Tag Archives: Chignik Lake

The Hike Up Flattop Mountain, Chignik Lake, Alaska – a short video

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A landscape seen by fewer than 100 living people….

The Hike Up Flattop

There’s a small mountain behind our village. We call it Flattop, though once you reach the peak you find that it is somewhat rounded. Although reaching the summit constitutes an elevation gain of only about 1,200 feet (a quarter of a mile; four football fields), because it is the foreword-most mountain facing the village, the summit provides an unobstructed 180 degree view sweeping from the corner of Chignik Lake to one’s left where Clarks River enters, down the lake and through the village, and then down the Chignik River all the way across the estuary to the next village, Chignik Lagoon, a vista encompassing about 12 miles. But in fact, the view is more grand even than that, for one can see mountains 20 miles beyond Chignik Lagoon where a portion of the Alaska Peninsula curves out  into the Alaska Gulf, and while gazing across Chignik Lake the landscape disappears in haze over Bristol Bay. Keeping in mind that a few steps beyond the last house in the village one is entering a landscape fewer than 100 living people have seen, the view from Flattop is even more exclusive. 

The roundtrip hike from our home to the summit and back is fairly rigorous. We begin by following the community’s main thoroughfare, a dirt road that curves along the lakeshore, crosses a small, willow-crowded stream inhabited by char, and then branches off to the left past a few houses beyond which is a honda trail. For about two miles, the trail alternately cuts through stands of scrub alder and willow, open tundra, and shoulder-high grasses, fireweed, ferns and salmonberry brakes.

The trailhead leading up Flattop is easy to miss if you don’t know where to look. People – young men who are hard on their machines – very occasionally take their quads up the mountain, though scarcely often enough to beat back the jungle-thick vegetation waiting to reclaim any seldom-used path in this part of the world. Not long ago, a neighbor was lucky to get clear in time to avoid injury when the mountain took control of his honda. His quad is now somewhere on Flattop’s steep flanks, hung up in alders, unrecoverable. One’s own two feet are the more prudent – and satisfying – option for ascent.

In the early morning of September 17, we entered the trailhead through a field of tall grasses and fireweed gone to downy seed, colored with autumn, made dripping wet with low fog. As we gained elevation, the grasses, ferns and flower stalks gave way to thick stands of salmonberry bushes. It wasn’t long before our pants were soaked and our water-resistant boots were saturated through to squishy socks. Sunshine in the forecast promised dry clothing once we climbed beyond the vegetation.

Landmark by landmark, salmonberry brakes began to thin. Alders grew smaller and more wind-twisted. We ambled through openings where, back in early June, we’d come across patches of heathers and wildflowers – vaccinium, geranium, yarrow, paintbrush, candle orchid, fireweed. At times we lost the faint trail, the path buried in tall, thick grasses or barely discernible through tangled tunnels of gnarled alders. Just as the sun broke free from mist and crested the summit we emerged onto the first treeless scree, the sudden warmth and open landscape a joy, handfuls of lingonberries, tart, sweet, energizing.

As we continued up the slope, I studied the loose scree for signs of the Weasel Snout, lousewort, Alpine Azalea, Alp Lily, Pincushion, Moss Campion, Roseroot, avens, saxifrage and Purple Oxytrope I’d photographed in June, but aside from a few lupine still clinging to periwinkle-colored blooms, the rest were gone, the few remaining leaves various hues of yellow, red and orange. Near the top we were surprised to find blueberries, wind-stunted bushes hugging thin soil, leaves crimson, berries big and frost-nipped sweet. 

We had chosen a day when the forecast predicted calm air, offering the hope of mountains mirrored in a glassy lake and pleasant loafing at the top.  We scanned the lakeshore and flats for moose and other wildlife, but aside from a few Black-capped Chickadees, Pine Grosbeaks, a sparrow or three and clouds of midges dancing in filtered sunlight, animals were scarce, though near the summit my spirit bird, a Northern Shrike, materialized from out of nowhere to hover a few feet above my head in order to puzzle me out. Bear tracks all the way at the top. Moose tracks and fox tracks along the way. Lynx scat… maybe.

The video is best viewed on a large screen. As you watch, notice the round, snow-crowned summit just barely peaking out from behind foreground mountains in the view across the lake. That’s Mount Veniaminof, an occasionally active volcano 24 miles southwest of Chignik Lake. The earth’s curve over that distance causes it to appear to be only as tall as the closer 3,000 foot peaks. But in fact, Veniaminof touches the sky at 8,225 feet. We hear it rumble from time to time and have occasionally woken to a smoke-clouded sky or a fine dusting of volcanic ash on new snow in the village. 

The corner of the lake to the left, in front of those mountains, is where Clarks River debouches. A major salmon spawning tributary, in September Clarks offers spectacular, nearly untouched fly-fishing for returning Coho Salmon. 

Then, looking up the lake through the gap in the hills and mountains, the landscape disappears into haze. Black River flows into Chignik Lake here, beyond which is miles of Black River itself, and then the upper lake, Black Lake. Past that is a vast area of boggy tundra and kettle ponds all the way across the peninsula to the ghost village of Ilnik and the coast where sandy barrier islands, The Seal Islands, front Bristol Bay. 

Following the landscape to the right, the lake narrows as it flows past the village of Chignik Lake, a community of about 50 to 55 people, most of whom are of Alutiiq heritage. The large white buildings in the middle are the school gym (left) and the school itself (right) where Barbra teaches. Just as the village ends, the lake narrows further, picks up speed and becomes Chignik River. A narrow dirt road follows the river downstream and terminates at a boat landing across from the fish-counting weir, the buildings of which are just barely visible. There are no roads beyond this one, which terminates on its other end at the airfield. 

I included a photograph looking downriver and across the estuary, locally referred to as the lagoon. The image zooms in on the village of Chignik Lagoon, the community closest to Chignik Lake. With no roads nor even trails linking the communities, the river and estuary serve as the highway. Virtually everyone in The Chigniks owns a skiff or two. 

The end credits roll over a black and white photograph I made from Flattop’s summit in early June.

