The Bones of a Village

Posted on August 29, 2011 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

New enough to reveal steel and aluminum nails, old enough to be well-weathered by the Arctic climate, the bones of this seal-skin whaling boat were left behind when Point Hope (Tikigaq) relocated two-and-a-half miles inland in the 1970s. Point Hope is one of the longest continuously inhabited places in North America.

The Inupiaq name for Point Hope Village, Tikigaq (tick-ee-yahk) means index finger and described the way the gravel point once hooked into the Chukchi Sea. Time and tide long ago washed away the crook of the finger, leaving behind a triangular point near enough to deep water that the whales that first drew the Inupiat people here thousands of years ago still swim close to shore. The 2.3 mile hike from the current town out to the point gets a little tough once the road ends and the pea-to-chunk-size gravel begins, but it is well worth the effort. In addition to bowhead and other whales, which are frequently sighted, the collision of currents at the point holds large schools of finger-sized baitfish, which in turn draw flocks of Arctic terns, gulls, murres, puffins, jaegers, guillemots and ducks while various sandpipers patrol the shore. At times, the sea and sky are filled with hundreds–if not thousands–of birds. The small fish also attract roving schools of pink, silver and Chinook salmon and sea-run Dolly Varden which in turn are followed by spotted, common and bearded seals. Walruses show up from time to time as well.

The walk to the point passes through the Old Village, a ghost town of semi-subetranean homes made from sod, whale bone and driftwood as well as more modern, wood and metal houses. It’s fascinating to walk through the Old Village and contemplate what life would have been like up here before electricity, running water, guns and gasoline engines–when the only “grocery stores” were the great herds of caribou 25 or more miles to the east, bowhead whales swimming in the freezing Arctic Ocean, and the various fish, seals, berries and plants gathered in their seasons.

Alaskan Clam Chowder

Posted on August 27, 2011 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

New England Style Clam Chowder garnished with a slice of lemon and salmon berry blossoms. All fruit blossoms are edible, and in addition to being beautiful, some are downright tasty.

These days, there seems to be a trend toward making New England Style Clam Chowders thicker and thicker. Unfortunately, to our taste, the thickness is achieved by adding lots of flour, resulting in a somewhat pasty if not downright bland bowl of soup. Our favorite chowders put clams and potatoes up front and emphasize flavor over thickness. We make both New England Style and Manhattan Style Clam Chowders in large pots, freezing the finished product in smaller containers and pulling them out on cold nights throughout the winter. While this is a great way to put to use all the razor clams we used to dig in Oregon and now dig in Alaska, it works well with other kinds of clams, too, as well as with canned clams such as the big, 51 ounce (3 pounds, 3 ounces) cans of SeaWatch chopped clams sold at Costco and other stores. The recipe is never the same twice. The one below is a recent version. One of the keys is to use not more than twice the potatoes, by weight, as clams.

Up here in bush Alaska, many of the communities are “dry” and I can’t use one of my favorite ingredients–sherry. If I could, I would add about a 1/4 cup of a quality dry sherry such as Dry Sack.

Ingredients: (We cook with dairy products from grass-fed cows, which research increasingly is showing is a significantly more healthful choice than dairy from cows fed on grain and processed feed.)

3 pounds razor clams, chopped coarse (This is the weight of clams after they have been drained. But save and set aside their juice.)
clam juice you’ve set aside. The more, the better.
4 1/2 pounds Yukon Gold or yellow potatoes. (These cook up creamier than Russets)
2 sweet onions, chopped coarse
1/2 pound bacon, cut into small pieces
water (as needed to cover potatoes while cooking)
4 cups milk
2 cups heavy cream
6 cloves of garlic, chopped fine
1/2 cup flour
4 tablespoons olive oil
4 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons sea salt
1/2 tablespoon Italian seasoning (The Spice Hunter’s Italian blend is excellent)
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper (either black or rainbow)
1 teaspoon dry tarragon, crushed (optional)
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (optional)
5 – 7 very thin slices of lemon

1. Wash potatoes and remove any eyes, but do not remove the skins. Cut into ½ inch cubes and place in a large bowl. Set aside.

2. Fry the bacon pieces till tender. Do not crisp. Drain the grease and set aside.

3. In a large pot, add the olive oil and heat over medium-high. Add onions, stirring frequently for about five minutes until they begin to turn translucent. Add garlic and stir again.

4. Add flour and stir in thoroughly. Add two tablespoons of butter (or more olive oil) if necessary to completely mix in the flour.

