Category Archives: Living in the wilderness on Kodiak Island

Life in the wilderness on Kodiak Island

Fatigue

Living in the wilderness on Kodiak Island, Podcast, Writing, , , ,

Fatigue looms front and center in my life right now. We have less than two weeks to go until the end of the season at our lodge. Mike and I will stay here until mid-January, and then we plan to take a vacation and return by mid-to-late February. I don’t care about a vacation; all I want to do is sleep!

I have so many projects I’m excited to start but no energy to begin them. Lately, I’ve been fighting to keep up with my weekly and monthly deadlines – my blog posts, podcasts, and newsletters. I’m disappointed I haven’t spent more time editing my wildlife book or writing on my next novel. My publisher is annoyed I haven’t put more effort into promoting my last book, Karluk Bones. Once our fall season ends and I sleep for 48-straight hours (just kidding – I think) and stamp out my fatigue, I will have the energy to write and edit my books, and yes, I will try to sell my latest novel.

I began my podcast, Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier, this past summer, producing two a month. At the same time, I cut back my blog posts to two a month. So far, I am happy with this arrangement. I think I was beginning to get bogged down by writing four blog posts a month, but I look forward to doing them every other week. Podcast episodes require a great deal of work, but I still find them fun to do, and I am reaching a new audience. The newsletter is still my most time-consuming project every month, but I’ve gotten faster at writing them, and I am slowly learning how to write non-fiction – It’s not easy!

I know many of my blog post readers have never listened to a podcast, so here’s an excerpt from a recent episode. Just hit the arrow to play it.

If you’d like to hear more, follow this link: https://murder-in-the-last-frontier.blubrry.net

Let me know what you think. I know a true-crime podcast is not for everyone, so I understand if you aren’t interested in it.

I haven’t had a chance to thank many of you for buying Karluk Bones. I appreciate you, and I hope you enjoyed the adventure.

In my next post, I will discuss tanner crabs, often called snow crabs. I hope you’ve found my crab posts informative. I’ve enjoyed writing them and have learned a great deal about king crabs, commercial king crab fishing, and the laws (or lack of) governing the fishing industry. It seemed as if every time I started a post, I realized I had enough information for two or three articles. The deeper I dug, the more fascinated I became about king crab and commercial king crab fishing industry.

As always, thanks for reading, and take a minute to leave a comment and say hi. Hearing from you will erase my fatigue in a flash.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is IMG_1316-4-768x1024.jpg

Robin Barefield is the author of four Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter, and Karluk Bones. You are invited to watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska, and listen to her podcast, Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Mysterious-Kodiak-Island-FB-3-1.png
Write caption…

Mystery Newsletter

Sign Up for my free, monthly Mystery Newsletter about true crime in Alaska.

Cannibalism

Living in the wilderness on Kodiak Island, Murder Mystery, , , , , , , ,

Little in our world is more repugnant and taboo than cannibalism, the consumption of human flesh by other human beings. I assure you, I have not taken a left turn into the dark side on this blog, but Henry Aurman, one of the characters in my upcoming novel, Karluk Bones, not only eats human flesh but also cans it, so he can enjoy it at a later time. While writing about Henry, I became curious about incidents of cannibalism, and was surprised and disturbed to find many more references to the practice than I expected.

Why would a human eat the flesh of another human? Sometimes the reason is practical and is something any of us might do if we found ourselves in a similar circumstance. In other situations, an individual such as my fictional Henry Aurman simply has no aversion to human flesh and considers it the same as eating any other animal. Others believe consuming the flesh of another will allow the consumer to capture his dinner’s spirit. Sickest of all are those who are so twisted they gain sexual pleasure from murdering and eating their victims. Let’s look at some examples.

Cannibalism for Survival

Many reports exist of humans forced to ward off starvation by eating the bodies of their recently deceased companions, but the case which intrigues me most is the doomed Donner party during the winter of 1846-47. In May 1846, the Donner and Reed families (87 men, women, and children) set out by wagon train from Independence, Missouri headed for California. The group got a late start, leaving them little room for error on a journey which generally took four-to-six months under the best of conditions. Unfortunately, the leaders of the group made several bad decisions and luck was not on their side. The group reached the Sierra Nevada Mountains in late October 1946 and became stranded by heavy snow during one of the worst winters the region has ever seen.

By mid-December, the Donner party was nearly out of food, and a few members of the group set out on foot in search of supplies and help at Sutter’s Fort (now Sacramento). They made it to Sutter’s Fort, but due to heavy snowfall, a relief party could not reach the remainder of the group until the middle of February 1847. Only 48 of the original 87 members survived the ordeal, and it didn’t take long after the party was rescued before rumors of cannibalism among the snowbound pioneers circulated across the country. While the settlers didn’t murder other members of the group and then eat them, they admitted they ate some of their fellow travelers who died from starvation. While this act might sound reprehensible, it’s something most of us probably would do if we were starving to death.