Hiking with us on this day were school faculty members new to The Lake: Melody Wiggins, Jacob Chapman and Melody’s son, Micah. Barbra is on the right in the group photo.

JD

An Incalculable Loss: Tragedy at Chignik Lake

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Fred Shangin and Nick Garner

Fred Shangin, left. Nick Garner, right. They don’t cut men from finer cloth. Watermen through and through, from the headwaters of the Chignik to the unpredictable Alaska Gulf and Bristol Bay, Fred and Nick were two of the most skilled boatmen in the world. We were honored to have them take us under wing and teach us. We are asking our readers to make a contribution in the name of Fred and Nick to the Alaska Dive Search Rescue and Recovery Team.*

Christmas Day here was wonderful. To imagine a holiday at The Lake – Halloween, Easter, The Fourth of July, Christmas – place yourself in a small town 50, 60, 70 years ago, in a gentler, quieter world, far less commercialized, less politicized, more intimate. It snowed all day. Multiple invitations were issued back and forth to come share food and cheer, and for those who felt uncomfortable visiting due to Covid… or for whom age has made going out on a snowy day difficult… heaping platters of turkey, ham, moose, beef, salmon, side dishes and desserts were delivered. The day was a snapshot of life in our tiny village.

How quickly a scene… or a small boat… can flip, leaving the world upside down.

Despite the prospect of incoming weather, the following day three of our men took a skiff up the lake, an eight mile run. The boat the men took was also carrying a snow-machine, the Alaska term for snowmobile. The plan was to look for moose or caribou to replenish the village’s stock of meat.

Weather was coming from the southeast. From that direction, winds have an unobstructed eight miles to build waves as they blow up the lake to the sometimes treacherous northwest corner. Near the lake’s outlet at the village of Chignik Lake, the water can be calm while up in the northwest corner messy, white-capped three footers seem to come from all directions as they bounce off the sheer mountains that crowd the shoreline. Sudden williwaws pouring down those same mountains can turn those three-foot waves into erratic four footers. That’s a lot of sea for a small boat – enough to upend such a vessel.

And so it is that the village lost two great men in the prime of their lives, and we lost two dear friends. Fred was a particularly close friend. In fact, he was much more than a friend. He was our nearest neighbor, our guardian angel and perhaps the most generous and capable man we’ve ever known – and the happiest, truly a man who had found his place in this life. Unbelievable that the guy Barbra sometimes called Superman had perished like that.

Fred was one of the guys who kept the diesel generators running that supply The Lake with electricity; the guy who texted and called me, relatives and friends every day to check in and see what we were up to or to invite us along on one of his adventures. He’d run his skiff down the river and out onto the ocean to set halibut skates (similar to trot lines) and crab pots (which he and Nick welded together from rebar and chicken wire); he was the guy who organized hunting trips for moose and caribou. He was the guy who set nets for salmon and liberally shared his catch. When Fred got halibut, everyone got halibut. When Fred got crab, everyone got crab. When Fred and his crew got a moose… well, you get the idea.

He taught us how to spot the caribou that go up on the ridges of the lower mountains on warm summer days, miles across the lake, mere specks we’d overlooked till Fred pointed them out. He appreciated my photographs, and so I’d regularly get texts and calls from him: Bear on the beach with 2 cubs, or Wolf on the airstrip or Looks like a dandy day there Jack. Good day to go out and take some pictures.

Nick, too, was a friend, though we were only just beginning to get to know each other well. Like Fred, he had a wide range of skills and we admired him greatly. Both were loving, devoted family men. To the village, they were excellent providers as well as the kinds of men who would do anything to help a friend or neighbor. Fred was 42. Nick was 39. In our village of Chignik Lake, a community of only 50 or 60 residents, the loss of these two great men is incalculable. The entire village is in a state of disbelief, shock and sadness.

A fitting tribute to these men would be a contribution to the Alaska Dive Search Rescue and Recovery Team.* Thank you so much for contributing whatever you can give.

*The Alaska Dive Search Rescue and Recovery Team is a donation funded, all volunteer, unpaid, 501(c)(3) Non-Profit Corporation. Donations are tax deductible.
   Only through charitable donations can their volunteers receive the specialized training needed to perform hazardous missions. It also ensures they can maintain their extensive rescue gear cache and equipment trailer that are required to perform missions around the state.

Again to The Lake

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It is good to be back. This was the view from our living room window this morning. If you look closely on the water, you can see the rings and dimples of salmon parr feeding on emerging midges.

May 22, Chignik Lake: After a day of glorious sunshine – which prompted us to go for a hike (a crane, two snipe, our first-of-the-year Savannah Sparrows, several other birds, wild violets) I woke this morning to drizzle with more in the forecast for the next few days. We’ll still get out. There’ll be sunbreaks, and we have rainwear. 

This rainbow arcing over the village featured in the view out our front door this morning. Our home is part of the school campus, to which these buildings also belong – additional housing (mostly vacant) to the right, the school itself to the left. Situated between the far house and the school is the diesel generator building, indicated by the two small smoke stacks. The mountains in the background received fresh snow just yesterday.

The department of Fish & Game will begin counting salmon on the first of June, just 10 days from this writing. A spate of small planes flying in personnel and supplies to the facility at the weir will occur any time now. Two friends set nets yesterday, but I haven’t yet had an opportunity to talk with them to see if they caught any early salmon. 

The landscape goes from brown to green with amazing rapidity this time of year. The lawn will be permitted to grow wild until after the dandelions have gone to down. Our finch population – Pine Grosbeaks, Pine Siskins and Common Redpolls – feast on the seeds. (See “Finches of the Dandelion Jungle.”)

