Landing

Packing for Chicago felt different than packing for other small trips I’ve taken in the past few years. No hiking clothes or hiking shoes, no toilet paper, no camera, no guidebook, no grubby backpack. For a while, this was essentially all I packed for trips and traveling. For this trip, I’m flying so no worry of bumpy, long bus rides. I’m staying in a nice hotel and then a friend’s house and I’m in the U.S., so no need for toilet paper. I’m going to either the burbs or the city of Chicago so no need for hiking shoes or my fake North Face hiking pants. Since moving to Juneau, I’ve been armed with an iPhone, so no need for an additional camera. And since I’ve packed light, no need for the grubby (although reliable) backpack that Scott has carried bloody deer meat in.

As the plane left Juneau, I looked out the window as long as I could, tracing the various housing divisions leading from the airport and contemplating the smaller still snow covered peaks before the low lying clouds obscured my view and then completely covered the small rounded window of seat 9F. Juneau to Seattle to Chicago. From rainy to windy.

The past couple of weeks have been maddeningly busy and transforming. For a short while there it seemed like I was settling into my Naturalist job with my daily window washing sessions with Miguel, vacuuming, and tying up the boat with Ed. Not to mention my never ending conversations with friendly tourists, repetitive narratives over the PA, and never disappointing viewings of humpbacks and orcas. The whale watching was at times even spectacular with bubble net feeding and consecutive breaches. It was impossible for me to fully dislike a job that allowed me that, but I wasn’t a hundred percent content.

So when the news director at KTOO – Juneau’s public radio station – asked me a couple weeks ago if I could fill in while a reporter was on leave taking care of his mother, I was really disappointed that I already had a more than full-time job. (As a naturalist, I was sometimes working 12-13 hour days). But I did have a Friday off so I went into KTOO for the day and started working on a story. That particular Friday was the only full day I could give KTOO; otherwise I was just going in for an hour or two before I had to be at my naturalist job. After finding out that the reporter who was taking care of his mother would be gone for an indefinite amount of time, I got a call from the news director offering me a full-time summer job working in the newsroom.

Since arriving in Juneau, this is all I’ve wanted to do, but on the day I was offered the position, I struggled with my decision. I hated the thoughts of quitting but I also hated the thought of continuing to be a naturalist. After talking with Scott that night, the decision was made, and I looked in my employee handbook to see what the proper way to resign was. I couldn’t talk with my supervisor right away so I sat with my choice for more than a day feeling terrible. I had made up my mind but being in limbo was mentally exhausting. Last Wednesday I was finally able to tell my supervisor who was more than understanding and my last day as a naturalist was set for Friday. My career as a naturalist began and ended in less than 30 days. And that is okay with me.

My first official day as a reporter at KTOO was on Tuesday. In three days, I’ve written four stories. I’ve been too busy to do any newscasts yet, but that will come. Even though the days have been sunny and warm and I’ve been stuck in front of a computer or on the phone interviewing someone, I haven’t for one second regretted my decision. Slowly but surely I’m remembering what it means to be a reporter, and I know I have a long ways to go before I feel adept at all things Juneau. While I’ve been a public radio reporter before, this is a whole different experience – larger office, communal work space, an editor! I hope to be able to slowly melt back into being a reporter, refocus my lens, and ask the right questions.

For right this moment though, I need to just sit back, recline my seat, and breathe. The plane will soon descend into Seattle where I’m spending the night in the airport. Now that sounds more like my travel style.

Mendenhall in Mid-May

Today Scott and I explored the trail system east of Mendenhall Glacier and got some great views. 

This was our first visit to the glacier this year when the lake hasn't been frozen.

Icebergs of all sizes dot the lake.

Fresh

I forgot to write about a few of our Japanese tourists. They are impossible to fool when it comes to the salmon meal at Orca Point Lodge.