Cannibalism to Absorb Another’s Spirit

Issei Sagawa, the son of wealthy Japanese parents, moved to Paris in 1978 when he was 20-years-old to study at the Sorbonne. On June 11,1981, he invited classmate Renee Hartvelt to his home for dinner. Issei shot Renee in the neck with a rifle and feasted on her body for two days. Apparently, Issei admired Renee and hoped by eating her, he would absorb her energy and replace his own inadequacies.

Issei was arrested by French authorities, but after he was declared psychologically unfit to stand trial, he was sent back to Japan. Japanese doctors found him sane, and Sagawa checked himself out of the hospital and remains free in Japan to this day.

Cannibalism for Sexual Pleasure

There are unfortunately many examples of deviants who fall within this category. Jeffrey Dahmer is the best known American serial killer/cannibal. By 1991, Dahmer was sexually assaulting and murdering one person a week until he was finally caught on July 22, 1991. After torturing his victims, Dahmer eviscerated them and stored their body parts for later consumption.

Perhaps even more disturbing than Jeffrey Dahmer was Ukrainian born Andrei Chikatilo who mutilated and sexually assaulted 52 women and children between 1978 and 1990. After he was captured, he admitted to authorities he enjoyed chewing on the extracted uteri of his female victims and the testicles of his male victims.

Henry Aurman, the old trapper in my novel who murders and eats his trapping partners, never explains why he eats human flesh, but I think he considers humans an easy source of food. Henry is based on a real person. Next week I’ll post an excerpt about Henry from my upcoming novel, Karluk Bones.

Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.

Mystery Newsletter

Sign Up for my free, monthly Mystery Newsletter about true crime in Alaska.

Age of Skeletal Remains

Living in the wilderness on Kodiak Island, Murder Mystery, , , , , , , , ,

Age is critical information when attempting to identify skeletal remains. How old was the individual when he died, and how long has he been dead?

Two weeks ago, I discussed how a forensic anthropologist determines gender from skeletal remains, and last week, I described how an anthropologist can deduce race and height from an examination of human bones.  This week’s post covers ways a forensic anthropologist pins down age. When we talk about age in relation to bones, we must consider two separate issues. First, how old was this individual when he died, and second, how long ago did he die? If you are an investigator trying to determine the identity of skeletal remains, then the answers to both questions will aid you in your investigation.

How old was this person when he died?

When examining a skeleton, a forensic anthropologist considers the processes of growth and decline. Bone growth and tooth emergence can be used to age the skeletons of children, adolescents, and young adults. Once an individual reaches adulthood, his bones stop growing, and his bones, joints, and teeth begin to decline from wear and tear. The rate and degree of decline is far more variable than the process of growth, so anthropologists often struggle to age the skeletal remains of adults.

When we are born, our “bones” are mostly soft cartilage. As we grow, the cartilage is replaced by bone at areas called a growth plate at the end of each bone. Once growth is complete, the growth plates fuse. Infants have more than 300 growth plates which eventually fuse, and since the growth plates fuse and different, known rates, an anthropologist estimates age by analyzing the fused and unfused plates. Teeth also emerge from the gums at a predictable age and provide an accurate estimate of age in juveniles.

Forensic anthropologists can estimate the age of young adults by looking at the skull. When we are born, our skull consists of five flat bones connected by fibrous material called sutures. These sutures allow our heads to expand as we grow, but once we reach adulthood and stop growing, the sutures begin to fuse, and most are completely fused by the time we are 40-years old. If the sutures on the skull have not yet fully fused, then an anthropologist can use them as a rough guide to estimate the age of the individual.

Once bone growth stops and the skull sutures have disappeared, the forensic anthropologist must estimate age at the time of death by studying the degenerative changes in the skeleton. Joints are prone to deterioration, and the pelvis is one of the most common areas used for age estimation. The two halves of the pelvis meet above the pubic area at a joint called the pubic symphysis. This joint undergoes consistent changes throughout a person’s life and can be used to estimate age. Another consistent change in the human body is the cartilage between the end of the fourth rib and the sternum. Over time, this cartilage slowly changes to bone. Other degenerative changes in the spine and joints provide clues to the age of the individual.

I suggest this excellent slideshow for more information on ways to age skeletal remains.

How long ago did this person die?