The landscape is beginning to really green up. At 56.25° north (about the same as Edinburgh, Scotland), the climate here is perennially cool. First light, announced daily by a Golden-crowned Sparrow singing in earnest from the alders outside our bedroom window, came at 5:09 this morning. Last light won’t depart till 11:51 PM, so we’re already getting more than 19½ hours of daylight. Sunrise and Sunset times occurred at 6:04 AM and 10:56 PM – nearly 17 hours. Even obscured by clouds, that’s a lot of solar energy for plants rooted in rich volcanic soil and receiving abundant rainfall. During summer, the peninsula coast is as stunningly verdant (and the seaside cliffs, waterfalls sheeting from the tops, nearly as spectacular) as any imagination you might have of the Hawaiian Islands. Inland at The Lake, the summer’s deep and varied hues of green rival that of any emerald land. Already, the beginnings of Chocolate Lilies, Lupine, Wild Geranium, Iris, Horsetail, Cow Parsnip, ferns and more are pushing up… willows decorated with soft, fuzzy catkins, leaf buds on alders and salmonberry bushes near bursting.

I keep meaning to test my guitar against the Golden-crowned’s song – three notes, four if he begins with a slide on the first note. Coltrane, Davis and Armstrong had greater range, but for sheer clarity of tone these birds are masters. Blow, little sparrow! Blow!

We’ve been working each day to bring our home into shape. Having gathered in a couple of new interior decorating ideas while putting our place in Newhalen together and having had a year away to reimagine a few things in this house, we’ve got it looking better than ever. Yesterday, with Barbra’s help I hung 10 acrylic photographs I took in far flung places from Hokkaido to Mongolia to Alaska’s Kenai Fjords to here in the Chigniks. There’s even a favorite shot from a trout lake in Oregon. 

“Barbra!” a small boy cried out upon seeing us from a Covid-safe distance the other day. “Where did you go? Your whole class missed you!” Both of us were, in the words of Bob Dylan, “born a long way from home.” Amidst a peripatetic life, we finally found that place here at The Lake. Leaving when the school closed last year was difficult. The return has been stirring… at times overwhelming. 

Although the school district provides these rentals as “fully furnished,” at the modest prices they charge one would be correct in assuming that overall the furniture is pretty so-so. The beds are the exception; the mattresses are terrific!

Thinking that we’d be in Newhalen for several years, we acquired a few items – decent bookshelves, coffee and end tables, a small but elegant writing station that adjusts for working while either standing or sitting… even details such as nice throw pillows for the sofa… all of which have added up to make an appreciably more congenial living space. Perhaps our favorite item is a pub-style dining table – a high table with tall chairs. ”Up high” is more comfortable than “down low,” especially for us longer-legged types, and the additional six inches in height is just enough to enhance the vantage and view out the windows. 

A group of Greater Scaup has been showing up to dive for aquatic vegetation in a cove visible from our dining window and it was from that window that this photograph was taken. Into the breeding season now, most ducks have paired up and dispersed, but along with the scaup, we regularly see both White-winged and Black Scoters on the lake.

Upon returning to The Lake, we were asked to agree to self-quarantine for a period of 14 days. Thus far there have been no cases of Coronavirus in The Chigniks and everyone wants to keep it that way. The Lake is a village of 50 people, many of them elders. Right now, we don’t have a permanent health aid, so our tiny clinic isn’t regularly open. There are two positions available… 

Even by Alaska standards, Chignik Lake is truly tiny and remote. No restaurants. One small store that would just about fit inside an average living room. A short, bumpy, dirt airstrip. A shed with a pair of diesel-fueled generators that supply the village’s electricity and that can pretty much be counted on to cut out or to be shut down for maintenance periodically – (you’re well advised to frequently save any work you’re doing on the computer).

A stunningly plumaged Male Tree Swallow stands watch near a nesting box occupied by his mate. Each time I think I’ve counted all the boxes put up for swallows in this village, I notice a couple more tucked away under the eaves of a house or mounted on a utility pole. Suffice it to say there are dozens. Native Americans’ happy association with these birds goes back beyond recorded history. Having lived in communities that don’t extend such welcoming to these insectivores, we can testify that their presence makes a huge difference in the number of flying bugs. 

Just about anything we need – screws, batteries, wood for birdhouses, baking powder, clothing… everything, really – has to be planned for ahead of time, shopped for online, ordered, and its arrival patiently awaited. Though it’s not common, there have been times when even groceries have taken weeks to make it out here. (The record has been three weeks.) One learns to think about it before ordering anything perishable, and it pays to advise people shipping goods out here to package them with special care to accommodate multiple plane changes and the bumpy landing. A dentist and an eye doctor fly out once a year to spend a day doing examinations. I suppose I’ll take student portraits for the school this year…

You simply can’t be of a frame of mind of “needing” anything “right now.” This is a wonderful place to hone the arts of planning ahead, a mindful approach to living, taking joy in the moment, and patience.

And here’s a male Violet-green Swallow. With midges hatching on the lake on and off throughout the day, the village is frequently filled with the chattering and aerial displays of these beautifully accomplished pilots that seem to redefine air.

There are, of course, difficulties associated with all this. While we do manage to usually have on hand fresh fruit and vegetables (potatoes, cabbage, carrots, parsnips, rutabaga, apples, avocados, grapefruit and Brussels sprouts ship well and can survive the typical two or three-day journey out; cauliflower, sweet corn, snap peas and pears are riskier. But forget about lettuce and most other fruits – those are city-visit foods unless a friend comes out and hand-carries them). Dried mushrooms take the place of fresh, and we go through canned diced tomatoes (and salsa!) like they’re goin’ out of style. 

Of course, we usually have some sort of wild berries on hand – fresh or fresh-frozen blueberries, lingonberries and salmonberries, and from time to time we make a salad of Fireweed shoots or Dandelion greens. We’re lucky in that we love salmon – which we take on flies we’ve tied – and are frequently gifted with moose meat, which we find superior to beef in most dishes. Every once in awhile we luck into some locally-gathered seafood: Tanner (Snow) Crab, clams, urchins, halibut, sea lettuce.

Getting other meat out here is expensive. If we go into town (into Anchorage), we bring back a tote filled with chicken, pork, beef and sometimes seafood such as scallops, shrimp and crab from Costco. Otherwise, we pay one of the bush airline employees to shop for us. She makes the purchases in the morning, gets our meat and and perhaps a few other delicate perishables on the plane that same day and with luck we have it by afternoon. We buy meat once or twice a year, repackage it into serving-sized portions, vacuum seal it and freeze it. 

We bake all our own bread – the best way of assuring fresh, quality loaves.

