I truly feel blessed to be able to get off the grid and away from the constant barrage of bad news. For the next three months, Ray and I will be unplugged (with the exception of coming into town for supplies. We are thinking of getting a satellite internet connection since we’ll be gone so much, but we haven’t made any solid plans yet.
View of the sunset from our cabin. Time is approximately 12:30. The sun will slowly move to the right, hiding behind the mountains for a few hours before popping up again. It will never really get dark.
Sunset/Sunrise times
This year’s Solstice Noon occurs at 1:43 pm on June 20th. The sun will set at around 12:45, and rise again around 2:45***.
***this is approximate per the sunrise/sunset calendar.
Weekend Plans
This weekend we plan on focusing on the upcoming construction in July. The foundations are almost ready, and we will start building structures for the new cook shed and shower facility in July.
Artist’s Retreat!!!
We’ll also start earth work for future guest cabin. Our dream is to turn our 31 acres into an off-grid artist’s retreat so we can share the beauty and inspiration of the Alaska interior with others.
We also we spend time researching, reading, writing and reflecting. Without the constant rattle and distraction focus and clarity on what truly matters is much easier.
Ray’s sculpture, the “Lilly of the Valley.” We have been installing multiple large metal sculptures around the property.
Thanks for reading! My horror novella inspired by my adventures in the backcountry of Alaska is available on Amazon.
It seems like for everyone I talk to, 2019 has been a
dumpster fire. I know that I will be happy to see this year in the rearview
mirror. For those of you who know me/follow me closely, you know that I have
struggled with MS and other health related issues this year. Then in August,
the company I worked for announced that they were selling our business unit.
These last few months I have spent a lot of time reflecting on my career path
and what I want to do going forward.
Me with a frame 5 GE rotor
It surprised a lot of people, given that I’m only 41, that I
opted to package out. Instead of applying for a job with the new operator, I
requested to be severed. For me, the choice was simple. This is an opportunity
to make a deep change in my life. I have explained in my blogs, that I have
always enjoyed writing. I enjoy engineering and math just as much. In the last
few years, I have felt that my job was taking me down a path that led me away
from what I enjoyed doing. I was no longer an engineer, I was pushing paper and
collecting a paycheck. Meanwhile my blood pressure was ratcheting up, as I argued
against decisions I disagreed with, only to get overridden. The stress seemed
to eat away at my very being. The only thing making my job worth doing was supporting
the great technicians and operators I work with.
The guys cleaning a substation
I hinted over this weekend of exciting announcements to come. I’m still waiting for my final severance date (I’ll get my letter in the mail Friday—I’ll be sure to let you know). But in the meantime, Ray and I are laying our plans for the future.
Monday Ray and I will be putting the down payment for our
first solar kit out at the cabin. We’ll be sharing pictures and posts as we
design and install our new solar panels, inverter, charger and batteries. We’re
looking forward to the greater flexibility as we stay out at the cabin for
longer in the summers and plan out adventures.
The cabin at night.
We also have some major construction projects in the works
for the summer of 2020. We poured our foundations this past summer, but in
July, we will be erecting a new cook shed and shower/sauna. It feels a little
weird, bringing creature comforts to our cabin that has been rustic for so
long. But as we transition from city living to Chicken these are changes that
will make living off-grid more convenient.
Breaking up the snow for water-I’ll really be looking forward to when we have a better water system!
We also plan on taking a few months and driving the ALCAN (a
trip I have never done before). We’re going to do an extended road trip to
visit friends in the lower 48. As some of you may have noticed, Ray and I have
kind of an obsession with old ghost towns. Expect to see lots of pictures and
historical blog posts about our adventures.
The Sternwheel Graveyard, one of our favorite stops on our Dawson City, YT adventure in the summer of 2019
We’re not entirely sure what the long term will bring, but I am excited for this leap. I plan on focusing on my writing in 2020 and hopefully bringing my fiction works one step closer to getting published. I also hope to get my own engineering projects/start-up company off the ground. I’m grateful for this deep-sea change. This is a true, once in a lifetime opportunity, and I look forward to sharing our plans and schemes with those of you who keep following me.
Me out in Chicken taking a break with Jane Friedman’s the Business of Being a Writer
As promised, a blog post about the interior of Alaska, the location of our cabin, and the inspiration for several of my stories. In particular, my horror novella, The Dark Land, inspired by the Legend of the Cet’aeni or the “People with Tails.”