One of the most difficult questions a forensic anthropologist is asked to answer is how long skeletal remains have been at the location where they were found. If investigators hope to compare the remains to a list of missing persons, they need an estimate of the time since death.  Forensic taphonomy is the study of the factors, including environmental factors, which affect decomposition. Biotaphonomy is the study of how the environment affects the decomposition of the body, and geotaphonomy is the study of how decomposition of the body affects the environment around it. Forensic entomology is the study of insect progression on a corpse, and advances in this field now provide researchers with an accurate estimation of the time since the death of a recent corpse.

The post-mortem interval of skeletal remains more than a few years old is difficult to pinpoint. The environment takes a toll on bones. In a hot, dry environment, bones crack over time, while bones submitted to a cycle of thawing and freezing disintegrate into fragments. Recent research has focused on measuring the citrate content of bone for an estimation of the time since death, but results have been varied, and more research is needed. For now, forensic anthropologists often used their best guess from years of examining bones to determine the post-death interval of skeletal remains.

Next week, I’ll touch on other information experts can learn by examining skeletal remains, including what long-deceased populations ate to survive.

Sign up below for my Mystery Newsletter to read about true murder and mystery in Alaska.

Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.

Mystery Newsletter

Sign Up for my free, monthly Mystery Newsletter about true crime in Alaska.

Bones

Living in the wilderness on Kodiak Island, Murder Mystery, , , ,

If you stumble across a pile of bones in the woods, can you tell if they are human bones, and if they are human, did they belong to a male or female? How old was he or she at the time of death? Was the individual tall or short? What killed him or her, and how long ago did the person die?

While we might be able to identify human bones, most of us cannot answer many questions about the bones, and most of the answers elude even law enforcement officers, coroners, and trained medical examiners. Forensic anthropologists are the experts who interpret skeletal remains.

In my latest novel, Karluk Bones, Jane Marcus and her friends stumble across skeletal remains near Karluk Lake on Kodiak Island. They find a skull as well as a long femur, so they know at least some of the bones are human. The remains don’t appear to be recent, but they also don’t look ancient, and Jane and her friends argue about how old they might be. Jane reports the bones to the Alaska State Troopers, but Sergeant Patterson also can’t guess at the age of the bones, so he hands them off to a medical examiner who in turn sends them to a forensic anthropologist, and she is able to answer some, but not all, of the questions about the bones.

I love learning, and one of the things I enjoy most about writing fiction or non-fiction is having the opportunity to dig into a new subject and study it not only until I understand it but until I know it well enough to explain it to my readers. Using science to help solve the mystery of the bones in my novel proved trickier than I expected, and Ying, my fictional anthropology student at the University of Alaska, ended up relying on cutting-edge scientific techniques to provide answers about the human remains Jane and her friends found.

Beginning with this post and continuing for the next two or three weeks, I will describe what a forensic anthropologist can deduce from bones.

Human or Non-Human

It is easy for us to recognize a human skull, and most laymen can identify many other human bones, but if you discover skeletal remains in the woods, human bones might be mixed with those of other animals. If a forensic anthropologist visits the scene, she can quickly separate human from non-human remains. If a forensic anthropologist is unavailable, then investigators must collect all the bone scraps and send them to an anthropologist to be sorted in the lab. Once they are in the lab, the anthropologist cleans the bones and attempts to provide a general physical description of the individual whose remains she is studying. The description includes:

  • Gender
  • Age at Death
  • Race
  • Height

The anthropologist also tries to try to determine the cause of death as well as estimate how long ago the individual died. This week, I will discuss how gender can be determined from bones.

Gender

The pelvis and the skull provide the most useful information for determining the gender of the individual.

Pelvis

Females have wider pelvises to provide enough space for the birth canal, and anthropologists use several definitive measurements to differentiate the pelvis of a female from the pelvis of a male. In most cases, though, a forensic anthropologist only needs to visually examine a pelvis to determine the gender of the individual. If the pelvis is available, it is the best bony structure to confirm the sex of the person.

Male (left) Female (right)

Skull

Often, only the skull of an individual is found, but luckily, marked differences exist between the skull of a male and the skull of a female. An adult female’s skull remains slender and retains the smoothness of youth, while and adult male’s skull is more robust with heavier bones and larger muscle attachment areas. Females have a rounded forehead, while a male’s forehead slopes back at a gentle angle. A male has a more prominent brow ridge and square eye sockets, while a female has round eye sockets. Males have a square jawline, and a female’s jaw is pointed.

Since individuals vary, sex determination using only the skull is not as definitive as a confirmation made from examining the pelvis, but the skull usually provides the anthropologist with an educated guess at the gender of the individual.

Next week, I’ll discuss other characteristics a forensic anthropologist learns from reading bones. Meanwhile, be sure to sign up for my monthly Mystery Newsletter about true murder and mystery in Alaska.

Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.

Mystery Newsletter

Sign Up for my free, monthly Mystery Newsletter about true crime in Alaska.