5. Immediately add clam juice and milk. Stir.

6. Add potatoes, seasonings and salt and enough water to cover all. Slowly bring to a simmer and cook until potatoes become tender, stirring occasionally. About 45 – 60 minutes.

7. Add cream and lemon slices and return to just under a simmer or barely simmering.

8. Add the clams and the remaining butter and turn heat to low. On a propane stove, you may need a flame tamer. Continue cooking for 10 minutes.

Serve with a big hunk of toasted sourdough bread and a Chardonnay, a Pinot Gris, or a good ale.

Cloudberry Sorbet – Sublime!

Posted on August 21, 2011 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

Growing seasons here in the Arctic are short, and the cloudberries are at the end of theirs. Yesterday was our last opportunity to go picking. After a big pancake, egg and bacon breakfast at a friend’s house, our principal offered up the school’s suburban, so six of us drove out to the end of 7-Mile Road where the berries were rumored to be larger than those we’d previously found.

The thermometer read 50, but the chilly wind tugged much of the warmth away, making us happy to be dressed in warm layers. Small songbirds seemed to be everywhere, and a few jaegers patrolled the tundra looking for easy prey. Off in the distance, a majestic snowy owl glided from perch to perch, probably hoping to catch one of the incredibly fat ground squirrels that inhabit the tundra off-guard. Some of the berry patches were completely over, and others were full of fruit past their peak. But here and there we found berries that were just right, liquid amber in color and perfectly sweet. It took Jack and me about an hour to pick 10 cups.

Like everything else that grows on the tundra, cloudberry plants reach only a few inches off the ground. They grow in clusters on low mounds that rise a foot or so above the wet ground. Picking them requires lots of squats and bends making for a good workout. Jack was doing an uncharacteristic amount of berry eating while he was picking and finally came to a conclusion: “These berries would make really good sorbet.” Although I’d never made sorbet, I knew right away that he was onto something.

Back home, I processed the berries. The first step was to wash the berries. This proved to be much easier than my experience with other berries because there are virtually no bugs up here. The next step was de-seeding the berries. After unsuccessfully trying to smash the berries through two different sized strainers, I remembered I had cheesecloth. I loaded batches of pureed berries into the cheesecloth and squeezed the delicious fruit into a bowl until all that remained in the cheesecloth were bright pink seeds.

A couple of years ago, our daughter gave us a Cuisinart ice-cream maker. An electric ice cream maker may seem like an extravagant thing to ship to a home in the Arctic, but it has added a lot of enjoyment to our lives in both making and eating ice cream.

Sorbet is easy. Syrupy sugar water and a little lemon juice go into the freezer bowls along with the seeded, pureed fruit. This mixture is slowly churned for about 30 minutes. We love berries, but I think these are my favorites. The color is a rich salmon orange. The smell is sweet and tropical, with mango, papaya and peach flavors, and there’s a natural creaminess about them. Making one-quart batches, we ended up with a gallon of sorbet. We envision serving this in cookie bowls, with a few pieces of dark chocolate, or along with with homemade vanilla ice cream as a sumptuous 50/50 dessert.

Cloudberries and Freezer Jam

Posted on August 14, 2011 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

Ball Jars filled with freshly-picked cloudberries (often locally called salmon berries). We’ll add a little lemon juice, pectin, and sugar to the crushed berries, mix and simmer this in our bread maker for an hour-and-twenty minutes, pour the mixture back into the jars and put them in the freezer to set. This will provide us with some of the most tantalizing jam imaginable. Cloudberry jam…

The morning was cool and cloudy, with mist and banks of fog rolling across Point Hope. We’d been told that we’d find berries about three miles east of town along Seven-Mile Road, and so seven of us had gathered to make the hike out. Two of the men carried 12 gauge shotguns and a third carried a side arm. Bears are always a possibility.

The wildflowers which all but carpeted the tundra when we arrived here nearly a month ago are mostly gone now, though here and there a few tiny yellow Alaska poppies and beautiful blue but deadly monkshood and other flowers are still blooming. And then, right about at three miles just as we’d been told, there they were… cloudberries, growing together in small patches where mounds of earth were just high enough above the boggy tundra to allow roots to drain. The unripe cloudberries (Rubus chamaemorus) were deep red and beautiful. The ripe ones are the amber-orange color of Chinook salmon flesh, giving their close relatives, salmon berries (Rubus spectabilis), their names.

