To All Our Readers Near and Far, Merry Christmas!

Posted on December 22, 2023 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

Our *Christmas at The Lake*. *Thank You for Reading. Fill the day with love.*
*Jack & Barbra*

Spirit Bird – Northern Shrike: Chignik Lake Files #4

Posted on December 21, 2023 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

**Spirit Bird** – The day we arrived at The Lake, I heard the cry of a bird unlike I had ever heard. I’m not sure how I knew, but I knew. Shrike. I looked up to where it was perched on a utility wire. “Uncommon to rare,” according to Sibley. At the time I didn’t know much about photography or birds, but in that moment I understood that I was in a special place and that there was work before me. And so I ordered a new field guide and a copy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology Handbook of Bird Biology (716 pages, more a tome than a handbook), acquired a long lens, and began. *8/27/16*

Cleared for Takeoff: Purple Martins on the Al-Can

Posted on December 10, 2023 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

*Cleared for Takeoff: Purple Martins at the Kimiwan Bird Walk, Alberta, Canada, 7/28/12*

Water Pump: The Alaska-Canada Highway

Posted on December 2, 2023 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

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: Bubble-net Feeding Humpback Whales

Posted on November 23, 2023 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

*Humpback Whales corralling herring in a net of bubbles and then pushing the small fish to the surface for easy feeding. Gull much obliged. Gulf of Alaska, 6/22/12*

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

Posted on November 20, 2023 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

*Barbra waiting for Sockeye Salmon to hit her net on the mighty Copper River near Chitina, June 22, 2012*.

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

Posted on November 18, 2023 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

Hard to say where this bear, a mere dot on this icefield, was coming from. Somewhere across that vastness, heading toward Exit Glacier, down to salmon rivers. To a place I suppose he thinks of as home. 6/13/2011

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…