Cleared for Takeoff: Purple Martins on the Al-Can
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Category Archives: art photography
Water Pump: The Alaska-Canada Highway
We’ve made the drive up or down the Alaska-Canada Highway (The Al-Can) six times along various routes. At times, it can seem like a journey into the past, especially once you get north of the U.S. border. Wildlife viewing can be astonishing. On one trip we counted over 30 bears. Owls and other birds of prey, elk, deer, moose, coyotes, foxes, both grizzly and black bears (sometimes with cubs) and bison are all likely encounters, and although we’ve never seen wolves, we’ve heard their wild howls from our camp. There’s good fishing, too, if you’ve got the time and can suss it out. More unusual are the old-fashioned gas pumps you might still encounter – the kind with the glass bubble on top. And once you clear Vancouver, everything slows down. People have time to talk, and are happy to do so. Campgrounds are spare but well-maintained, and there are plenty of places where you can simply pull over and spend the night. From late spring through mid-summer, the further north you travel the longer the days become till by the time you reach Alaska nighttime has all but disappeared.
Go. If you’ve never made the drive, set aside the time, make a budget and go. The Al-can is surely one of the world’s greatest behind-the-wheel adventures.
Seward Summers: Spawning Sockeye Salmon… and a simple philosophy to incorporate into your life if you are single but ready not to be single
If you are single and want to keep things that way, start by making certain that you have only one really nice place to sit in your house. Have only one good wine glass in your cupboard, one decent dinner plate, one nice place setting. Strive, also, to have single-subject art – a lone person in any photographs, one carved bird alone on a shelf, only of any souvenirs or keepsakes. People will get the message.
If, on the other hand, you wish to communicate to the universe that you are desirous of and ready for a commitment to another person, populate your home in pairs. Two fine bourbon glasses, two equally comfortable places to sit, pairs of items on shelves, paired subjects in paintings, photographs and other artwork, a second bath towel that is every bit as luxurious as the one you yourself use. And when you find a special pair of beautifully crafted chopsticks, purchase a pair for yourself… and a second pair. The mere act of approaching life in this manner will begin to prepare you for an other person.
And people will get the message.
Seward Summers: Nesting Black-legged Kittiwakes – and the metaphor of the bookshelf
We miss our C-dory. A lot. Photographs such as the one above can’t be made without a boat, not to mention the role Gillie played in filling our freezers with tasty halibut, lingcod and rockfish. And for a pleasurable day of leisure, it’s difficult to top fair weather on a calm sea.
While we lived on the Chignik River, we found a shallow-draft welded-aluminum scow to be more practical than the larger fiberglass dory, and so we sold Gillie. Regrets followed. She would be perfect here at our new home on the shores of Prince William Sound. In the peripatetic lives Barbra and I have lived both prior to and during our marriage, with each move we’ve effortlessly let items pass through our lives: beautifully crafted Christmas ornaments, artwork, cherished pieces of furniture, treasured books… even valued fishing tackle. The few items we take pains to keep in our possession mainly come down to cookware, photography gear and fly-fishing equipment. After all, most things are replaceable, and so the metaphor of the bookshelf constitutes an important element of our life philosophy.
The metaphor of the bookshelf is our way of thinking of… things… in a life where we find benefit in living slim and where we appreciate each move as an opportunity to pare down. The idea is to always leave room for the new, and if there is no room, to create it. So rather than fill up shelves with books we’re unlikely to read again, we don’t. Because if your shelves are full, there’s nowhere to add new items to your life – unless you keep adding shelves till your home is crammed full of shelves. It’s lovely to move to a new place and find that you have abundant blank spaces to populate with new treasures. Most things are easy to replace (a first edition copy of A River Runs Through It I allowed to slip through my possession being a noted exception).
Norman Maclean’s classic fly-fishing memoir, Gillie… it’s a short list. Art is replaced by other art. Souvenirs from one place have been let go of to make room for new keepsakes from new places.
We also let go of our aluminum scow when we left the Chignik, and so, taking the optimist’s view and embracing the metaphor of the bookshelf, it appears we now have a space in our life begging to be occupied by a new – or new to us – seaworthy vessel. Something to look forward to.
Seward Summers: Bubble-net Feeding Humpback Whales
Moose roast and root vegetables in a bath of mushroom broth, red wine, cream and fresh herbs slow-cooking in the oven, pumpkin cheese cake setting. Lots to be grateful for on this Thanksgiving Day… and every day. Barbra and I hope all is well in your world.
Seward Summers: Copper River Dipnetting
Iconic Alaska. Hike in along a canyon trail, then down a steep, more narrow trail to water’s edge. The river’s chalky, clay-colored glacial till reveals nothing. But the fish are there. Upwards of a million Sockeyes will ascend the Copper, and that’s after the commercial fishing fleet has taken a similar number from the sea near the river’s mouth. Armed with a net on a big hoop attached to a 15-foot pole, you find a fishable perch along the canyon wall and ease the net into an eddy. If you’ve timed it right, huge schools of fish are passing in front of you within feet of the shoreline. It doesn’t take long till you feel the morning’s first solid thump as a Red hits the net. If you’ve got the patience and don’t pull in right away, you might feel another thump, and then another – three fish in one scoop. And you feel a connection with people who have been fishing for salmon this way for thousands of years… grateful that there’s a place where it can still be done, not another person in sight except for the companion you’ve hiked in with. You get the feeling this isn’t going to last… which makes you appreciate it all the more. Iconic Alaska.
Heading Home: Grizzly Bear Crossing Harding Ice Field
The hike to Harding Icefield is a little over four miles up a mountain trail, more or less following a ridge above Exit Glacier. Patches of snow, wildflower meadows, birds, bears, maybe other wildlife along the way. There are many vast landscapes in Alaska. The view out over the Harding Icefield, the great mother ice lake that feeds Exit and dozens other glaciers is… otherworldly. We were on a rock outcrop overlooking part of Harding’s eleven hundred square miles. I was preoccupied with alpine flowers when Barbra noticed a trail across the snow-covered ice. It didn’t make sense. Till we spotted the bear.
Moving on from the photos we took in Mongolia, I’m now going through “Alaska Summers.” Some of these catalogues predate our trip to Mongolia. As I come upon images I really like – such as the above composition – I’ll share them here and on Instagram. jackdonachy, if you’re interested in following there. I also put most of these photos on Facebook – Barbrajack.
I like this photograph for the way it recalls a quote by Bob Dylan that describes Barbra, and me, and maybe this bear, and maybe you.
I was born very far from where I’m supposed to be, and so, I’m on my way home…
Red-billed Choughs at Dusk
I decided to render this as a subtle duotone – a two-colored photograph – by enhancing the red on the one (and only) bill that showed the characteristic coloration of this corvid species. There was very little light when I captured this hand-held image; thus the remaining bills on these otherwise mostly black birds appear in colorless silhouette. Duotones can feel a bit gimmicky, but I like the effect here. What do you think?
I have begun working on a color portrait of one of these fascinating birds and will publish it tomorrow if all goes well.
Untethered
Ice Needles
CutterLight 