Happy New Year 2019

Living in the wilderness on Kodiak Island, Writing, , ,

Happy New Year! Time flies, doesn’t it? I feel as if I just wrote my 2018 New Year’s post. Since I post my resolutions on my blog, I can’t pretend at the end of the year to forget what resolutions I made in January. A quick look back at last year’s post reminded me I did not finish as many writing projects as I’d planned.

I work hard to be a successful author, but as an author, I must wear many hats. On my best days, I’m able to sit down and work on my novel, and on my worst days, I spend my time promoting my books, my website, or my mystery newsletters. I couldn’t have known a year ago how much time I would spend in the coming year working on promotion and on building my author platform, and the more time I spend on promotion, the less time I have available to write. It’s a trade-off, and usually, I choose writing, but during the last few months, I decided to get serious about my author business.

Although my next novel, Karluk Bones, is not yet ready to send to my publisher, I finished the rough draft this past week. I resolve to send Karluk Bones to my publisher by late spring and have it in the hands of readers by late summer or early fall. I know how long it takes to edit and publish a novel, so this seems like a reasonable resolution.

My second resolution is a promise to myself to finish editing my wildlife book and get it published and to market by the end of the year. I made this same resolution last year and didn’t accomplish it, but I hope 2019 will be different. My wildlife book requires extra time and energy in every facet of the writing and editing process. I know the book will never be perfect, but I want to do the best job I can on it, and I hope it will be worth the wait.

Karluk Bones and The Wildlife of Kodiak Island will be my two be my two main writing projects for 2019, but I hope to begin my next novel sometime this coming spring or summer. I already have a rough idea for the plot, and I would love to start writing it now. My next planned non-fiction book will be a compilation of my true stories of murder from Alaska. These are the tales I write every month for my Mystery Newsletter, and I have more than enough compiled for a book.

I’d better stop before I promise too much. I plan to remain active in The Reader’s and Writer’s Book Club, and I hope to write more articles for True Crime: Case Files and Medium. I also want to leave enough time in my schedule to explore other opportunities I discover.

I haven’t written a wildlife post in several weeks, but I’m returning to fish and will write about rockfish over the next few weeks.  Thank you for reading my posts this past year, and I hope you will stay with me through 2019.

Happy New Year, I wish you health, happiness, and prosperity!

Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.

Mystery Newsletter

Sign Up for my free, monthly Mystery Newsletter about true crime in Alaska.



Happy Holidays

Living in the wilderness on Kodiak Island, Uncategorized, Writing, ,

Wherever you are and whatever holiday you celebrate this time of year, I wish you peace and happiness. I celebrate Christmas, and I thought this year it would be fun to follow my friend, Author Mary Ann Poll’s lead. For my Thanksgiving post, Mary Ann sent a note from her protagonist, Kat, describing how Kat celebrates Thanksgiving in Ravens Cove, Alaska. So, for my Christmas post, I decided to look in on my main character, Jane Marcus, and see how she celebrates the holiday.

For those of you who don’t know Jane, she is a fisheries biologist at the Kodiak Marine Center. She is unmarried but has a long-distance relationship with an FBI agent who lives in Virginia. Let’s see how she’s doing this holiday season.

I disconnected with my father and wiped the trickle of tears from my face only to open the dam for a full flood. I knew now I should have flown back to Kansas for the holidays. Nothing happens at the Marine Center during the Christmas break, and I could have taken leave for a week or two to fly home to see my father. He sounded lonely on the phone, and although he told me he’d spent a nice afternoon with my brother and his family, I could tell he missed me, and I missed him. I hadn’t seen him in a year.

I’d made the trip to Kansas the previous year for Christmas, but I hated flying during the holidays, and the family obligations overwhelmed me. This year, I wanted peace and quiet, so I stayed in Kodiak, and now I wanted my family. I laughed at myself. I needed to adopt a cat or maybe a goldfish.

I didn’t plan to spend the entire day at home alone. My friend, Dana, invited me to a Christmas party. I think Dana and her current boyfriend, Jack, invited half the town of Kodiak to their Christmas buffet. Jack volunteered to host the event at his place since Dana’s tiny house wouldn’t hold a crowd larger than three.

As I walked down the hall to my bedroom to change my clothes, I heard my phone chirp in the living room. I hurried back, grabbed the phone from the coffee table, and felt a smile play across my mouth when I read the phone’s display.

“Merry Christmas, Agent Morgan,” I said.

“Merry Christmas to you, Jane. Where are you?”

“I’m at home in Kodiak, and you?”

“I’m in my apartment in Virginia right now, but I’m flying to Miami tomorrow on a big case. I’ll  be there for a few weeks,” Morgan said

“I thought you were working on a string of murders in Indiana.”

