Dear hungry reader,

The salmon have returned to the rivers, so we Alaskans have, too. My husband and a group of friends spent two days on the Copper River, one of the most famous salmon streams. Regardless of where you live, it’s possible that you’ve seen Copper River sockeye on a menu or in a grocery store.

Dipnetting is one of the most popular methods for subsistence fishing. You lower a long-handled, wide net into the river and scoop the salmon out of the water. This type of fishing is allowed for Alaskan residents only, and in only a few rivers. It’s regulated to help people get their fish for the year while still protecting the salmon population.

When Sam went last week, each Alaskan family was allowed 40 fish. He brought home 35 sockeye, also know as red salmon, and one king salmon. This is a wonderful blessing, but it also means a lot of work. Everyone in the family pitched in over the course of two days, and now we have the salmon filleted and either preserved in jars or frozen in vacuum-sealed bags. Here are a few photos.

A cooler of fish on ice.

Our oldest daughter helping to get sockeye fillets ready for the freezer.

Sam preparing jars for the pressure cooker.

Jars filled with sockeye salmon fillets.

This catch alone will provide us with about 70 meals for the year. For dinners, we thaw the frozen fillets and grill it or bake it in the oven. The jarred salmon is cooked during the pressure cooking process. We store it in the root cellar, and use it to make something similar to tuna salad for sandwiches, salmon burgers, salmon-cream cheese spread, and pasta recipes, as well as just eating it out of the jar. It is some of the most healthy, flavorful meat in the world, and we’re thankful to have it! We’re also thankful to be done with the work. At least until we go king salmon fishing later this week.

Cheers!

Eowyn

Dear reliable reader,

One of my favorite bloggers, The Rejectionist, recently had a post called Things That Are Not Actually Normal But Seem Sort of Normal After 2.89 Years in New York City. It’s hilarious, and it inspired me to do my own homage to her genius.

So here is my list of things that are not actually normal but seem sort of normal after 30 years in Alaska —

spinning your vehicle 360 degrees on black ice in the middle of the highway, ending up back in your own lane facing the right direction, so continuing on to work as if nothing happened

breakup boots, not “Wellingtons” or “galoshes”

your 3-year-old daughter asking for moose during lunch at preschool, and then crying when told she will have to eat cow meat

sunrise at 11 a.m. followed by sunset at 3 p.m. or, if you prefer, sunset at 11 p.m., sunrise at 3 a.m.

Outside potatoes. True, all potatoes are grown outdoors. “Outside” potatoes are grown someplace like Idaho – Outside of Alaska

hiding your last-minute, grocery-store-bought Outside potatoes when your potato farmer friend comes for dinner

grinning sheepishly when your potato farmer friend finds Outside potatoes behind the box of beer in the pantry

trying to find a place for the 50 pounds of Yukon Golds your potato farmer friend unloads in your kitchen when he comes back the next day

flip-flops, with no socks, in the post office in the dead of winter. 15 degrees below zero, but who’s asking

40 rhubarb plants in your yard

your husband thinking 40 rhubarb plants might not be enough

$4.35 per gallon of gas in the oil capital of the United States

$18 for gallon of milk in Bush Alaska

knowing Bush Alaska is anywhere not on the road system, which is vast majority of state

537 mosquitoes inside one pup tent, and another million or so begging to get in

spending an hour in the middle of the night trying to kill the one mosquito that keeps bumping into your forehead

100% DEET

muktuk and akutaq as hors d’oeuvres at opening night of the community play

knowing akutuq is an Alaska Native traditional dish with seal fat, Crisco, and wild berries whipped together

thinking akutuq is kind of yummy

boiled caribou tongue served hot out of the pot in hunting camp

knowing that caribou tongue is awful and should never be eaten

elementary schools that allow outdoor recess down to 20 below zero

top secret berry picking spots

being sworn to secrecy when being led, blindfolded, to top secret berry picking spots

sparking a neighborhood feud when you accidently reveal top secret berry picking spot and 30 berry pickers show up with their buckets

hosting a party and having more snowmachines than automobiles parked in your driveway

partygoers knowing that it’s not just BYOB (bring your own beer) but also BYOS (bring your own sled) because the Iveys have the best sledding hill ever

coveting your neighbor’s smoked salmon recipe

trading your neighbor three packages of caribou pepperoni for one bag of smoked salmon and a jar of wild cranberry ketchup

seven months of darkness, snow, ice, and wind, and not wanting to live anywhere else in the world

Cheers!

Eowyn

A sunny May day in the mountains.