The salmon the lodge serves is coho (silver) salmon that is locally caught (Scott likes to joke that it’s likely farm-raised Atlantic salmon) but has been frozen, thawed, and grilled for all the tourists to see as they’re walking into the lodge. Staff won’t offer to lie and say the salmon is fresh, but if asked, I’m sure that’s what most of us would say. Most tourists are content to eat their meal and declare it to be the most delicious salmon they’ve ever eaten without inquiring about its freshness. I think most of them just assume it is.

We had one Japanese couple say at the end of their meal, “This has been frozen.”

We had another Japanese couple who didn’t want the person at the grill to cook their pieces of salmon at all. They wanted to eat it raw, sashimi style. But to have allowed that to happen would’ve definitely given it away, so the grill guy insisted that he at least sear the fillets of salmon. I’m sure he left the pieces on the grill longer than the couple wanted.

When Zak, the captain, was going through the comment cards after the tour, he read a comment that said, “More raw fish,” to which Zak said, “I don’t want to generalize, but I think we can safely say that the Japanese couple wrote this comment.”

More Naturalist Thoughts



A beautiful day at Orca Point Lodge.

I’ve gotten a few silly questions – “Does this water freeze?” “Where are the igloos?” “Are you Eskimo?” And I’ve gotten a few really nice compliments – “That was a great lecture.” “I was taking notes during your talk.” “Very informative.” Toward the end of one of our trips, a woman even asked if my background was in marine biology. I laughed in shock and was honest, that I had just started studying this stuff about a week ago. It’s always nice, despite whatever the tipping situation is, to have people thank you, hug you, want to take your picture. It feels good. On the comment cards, in the space that asks what the highlight of the trip was, some people write, “crew hospitality,” instead of, “whales.”

One of my favorite moments so far was during a viewing of bubble net feeding. There was a group of Chinese tourists (I’m pretty sure they were Chinese) and although they were spread throughout the second deck and into the third deck, they were so animated in communicating with each other expressing awe and excitement. Each time a whale surfaced – and there were many times since we were watching bubble net feeding – they’d loudly talk to each other. It was really quite loud and noticeable. Most people aren’t as intrusive during a viewing and it was excusable because they were foreign. I liked it because their reactions were honest.

Even though I’ve done several trips on my own as the sole naturalist, I still feel unsure and hesitant. I constantly need to build my repertoire of information and stories. If any job has ever felt like the movie Groundhog Day, it’s this one. The only thing that changes is the wildlife itself. (Although for days in a row that might even stay the same. We may know that there will always be some stellar sea lions hauled out on the red and green buoy in front of Point Retreat. It’s funny to hear the captain feign surprise at all of a sudden “spotting” them.) Everything else – the talks, the smoked salmon sampling, Orca Point Lodge – is the same.

As a Naturalist, I do feel like I’m trying to sell the “Alaska Experience,” or to be more specific, the “Southeast Alaska Experience,” what it means to live in this part of the state – the rain, being out on the water, the isolation. All the tourists come from parts of the country or the world that have identities as strong as or stronger than what we have in Southeast, and they often want to share where they are from. They want to talk about what they have in their own backyard. I’m so much better at doing that than sharing information about wildlife. I love listening to the passengers tell their own stories. I’ve talked to an Indian mother from Chicago who desperately wants her pharmacist son to succeed without being plagued by debt; a couple from Wisconsin who can their own food, make their own wine, and wanted so badly to bring home a king salmon; a family from Ohio who fish for trout and laugh endlessly with each other so much. I talk to people whose dream has always been to go to Alaska and what they’re experiencing on our little tour far surpasses any of their expectations. Those people are the best.


When Rain is Okay

I’d been anticipating it for days and it finally came. I woke up this morning and could sense the greyness outside. After lifting the window shades, it was confirmed, the deck was wet – it had rained. Now, the question was whether it was still raining. Usually my marker for rain is looking out the window to the puddles that live at the edge of the driveway and seeing if they’re dancing, but those had dried up so I had to focus really hard on the deck – sometimes Southeast Alaska rain is barely perceptible, just the ever slightest drizzle – and sure enough, it’s raining.