“I was,” he said. “My involvement in the case ended yesterday.”

“Did you catch the killer?”

“We did, but not until after he’d murdered six women.”

“At least you got him,” I said.

Morgan didn’t say anything for a moment, and then, “I’m sorry Jane. I have another call, and I need to take it.”

“Maybe I’ll see you one day again.” I hoped I hid the bitterness I felt.

“You will,” he said. “Take care.”

I sank into the couch and began to cry again. Once the tears stopped, I realized I was in no mood for a party. I called Dana. She must have been busy because she didn’t answer until the sixth ring.

“Where are you?” She asked.

“I’m sorry Dana, but I don’t feel well. I won’t be able to make it to your party.”

“What? Nonsense. I’ll send Jack to pick you up. He has agreed not to consume alcohol tonight, so he is our designated driver for the evening.”

I thanked Dana but told her I was in no mood for a party. I headed to my kitchen, grabbed a bag of potato chips, poured myself a glass of wine, and turned on the television, quickly flipping past a parade of holiday shows until I found an old episode of Dateline. I settled on the couch and tried to concentrate on the show.

Fifteen minutes later, my doorbell rang. I opened the door a crack, and saw Jack’s smiling face.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “I told Dana I wouldn’t be able to make it to the party.”

Jack smiled and shrugged. He looked even more handsome than usual. His black parka matched his eyes, and even in the fading light, I could see the dimple on his right cheek.

“You know Dana,” Jack said. “She gets what she wants, and I do as she says. She told me to collect you using any means necessary and bring you to our party.”

I laughed. “Do you plan to kidnap me?”

He shrugged again. “Speaking of kidnapping, Dana said to tell you we are discussing the recent abduction in Anchorage.”

“What abduction?” I asked

“You didn’t hear about it?”

I shook my head.

“A big oil executive. I can’t remember which company, but anyway, three masked men entered his house while he and his wife and kids were celebrating Christmas Eve. One of the guys pulled a gun and told him to come with them, or they’d start shooting his family.”

“Whoa,” I said. Then I took a step back and narrowed my eyes at Jack. “Are you making this up just to get me to go to your party?”

Jack held his hands in the air. “It’s true. You can check the Internet. Dana says with your detective skills, we need your input on the crime.”

“You’re playing dirty, jack,” I said. “You know I can’t resist discussing a crime.” I pushed the door open and let Jack into my house. “Have a seat,” I said. “I need to change my clothes.”

Have a wonderful holiday, and I will be back here next week to discuss my New Year’s resolutions. Meanwhile, leave a comment and tell me about your resolutions.

Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.

Mystery Newsletter

Sign Up for my free, monthly Mystery Newsletter about true crime in Alaska.

Karluk Bones

Living in the wilderness on Kodiak Island, Writing, , , , , , , ,

Karluk Bones is the title of my fourth Alaska wilderness mystery. The book has taken me longer to write than I had planned, but I think it will be worth the wait. This week, I want to share a portion of the opening scene with you.

Those of you who have read my other novels know Dr. Jane Marcus is a biologist at the Kodiak Fisheries Tech Center. In this scene, Jane and three of her friends camp near Karluk Lake on Kodiak. The next morning, they plan to float the Karluk River, but a fire in the middle of the night derails their expedition.

___________________________________________________________________________

Karluk Bones

Saturday, May 24th

“Fire! Wake up! Fire!”

The cry yanked me from a pleasant dream where my camping companions and I sat around the campfire roasting marshmallows. Now, I realized the smoky inspiration for my dream emanated not from a campfire but a forest fire.

I struggled to sit in my sleeping bag while my fingers fumbled with the zipper. Did we leave our campfire burning? No, I remember Geoff throwing water on it, and then we all watched until the last curls of smoke evaporated.

I’d worn my clothes to bed, and as soon as I struggled out of my bag, I crawled through the fly of the small tent. Smoke filled the air, and my friend and colleague, Geoff Baker, my friend, Dana Baynes, and her new beau, Jack Parker, all stood, staring to the north. I followed their gazes and saw the flames, but the fire had not yet spread far.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“It looks like a campfire got out of hand,” Geoff said.

“It’s so dry,” Dana said. “It’s bound to spread before they can put it out.”

“And the wind is blowing this way,” Geoff added.

“We’d better help them,” Jack said.

“You’re right,” I said, “but I fear only Mother Nature will be able to extinguish a blaze in the midst of all this dead, dry vegetation.”

“I’ll dump out our food buckets,” Geoff offered. “We can use those to scoop up lake water to throw on the fire.”

“Sure,” Dana said, “We’ll do a bucket brigade.”

I doubted anything we did would help, but if we stayed where we were, we’d be burned alive. “I suggest sticking anything you can’t live without in your pocket,” I said.