Dear determined reader,

I mentioned earlier this week that we were hoping to climb up to a nearby mountain to check out one of the last, dwindling patches of snow. The truth is, we’re wimps. When it gets above 70 degrees, which it did this week, we Alaskans overheat, and snow becomes very enticing. And as we discovered, brown bears must share this view.

Getting to the base of the mountain begins with an exciting drive down a deeply rutted four-wheel trail that is barely wide enough for one pick-up truck. Alder branches smacked at the side windows, and the truck lurched side to side. Part way down the bumpy trail, we stuck our truck in a mud hole. Even in four-wheel drive, the front tires just spun. While my husband and I lodged rocks and logs under the tires, our daughter bickered in the heat. We contemplated how long it would take to walk to our nearest neighbor’s house and ask for help.

But soon we heard the rumble of ATVs coming up the trail. I figured they would zip around us through the brush with maybe a quick nod in our direction. Instead, the family stopped and offered to hook their ATV to our truck and winch us out. (Note, the word “winch” rather than “wench.”)

Sam and I were skeptical that the ATV and its thin tether would do the job, but sure enough they pulled us right out of the mud. Whew.

We planned to park beside the mud hole and go on foot the rest of the way, though it meant we’d never make it all the way to snow. But the friendly people with the ATVs said, “Go for it. If you get stuck again, we’ll pull you out.” Hard to argue with that.

We drove to the foot trail without further incidence, waved goodbye to our new friends, and began the hike. We were sweating and hot, and our 4-year-old was whining before we even crested the first hill. But eventually we got into the rhythm of the hike and set our sights on that patch of snow.

Cooling toes and paws in a mountain snow patch earlier this week.

As we walked, I told my daughters about how often we see bear tracks in the mud along this trail. Sometimes they’re smallish, black bear tracks. But sometimes they are huge brown bear tracks. The 4-year-old picked up her pace, hoping to catch sight of one of these curious animals. My older, wiser daughter began looking nervously over her shoulder.

After an hour or so, we climbed up out of the trees and into high alpine country. Lichen and blueberry bushes grew along the rocks, and the fragrance of blooming  Labrador Tea filled the air.

We were all a bit sunburned by now, and feet were aching and hot. We all kept our eyes to that patch of snow. And then I saw something else. At first glance, I mistook it for a huge stump perched on the rocks. Then it turned its head side to side.

“Brown bear,” I called ahead to my husband, who carried the rifle.

We all stopped in the trail. I lifted up my youngest daughter, so she could see. The bear was about 300 yards ahead of us, sitting on his haunches, turning his head this way and that. Then he looked down at what I had come to think of as “our” patch of snow. After a minute or so, the bear stood and ambled slowly away from us, down into a valley and out of sight.

The old bruin was letting us have the first run at the snow patch. We took off our shoes and socks and squished our bare feet in the snow. The girls and our golden retriever took turns slipping down the snowy hill.

We didn’t see the brown bear again, but I’m certain as soon as we hiked off the mountain, he was out there, sliding his belly across that cool snow.

Cheers!

Eowyn

Dear sunny reader,

The mad frenzy of summer in Alaska has officially begun. 

Sleep? Who needs it? We’ve got gardens to tend, houses to build, fish to catch, and mountains to climb.

Our neighbors, the Baers, have already put a new roof on their home. And to clarify, because I know sane people in other places actually hire someone to do these sorts of things, when I say they put on a new roof, I mean THEY put on a new roof. As in the two of them ripped off the old shingles and plywood, put a massive blue tarp over it, and hoped it wouldn’t rain while they rebuilt the whole thing.

Another one of our good friends is a farmer, which means he is in full-on frenzy mode. The fields are now free of snow and the summer sun has begun to dry up the mud, so he is riding the tractor, planting night and day until the hundreds of acres are ready to sprout potato plants.

Across the way, our other neighbors just returned from their spring bear guiding trips. My dad is booming logs out of a pile in his yard, and my mom is studying for her MFA residency in poetry. She also teamed up with some other artists last weekend to lead an outdoor retreat in creativity, and she went for a hike with my brother near a local ski resort. She said the smell of the sun-warmed hemlock forest was delightful.

Sam, my husband, put on a dive suit and helped install a salmon weir on the Deshka River as part of his job as a fishery biologist, and in his off-hours he took out a window in our house and built our first staircase.

In the meantime, I tilled up our garden, hauled buckets of water from a creek, and planted cabbage, kale, broccoli, carrots, turnips and a few flowers, and set up my pea fence. Last night at 11 or so, I stood on our back porch. The sun had just set, so it was the soft blue of twilight. Looking out over the garden, I admired the neat rows of moist soil and lovely little seedlings. Then I saw the currants I had forgotten to transplant.

