Mother Nature Flexes Her Muscles

The small town Eagle was hit hard by an ice jam and subsequent flooding from the Yukon River. Ice bergs backed up against fast ice in front of town and the water levels continued to jump until the jam finally broke loose. But not before the old native village of Eagle was totally destroyed and many other homes and businesses in the newer town of Eagle met the same disastrous fate.

The second story picture window of Charlie House's B&B was smashed out by this ice berg. All of Charlie's handcrafted buildings were displaced and ruined. He plans on cutting them up with a chainsaw and burning them in place.

A displaced cabin in amongst the jumble ice.

The folks that put up this memorial lost their home and all of their vehicles.

This was were first street used to be. It was totally covered in ice and had pushed all of the homes up and off of their foundations.

The Eagle school wore many hats...it acted as a homeless shelter, chow hall, supply exchange, Op's office and the meeting hall. I was very impressed by the quality of leadership in the school and the way the community hung in there.

The scope of work that I dealt with was spill response and tank recovery. Here we were extracting an over turned fuel truck tanker.

My co-worker looks on as Great Northwest contractors begin to work their way through the jumble ice on their way the the Holland-America Cruise ship.

The multimillion dollar ship was jammed into a precarious position. Holland-America is spending a ton of money to get the ship dislodged and ready for the tourist season.

Our contractors work at extracting a tank that was located out in the ice field.

I found this poem nailed to an old cabin and thought that it was fairly fitting for the current situation.

Back to the Slope for Bou

Early April usually has some time blocked out on my calander for a trip up north of the Brooks Range to hunt caribou. My freezer had just run out of wild red meat so the timing could not have been better. Luke and I postponed the trip to try to elude some really cold weather, but when we finally arrived the temperatures where still not exacly warm with the lows in the -20's we were more interested in harvesting caribou than going for a ski tour.



Long shadows on the wind slab

We harvested four caribou out of a small herd. Pictured, is Luke and I with a nice cow.

Part of the herd skidattled once we started shooting. This photo gives a decent perspective of the enormity of the country.

A blade of icy cotton grass.

We made it back to the truck with our load of caribou before the sun set on our third day of the trip. This gave us enough time to get to Cold Foot for a Trucker Special before midnight.

The Slope did not disappoint once again!

96 Miles in 69 Hours

Back in January Ed talked me into taking some time off from the building project and getting out on a ski. It seemed like a great idea, but a wild chinook blew in and brought with it some extra challanging conditions. The trails were icy, my conditioning was horrible, but the trip was great.

Skiing up windy gap


Enjoying some time inside after a long day on the trail.


We got to enjoy a few miles of fast overflow on our way down this drainage.


More overflow...there was no shortage of ice on this trip.










Once we got back into the limestone peaks of the White Mountains the surrounding landscape was phenominal.

There were some failry long stretches of very boney trails...it did not feel like interior Alaska in January.


The conditions on top of the pass were incredible...no wind and the temps hoovered around freezing.



Melting snow and drying gear in one of the cabins

John is melting in some binder wax in an attempt to get his wax to stick around for longer periods on the icy trails.




It has been a while since I have posted anything and the recallection of the some of the details associated with this trip have already left, but I do recall being refreshed by the challange and time spent with good friends in some great country.

Long Time, No Blog.

It has been a while since I have updated my blog. Life has been good and steady progress is being made on the house. The photo from above is how things looked when I left for my brothers wedding in mid-October. The next few pictures bring the place up to date. I still have a ton of work to do before I can call the place finished, but I can certainly see a light at the end of the tunnel. I just had the last of my electrical work finished and should be installing kitchen cabinets around Christmas. Once the cabinets are in I can get the water system started...no more outhouse by mid-January!

Utility closet.

Carpeted stairs, painted kitchen, partially finished floors, dry wall...things are moving along!


Ptarmigan on the Dome-

Josie retrieves a snow chicken for us as we finish up an afternoon of bird hunting.
We have had a few fun outings and we have had enough success to experiment with some fun ptarmigan recipes.

More Fun at Tolavana-

Dayna, the dogs and I walked into Tolovana Hot Springs to meet up with some friends. The weather was fairly brutal, serving up wind chills below -50 degrees. It was certainly a adventure and I think we all had fun.

Dayna is trying to protect her exposed skin on the dome.


We were treated with some great views and a nice sunset as we headed out of the back country.

Wedding Bells in Wisconsin

I was lucky enough to be my brothers best man last Saturday as he and Heidi said their vows and tied the proverbial knot. I made it back to Wisconsin a week early so that our fishing club could get together and celebrate with my brother on his last weekend as a bachelor. The weather was grand, the company was top shelf and the wedding was a hoot.


This is just a picture of a random country church in Western Wisconsin.

I almost got choked up when I was able to pull over for a Brat Fry at 10 A.M.

I stopped into Louie's Finer Meats for some award winning brats to grill up at during the fishing weekend.

I should have known that I would not need to supplement the brat inventory there were already dozens of these tasty sausages ready for the grill when I got to the party.

The Master Baiter Fishing Club in full plumage. Time of photo...unknown.

Tony is trying to find a willing musky while we shoot the bull in my old boat. The fall colors were a real treat.

These Bloody Mary's warranted a picture. Not only did we get the customary "wash" behind the drink but we also got a boiled egg to round this into a healthy meal.

The larger than life personalities of the bride and groom were nearly matched by the size of the beer glasses at the wedding. Needless to say, good times were had by all.

Home Building Update

It's been a while since I have documented any progress on the construction project. July was a tough month full of rain and unseasonable weather which really hampered my productive work time. But once my Dad came into town to hunt and help on the house Mother Nature gave us a break and we made the most of it.





On Labor Day I was able to round up a group of friends to help put on the metal roof. It was a huge relief to finally have the house sealed up. Now I have to contend with dark evenings and the fear of freeze up in a few weeks.