Impressions of Southeast Alaska...

These emails were written by me Melissa Chapple (an Australian) when I first came to Southeast Alaska.  They were written for Australian family and friends, so forgive me for any American jokes.  But there is a lot of information in there about life on a floathouse, learning about hunting and fishing and the wild life here...  I was a vegetarian, environmentalist, libertarian/slightly left-of-centre Buddhisty type moving to a logging, meat-eating, extreme right-wing Christian area where everything was an opposite so it was an interesting move... 

Letter 1: July, Summer 2003

From Australia to Alaska - A Strange New World

and Trying to Get Past US Security

Hi guys,

Yep it's me calling from Alaska!  Can you believe it?  I can't.  I floated around in jet lagged delirium for a few days, completely spellbound by the beauty around me and yet totally confused by all the strange sights and sounds and light patterns. 

I woke on departure day with a full body infestation of piranhas and my stomach was in my knees.  The plane trip was epic.  I must look a bit diabolical because I received "special screening" at every checkpoint, and this includes maneuvers such as (insert drawly American accent here) "sit down mam, take your shoes off mam, lift your foot mam (yes they even scan the soles of your feet!) Stand here mam, raise your arms mam".  They felt over the seams of my bags and unpacked my carry on so thoroughly that I missed my connection in LA.  One guy in heavy gloves seemed to be having trouble with the zip so I reached over to help him but instead received the barked order "DON"T TOUCH THE BAG MAM!"  My helpful attitude quickly withered. 

But 50 hours later, despite such assaults on the system like trying to eat in-flight meals of asparagus and cornflakes at 4.30am, I arrived in Alaska!  My friend Ron met me in Ketchikan and we had to wait 5 hours for the ferry, and then it was another 3 hours on the ferry to his island.  Then we drove for half an hour to the other side of the island, and a final 15 minute boat ride to his house.  Phew, I tell you, it's not every day... 

It was like stumbling into a dream.  Waking and sleeping, waking and sleeping, waiting, sleeping, wandering, wondering, and then suddenly I am out of this peculiar time warp, transported to the top of the world where the sun arcs its way over the sky only to change it's mind part way and heads on back.  The colors are muted, dissolving into misty grays, so the further you look the less you see.  I recognize the elements; I know trees, water and mountains, but it's the way they fall together that I don't recognize.  My soul quivers in fear through the unreality of it all, then soars into the mystery and the majesty, the magic of a reality spinning on the pinnacle of a dream into shocking brightness. 

It's blinding.

It's magic.

Setting:  perhaps the most beautiful places I have ever seen.  We’re living in a gorgeous little two story log cabin that floats on the ocean in the middle of a sheltered hidden bay in the middle of nowhere.  There is one neighbor, far distant, but apart from that, there's just us, a dog, a cat, and the bears and deer that amble along the beach, and the seals that swim around us.  There are 360 degree views of still crystal water, cedars and spruce and islands and mountains.

Weather:  the default weather report is - reaching highs of 10-15 degrees Celsius, heavily overcast with a high likelihood of showers.  The sun will rise in the NE, arcing up and across the sky before retreating to the NW.  It will appear to be 3 o'clock in the afternoon starting from shortly after sunrise at 2.30am continuing all day until sunset at 11.30pm.  This will be followed by a few hours of twilight.  No constellations will be visible. 

Fashion:  This summer in Alaska knee high boots are in, heavy duty plastic being the most sought out variety.  Overalls are all the rage too, but throw out those natural fibers; this season's substance is rubber!  The thicker the better and choose a size 4 times too big so that you can fit as many layers as possible of last winter's fashion underneath.

Yep, so it's a bit of a change, but a wonderful one.

I hope you are all well and happy!

love

mel

Letter 2: August 2003

The Hippy goes Hunting and Living in Paradise

Hi there groovers,

How art thou?  I am wonderful. 

Alaskan Chronicles II.

We went hunting the day before last.  Ron rings me from work and says that the weather is too good to waste, so how about a mountain trip?  I say sure, trying to keep a sliver of cool in my excitement.  He comes home and hastily we pack.  We’re back in town in no time, to meet his hunting buddies.  A monster truck pulls up, (a 4WD utility van on steroids, which many Americans obligingly drive to help rid the earth of its burden of fossil fuels as quickly as possible).  “You’d better sit in the middle”, Ron says, so I throw my backpack into the tray and climb on in.  Two big guys slide into the front seats, guns on laps, slamming the doors.  Ron gets in next to me and another guy climbs into the other side, rifle in hand.  He slams his door and clacks his gun loudly.  Suddenly I feel surrounded, transported into the set of some 40s gangster movie, and I wonder how it is that a little vegetarian hippy from Mullumbimby Australia came to find herself traipsing across far northern mountaintops with a bunch of Alaskan hunters…

Life is a peculiar thing. 