“Good point, Doc. I’ll grab my phone,” Geoff said.

“I’m grabbing my raincoat just in case,” Dana added.

I nodded. “I hope we need our raincoats. Rain is the one thing that will extinguish this fire.”
Geoff, Jack, and I carried our bear-proof food buckets now empty of their contents, and Dana shouldered a pack full of first-aid gear. She also carried a small camp shovel.

We hiked along the shore of Karluk Lake. It was a dark, chilly night. Correction, it was a dark, chilly morning. Darkness is an infrequent visitor in late May on Kodiak Island, but I can testify it is dark at 3:00 am. We wore headlamps to light the beach along the lakeshore, and I glued my eyes to the ground so that I wouldn’t stumble over a large rock or a tree branch. The smell of smoke grew stronger with each step.

As we neared the fire, I could see the flames growing in intensity and slowly but steadily spreading toward the south and our camp.

“We should have packed our stuff and moved it out of the line of fire,” I said.

“I don’t think we could move our stuff far enough to get it out of the fire line unless we brought it with us and stashed it upwind from the flames,” Geoff said.

We clung to the lakeshore and skirted around the edge of the fire. As we neared the tent camp where the blaze had started, we saw four young men frantically packing their tents and gear and moving everything down the beach. Miraculously, it looked as if the flames had not touched their camp.

Dana ran toward the men. “Is everyone okay?” She called.

One of the young men stopped in his tracks and looked toward her, obviously surprised by her presence. “Our campfire got out of control,” he said. “I thought we put it out but guess we didn’t.”

The man slurred his speech and seemed confused. At first, I thought he had a natural physical or mental impairment, but then, I realized he was drunk, or to be more accurate, he hadn’t completely sobered up from being drunk. I took in the entire scene and watched his camping companions stumble to move their gear, their actions clumsy and awkward. They were all in the no man’s land between drunk and sober, the period of the night when you wake up and curse yourself for drinking too much alcohol. I admit I’d been there a time or two, and now I tried to muster some forgiveness for them stupidly getting drunk and letting their campfire burn out of control.

Forgiveness was not on Dana’s mind, and she immediately understood the situation. She dropped her pack on the ground and stood, hands on hips, glaring at the young man who had spoken to her. “Are you drunk?”

“Maybe,” he said. “I’m not quite sober.”

“You are camping on an island with 3500 bears.” Dana walked toward him, her voice as loud as I’d ever heard it. “Many of those bears live near this lake.”

The young man looked at the ground and said nothing.

“If you want to camp on this Refuge, you need to be responsible.” Dana gestured to the spreading fire. “You started a fire by not putting out your campfire.”

“We tried to put it out,” the young man said.

“You tried?” Dana was now only about four feet away from the poor guy, all five feet nothing of her intimidating the young man as she screamed up at him.

Although the situation was dire, I nearly laughed as I watched the much larger man cower while petite Dana approached him. He flinched at each of her words as if she were slapping him in the face, and I thought she might slap him in the face when she got a few steps closer.

“I saw a video the other day,” Dana said. “An observant camper watched and videotaped a bunch of yahoos like you and your friends. They ate breakfast around their campfire, threw a little water on the fire, packed their gear, jumped in their raft, and headed down river. A few minutes after they’d left, a curious bear began sniffing their campfire. He put his paw on the hot embers, burned his paw and limped away, holding his burned paw in the air.” She took another step toward the young man who was now backing away from her. “I thought their lack of regard for the environment was disgusting until I see what you idiots managed to do here.”

I stood, caught up in the drama of Dana and the young camper when Geoff thumped me on the shoulder.

“Here, Doc,” he said, handing me a full bucket of lake water. “Let’s get this bucket brigade going.” He looked at Dana and the cowering campers. “Yo!” he yelled. “We need some help here; we have a fire to put out.”

The campers seemed happy for any excuse to escape Dana’s withering gaze and sharp reprimand. They found two more food buckets in their gear, emptied the contents, and hurried to stand in line between the lake and the burning fire.

I knew I couldn’t be the only one in this group who saw the futility of fighting a spreading wildfire with buckets of water, but buckets were all we had, and we needed to do something. There was no firefighting agency to call in the middle of the night to help put out a fire on the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge. If the fire hadn’t been extinguished by morning, we would notify the National Wildlife Refuge office in Kodiak, and perhaps they could ask for assistance from the Department of Natural Resources. Dana was a biologist for the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge, so she would know what to do. At present, Dana stood in the bucket brigade between the four campers, still lecturing them. If they weren’t sober by now, they would be soon, and between excessive alcohol, smoke, and Dana’s piercing voice, I didn’t envy any one of them the headache he would have for the next several hours.