Moonrise over the cabin
Since the white man’s “discovery” of the land the Aleut’s call Alyeska, there has been an intense fascination with this broad expanse of wilderness. Most people who visit barely scratch the surface, never understanding the true scale and depth of Alaska’s land. They stick to the tour buses, enjoying the safety of what my husband and I call the “look, but don’t touch” Alaska. These tourists will never experience her harsh bite. They can’t comprehend that behind her glacial beauty, beats a cold and unyielding heart that has lured many to a premature end.
None understand this better than the native peoples who populated this vast land long before the Europeans set foot here. Many distinct tribes and cultures lived within Alaska’s varied terrain. The subject of the different tribes and languages could take up multiple blog posts and books. If you are ever visiting Anchorage, a great stop is the Alaska Native Heritage Center:
They break down the enormous state into the 5 distinct regions of tribal peoples. It is a great place to get a better understanding of how these people lived and thrived in Alaska
As mentioned, most tourists see the southeast of Alaska. they take a cruise from Seattle or Vancouver up the inside passage. They see the land of the Haida and the Tlingit. Tall trees and totem poles. Calving glaciers and orcas.
They might head further north to Anchorage, or Los Anchorage as some of us who live here call it. Alaska’s largest city of roughly 300K people might seem paltry to outsiders, but it is a behemoth considering almost half the state’s population lives in one city. There’s another joke about Anchorage, “Alaska, 20 minutes from Anchorage.” Tourists who only come to Anchorage haven’t seen the real Alaska, they’ve just been brought here to spend money.
Some brave tourists venture into the interior, taking tours of Denali National Park and Fairbanks. Few tourists venture into the Eastern interior. Those who do might go visit Kennecott Mine, inside the boundaries of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, the largest US National Park by area. A few more might make the drive up the Alcan, visiting the Canadian cities of Dawson or Whitehorse, then visiting Chicken and Eagle on the US side of the border, all remnants of the great Yukon/Klondike gold-rush. Gold is still actively mined in these regions to this day. For those of you who regularly follow my posts, you’ll know this is where the cabin is located, just outside of Chicken.
The cabin in Chicken, AK
The interior is the land of the Athabascan. Most people would think that the North Slope/Arctic region would be the coldest, but that is not the case. Without the warming/cooling effects of the ocean, the interior experiences the extremes of weather. The Alaska interior holds the record low in Prospect Creek, AK at -80F (-62C for my friends on the Celsius scale). The record low in Chicken, AK is pretty close, at -76. The record high was at Ft. Yukon (north of Fairbanks) at 100F.
The native Athabascans adapted to their landscape and extreme environment and carved an existence out of the harsh beauty.
Mt. Sanford as viewed from the north boundary of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park
The fierce, tenacious tribes of Athabascans that inhabited this particular region of wild rivers and harsh extremes were the Ahtna and Tanana.
The first attempts by Europeans to navigate and chart the copper river were met by fierce resistance from the Ahtna and Tanana. The parties disappeared, never returning.
It wasn’t until 1885, Lt. Henry T Allen and two other men set off from Portland, OR with explicit orders to map and navigate the Copper and Tanana Rivers and bring back information on the peoples living in the region. A link to information on this expedition is below.
The Ahtna, like all people have myths and legends. Legends of the Gguux (pronounced gookh) that pull people into the water to drown. Stories of the “Hairy Man” much like the Bigfoot or Yeti of other cultures.
But the tale I will spin for you is based loosely on the legend of the Cet’eani or “People with tails.” My husband has done a great deal of hiking and skiing in the back country of the Copper Valley and Wrangell-St. Elias National Park while his brother had a homestead in Slana. This story is loosely based on some of his experiences.
There are multiple iterations of this tale, as it varies depending on location, tribe and dialect.
A young hunter set forth from the village in late winter to provide fresh meat for his family. When he did not return, a party went out searching. They tracked his steps some distance from the village to a valley that was seldom explored. It was whispered that evil spirits dwelled within, lurking in caves and trees. Creatures with tails.
The hunters entered with caution. Coming over a ridge in the dark, they saw a bonfire in front of a cave. Creatures with tails frolicked in the firelight, playing a game, kicking the young hunters head to and fro. The hunters waited until the creatures retreated to their cave for the night. They sealed the entrance with rocks and lit it on fire. They went back to the village and warned others of what they had seen.
Knowing they had not truly vanquished the Cet’aeni, they made the valley forbidden, calling it the “Dark Land.”
The cabin at night.
As I get ready to self-publish my horror/paranormal romance novel, the Dark Land, set in the back country of Wrangel St. Elias National Park, I’ll be doing more posts about this particular region of Alaska, and our plans for our cabin this summer!