Whenever there are consecutive days of sunshine – we had five – there’s always the lingering expectation of when it will end, because it always will. We always try to enjoy the sun as much as possible when it’s around, but you can’t get away from the fact that it’ll be short-lived, a passing event, and people will later talk about it – “Remember that week of sunshine we had in the beginning of May?” The local news talked about the upcoming rain for days before it happened as a reminder to seize the moment or as a reality check. By mid-week, I was already anticipating the end of the sunshine. The local weather had predicted it for Friday, but the sun held out for one more day.

I was focused on Friday – yesterday – because I knew I’d be my first time as a Naturalist without Shari, without any backup. So I didn’t want that to be in the rain. I wasn’t ready yet for that challenge. The shining sun may be the greatest tool anyone in the tourism business has. Snowcapped mountains are beautiful and great, but they’re a thousand times more so against a blue backdrop. A humpback could be giving us the best show in the world, but it’s more enjoyable to view it from the third deck, where the sun is beating down, without fear of getting one’s camera wet. Tourists brace themselves for Alaska weather to be cold and wet, so when it’s warm and sunny instead, they feel a sense of luck as if they came to Juneau at exactly the right time, and there’s no way to manufacture that.

Or is there? That’ll be my goal – to make a rainy, dreary day on the water the best Alaska experience possible.

I’m still taking baby steps with this job though and wondering if I’m cut out for it. I try to live my life not half-assing my work. Whatever work I’m doing, I always want to give it a hundred percent and succeed. It’s been tough the past few years working as a teacher and always feeling like I wasn’t doing anything quite right and now in Juneau, a general sense of being lost in the crowd and feeling a bit odd that both my supervisors in the two jobs I’ve had so far are younger than me.

The tour went well yesterday because of the wildlife. Almost immediately after leaving the dock and me giving the safety speech, we came across a humpback. Humpback sightings continued. At one point, the tourists didn’t know which way to look because they seemed to be in various directions. While on the third deck, the water was so clear and the sun was shining just right that we could see the humpback as it swam just beneath the surface. The white of its long pectoral fins was a sight I’d never seen before. A pair of bald eagles perched in trees nearby and a small group of sea lions poked their heads out of the water to check us out.

Multiple wildlife viewings mean that I don’t have to talk on the PA. That’s a rule. Tourists should enjoy the wildlife in peace. I’m with everyone to answer any questions they have, but mainly I’m just watching like they are and ohhing and ahhing right along with them.

I talked, I did, but I could sense the too long periods of PA silence as we made the deadhead run to the lodge. It’s these moments that I’m supposed to fill. Again, the sun helped. Instead of listening to me, they were just looking out the windows enjoying the scenery as the boat moved through the glass-like water.

After we arrived back at the Allen Marine dock, the boat was tied up, the ramp was laid down, and all the tourists were filtering off, it was a strange sensation to have money pressed into my hand as I said my goodbyes. It’s an awkward practice really when it has to be done that way. I prefer the restaurant method of finding it in the bill holder or just left on the table. But getting tips felt good, too, of course, to know that my service had been valued. Besides monetary affirmation, other tourists said I did a “wonderful” job, others just walked off, which is fine. In total, I got about $35 in tips, but it went straight into the tip jar to be split among the whole crew. We all left with $8.50. This appears to be a cause of concern as other crews seem to be bringing in a lot more in gratuities. I can’t solely blame myself – I am part of a six-man crew and there is also a tip jar at the galley – but drawing in the tips is primarily a Naturalist duty. Just writing about it makes me feel uncomfortable.

During our crew talk – we’re supposed to have one at the end of every day after the boat’s been cleaned – things felt constrained, unsmooth. Many comment sheets said the volume was too low. The deckhand said he didn’t hear me do an Orca Point Lodge talk – the one about being careful walking on the dock to the lodge, Pam’s touch tank, not walking across the land bridge, and so forth. To my defense, I had done one – after their meal several tourists walked to the beach and asked me if that slim piece of land to Horse Island was the land bridge I was talking about. So when the deckhand said that, I replied that I had done one, that the low volume must have prevented him from hearing it, but I could tell he didn’t believe me and that made me feel stupid for saying anything at all. Then the captain, who was once a Naturalist, said he wanted to talk to me. He felt amiss that we still haven’t really sat down and talked and we should do it on Monday. When he initially said this, I didn’t think much of it, but later in the night, I started to worry about what he wants to talk to me about.