I took this photo, one of many tributaries in the Chignik drainage, as we flew into The Lake on May 12. One of these tributaries has a small run of Steelhead… and we finally figured out which one it is. So… If we can get up there…

There are other inconveniences. We’ve been waiting eagerly for our Hondas (ATV’s/quads) to ship out. Getting our boat out here is proving to be quite a logistical puzzle. Shopping online can be challenging. Often you’d just like to hold an item you’re thinking about purchasing in your hands – leaf through a few pages of a book, try on a pair of jeans, feel the grip of a kitchen utensil, evaluate fly-tying materials with your fingertips or see for yourself just how large or small a certain item is. But you can’t, so you make your best guess and hope whatever it is fits well enough or suits the purpose you have in mind.

You learn to look past some things. A shirt with slightly frayed cuffs still has “some good wear in it.” Something that could use a fresh coat of paint “can go awhile longer without one.” A window pane that has a bit of a problem is lived with, because getting the materials out here and figuring out how to make the repair… isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

There are benefits of making a mental contract to live with these inconveniences. (Many benefits, actually.) One of which is that none of the three Chignik villages have had cases of Coronavirus. A health team recently flew in and tested all three villages.

Of all the places I’ve lived, it is in this house that the rain falls on the roof like music and sometimes reminds me of similar music that lulled me to sleep in the Philippines and a small house where I lived in a quiet part of Japan. 

I’ve never lived any place where each morning begins with birdsong as it does here. In that regard, it’s like a permanent vacation on a favorite childhood lake – three far-too-short days in a tent or rented cabin supplanted by a life in a tidy, cozy lakeside home.

And there’s this… which only recently (upon moving back here) came to me. Imagine a sort of stock “beautiful view” from a window. An apartment high up in a skyscraper overlooking a city; a house commanding a view of a beach or a rocky coastline; or a window framing a vista of mountains – the Rockies, the Alps. 

All of these images are lovely.

Yet they are somewhat static. 

Except for the effect the relatively slow progression of seasonal change may bring to the view, or the changing light from day to day and hour to hour… to take in these views once is to take them in for the next several weeks or even months without much anticipation of change.

The view outside our windows is dynamic. The weather moving from sea to sea across this narrow peninsula is dramatic, the moods set by changing light sometimes stunning. There is wildlife – birds, bears, shoaling and leaping salmon, insect hatches, hungry seals, otters, foxes, an occasional wolf, eagles, owls… and there’s the comings and goings of friends (and everyone in this village is a friend) as they launch their boats or come in with the day’s catch, a freshly taken moose, or a shipment that was delivered to The Bay. 

Male Common Redpoll outside our kitchen window.

This morning, as I was proofreading this piece of writing, I saw the season’s very first school of salmon heading up the lake. Between now and October, hundreds of thousands more will follow, mostly Reds but also Pinks, Silvers, Kings, a very few Steelhead, lots of sea run char and close to the ocean, Chums.

Pine Siskins (above), redpolls, Golden-crowned Sparrows, Pine Grosbeaks and magpies have been daily visitors to our yard to take advantage of the seeds I put out for them. Watching them as we wash dishes makes the chore go faster.

Quiet. The entire time I have been writing this morning, (both yesterday and  today) the only sounds have been the off and on hum of the refrigerator (sometimes at night, I unplug it for awhile… real, blessed quiet), the gentle whistle of water coming to boil in our coffee kettle, the songs and cries of birds – thrushes, swallows, warblers, sparrows, redpolls, siskins, magpies, ravens, ducks, gulls -, and the steady music of rain on the roof. 

Today we will tackle the organization of the fishing & photography room.

I’ve been striving to practice three hours a day on the guitar. 

          O snail,
          Climb Mount Fuji
          But slowly, slowly!
                                   Issa

   

He Wasn’t Our Dog – a Tribute to Our Friend, Buster

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If there was ever a more naturally contented being, we’ve not met. But there was often a lot going on inside that big, lovable head.

 He wasn’t our dog.

Shortly after we moved to The Lake, he began showing up, handsome with his barrel chest, slim hips and soft brown coat. Instantly lovable with those floppy, puppyish ears, sparkling brown eyes and that big head he liked to push into a hand to be petted. We didn’t know his name. So we called him Friendly. He seemed to always have a smile in his eyes, his bushy tail swishing back and forth hopefully whenever he saw us. We’d seen it before, a semi-feral village dog making the rounds, looking for a scrap of meat here, a bone there, maybe a dog biscuit or a bowl of last night’s leftovers.

But there was something different about this dog. In fact, there was a lot different about him. For starters, he traveled alone, doing his best to assume a live and let live attitude toward other dogs. He didn’t slink or skulk, bark or yip without good reason, beg or cower. He presented himself as a perfectly happy, intelligent, calm, confident being, and yet no one really seemed to own him. The backstory, we found out later, is that he had spent part of his early life as a truly feral “dump” dog, getting by on whatever he could scrounge. We were told that someone had eventually adopted him, but although he had places where he could often count on getting a meal, no one seemed to consistently take care of him.

It turned out that his name was Buster. When we began addressing him as such, it was apparent that he knew his name.

“We’re not going to start feeding him,” we reminded ourselves.

After all, he wasn’t our dog.

Hurts to look at. With the closest vet two bush flights and hundreds of miles away, removing these quills was difficult for the people involved and excruciatingly painful for Buster. This was his second such “lesson.” What is it with dogs and porcupines?

Even without the incentive of food, Buster began hanging out with us. On my daily birding walks, I could usually count on him to show up, seemingly out of nowhere, and falling into step. It seemed that he recognized the cadence of my stride and, as sometimes happens between two beings, that he’d taken a liking to me. When I arrived at wherever I was going to set up my tripod and camera for the morning – looking for ducks out on the river or lake, or songbirds at the White Spruce Grove – he’d position himself as closely to me as he reasonably could and then quietly, patiently and faithful watch alongside. Buster loved to be petted, and he had an endearing habit of pushing his head into my leg to remind me how much he loved being petted. For my part I couldn’t have asked for a better fellow birder. He had the capacity to remain still for a very long time and his alertness probably helped keep me more watchful. And so we spent mornings like that, enjoying sunshine, enduring rain and snow, staying low against the wind, documenting birds that in some instances had never before been recorded on this remote peninsula.