We continued the steady progression of bucket passing as the sky slowly lightened. At 5:00 am, my arms were numb, my shoulders screamed with pain, and I had one of the worst headaches of my life. My comrades and I silently passed buckets, refusing to admit defeat. At 6:00 am, Mother Nature decided to lend us a helping hand. It started as a drizzle, but soon the rain pelted us in sheets.

I stepped out of the bucket line and said, “I think we can stop now.”

_________________________________________________________________________

While hiking back to their campsite, Jane and her friends stumble across human bones exposed by the burned vegetation. Are the bones ancient or modern, and how did this individual die? These are the first of many questions Jane asks Alaska State Trooper Sergeant Dan Patterson, and Jane won’t rest until she uncovers the answers and learns not only the identity of the man whose bones she found but also what or who caused his death.

I will share other outtakes of my novel at intervals over the next few months. Please let me know what you think. The above scene is the beginning of the book. Did it grab you and make you want to read more?

_________________________________________________________________________

Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.

Mystery Newsletter

Sign Up for my free, monthly Mystery Newsletter about true crime in Alaska.

 

 

Look Around You

Living in the wilderness on Kodiak Island, , , , ,

Look at the cloud-draped mountains, the small buck prancing through our backyard, or the eagle standing watch in the tree. Did you see the brightly colored puffin, or the sea otter lounging on her back, her baby nestled on her stomach? Did you notice the seals hauled out on the beach, two of them bloody from fighting, or did you stay up late one night to watch a beautiful Alaska sunset?

As many of you know, my husband and I own a small wilderness lodge on Kodiak Island, Alaska. In the summer, we take guests wildlife viewing and sportfishing, with an emphasis on watching Kodiak bears in their natural habitat. One thing I have noticed over the years is the guests who have the best time at our lodge are those who see everything. They are the ones who show me their photos at the end of the day and are embarrassed by all the images of rock formations they snapped. They are also the ones who admit they didn’t take any pictures of the whales because they just wanted to look, listen, smell, and feel the experience instead of watching it all through their camera’s viewfinder.

The guest who sheds a few tears when she talks about a bear splashing in the water twenty feet from her and the guest who was thrilled by watching through binoculars from a distance as a sow interacted with her three cubs are the guests we will see again. They will return in a year or two or ten because they won’t be able to get the sights, the sounds, or the smells of this beautiful place out of their heads.

Nearly 75% of our guests this summer were returnees, and many of them have been to our lodge multiple times. They’ve been here when the bear viewing was spectacular, and when bears were scarce. They’ve been here during great fishing years and years when the fish were slow to bite, and some years they’ve seen whales, while other years they haven’t. They’ve braved storms and basked in the sun. They’ve seen it all, but they keep returning because they have never focused on just one thing and lost sight of the big picture.

One guest this summer who has been here multiple times told me she and her husband have never had a rainy day here. I’m sure she must be either extremely lucky or mistaken, but I love that she and her husband only remember the sunshine!

No matter where you travel or what adventure you seek, if you narrow your focus too much, you will miss what is right in front of you. Instead, look around, and you might be surprised by what you see. The things that please you most and makes you fall in love with a destination could be something entirely different from what you were expecting.

_________________________________________________________________________

Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. If you like audiobooks, check out her audiobook version of Murder Over Kodiak. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.

Mystery Newsletter

Sign Up for my free, monthly Mystery Newsletter about true crime in Alaska.

Step Out of Your World and Escape

Living in the wilderness on Kodiak Island, , , , , ,

Escaping from your life is the only true way to relax, but escape is not easy in the 21st century. You might be lounging on a beach in Aruba, but I bet your cell phone is keeping your rum punch company on the table next to your chair, and you remind yourself you need to return to your room an hour before dinner to put the finishing touches on the report you’ve promised your boss. You are enjoying a fun vacation, but you have not escaped.

As many of you know, my husband and I own a small bear-viewing, sportfishing, and hunting lodge on Kodiak Island in Alaska. Our lodge is located seventy air miles from the town of Kodiak in the heart of the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge. No roads cross the island, so the only way to reach us is by floatplane or an eight-hour boat ride through rough seas. We don’t have cell phone service, and although we do have internet, it is satellite internet with a strict and stingy data limit.

We tell our guests they can send and receive e-mails but nothing else, and please, no photos or videos. Turn off the apps and disable location services while you are at our lodge.

Our guests look at us with wide eyes. How could we ask them to disconnect from their lives? How will they survive if they can’t watch the news on their phones, follow the twists and turns of the stock market, or catch the latest baseball scores? More importantly, how many YouTube cat videos will they miss during a five-day stay with us?