Life at the House Of The Rising Sea continues.  Salmon are splashing and somersaulting around the house, practicing for their grand finale - the run up the river.  Minks scurry along the beach, geese honk overhead as they fly south for winter, seals watch us shyly and silently before vanishing again, and otters plunge under the house for noisy feed of mussels and crabs.  The forest bounces with blueberries, huckleberries and salmonberries, but watch out for momma bears with cubs.  Deer are everywhere, blinking with big brown eyes, and if you boat out a little further, you can drift along with the whales, lazy humpbacks rolling and lolling at the surface, flapping their flippers.

The perfect life?… I hear you wonder.  Indeed it is a possibility.  Here in the House Of The Rising Sea we reject outlandish concepts such as: work until you don’t enjoy it anymore, action is more important than reflection and relaxation, and words such as “should” and “have to” are considered wasteful (of life that is!) and are disposed of thoughtfully (usually with a phrase such as wouldn’t it be lovely if…).  Any action that can’t be followed by a deep sigh of satisfaction and the mantra – this is the life... – is quickly rejected as a futile activity, possibly dangerous to mental health, a potential threat to life as we know it…

Thus having rejected most controlling forces, our life is directed by the weather.  When it rains (which is often), I study, Ron works in town.  When the sun sings its hallelujahs we hike, camp, canoe or boat out to other forgotten islands.  On those in-between days we wander into town, doing the odd thing here and there and kicking back over coffee with an assortment of unusual characters (Ron’s friends).

But wait there’s more!  Ron built a hot tub!  Yes, I thought I was in paradise and then it got better.  We were musing one day, wouldn’t it be lovely if…  The idea of a hot tub being completely impractical of course, on a float house that can’t take the extra weight, limited rainwater, no mains electricity…  But an idea was born and Ron fussed and fiddled for a bit then suddenly – floating out on it’s own raft was a deep tub, heated by a submerged fire – and suddenly we could drift out under the stars, dazed by the brilliance of the northern lights, surrounded by forest and mountains and hunting herons and splashing salmon…

Did I say that fairytales could come true?...

I have to tell you about the aurora.  It is the birth of magic.  It is a song so poignant and exulted that it could not stay captive in sound, it had to paint the heavens.  It is a song of overwhelming joy and the tenderness of loss.  It is a song so perfect that it could only be painted in points of light.  Points of light on the canvas of eternity.  It will sweep your heart away and leave you at once reborn and lost.   

And here in southeast Alaska, we can watch this orchestra of light, miles away from civilization, floating on the ocean in a hot tub with a difference.   

Life is beautiful.  Wishing you all love and magic,

mel     xxxxxooooo

ps. Here are some photos of fireweed.  It blooms all of summer, flowering first at the bottom slowly opening towards the top.  When it reaches the top, Alaskans know that summer is over.  I’ll send you some photos of the mountains soon.  Be happy...

Letter 3: September 2003

The Magic of the Mountaintops

Hi guys,

Here are some photos that you might like.  They are of the mountains. We do a lot of hiking.  You start hiking at sea level and as you get higher the forest turns to muskeg.  Then as you get higher again, the landscape turns to tundra. Tundra is incredible.  It’s thousands of years old and seems untouched.  Not many people spend time in remote places like this. 

It’s a strange high altitude landscape, where regular forest trees grow in miniature.  You’ll find shrunken cedars, bonsai spruce bushes, and hemlock trees turn into a ground cover.  The ground is damp, but soft and springy.  It’s a disneyland nature.  Everything small and soft, bambi's bouncing and the odd black bear lumbering in the distance.   

You can’t hike up these mountains in ordinary hiking boots.  What they wear here are called ‘corks’, which are knee high plastic gumboots with spikes on the bottom.  They are the only thing which will get you through the mud and over the logs and up steep inclines.  And they are the only thing that will keep your feet dry if you accidentally step into a muskeg pond.  The edges of these ponds are covered in a soft reddish gold moss, and seem to be only inches deep with a layer of powder fine silt at the bottom.  It’s merely an illusion, for if you step too close you could find yourself knee or waist deep in water. 

Often we roam around the tundra for hours or days.  A line from Wind in the Willows comes to mind where the mole or the water rat says - “There’s nothing quite so worthwhile as simply messing about in boats”.  As I trudge cheerily along I think to myself - “There’s nothing quite so worthwhile as simply messing about on mountaintops”.  And there isn’t.  It’s such a strange and wonderful feeling being in this ancient, empty and endless landscape with the mountains stretching in all directions around you, cloud in the valleys below, and no sign of civilization at all.  It could be ten thousand years ago and it would all seem the same.  Deer graze nearby, waterfalls tumble over black rocks and tiny orchids blossom through the ground lilies.   