As I packed up and slung my tripod over my shoulder at the end of those birding sessions, Buster would spring to his feet, jog ahead of me a few paces, look back and give his head a little jerk in the direction we were heading, back to my house. It was as if he was saying, “C’mon, Jack! Let’s go get something to eat!”

There are bird dogs and there are bird dogs. Buster had the kind of toughness about him common to village dogs. Weather? What weather?

That’s how it started. A friend comes along and keeps you company for hours on end like that, both of us heading home hungry… You can’t not fix your buddy something to eat.

At first I’d dig around in the fridge for whatever leftovers might be on hand – a piece of salmon, gristly scraps of moose, or bones I’d left a little extra meat on for him. But before long dog biscuits and a quality dog food became part of our regular grocery orders. And of course a good friend like Buster needed a proper bowl. And a brush.

Between the good food and the regular brushings, which he loved, our already handsome friend was soon sporting a beautiful coat. His visits to our house became more regular and lasted longer until at some point we realized he was showing up almost without fail for breakfast each morning.  In fact, quite often he was spending the entire night sleeping below our bedroom window.

We, who had vowed “No dogs, no pets,” were being adopted.

Buster, the quintessential outdoors dog, never did get used to coming into our home. Although he was always welcome, he usually would only stay for awhile, and only as long as he could sit or lie next to one of us. Indoors seemed to be too warm for him. So he was content to lie outside our windows, all the better if his vantage point provided him with a view of one of us working at a desk or cooking in the kitchen. As far as I could tell, he’d never been trained, not even to sit. But he was one of the most well-mannered dogs we’ve ever known. Every so often he might give out a single, throaty bark – Buster’s way of mentioning that he might be ready for a snack.

And so it went for two years. The three of us hiked together up to Clarks River and along other trails for miles in all weather. He accompanied me out onto the ice that first year when the lake froze hard and ducks gathered in a small area of remaining open water. There were no trappers in the village that year, and so along with lots of birds, many of which were new to us, a number of foxes regularly showed up in the village and a family of river otters patrolled the lake and river. Every other dog in the village went dog-bonkers anytime one of these wild mammals was present.

That first winter when the lake froze, the wildlife viewing was enthralling. I spent hours on the frozen lake almost every day while it lasted. But on this morning out on the ice, I was collecting landscape pictures. Buster had his eye on a group of ducks milling around in open water.

Not Buster. In the spirit of full disclosure, the first time we encountered otters together, he did run off toward them… And promptly found himself sliding off a ledge of thick ice along the bone-chilling Chignik River, his eyes wide with panic as he looked to me for help and tried to scramble out. I guided him downriver to a break in the ice, asked him if he’d learned anything about ice while he shook himself off, and then we went home where I dried him with a warm towel and we both got something to eat. We saw otters after that, but he never again chased after them – at least not in my presence.

And the foxes? He was curled up in the snow outside our window one evening when a certain fox came by. Buster barely looked up. Instead, the fox started barking at him!

Bears and wolves were a different story though, and we came to appreciate Buster’s selective vigilance. When he let loose with his deep-throated bark, you could bet one of these two predators was around – and that Buster was doing his duty to keep them moving along.

Toward the end, when the mere act of standing was painful, a wolf – probably a pack scout – had been showing up in the village fairly regularly. An enduring memory is of Buster one evening pulling himself to his feet, propping himself against our house, and letting loose a barrage of fierce barking. The courageous old General, still on duty.

It was those slim hips that ultimately were his demise. When we returned to The Lake late this last summer, it was clear he was beginning to have mobility difficulties. He still had that optimistic smile in his eyes and an expression of sheer joy upon seeing us, and he was still getting around pretty well, but he was beginning to walk sideways. We knew our friend might not see another spring.

Through fall, Buster continued to be a constant companion. But as winter settled in, I had to begin discouraging him from trying to accompany me out into the field. It hurt us both, made worse by the fact that I’m sure Buster didn’t understand why his pal wouldn’t let him come along anymore.

He was losing control of his hind legs. He began falling down. Eventually he stopped trying to follow.

I am indebted to Barbra for taking pictures of me and my friend. A Tufted Duck – an uncommon to rare visitor from Asia to parts of Alaska – had mixed itself in with a few scaup, and I was spending a lot of time at The Bend on the Chignik River attempting to get photos. That’s where Barbra found us when she finished teaching on this snowy January day one year. 

But he still came by our house nearly every day. One especially nasty winter night Buster showed up at our front door quite ill. His nose was dry and hot to the touch, his eyes watery and listless. Fearing the worst, we had him come inside. I rolled out a sleeping bag on the kitchen floor so I could stay with him while he slept on the cool linoleum. The next morning he was greatly improved… for the time being.

Buster’s final days were difficult. In his last weeks, a small dog became his constant companion, watching over Buster as he hobbled around. Little Rex would chase magpies and other dogs away from Buster’s food dish, reach out with his paw to touch Buster and then curl up and sleep next to the old man. For Buster’s part, he showed enormous courage. He was in pain, and I have to imagine beyond frustration with his inability to get around as he once had. But there was still the brightness and optimism in his eyes that had drawn us to him the first time we met.

All the time we had known Buster, there was nothing he enjoyed more than a big bowl of food or a couple of biscuits. He was, after all, a dog, though perhaps much like many of us, food presented by a friend or loved one carries with it the additional pleasure of conveying a sense of being appreciated, loved and cared for. But toward the end, he wouldn’t begin eating until we petted him and talked to him for awhile.

He wasn’t our dog.

We had to keep reminding ourselves of that, and that decisions about how his last days should be handled had to be left to his owners. What we could do was help Buster be as comfortable and as loved as possible any time he came to our house, which he was still somehow managing to do almost every day.

What a wonderful friend. I don’t think we’ve ever known a being with a greater heart or a more optimistic outlook toward life.

He wasn’t our dog. He was our friend. And he is missed.