We often catch a guest cheating at the beginning of her stay when she thinks we won’t notice her texting while she holds her phone under the edge of the dining room table. Gradually, though, we see change. The iPhone, held in a death grip when a guest climbed from the floatplane, now only makes appearances after we’ve returned from our daily adventure. Computer screens that were earlier filled with business documents or e-mails are now occupied by wildlife photos from the day’s safari.

The group of six strangers who on the first evening they arrived, barely looked up from their devices to converse, now linger over the dinner table discussing the day’s excitement and laughing about the huge Kodiak bear they watched chase a salmon through a small stream.

“I thought he was running straight for Sid,” Cathy from Indianapolis says.

“Right,” Sid from Melbourne replies. “I nearly needed to change my trousers.”

The laughter grows to a roar, and then slowly, the conversation drifts to families and other far-away vacations. No one has glanced at a cellphone in hours.

Guests often say their stay with us was the best vacation of their lives. I would like to believe we are completely responsible for their excellent holiday, but I know it’s not the truth. They had fun and relaxed because they escaped their lives for a few days.

On day one, our guests ask if we’ve heard the news of the day. What’s happening in the world? By day four, they ask what time the tide will be high and what river we plan to hike the following day. They excitedly tell us about the young buck that walked up to the steps of their cabin or the eagle they watched pluck a salmon from the cove in front of our lodge. After only a few days, our guests have unplugged and are beginning to follow the rhythms of our world.

I watch with sadness as our guests wait for the floatplane to take them back to Kodiak and their lives. The chatter dies, and the phones emerge from their hiding places.

I love my job as a guide and naturalist, and I enjoy sharing my world in the Alaska wilderness with others, but I feel our trips are only successful when I see our guests relax. I know if a guest can put down his phone and escape his world for a few days, he will have the best vacation of his life. It’s not about us; it’s about the escape.

The plane lands, and our departing guests wait for the new flock to disembark before they can load their gear onto the plane. As they pass each other on the dock and exchange pleasantries, one of the departing guests looks at the new arrivals and smirks. “You can put away those phones,” he says. “You won’t need them here.”

______________________________________________________________________

Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. If you like audiobooks, check out her audiobook version of Murder Over Kodiak. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.

Mystery Newsletter

Sign Up for my free, monthly Mystery Newsletter about true crime in Alaska.

Sunshine

Living in the wilderness on Kodiak Island, Writing, , ,

Ahh, sunshine! Finally, we’ve had a week without clouds. When the sun shines on this lush, green rainforest I call home, no place is more beautiful, and a day of sunshine makes me forget all the cloudy, rainy days preceding it. We have had a cool spring with almost no sunshine until now, and I was beginning to wonder if I would ever see the sun again.

June is “work” month here at our lodge on Kodiak Island. It is the month we paint, fix, clean, and garden in preparation for our summer bear-viewing and sport-fishing trips. A day of sunshine means it is time to rush outdoors, grab a brush and spread paint until exhausted. June is also one of the rainiest, foggiest months on the island, so we cannot afford to squander sunshine on decadent activities such as picnics on the beach or hikes in the woods. Nevertheless, I enjoy the sunshine, and after a week of hard work, I am also looking forward to the forecasted rain in a few days!

This time of year, writing is a luxury, and I have to steal a minute here and there to write a few lines. While my mind bursts with story-telling and promotional ideas, I don’t have time to follow through on them. I recently began publishing my murder newsletters on Medium, an online publishing platform. Here is a link to my first article. While this is the wrong time of year to give myself a new job, I was excited to have an additional outlet for my writing, and I couldn’t wait to see if people would read my stories on Medium. I dreamed of thousands of new readers, but now, I’ll be happy if my article receives a hundred views.

I am eager to get back to writing my next novel. I’m excited about the story, and I love writing fiction. My writing focus this summer, though, will be to finish the edits on my wildlife book. I hope to send it to my publisher this winter.

I have been thinking about my blog posts for this summer, and I plan to focus once again on fish. Of all the posts I have written, my most popular one is, “The Difference Between Atlantic and Pacific Salmon.” I guess this means folks are interested in fish, and since I love talking about fish, it’s a topic I’ll embrace. I have a halibut post planned for next week, and then I’ll jump into the troubling issue of the sudden decline in Pacific grey cod.

Please send me any questions you have about fish species in the North Pacific, and I will investigate the answer and write a post about it. I will be happy to write about fish biology, fishing regulations, and fishing techniques.

I know I don’t say this often enough, but thank you for reading my posts. I appreciate you! Now, it’s time for me to get outdoors, enjoy this sunshine, and paint something.

***

Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. If you like audiobooks, check out her audiobook version of Murder Over Kodiak. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.

Mystery Newsletter

Sign Up for my free, monthly Mystery Newsletter about true crime in Alaska.