It is autumn now and the miner's cabbage, a lily-like ground cover is changing color.  Autumn has kissed the tundra, but you see it on the the ground, not in the trees.  Imagine that the trees  have shed their leaves, but are so defiant at this last serenade that their leaves burst back from the earth in an explosion of reds and golds and cinnamons and sunsets...  It’s as if the creator was a joyful child running, who tripped forward and splashed her vial of of gold dust across the world, accidents of brilliance and beauty and extravagance of color. 

My heart bursts and is reborn again, empty of all but the timeless peace of the tundra.  Silence, heavy silence, and then the howling of the wind like a lost banshee curling and curving her wild way through the peaks.  The lone cry of a wolf.  Silence again.  Clouds that rush up and engulf you.  Blind, white, so alone...

Letter 4: Winter 2003 

For the convenience of all those decent folk, who are rather sick of being accosted by long group emails from distant friends, I have broken up this chronicle into sections so that you can peruse that which interests you at your leisure. 

Section 1:  It’s friggin’ freezing…

Hi there,

How are you?  It’s Melissa of the frozen fingers typing to you from way up north.  Yes, it is now cold.  I had felt myself to have successfully acclimatized until the mercury dropped below 0 and stayed there.  I was doing just fine with a daily average of 5 degrees Celsius, priding myself actually, foolishly, on my resilience and adaptability.  Then the snow fell, taking the mercury and my pride with it.  I turned into a quivering slip of humanity, quaking ineffectually deep deep down in the darkest depths of a mountain of clothes, nothing left of me but insulation. 

We are lucky here however.  Thanks to an elsewhere unappreciated quirk of nature, the temperature in this part of Alaska usually stays a degree or two above unbearable.  That quirk of nature is rain.  It rains all the time here.  Almost everyday, and all day.  And the locals like it.  When it stops raining, as it sometimes does, for a couple of days or even a week, it gets so cold that the water tanks freeze solid and it takes forever to kick, scrape and scream off all the ice from your car.  The rain is appreciated here.  It doesn’t stop anybody.  Joggers are out, mothers and babies, and the locals regard it with a deep reverence – “Ah, but everybody would want to live here if it weren’t for the rain”.  

Yep folks, that’s right.  The rain keeps the millions away who I am sure would flock to this amazing place if it had slightly different weather conditions.  This is the southern point of Alaska, a cluster of islands off northern Canada.  Prince of Wales Island is a long way from the main land, at least 9 hours of ferry rides through the islands.  The landform consists of mountains jutting out of the ocean, mountains that catch the clouds and keep them in a soft and steady patter.  Every day is hot-chocolate and feet-in-front-of-the-fire-day, curl up with a book, steaming soup and watch-a-movie day. 

A convenient sunrise for late risers and an inconvenient temperature

Apart from its intrinsic coziness, southeast Alaska is also stunningly beautiful.  One morning a few days ago, I was beside myself with bliss.  It was a clear morning, having just snowed all night.  Ron's cozy little cottage was snuggled under a fairyland blanket of white.  Ron and I were on our way to town in the skiff, and I was watching the sun rise over the mountains in an explosion of gold shattering the white silence.  Then I came back to reality.  That sunrise was occurring a little after 8 am, (convenient for late risers, certainly), and my rear end was slowly petrifying on the ice block upon which I was perched (an inch thick, covering everything).  I was lucky enough to not be driving the boat, and had my well wrapped back to the wind, while I watched Ron cringing and squinting as the icy wind chill clawed at his face.  Upon disembarking at the dock I waddled clumsily up to the car on toes that seemed to be painfully carved of ice.  One careless step, I was sure, would shatter them in my shoes.  As we scraped the ice off the inside as well as the outside of the windscreen, I mused over the nature of cold in that beyond a certain point it didn’t feel like temperature anymore, it felt like millions of tiny injections spearing the skin and extracting warmth from deep within.  A rather strange phenomenon indeed.  Even stranger is that people choose to live in it.  Bizarre, really. 

Dicing with death!

But I’m hooked anyway.  I still like to drag the canoe out and paddle around the islands.  I sit the dog in the front and we go and explore.  To do this I have to wear a device called a survival suit, a full body thing designed to keep a hapless victim alive for a couple of hours, rather than the 30 minutes or so that it takes otherwise to die from hypothermia.  It starts to look a bit insidious, the old ocean, if you start to think of it as an acid bath of death.  Looses all its romance...

A true vice – at last!

Unfortunately my constitution never really took to excitements like drugs or alcohol.  I never really liked junk food, or anything with too much sugar, so there I was, inadvertently the straightest of the straight, the goodest of the good, totally unable to get addicted to or drawn into anything not listed in the Good Behavior Directory by Miss Manners.  Such purity can be less than inspiring.  However!  I have been saved! 