Morning Nature Walk, the Chigniks, Alaska: Landscapes, New Birds & the Season’s First Bear Photos

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A Sandhill Crane fluffs his feathers on a patch of tundra and scrub a short hike from Chignik Lake. The photos accompanying this article were all taken on May 23, 2019 within 2½ miles of this village of about 50 residents.

We got an early start and this chubby fellow or gal appears to be barely awake. Wonderful singers, Sooty Fox Sparrows might be the most abundant bird in and around the village right now. Their only rival in that regard are Wilson’s Warblers.

While I focused on a warbler singing near the creek, Barbra turned around and got this elegant frame looking back at one of the village’s abandoned houses and the wooden jungle gym at the old playground.

The weather doesn’t always cooperate. All last night it rained hard and blew a gale, the winds whistling around our snug little home on The Lake. I listened and listened for the little Saw Whet Owl that has been coming around to wake me the past few nights. I could hear waves slapping the sandy beach, the wind… but no owl. There’s light in the sky over the mountains across the lake to the east as I begin this piece of writing in the pre-dawn. Maybe it’ll clear up. After a winter of day after day of spot-on weather forecasts, Spring has returned such prognostication to its usual hit and miss spin of the roulette wheel. It’s supposed to be raining right now, but the sky is clearing. If it does I’ll go out and look for birds. With just four weeks remaining in our life at The Lake, we’re making every day count.

It’s spring and everyone is singing. One of the morning’s objectives was to photograph the Hermit Thrushes that came in with Wilson’s Warblers about a week ago. I’m still looking for a great shot, one with catchlight in the subject’s eye and the bird near enough to crop in portrait close, but this is a start.

Two days ago we woke to a sky that was broken but clearing. The faintest of breezes barely rippled the lake’s surface. We hurried through breakfast, got our camera gear in order, packed a small bag of trail mix and a water bottle, grabbed our binoculars and headed out. Bird song was everywhere and our recently-arrived Tree and Violet-green Swallows had already taken command of the skies. Three elements make for a good birding walk: little or no wind, nice light and birds. We had all three.

We weren’t sure if these Black-capped Chickadees were gleaning insects or gathering nesting material from the last of the catkins in this willow. Either way they didn’t sit still for a moment.

Before we even came to the edge of the village, about a quarter mile walk from our door, we identified 10 species of birds. (There’s a list of what we encountered at the end of this article.) With copses of White Spruce, thickets of alder and willow, salmonberry brakes, open patches of grasses and flowers, rolling terrain, a creek filled with small char and salmon parr and a large lake and river where midges and other insects are constantly hatching, the local landscape features diverse habitat and varied food sources. The dozens of nesting boxes established throughout the village further add to Chignik Lake as a bird paradise.

He’s up there! A tiny speck at the top of the tree on the right, you’d think this Wilson’s Warbler would feel safe from the gentle photographer far below. But I know from experience that as I’m not shooting from a blind, I’m already pushing the bird’s comfort zone. A step or two closer and he’ll disappear. 

Thus far in my ongoing project to document birds within a three-mile radius of The Lake, I’ve identified 76 species, the recent appearance of the Saw Whet Owl being the 76th. Because until recently Barbra’s school district didn’t allow teachers to remain in the district’s housing beyond the school year, this is the first summer we’ve been able to stay for summertime birding. Already this has allowed us to more thoroughly document the two species of swallows that visit The Lake each year, and we’re told that a short way down the river is a colony of Bank Swallows as well. We’re keenly interested to see what else might turn up over the next four weeks.

And there he is, all 4¾ inches of male Wilson’s Warbler, dapper in his jaunty black cap, king of his world overlooking Post Office Creek. In previous years we’ve had quite a few Yellow Warblers and a very few Orange-crowned Warblers as well, but no sign of either of those yet. 

Wilson’s Snipe nest right here in the village. Their vocalizations and winnowing can be heard throughout the day, but I can count on three fingers the times I’ve been close enough to a sitting snipe to get a decent photograph; I’m still looking for my first Chignik Lake shots.

At times, Golden-crowned Sparrows can be cooperative subjects. We have one that visits the lawn just outside our door multiple times a day and no longer pays much attention to our comings and goings. But the bird in this photo is less accustomed to human traffic and chose to eye us warily from inside a thicket of branches while I composed this shot. 

A lightly-traveled ATV trail begins at the Northwest edge of the village and winds its way over varied terrain through patches of crowberry and cranberry, stands of fireweed, willow and alder thickets, bog and tundra all the way to the mouth of Clarks River. We’ve hiked this path often, seldom encountering anyone along the way. Muddy places along the trail often have imprinted evidence of foxes, wolves, bears and moose. We pause often to listen and to look and even to use our noses.

It is a landscape that invites a hike, and on a day like this… who can say “No?”

Every hike is different. The landscape changes from day to day, and with the shifting play of light sometimes the changes are from moment to moment. In the depths of winter, it is possible to hike this trail and encounter nothing save for perhaps a handful of chickadees – a species we’ve come to greatly admire for their intelligence and tenacity. The Native American wisdom that “Every animal knows more than you know,” sinks home when you’re out on a cold, blustery day and these little guys are going about their business, thriving. On this morning we took note of the receding snow line, budding alders, willows leafing out and new flowers, fresh shoots of all kinds of plants popping up everywhere – geranium, yarrow, fireweed, lupine, iris, cow parsnip, star gentian… Each of these plants is like a calendar of the summer, marking the days in different stages of growth.

Is there any plant more graceful than a springtime fern unfurling?

The more you walk, the more you learn, until eventually the generalized mix of bird song is differentiated into individual voices – the chattering of a certain type of warbler, the melancholy Here I am… of a sparrow. What was once a wash of varicolored green becomes an intricate web of individual plants, each kind with its own name, lifecycle and place in this complex ecosystem. Over time you come to know where the owls roost, how to find the nests of ground-nesting sparrows, what kind of tracks have been left in the sand and perhaps how long ago they were placed there. A bird lets you have a glimpse of its form as it flits across the path and where many miles of walking ago you might have thought to yourself “a bird,” you now know precisely what kind of bird and where it might nest and what it likes to eat and you know all this without thinking much about it. It just is.