So I’m happy for the drizzle. It means I don’t have to feel bad about staying inside and studying more about sea lions and seals, whales and birds, islands and lighthouse, everything really. Everything.

Oxymoron

So I had my first official day as a Naturalist. No more training. I still had a crutch because Shari, the best naturalist in the world, was there and I could quickly go to her for questions that I didn’t know the answers to. After the tour was finished I felt okay about it, felt even a bit confident during it, a bit. And as people were unloading and I was saying my “goodbye,” the majority of the people looked happy, many of them thanked me and said I did a good job. I even got a few hugs. It felt like affirmation, and really, that’s what I’m looking for at this point.

But then as I was cleaning the upstairs windows, I noticed a comment sheet that hadn’t been collected. The crew isn’t supposed to read the comment sheets, except for the captain, but it was hard not to peek, of course, at what it said. In the section that asked what could be improved or what they wanted to hear more about it or something like that, they wrote, “more information on whales/whale history.” You’d think on a whale watching tour, this would’ve been covered – you’d think. The truth of the matter is I probably know less about whales than the passengers, or about the same. The facts and numbers, the biology – it’s never really interested me, and that’s a problem – perhaps the biggest problem – for a naturalist. What’s mattered to me, what means something to me, I’ve written about before – it’s the feeling that seeing these creatures gives me, it’s the awe factor, the fact that I share the same earth as them and get to see them in their natural habitat. While a real naturalist might share that sentiment with me, that’s likely where our similarities end. Really, if you think about it, me being a naturalist is almost a bit shameful.

What I am good at is helping to take photos of a couple or a mother and daughter – two people who are on holiday together who don’t ordinarily get to be in photos together because one of the two is taking the photo. I’m good at chatting about where they’re from and how their trip is going. I’m good at explaining why I moved to Alaska and how I fell in love with the state and a man. I’m good at just talking to strangers and making them feel like I care, because I actually do. For some strange reason I care about these cruise ship passengers and I care about the few hours they’re spending in Juneau and I care about them having a good time. I’m good at being an example of someone who moved far away from home and found a new one, which happens to be a location that these tourists find a bit foreign.

The more I thought about that comment and about other things that I could’ve said about the area, about what we were seeing, the more I just started to feel tired and a bit lousy, and more than anything, like a fake. A fake naturalist – is that not the best oxymoron in the world.

I can't lie. My first day on the water with a double crew was amazing. Shari was the main Naturalist which took a lot of pressure off me and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to her narrative. She loves what she’s doing and you can hear it in her voice. I met couples from Chicago, Brunei, LA. The wife of the LA couple even asked me when I was getting married. There were two men from New York which thick NY accents who told me about a new Tappen Zee Bridge being built. This was their second time to Alaska in two years and they think Orca Point Lodge has the best salmon.

The orcas were the best I’ve ever seen. I saw a baby orca breach, which was amazing as I've never seen any whale breach. They swam all around the boat and gave the passengers a show. There was a moment when I was standing on the third deck just watching the whales along with everyone else and actively thinking that what I was doing was fun. The humpback was great as well and showed its fluke three times. Shari had me do I the talk that leads into the visit to Orca Point Lodge, which went fine. It was one of those classically beautiful southeast Alaska days. The sun was shining, the waters were calm, and I think everyone (all 24 passengers) had a great time.

Approaching Orca Point Lodge, where the tourists eat a salmon meal, walk on the beach, and watch the hummingbirds swarm the feeders.

The stop at Orca Point Lodge is a nice break from the boat, especially with these sunny days, but the more interesting thing there is Pam's touch tank. In the tank, she features plants, shells, sponges, anemones, and other critters that live in the inter-tidal zone. It's beautifil. Pam's husband, Dale, built it. Together, they are the caretakers of the Lodge throughout the year, although they lived in Colt Island long before the Lodge was ever there. 