It was a quiet evening, seemingly no different to any other.  The snow pattered softly on the ocean outside, and a warm glow emanated from the cozy fireside.  Dinner was settling into warm stomachs, and two contented people relaxed quietly.  Finally the man spoke up.  “George’s daughter is visiting, and they’ve invited us over to play poker tomorrow night.  You don’t have to play if you don’t want to.”  The woman thought for a moment and then asked, “How do you play poker?”. 

That was the question that changed everything.  After a two hour lesson from a man who used to play blackjack for his day job, the woman went to bed feeling overwhelmed by facts and figures, a thousand different games of poker swirling in her head.  The next day misgivings and nerves assailed her, and she approached the evening’s poker table with dread.  “Face your fears”, she whispered to herself, “It can’t be that bad”.

Six hours later, after clearing the table of a good deal of its contents, she felt much better.  Winning hand after winning hand gave the game a previously unimagined luster.  The next week they played again.  Amused she watched as wonderful cards were showered upon her, and five times as much money as before.  “She had an excellent teacher,” boasted her boyfriend at the start.  “I’ve created a monster,” he moaned by the end.  

And so an innocent was hooked.  The Poker Gods provided her with enough beginners luck to addict her for life.  The couple now get up in the morning, and if other duties can’t distract them quickly enough, the cards seize them by the throat and rivet them to the spot for hours.  Or visiting friends they might get caught again, fixed to the table as darkness falls, missing meals, oblivious to all else.  The terror, the tension, the pounding heart, nerves precariously treading the tightrope of luck, the eternal moment echoing endlessly as the next card falls…thud.  Nothing else matters.  All else can fall aside.  An addict has been born. 

The fairytale/ documentary continues…

Life in the National Geographic channel continues.  Geese fly loudly overhead, honking their way to a warmer climate.  Ducks from colder places visit for winter, filling the previously birdless waters with sound and splashing.  The bears hibernate and deer tracks can be seen crisscrossing the snow.  A river otter visits regularly, climbing up under the house to chew on the shelled sea things that grow there.  A seal has us under silent surveillance, and when out boating, sea lions stare curiously at you from their beds of kelp as tourists of one species to another.  Humpbacks breech and slap the water with their tails, and once when we were out in our little 18 foot skiff, we had five whales breaching and lounging around us.  It’s an intimidating and yet awe-inspiring feeling to be so close to something that big in its natural environment.  We are but corks bobbing along in the ocean of life…

Until the next installment,

Yours,

Melissa. 

(Married - January 4 2004!)

Letter 5:  Spring 2004

Life in the National Geographic Channel - Spring

Hi there!

Long time no write, but sooo much has happened.  Well I survived winter, and now that the days are getting longer and warmer I am privileged to experience the wonders of an Alaskan spring exploding to life.  And what a spring.  There is nothing like a cold, dark winter to help one appreciate the majesty of new life.  The first sign of spring was the skunk cabbage working its way out of the once frozen soil.  Despite its unromantic name, skunk cabbage is a big green leafy plant, a lot like a large spinach.  First, little green buds appear, and then a giant yellow flower - much like a lily - appears as the plant bursts into a profusion of leafy green.  This draws the deer from the cold hollows where they have been surviving winter, and they come to nibble in the open places, accompanied by a spotted fawn or two, clumsy and curious about this bright new world.  The bears follow, waking from their sleep and lumbering to the beach for a breakfast snack.  Big bears, baby bears, ambling along the shoreline, calmly and cautiously, ready to disappear back into the forest at the first sign of something strange.  A good policy, as spring also brings bear hunters, who will shoot anything that is big and black and moves.  Spring is about warmth and brightness and color, but it is also about predators of all sorts, hungry for life. 

Life explodes in the ocean in much the same way.  As the water warms a little, seaweed starts to grow and tiny fish are born – in thousands.  Seals and sea lions follow the fish, whales follow the seals, and the ocean is suddenly teeming with life, new life, excited life, hungry life, life chasing life, all the way along the food chain. 

Living on a float house is like living in an aquarium.  We awoke one morning in early spring to see the house surrounded by millions of tiny fish, no bigger than a child’s little finger.  They feed off the seaweeds and barnacles that grow off the float, and must enjoy this sheltered little spot because they are not at all disturbed by us.  You can walk all around and wave your arms at them and they will scatter momentarily, only to regroup seconds later, floating lazily from the surface to a depth of several meters.  I sit on the edge of the float and watch them, swimming this way and that, all perfectly synchronized, calm and slow, with nowhere to go.  I watch them get bigger every day, and watch the bigger fish crossing through them, darting this way and that.  At low tide you can see crabs scurrying along the ocean floor and also along the sides of our float.  You can reach out and grab them, and dinner could be that easy!