We have been coming across tracks for close to two weeks – tracks left by large bears, tracks left by sows and their cubs, tracks left by young adults perhaps embarking on their first full season alone. But these were the first two bears we’ve seen this year. Skinny from a dormant winter and quite likely from not having gotten as many salmon as they would have liked given the low return of salmon to the Chignik River last year, these spring bears will manage to begin to put on weight on a diet of grass and tubers. They’ll even eat insects this time of year.

Two miles up the trail a steep bluff provides a vantage point overlooking the lake and an adjacent savannah-like area. We always stop here to glass for wildlife – bears on the beaches, ducks on the water and anything that might happen to be out in the flat where we’ve seen foxes, cranes and signs of wolves, bears and moose. It’s a good place to look for Savannah Sparrows, another species that just recently arrived.

We’ve come to call this view of the lake The Infinity Pool.

Far out on the lake, a few Black Scoters were milling around, occasionally quacking. A young Harbor Seal, barely more than a pup, popped up to have give us a curious look. Three or four Bald Eagles and half a dozen Mew Gulls were resting on a sand spit at the mouth of Clarks. While Wilson’s Warblers and Fox and Golden-crowned Sparrows seemed to be everywhere, the Savannah Sparrows we’d hoped to photograph proved to be more elusive. Here and there we’d hear their distinctive, almost blackbird-like call, but aside from a couple of distant views through binoculars, we didn’t have much luck. We left the grassy area to follow the lake shore. As our boots crunched along the sandy beach, little schools of shore-hugging salmon parr skittering for deeper water.

This stickleback was so ripe with eggs she could barely swim. I cupped her in my hands for a quick photo and released her into a patch of filamentous algae where she tucked in. The Chignik watershed has two types of stickleback – Three-spined and Nine-spined. Slow swimmers, they are preyed upon by everything from River Otters to Mergansers. Most of the time when I see a duck with a fish, it’s a stickleback. 

Seeing young salmon along the lake shore and in the several small creeks feeding in the lake always puts a lightness in our hearts. Sockeyes and Coho and lots of them. When a midge hatch is on, the surface of the lake becomes dimpled as though rain is falling as these fish rise to intercept the insects. When I turned over a few rocks in one of the streams, to my surprise I found the undersides to be thick with mayfly nymphs. There were also a few stoneflies, which equally surprised me. In late summer we’ve been here for the heaviest midge hatches we’ve ever witnessed, but other than sporadic hatches of caddisflies we haven’t noticed much else, a very occasional stonefly and a few small mayflies notwithstanding. The undersides of lake rocks can be thick with caddis cases, so there must be significant hatches of those at some point. And if the feeder streams are home to mayflies, maybe we’ll be around for a hatch of those. There’s always something new to look forward to.

We call this stretch of the trail The Tunnel – a fitting name when it’s crowded in with leafed out alders. We’re usually quiet hikers, but in places such as this where you can’t see more than a few feet ahead, we make a little noise, not wishing to surprise or be surprised by any four-legged beings.

Well, the morning’s half gone. A big patch of blue has pushed its way through the clouds and although the best light is past, it might still be worth it to go out for a look around. Yellow Warblers should be showing up any time now, and I’m still looking for a photograph of a Hermit Thrush with a bit of catchlight in its eye.

Here’s the list of the birds we came across on this walk:

Black Scoter
Common Merganser
Tundra Swan
Greater Yellowlegs
Wilson’s Snipe
Sandhill Crane
Mew Gull
Bald Eagle
Black-billed Magpie
American Robin
Hermit Thrush
Black-capped Chickadee
Tree Swallow
Violet-green Swallow
Wilson’s Warbler
Savannah Sparrow
Golden-crowned Sparrow
Sooty Fox Sparrow
Redpoll
Pine Siskin

In Dandelion Sugar

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More than halfway into my first 500 hours on the guitar. Irresistible to take it outside into the yard today, sunshine, swallows swooping, sparrows chirping and singing, warblers chattering from bare alders and newly leafed out willows. Working on my Travis picking patterns. Barbra took this photo for posterity.

After starting off the new year with three consecutive months of not looking at the news, I got sucked in again. A mistake. Monotonous. Depressing. It doesn’t matter which news source you look at, there’s nothing like it to simultaneously rile you up while making you feel powerless. There are better places to focus energy. In fact, we’ve decided to go back off TV altogether. Extra time on the guitar. Extra time to write. I think I’ll start reading Ted Leeson’s The Habit of Rivers this evening.

Still trying to get a decent photo of our Hermit Thrushes. Of course, if I could capture an image of their otherworldly song, that would be the real trick.

I imagine someone will let me know if we go to war.

These final days at The Lake, I want to savor it.

In dandelion sugar.

First Silver of 2018

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Ocean-bright and full of fight, Barbra’s 12-pound Coho today is the first and only salmon we’ve put on the bank this year… so far.

In each our previous six years in Alaska, our fish for the coming months were long ago caught, cleaned, freezer-packed or smoked and canned and put away.

Not this year.

Like a lot of salmon runs around Alaska, here on the Chignik River its been a mere trickle of fish compared to other years. In fact, for a few weeks in July fishing was closed altogether. Still, we were confident upon returning from our bike trek in Hokkaido that we’d be able to get the couple of dozen or so fish we need.

That was nearly a month ago. Admittedly, it’s not like we’ve been hitting the water every day. But the few times we’ve been out, it’s been discouraging. When lots of salmon are around, so are bears, eagles and seals, and we can generally see lots of jumpers – salmon fresh from the sea and full of energy spontaneously leaping for whatever reasons salmon spontaneously leap. But it’s been eerily quiet; the usual eagle roosts have been empty.

Even in this down year, hundreds of thousands of Sockeyes ascended the river, and there will undoubtedly be thousands of Coho as well. It felt great to finally get one. Pasta with fresh salmon is on the menu tonight.

New Homes Available! Swallow Nesting Boxes at Chignik Lake

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Construction Complete! Lovely one-room summer homes with lake and mountain views available now! Perfect for rearing a brood of chicks.