View from the Lodge.

A sister ship joining us during an orca pod sighting.

As Miguel and I drove closer to town, across the bridge to Douglas and towards downtown Douglas to Miguel’s house, I could see the massive cruise ship in Gastineau Channel all lit up. My first instinct was to wonder what it was – what is now a new sight will very quickly become every day. Of course there’s a huge lit up cruise ship in front of Juneau. It contains the people we had on our boat.

Early Days

Monday, April 29: Impressions from my first day of training at Allen Marine – A sea of fresh-off-the-plane young seasonal workers milling about awkwardly as old hands of Allen Marine hugged one another in happy reunion. People from all over the lower-48 – people looking around themselves in awe saying repeatedly, “It’s so beautiful here” – are tasked with selling the ‘Alaska Experience,’ which Allen Marine claims is their product, which is interesting to me – the Alaska Experience as a product, one that can be pushed and sold within a 3-hr cruise.

As a new hand to Allen Marine, yet a veteran (in comparison to my surrounding company) to Alaska, I was uncomfortably grouped with all the Alaska newbies, people from Alabama, Florida, New Mexico, North Carolina, California, and so many other states that are announced on their license plates or on their faces. There was this overwhelming air of summer camp or freshman orientation hanging stagnantly around, a scene I really didn't want anything to do with.

*

The first cruise ship, the Carnival Miracle, arrived in Juneau on Thursday, May 2 to grey and drizzly weather.

This was the very first tour of the 2013 season for Allen Marine Juneau. The St. Phillip left the Auke Bay dock at 8:30 am.

I was on the second tour of the season aboard the St. Aqualina but came dressed in plain clothes. My job was to blend in with the other tourists as I shadowed Lindsay, an experienced Naturalist with Allen Marine for five seasons.

Inside the St. Aqualina.

The stellar sea lions at Benjamin Island were a crowd pleaser with the tourists. These tourists had already viewed orcas and a humpback but, unlike the ever-moving whales, the sea lions didn't immediately disappear into the water. They could be viewed lounging about and playing with each other, which the tourists could easily capture on their cameras.

*

My first season working for Allen Marine has involved trainings in various areas, including TAPS (Training for Alcohol Professionals), First Aid/CPR, retail, customer service, employee safety, passenger management, ADA (Americans with Disabilities Associations training), and Fire Training at the Hagevig Center.

We all got to practice using various fire extinguishers.



Here is Miguel putting out a fire. Miguel is on my crew as a passenger service person. I first encountered Miguel through my last job at the Capitol (his family testified against the oil tax bill) and later at the Folk Fest where he sang and played the guitar with more talent than others. Since he lives on Douglas, I've been carpooling with him and despite the fact that I'm a dozen years older than him, I think he's a great person and we've become fast friends.

The final piece of training takes place this Friday at the University of Alaska Southeast – a Marine Naturalist Symposium.

Downtown Juneau

Here's a recent shot of downtown Juneau as seen from Anthony's sailboat at the end of April.

Pre-Show

As soon as I smelled the hairspray, it all came back to me – dance hair. Tightly pulled back, slick and shiny hair all cemented together by some big can of generic hairspray, like Aquanet. I walked further into my past when I entered the dressing room – teenage girls staring too intently at themselves in mirrors framed by lightbulbs, pursed lips, wide open eyes, girls helping one another with getting each strand of hair into a hair tie. Those Steffi Nossen performance days at SUNY Purchase seem so long ago and yet a truth still remains – I don’t belong.

At the age of 32, I am clearly an outlier among the more than twenty or so middle and high school girls. Myself and other members of my modern dance class – we are those weird adults that dance. But even in my teens, I felt out of place in the dressing room. I was always ready within ten minutes. I didn’t see the need to spend more time than that on my face or getting into my costume. I didn’t know how to put on makeup then and however many years later, I still don’t. I’ve never owned my own makeup. Now, though, I am perfectly content with feeling like an outsider. As an observer, I watch the younger girls with a sense of confidence that could only be gained by being born more than a decade and a half before them.