Seals, minks and otters will ten come closer to the house to get the fish.  Ron said that before he got a dog and cat, the seals and otters would come and sun bake on the deck!  Now they swim shyly around the house, and often follow me when I go out kayaking.  They are what I imagine an angel to be, always following, quietly at a distance, but always there, watching, waiting. 

So I have company now, millions of tiny fish making the water sparkle silver in the sunlight, seals and bears that graze on the beaches around our house.  The ducks and geese are leaving to go north, but the eagles and ravens and seagulls stay, swooping and crying in great arcs.  My favorite are the sea lions, great lively fat creatures with faces like old men, so curious and aware that you almost expect them to utter some peculiarity in a heavy brogue, commenting on the state of life or the strangeness of reality.  The herring spawn in early April, racing in from the outside ocean to the inner protected waters.  The sea lions race after them, highly excited, jumping and splashing madly, swimming almost on top of each other in a babble of shrieking excitement, sitting high in the water, swiveling their heads around quickly, trying to look at everything at once.  They are hyperactive and will move crazily, in a confusion of heads and tails and flippers, connected as if by one brain, all on top of each other, zigzagging here, then there, then here again.  They are the most confident of the sea creatures, and will swim right up to your boat and stare at you point blank, as if wondering about your own particular brand of strangeness. 

Watching Alaska has thrown storms into my mind.  It is so beautiful, stunningly, breathtakingly, unbelievably beautiful, everywhere, everyday.  Nature in its wild state is magnificent, peaceful and glorious.  Yet nature in its natural state can also seem terrible, the wolf devouring the new born fawn, killer whales tearing into a pod of seals.  But it is humans that are the worst.  They (we) don’t just take what they need, they take as much as they can, for whatever reason.  Humans are careless, greedy, shortsighted.  Yet humans are also capable of great thoughts, of wonderful achievements full of vision and mastery and poetry.  It is a strange battleground to watch, nature, where life depends on life to survive - it is glorious and it is fated - and then to see the human role in this, humans who are very much a part of the same system, yet who are constantly at odds in their power to create or destroy.  Where are we going? I ask myself.  What will be the outcome of all of this?  It is not a war of good vs. evil – for whose good, whose evil?  It is only a progression of cause and effect, and many of the actions that I see from men make me fear for the future.  Yet the sunshine falls like magic and the sparkling of little fishes are like kisses from the gods. 

The deer grazing on the new buds on the beach has only contentment in her heart, even though wolves or hunters may be closing in on her.  Great forces are at large in the world, forces that could make this the last day for any or for all of us.  And yet the sun dropped between the mountains like a jewel splashing into heaven.  No, this is heaven, here and now.  How to live?  How to accept the beauty and the wonder and the fear and the horror that make up this extraordinary bundle called life?  How to master the creation and destruction, the greatness and mediocrity within one’s self?  How to live in a way that honors it all?

Melissa  

Letter 6: Summer 2004

Daily Life:

The Setting…

A small, two story wooden cottage standing on a 60x40 float.  There is a shed to the left, and a covered outdoor area to the right.  A small greenhouse sits in one corner, a hot tub, on a separate float, to the other.  There are no neighbors, just ocean, an assortment of islands, and mountains framing the horizon.  From time to time you can see a bear or two ambling along the beaches of the protected cove where the house floats, deer, and eagles overhead.  If you watch closely you will see the head of a seal popping up for a quiet inspection, or a mink scurrying along the shoreline.  Yes, this is life in the national geographic channel. 

How it all works –

Solar power operates the lights and computer, propane the stove and small fridge, and a generator occasionally makes a guest appearance in honor of a longer movie, or too many dark winter days.  A fireplace is the only source of heat, and is responsible for the hot water system.

The residents –

A man and a woman live in the house.  To get to town they have to get covered up head to toe raingear (it can rain anytime) and ride in an open skiff for two and a quarter miles over the ocean.  The trip is usually a delight, but a little tricky in the dark.  The man chops wood, fixes the outboards and all the electrical/ mechanical things around the house, and builds anything that the woman thinks might be nice.  He insists upon carrying all heavy items from the boat to the car and gets embarrassed if she even tries.  Despite her previously anti-homebound inclinations, she is amused to discover herself enjoying cooking, cleaning, shopping and gardening (who wouldn't in this setting?!).  Shopping is an event, and most food is ordered in bulk and shipped up from an organic supplier in Oregon.  Their pantry is full of huge sacks of organic grain and rice, beans and all the delicacies.  They will not starve in a hurry.  He hunts and cans salmon and venison, she is learning how to gather and can berries, forest plants, mushrooms and kelp.  She grinds organic wheat berries and tries to bake Alaskan sourdough bread, muffins and cakes, and is delighted that her loaves are becoming more edible, and less like something she would throw at an intruder.  Carrying heavy items is a recurrent theme in this type of life, and many muscles are gained by lugging around buckets of water, or carrying rounds of wood through the forest.  Other exercise includes canoeing, kayaking (these are both alternative ways of getting in to town) and hiking.  The aim of the game here is to be as independent and self-sustaining as possible.      