But today is a new day. We’re thinking about fertilizing the rhubarb, finishing the Sheetrock in the stairwell, and transplanting the currant bushes, as well as a lilac and mountain ash. We need to feed the chickens, water the garden. Oh, and we’re planning to climb up to the mountain behind our house to check out a little patch of snow that has lingered in the sun.

Our oldest daughter is worried we won’t have time to do it all, but I reminded her – we’ve got all day, and all night.

Happy summer!

Eowyn

Dear devoted reader,

During my first trip to visit my publisher in New York City, I was talking with one of the editors when, in passing, he said something about Alaska being somewhat exotic.

“Oh, I don’t know. Not really,” I said. “I mean we have our Wal-Marts and Targets and McDonalds.” We went on to talk about skiing and traveling. Then I mentioned we had just returned from our annual caribou hunting trip. We had traveled to what is called the “North Slope” near the Arctic Ocean and brought back several caribou.

“You hunted caribou?” he asked.

“Sure. It’s our meat for the year,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s kind of exotic.”

And I knew he was right. In most parts of America, people don’t go caribou hunting for their family vacation.

But here among other Alaskans, we are not exotic. We are actually kind of run-of-the-mill. We have neighbors who eat exclusively from the garden and the wild. They store their cabbages, beets, potatoes and other vegetables in a large root cellar. Salmon, moose, wild berries. That’s pretty much it. They also built their small log cabin with lumber they milled themselves off their land.

Up and down the road, you can also find big-screen TVs, hot tubs, and hybrid cars. And most of us straddle a kind of middle ground. Many of us raise gardens and farm animals, harvest wild berries, and fill our freezer with salmon. Alaskans who don’t hunt will rarely turn down a moose roast if one is offered, and like in Lake Wobegon, people are apt to find zucchinis at their doorstep when harvest comes.

We live too far out to have it delivered, but some Fridays as a treat we bring pizza home from town. We top it with caribou pepperoni and watch a movie from Netflix. Other nights, dinner might be moose steak, potatoes from our friend’s field, a salad from our garden, and homegrown rhubarb in a pie for dessert.

True, my husband runs a 50-mile trapline each winter in glacier country. And it’s also true that I once shot a black bear off our front porch and turned it into hot dogs. Our place is like many modern Alaskan “homesteads” – a nearly finished house, a stack of firewood to be split, a garden that gets munched by moose occasionally, and an incredible view of the mountains. But my kids also love macaroni and cheese and SpongeBob Squarepants DVDs. And I have a weakness for good espresso and the gourmet chocolates made at a local shop.

It’s a similar line I straddle when writing this blog. I hope to share some of what makes our home unique. But the journalist in me also wants to paint an accurate picture.

And I promise to tell you about the black bear on the porch.

Cheers,

Eowyn

Dear tireless reader,

This week in Barrow, Alaska, the sun will rise one last time and not go down again until August. Twenty-four hours of daylight, all summer long.

We live hundreds of miles south of Barrow, but even here in Southcentral Alaska, the days are growing long. Last night the sun didn’t set until 10:30 p.m., and it was back up at 5 this morning. Once we hit summer solstice in June, we will have just over four hours of “night”, but even then the dark isn’t really dark. It’s a kind of long twilight.

A midnight sunset on Alaska's Arctic slope during a caribou hunting trip.

This drives some people nuts. In the summers, they have to darken their rooms with blanket-style curtains and still the chirping of songbirds at midnight keeps them awake. Then, when the black nights of winter return, some find it gloomy and depressing.

But I love the extremes of this place. It might help that I grew up here. I do sleep less in the summer. This time of year, we find ourselves working on projects until 9 at night without realizing the hour. Once summer is in full swing, we’ll be weeding the garden at 10 p.m. and letting the kids run around in the yard until 11. The next morning, we won’t be as tired as we should. Partly because it will be light well before we crack open our eyes.

Summer in Alaska is a time to go, go, go. Some days we will rise at 4 a.m. to go king salmon fishing, sipping coffee in the pickup truck as we tow the boat to the landing. Other nights we’ll drink homebrew and play bocce ball on a neighbor’s lawn until midnight. I push away the fatigue, knowing that once winter comes, I’ll have plenty of time to sleep.

One summer when my husband and I were back home from college, he stayed up all night helping a friend bring in his hay crop. I remember standing in the field at 3 a.m., robins calling from the trees, the sky that tender, pale blue. I knew I was home.

Cheers!

Eowyn