have only one deer, we need maybe three or four more. We will make corned venison and can it for sandwiches, smoke deer jerky, steaks will be frozen, and lots of deer burger. All this in our free time from work. I have a hunting license, it came with the fishing license, but I don't even know how to shoot a gun. Good thing I can cook.

Cabin Sequence 3

Okay I explained what I am doing here two posts down. Anyway I am trying to show the sequence of the cabin going up. These are the earliest pictures I have on the digital...

Cabin Sequence 2

The first wall...Four walls framed in... The floor plan walls are inside...

The stairs and the second floor are in...
TThe center pole and beam are up...

Cabin Sequence

For this post, I had in mind those flip books that look like a cartoon. I wanted to do the cabin so that it looks like it is growing up from the ground. Anyway these are the pictures I have found, and this is the cabin so far.... oops I guess I can only do five at a time and there are a lot, so stand by.

Shopping by barge

Last Tuesday, our forty foot container arrived by barge. When we went to California in May we bought a car and boat on a trailer from Jonathan's father. After a few months of figuring how to get it here, it finally came, full of insulation, electrical wire and fittings, as well as some stuff from Costco and Home Depot. The whole jalopy was loaded into the container in Seattle and arrived in another town on the island about an hour and a half away. Unfortunatly, it has been raining so we can't get it down to the cabin yet. We will as soon as it stops raining, hmmm.