Conversations with Americans…

While the nature is wonderful, the culture can be, err, well, challenging…

“Now I hear you’ve got a bit of an accent there, where are you from?”

“Guess.”

He scratches his head.  “Well you must be from pretty far away.  I’ll guess New England, you’ve got to be an east coast girl.”  He beams.

“No,” she replies, “I come from another country.”

He looks surprised.  “You mean that you come from Europe?!”

“Err, no…, here's a hint - English is my first language.  I come from an English speaking country.”

His eyebrows rise.  “Oh! You mean you are from England?”

“No, no,” she insists.  “Guess again, another country where English is the main language.”

He squints at her in puzzlement, and scratches his head.  He thinks for a minute or two, and then looks up decisively. 

“You know, I just don’t know.  I give up.” 

..............................................

Christianity is very popular here in small town America.  People take it very seriously and most go to church and bible studies every week. (NB: Churchgoing rate truly surprised me when I got here as this is different to Australia where BBQs in the park or at the beach are more of the religion.)  This can lead to some surprising turns of conversation if you are an alternative type from a tree-hugging feminist region of Australia.  Once I mentioned casually to a Christian friend that it would be great if a black woman somehow got to be president.  “No it wouldn’t!” he replied vehemently.  I glanced at him in surprise.  There was no hint of humor on his face.  “No it wouldn’t,” he repeated forcefully.  “Women should not be in charge.  It is not biblical.  God does not want women to rule!”  Nothing in my past had prepared me for a reply! 

 ..............................................

There are many different words used Americans and Australians.  Thanks to the availability of American movies I usually don’t have too much trouble working out what they are talking about.  However, this often does not work both ways. 

Ways to baffle an American:

Say - “Can you please open the boot?” or, “My jacket is in the boot, I’ll just go and grab it.”  The American will look at your shoes and then around in bewilderment as if confounded by the mental image of a jacket in a boot that opens. 

American word – trunk. 

“Can you please put it in the bin?”  You will get no action from even the most helpful of school children for this one.

American word – rubbish

“Would you pass me a serviette?”  Here they will look around the room as if waiting for the mystery item to jump out labeled at them.

American word – napkin.

Torch is a great word.  Some friends were waiting for me to show them out in the dark.  "Hang on, I'll grab a torch."  They all looked mildly startled waiting for me to light a flaming bundle of wood.

American word - flashlight

Discussing babies and nappies (US – diaper) will have the same effect, and there are many other words that can unsuspectingly cause all sorts of conversational confusions.   “Vegetarian” is a particularly unclear one for hunting/fishing/logging Alaska. 

One day I asked the lady at the fried food counter if any of the battered delights before her was vegetarian.  An expression of vague puzzlement settled on her brows and she tipped her head to the side as though adjusting the angle might make the picture clearer. 

“Is – anything – veg-et-ar-ian?” I asked again, in the slow, loud style that is often helpful when crossing language barriers.  She frowned in concentration and then started to slowly move her lips as tough she wanted to try to communicate with me, but really wasn’t sure how.  I decided to change my strategy.  “Wedges,” I said desperately, pointing.  “I’ll have the wedges.”

Her head tipped to the side and she tried regarding me from another angle.  Another server noticed our fix and came to the rescue. 

“The potatoes,” she translated.  “She wants the potatoes.”

My alien friend suddenly came to life.  “Oh, sure,” she replied and quickly served me. 

I decided not to ask for tomato sauce (ketchup). 

.....................................................

Generally, being a novelty item works well.  Students will listen attentively to me, simply in order to be amused by my accent.  I substituted for a teacher recently, who upon discussing lesson plans with me the day before, told me simply to talk to the classes about Australia.  He was terribly excited about this idea.  After all, he said, it is not everybody who gets to meet an Australian! 

A senior student was bounding past me the other day at school when she stopped suddenly mid bound and swiveled around to face me.  Head tipped to the side, she stared at me in open eyed wonder for a moment or two while twirling a lock of hair around her finger.  “Hey,...” she burst out, “are you that teacher from that other country?”.  I nodded.  Her eyes widened.  “Cooool...” she exclaimed and bounded off again.    

Have fun,

Melissa

Letter 7 - December 2004

Just living life... and Stupefying Sea Lions and Catching Kings.

 Hi there,

 Sorry I have not written for a while - the holiday is over and now it is
 just work, work, work!  (just kidding, but regular life has set in).  Not
 that life is too regular here, summer was busy with fishing and hunting
 and canoeing and gardening and collecting berries and seaweeds, making
 jams and pickles and storing lots of foods - we were so busy that we were
 glad for winter to hit.  Those long days in summer make it hard to sleep
 or even to sit still.  And there is so much to do before those short dark
 winter days that you have to stay busy!