Reading John J. Audubon’s accounts of his journeys throughout the United States in search of every species of bird for his paintings, I’m always charmed by his portraits of communities and their abundant bird nesting boxes.

“Almost every Country tavern has a Martin box on the upper part of its signboard;” he wrote of 1840’s America, “and I have observed that the handsomer the box, the better does the inn generally prove to be.”

The prevalence of hollow gourds fashioned with holes and used as nesting sites in Native American villages is also well documented. Apparently the symbiotic relationship between swallows and humans goes back a long time and cuts across cultures. Virtually everyone seems to love these harbingers of spring, their artistic mastery of the air, and the serious damage they do to mosquito populations and to other annoying insects.

And so it is here in Chignik Lake. Upon moving here we were struck by the numerous swallow nesting boxes situated on posts, nailed to utility poles and affixed to buildings throughout the village. Here we have mostly Tree Swallows along with occasional Violet-green Swallows. In the absence of invasive species such as House Sparrows and Starlings – which take over nesting boxes -, and with a lake featuring copious hatches of midges and other insects, this is a perfect place for swallows to rear a brood of chicks. Magpies can be a scourge, so it’s important that nesting boxes not feature any sort of perch to allow them to access the eggs and chicks, but other than our Merlins, there are essentially no other serious threats to the swallows of Chignik Lake.

The major factor limiting the number of swallows Chignik Lake can accommodate is… accommodations. So this spring we did our part to help these birds out by putting up four new cedar nesting boxes. The first Tree Swallows showed up sometime around May 9, and the early birds have already begun choosing nesting sites. Our boxes may have gone up a bit late for this year’s birds, but after they’ve weathered for a year and the swallows have had an opportunity to check them out, we’re hopeful they’ll attract these welcome summer visitors in future years.

Location, location, location. High enough up, away from occupied buildings and busy roads, near a lake chock full of bugs, and a pesticide & herbicide-free environment. Heck, if we were Tree Swallows, we’d spend our summers here!

If you’d like to put up swallow nesting boxes in your area:

  • Place the boxes high enough off the ground to avoid predators
  • Although swallows like to feed and nest near water, position the boxes well back from the shore. Predators cruise shorelines.
  • Although swallows will at times happily nest in apartment-style boxes (a friend in Chignik Lake has a row of about a dozen boxes that fill up with residents every summer) it is generally recommended that for Tree Swallows and Violet-greens, boxes be placed at least 30 feet apart.
  • Do Not attach a roosting peg or ledge anywhere on the box. Swallows don’t need such a perch, but avian predators will use it to to prey on eggs and chicks.
  • Swallows prefer nesting boxes in open areas, at least 30 feet or so away from buildings. This is by no means a hard-and-fast rule, and don’t let a lack of open space prevent you from putting up nesting boxes. Boxes placed near shrubs and trees are likely to attract wrens, sparrows and other birds rather than swallows.
  • Do what you can to keep European Starlings and House Sparrows out of the boxes. These invasive species have had a negative impact on a number of native bird species. A hole diameter of 1⅛” – 1⅜” is said to be large enough for swallows but will keep starlings and sparrows out.
  • Keep cats indoors. This is a good general rule to protect wildlife, but is especially important if your aim is to attract birds. You don’t want to invite birds only to have them and their chicks fall prey to a pet.

Looking for Love

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His colors will never be brighter than they are right now, nor his call more cheerful. Pine Grosbeaks tend to be irregular in their presence, but for the past two years in Chignik Lake they’ve been regular residents. For a look at a nearby female, which is very differently colored, see below. (Note the midges flying around to the right in the above photo. With big insect hatches coming off the lake and river, our swallows should be here any day!) 

Most days in the village the optimistic Peee-Peeet! of Pine Grosbeaks can be heard as they fly overhead or perch atop the tallest spruce trees. Always striking, the males are particularly colorful during springtime. Like their crossbill cousins, Pine Grosbeaks can be remarkably unwary. Move slowly around them, sit quietly, and they may forage on the ground practically at your feet. I’ve even had one perch on my head!

Female Pine Grosbeaks feature a rich olive-gold on their head, upper back, rump and often on their upper breast. This time of year, the leaf buds of deciduous trees figure heavily in Pine Grosbeaks’ diets. During wintertime they can be attracted to feeders featuring black oil sunflower seeds, suet or (I’m guessing) peanuts. They also love small fruit and during warmer months will include insects in their diet.

The “gros” of grosbeak is from the French gros, which means large. This is a species we’ll be looking for this summer in Hokkaido, Japan – part of their ranged across the Northern Hemisphere.

Fancy Prices & Fancy Ingredients? Don’t Bother. Try this Easy, Zesty Raspberry Chipotle Sauce Recipe

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A little sweet and a little heat, this couldn’t-be-easier raspberry chipotle sauce brings another dimension to Thai-spiced scallops (above), broiled fish fillets, chicken, pork, wild game and grilled vegetables.

The past two years, we’ve been able to pick a surfeit of big, beautiful raspberries from a patch gone ferrel a half-mile from our home here on Chignik Lake. Barbra takes this fruit and turns out tangy freezer jam as well as traditional jam. The jams in turn go into airy raspberry mousse, raspberry almond tarts, mixed with our steel cut oats for breakfast, stirred into our homemade yogurt, drizzled onto lemon bars and cheesecakes, and spread on our peanut butter sandwiches. We even add a touch of raspberry to one of our favorite cocktails, Raspberry Bourbon Berets.

One of my favorite ways to use our jam is in raspberry chipotle sauce. It’s quick, it’s easy, it keeps well in the fridge, and it’s absolutely terrific on fish, pork and poultry. The directions couldn’t be easier, and your favorite store-bought raspberry jam will probably work fine. Try this on salmon fillets.

Raspberry Chipotle Sauce

Ingredients & Directions

Mix together 1/2 cup raspberry jam, 1/2 tablespoon balsamic vinegar, and 1/2 teaspoon powdered chipotle pepper. Alternatively, you can substitute a favorite powdered chile blend, but choose one with a good amount of chipotle as the smokey flavor really compliments fish, meat and poultry.