Wherever cloudberries grow across the upper latitudes of North America and Europe, they are a prized delicacy, agreeably tart when barely ripe, becoming creamy rich and sweet as they continue to ripen. They contain twice as much vitamin C as oranges. Growing very close to the ground, the berries were surprisingly inconspicuous at first. But once our eyes adjusted to what we were looking for, the tundra seemed to sparkle with their red, orange and amber glow.

We picked for about two hours, happy to have worn Muck Boots as we slogged through the soft, wet ground. By the time hunger caught up with us and it was time to head back, Barbra and I had about three pounds of berries between us–enough for a few jars of the freezer jam which would make the hike well worth the effort.

On the walk back, the sun began to push its way through the thinning clouds, lighting the land around us. It was then that Barbra and one of our friends spotted a large white bird perched motionless on a hump out on the tundra. “It’s got to be an owl,” I said. “Let’s see.” We made our way toward the white shape until there was no doubt we were looking at a large snowy owl. These owls are huge, the heaviest in North America. When it finally spread its magnificent wings and lifted off, it revealed an underside of almost pure white–a male in its prime, grown fat on ground squirrels.

Razor Clam Fry

Posted on August 7, 2011 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

Jack has put the finishing touches on our kitchen in our new home and is already feeding us well. The above razor clams were dusted with seasoned flour, dipped in beaten eggs, and rolled in cracker crumbs in preparation for frying in olive oil. Having been frozen fresh, they tasted like they were just dug. Every bite evoked the wonderful memories of digging those clams just weeks ago.

I’m grateful that our school not only has a pool, but also a weight room this year!

Arctic Ocean

Posted on August 7, 2011 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

We put our fingers into the icy cold water during our walk along the beach. It reminded me of the cold waters of Lake Tahoe in the Sierras. I remember swimming in those waters as a child until my body went numb. Jack remembered taking a dip in the Merced River in Yosemite…the shortest dip of his life.

There is a woman in Barrow who will issue a Polar Dip certificate, officially proving that the bearer has fully immersed herself in the Arctic Ocean. No gracias.

Top of the World!

Posted on August 7, 2011 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

We are in Barrow, Alaska for a little over a week. It is the northernmost city in the United States.

As the crow flies, we are miles away from everywhere…

728 from Anchorage, Alaska

2,582 from Sacramento, California

3,040 from San Diego, California

4,290 from Key West, Florida

4,071 from Paris, France

(This data courtesy of the following link: http://www.findlocalweather.com/how_far_is_it/ak/barrow.html)

Beautiful, inspiring Alaska

Posted on July 31, 2011 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

We love Alaska.

This state is beautiful. Jaw-droppingly beautiful in some cases. Contemplatively beautiful in others.

We are both inspired to take photographs, and so we carry at least one of our cameras with us at virtually all times. This diligence has paid off, enabling us to take advantage of some surprises.

As Malcolm Gladwell spells out in the book Outliers, one needs meaningful practice, and lots of it, to become expert at something. We study photography and others’ photos in order to better improve our skills, and then we go out and shoot, steadily accumulating our 10,000 hours.

This is a great place to do so.

Seeking Silver Salmon

Posted on July 29, 2011 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

Coho Salmon

Trolling is boring, I thought. Two summers ago we drove around in our boat outside of Whittier at incredibly slow speeds dragging a couple of lures only one silly little pink salmon came to bite. Heck, you don’t even get hold the rod!

This was my impression.

That has changed.

This summer while in Seward, we heard the silver salmon (Coho) run on Resurrection Bay was hot. Out on the bay, Jack got gear ready for trolling; I was prepared to enjoy the scenery. But no sooner did he put a lure in the water and set the rod in the holder than we got hit! We quickly strategized–I drive, Jack tends rigs, fish hits, Jack shouts “FISH,” I drop the boat into neutral, Jack reels in the fish, I grab the net, and Voila–major fun! Then we switch–Jack drives, I reel in the fish, and Jack does honors on the net!

The limit for silver salmon in Resurrection Bay is six fish – which meant with two limits, we could keep 12.. The first 11 salmon came easily. Naturally, that last elusive fish took us a while to find. We took a break from trolling by catching other fish that day…halibut, lingcod, and rockfish. When we went back to trolling, a dime-bright silver was waiting for us. When we finally pulled up at the cleaning station at the marina with our beautiful catch (two Chinook, several large silvers, halibut and rockfish)…even the locals were impressed.