 At the end of summer I took a trip up to Juneau on the ferry (a
 spectacular trip up the inside passage, I thoroughly recommend it to any
 aspiring visitors) and passed my real estate salesperson's test.  So now I
 am a real estate agent, which is a nice change as casual teaching at the
 school here can be a bit wild.  It is great fun as we make our own hours
 and spend most of our time stomping over gorgeous properties over the
 island.  We are really just glorified tour guides.

 So life is pretty mellow.  I have settled in well, I have had my moments
 when I just felt too far away from friends and family, but generally I am
 very happy and relaxed.  Life here just potters on watching the wildlife,
 and enjoying day by day.  We have bought an acre on an island here, around
 the corner from where we are now.  We are the only people living out this
 way, but some good friends bought the lot next to us, and their friends
 bought the last lot.  So we will eventually have a nice little community
 out here!  But at the moment we are clearing the rain forest - a big job
 by hand with no big machinery! - and hoping to pull the house up on land
 by spring.

 Gosh, I am wracking my brain to come up with some exciting Alaska stories
 for you, but I have become so mellow my brain just pitter-patters softly
 like the almost constant rain here.  Ok, here is one - it is a fishing
 story:

 FIGHTING SEA LIONS FOR YOUR SALMON

 We were out fishing one day, Ron, Mark and me.  We were way out in the
 islands, out near the outside waters, a humpback whale was playing and
 splashing around on our right and a couple of sea otters were cracking
 crabs on their bellies to our left.  The guys were fishing for King
 (Chinook) Salmon and I was lying around enjoying the sun.  Then suddenly a
 sea lion struck!  One of the guys had a fish on his line and the sea lion
 caught it, popped above the surface to let us know, and whisked it away.
 The guys were cursing.  A little later, another king is on the line.  Mark
 is bringing it in slowly when -hello!- our old friend the sea lion pops up
 again, fish in his mouth.  The guys leap about, waving their arms and
 yelling in an attempt to scare Mr Sea Lion off.  Indeed he looks puzzled,
 and drops the fish.  Mark tries to reel it in, but Mr Sea Lion grabs the
 poor fish again and pops up to let us know that he is still playing.  He
 seems fascinated by the way we all yell and wave our arms at him, and
 repeats this trick several times, getting closer all the time, and really
 appearing to enjoy himself.  Finally he drops it and Mark lets the fish
 run.  The fish comes darting toward our boat.  Ron is steering the boat
 and Mark is playing the line which only leaves me unoccupied.  They holler
 at me to grab the net, and caught up in all the excitement I grab the big
 net and half dive over the edge of the boat.  In this strange position I
 stare uneasily at the deep ocean waiting at any moment for this 35 pound
 fish to come straight at me followed closely by a monster sea lion.  The
 fish appears, a blur of silver in the great depths.  I scoop at it and
 lift the net above my head, still hanging half overboard, and have to wait
 to be helped up as I can't lift the big fish from that position.  Luckily
 I am rescued before the sea lion can get too curious about me!  They are
 very intelligent, human-like creatures, but they still have big teeth and
 are much bigger and stronger than I am!

 Off to the right Miss Humpback decides to get lively and launches up for
 an unexpected dive next to another fishing boat.  The previously relaxed
 occupants admitted to almost being startled overboard.  A little later
 another small fishing boat is leaving the scene, speeding off when Miss
 Humpback launches herself for the mother of all breeches right in their
 path.  The alarmed boat banks abruptly to the left and escapes unscathed.

 Well that is all for now, it is winter and we have a bear hibernating on
 our island up a tree!  There is a big hollow half-way up a big cedar with
 claw marks leading up to it.  I am respectfully quiet when I am near it
 and prepared to sacrifice the dog at a moments notice!  Oh yeah, and on
 Jan 04 we will have been married for a year and everything is still going
 great!

 I hope you are well, and would love to hear your news.

 Wishing you a fun-filled New Year,
 Mel

Letter 8, Winter, January 2005

From a tropical Australian Island to a temperate Alaskan Island...

Dear friends,
Well here I sit, wrapped up and cosy beside the fire on this winter’s morning on an island in south-east Alaska. I am quite alone but for two cats and a dog and the rain that patters softly over the slumbering ocean that is curled quietly around the house. I hear the fire crackle tentatively beside me, as though it doesn’t want to disturb the stillness. A little further on, water drips rhythmically, creating a beat for the thousands of tiny raindrops falling so lightly from sky, so lightly... Everything is gentle here, the muted grays of the sky sitting so low, the gentle arms of mist caressing the world it holds. The olive green of the rainforest, towering cedars, spruce and hemlock, softly staring into the inky depths of the mirror that reaches up to their roots and falls away every day, grey and green melting together... If peace had a color, it would not be cornflower blue or sunshine yellow, it would be a soft, deep, grey-green, the color of nature in harmony; of the sky, the plants and the water living together through light. This is the color of the ocean here, the color of the rest that has settled in my soul.

