wan·der·lust: April 2007

Herring Head Sequence

Perk

Last week I took a jaunt up the river, or attempted to, with seven senior citizens and Eric Yancey, who owns and runs Breakaway Adventures. The jet boat couldn’t get too far into the wilderness due to the ice that still remains. It was certainly breaking up, and I’m sure at this point, a week later, the maneuverability on the river is vastly different. Here is an image of what the jet boat was up against:

What was amazing about that day, besides the sun shining, was the wilderness we glimpsed along the way. The truest indication of spring in these parts is evidence of hooligan. And, indeed, that’s what we saw in the bountiful presence of sea lions and seals who feed on the hooligan.

Here are the sea lions hanging out on Liesnoi Island. Notice the branded seal on the right in the first picture:

And here are some seals. That’s them, their heads bopping out of the water in front of Castle Mountain:

Here are some more hanging out on a piece of ice. They congregate in huge groups but disperse quickly as we approached:

Behind me is the island where those sea lions were. That’s them on that point:

We got off the boat a couple of times to explore:

I was giddy that day. It was a Wednesday and I had to cancel my dance classes as I wasn’t sure if I would get back to Wrangell on time. I think I was as excited to miss dance class as the teacher as I was to miss class as a dancer all those years ago. Eric had just called the paper the day before to invite one of us to join his senior citizen run up the river. It’s not everyday one gets offered a free jet boat ride on the Stikine.

When I initially took this job I knew there was no health insurance, no 401k plan, nothing like that. I figured my one perk would be the free subscription and maybe some free copies on the Xerox machine.

If getting on the river with Breakaway is a perk of my job, I think when I look back, my time spent in Wrangell will be a perk of my life.

Long Weekend

Tomorrow begins the pilgrimage to Juneau for the 33rd Alaska Folk Festival. Mike and I are going for the same amount of days, staying at the same hotel, and plan on eating at the same amazing sushi restaurant.

What makes this year different than last is we’re going with more people and we’ll know a lot more people once we get there. I guess that’s what’s nice about living in a place for a year and a half – you make friends, good friends.

I can’t recall the last time I had a long weekend, but I’m very much looking forward to this one.

Hope your weekend is somehow filled with good music, good company, and good food.

Asians in Wrangell

Asians are few and far between in Wrangell. There’s me. There are Jing, Sophie, and Elizabeth, three adopted Chinese girls all under the age of six. Daniel is the newest Chinese resident of Wrangell, adopted from the same agency as Elizabeth. There’s a Japanese family in town by the name of Urata, and there’s some girl in high school whose name escapes me now but I’m positive she must be of some Asia descent from the sound of it.

Next week, some delegates from an unknown Asian country is visiting Wrangell in hopes of possibly strengthening seafood ties, as well as others, with Wrangell. I say unknown because I keep hearing different things.

I first got a call earlier this week from Elaine, who is an alternate on the Chamber of Commerce board. She had just come back from a meeting where the chair of the Chamber kept referring to “Thai delegates,” so Elaine presumed the people who were coming were Thai, from Thailand. I would presume the same thing.

But then Elaine received an email from the Chamber, which she forwarded to the paper with the subject heading, “Taiwan Visit to Wrangell.” Ok, so the Chamber got confused and meant Taiwanese but instead said, “Thai.” That’s forgivable, maybe.

But then just now, the paper got a call directly from the Chamber with the message being “delegates from Korea” are coming to town.

It’s one thing to confuse Thai and Taiwanese, which is already pretty bad, but it’s quite another to mix Korean in that also. This is so not okay