January the 4th has just passed, marking two occasions: the first, a year of marriage to Ron, the second, exactly a year and a half spent here, with him, in this strange and sleepy wilderness. I sometimes wonder if I am dreaming; our anniversary was marked by mists so heavy that we were almost lost at sea, a soft and dark white holding us so tightly that I felt we had tumbled from our daily path into a place at the edge of existence, a place so still and brilliant that nothing had color but us. Directions were lost, a straight line could be a curve, forward might not be and the concept of “the right way” dissolved as even our movement became illusory, and we were swallowed into non-existence.

If there is a land of the fairytale, this is it. Magic laces even the most mundane of acts; stomping through a soft and mossy forest with an armful of wood, collecting sea-greens at low tide for dinner, baking bread in a small and floating kitchen while nearby bears turn up rocks for snacks along the water’s edge. Even daily exercise has its delights, canoeing around the hidden bays and secret inlets while the dog follows me, galloping along the beach. Once we startled a group of river otters napping on the shore. They scrambled shrieking into the water, their little heads bobbing high as they stared at us indignantly, unable to believe our brashness. Seals follow us quietly at a distance, curious, but cautiously so, and when I am aware I can find a deer, see a woodpecker, or hear an owl.

I am surprised to find myself here, it is not where I had imagined myself if I had even been able to imagine such a place. I am grateful the twist of fate, for the surprise in life, that I am captive in a place so unsuitable for me that it is a constant delight and challenge. It feels a paradox that I am so deeply at peace here, more than I have ever been, and yet I feel so alive... Life is a wondrous thing, its colors and feelings and sounds, its stunning incomprehensibleness, its beauty, its brilliance.

Perhaps I am just dreaming in the mist... I remember when I first met Ron, on a tropical island, 10 years ago. From a tropical Australian island rainforest to a temperate Alaskan island rainforest. That is the rain that you hear, the music in the background. The last thing I said to him as I boarded the bus to leave that island 10 years ago, was see you in Alaska... 

Letter 8, Winter, January 2005

Welcome friends and family!  I know it has been a long time since I have given you an update on Alaskan life, but now I have a regular job and all those boring responsibilities that go with it - a little bit of a dampener on inspiration!  But don't worry, I am working on it - how to stay alive and resist getting stuck in the "game".  Alaska is a big help, nature always offers many hints... 

Now it is winter, that exciting time of icy awakenings...  Imagine living on a little island, every time you want to go somewhere you have to put on waterproof overalls and a rainjacket and jump in a boat.  In summer the trip into town is a real treat, calm, deep green waters dotted with islands that seem to be floating like lilies in a pond, mountains framing the horizon here and there, adding spice and a dash of majesty to an otherwise very gently beautiful landscape. On a rainy day (which is many of them), mix a palette of a thousand shades of silver, drizzle slivers of mist around the islands, swirl the mountains in cloudy mystery, strange mysteries that would be revealed only if you could awaken from this delicious slumber of grey and green and deep silence...

And then there are those stunning moments when the sun bursts forth, splashing life with a violence of royal blue and glaring gold.  Life seems to be dancing, suddenly awake and revealed.  New horizons appear, distant mountains and far shores.  The senses soar, buoyant in the warm air, stretching toward this glow like moths toward a light globe.  Strangers smile, secretly giddy with an unusual delight, for this stunning drug does not bathe here often.  

But for enlightenment you have to wait for winter.  You have to wait for the cold, a cold that cuts through the senses, searing images onto the back of your eyes, into your soul.  Mountains reborn as queens of white and light, echoes of an ancient royalty whispering to the world below.  The eerie cry of the northern lights reminding the shivering dark of magic and inspiration and of wonders undreamed of.  The moon demanding immortality, defying the dark by dancing to the stars over a snow-kissed forest, playing with the ocean like a spoilt child, carelessly tossing shards of brilliance, glimpsing and glimmering, refusing to sleep, jealously possessing the world in a ghostly embrace...

In a small boat, there is nothing to hide you from life.  An open skiff has none of the insulating qualities of a car, the weather smacks you in the face, poking her rude fingers into your ears and eyes, making you wince and cringe.  The cold bites on your fingers, and chews through your clothes, gnawing on your flesh like a puppy on a hapless bone.  Moments of beauty are branded through your consciousness, the cold acts as an acid and the separation of observer and object dissolves.  Life is sharp, painfully sharp and for that moment you know you are alive...

Seasons Greetings and lots of love to all...

Mel and Ron