Category Archives: Living in the wilderness on Kodiak Island

Life in the wilderness on Kodiak Island

Winter

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I did not take the above photo this winter, I took it four years ago, the last time we had a cold winter on Kodiak Island. If I posted a photo from this winter, it would show torrential rain and heavy wind. I’m not complaining about a warm winter, because there is nothing fun about hauling water after the pipes freeze, and life takes a nosedive when the sewer freezes. The worst part about a cold winter here, though, is not the inconveniences of everyday life, but it’s watching the wildlife suffer as they struggle to find food and keep warm. Four years ago, we had deer die in our yard or die curled up under one of our buildings from cold and hunger several times a week. I knew when a deer was about to die because he’d look at me with glassy eyes and not even bother to move out of my way when I walked down the path past where he was standing. Sitka black-tailed deer were introduced to Kodiak Island, and the winter climate here is often on the edge of what they can tolerate to survive.

The deer have had good winters the last few years, and this may prove to be the warmest yet. When it is very cold, we have several deer in our yard, searching for grass that may still have some nutrients. This winter, we’ve seen few deer in our yard, because it is warm and there is no snow on the ground. It was 46⁰ the other day in mid-January, but the weather has not been pleasant this winter. We’ve been pounded by one low-pressure system after the next, bombarded by high winds and heavy rain. One storm out of the north in December slammed waves into our dock and sent a 55-gallon drum full of gas and two 100-lb. Propane tanks into the water. Mike has had to repair the dock twice from storms, but luckily, many of our storms have been from the south, and the cove where we live is protected from a southerly swell.

The ceaseless wind and rain make doing anything outdoors unpleasant, and the heavy clouds accentuate the already dark days. I love the peace and quiet here in the winter, but I am beginning to dream about going someplace sunny and calm and maybe even going out to dinner and a movie (I know, now I’m getting carried away). Luckily for me and my psyche, we are leaving on vacation next week!

While we are away, our friends, Ryan and Ruby, will be staying here, battling storms and catering to the whims of our very spoiled cats. Ryan and Ruby are the best caretakers we could ask for, and we don’t worry about our home while they are here. Our cats love them (possibly more than they love us!), so I know the furry little beasts will be even more spoiled when we return.

Once we leave here, we are flying straight to Las Vegas for extreme culture shock and a hunting and outdoor show, where we have a booth. That’s a week of hard work and stress because we go from talking to no one to talking to strangers all day. Vegas is also a great deal of fun, though, because we will see several friends and spend many hours laughing. After Vegas, we are flying to New Zealand for a two-week hiking, biking, kayaking tour of the South Island, and I am excited about that. I’ve never been to New Zealand, but I’ve only heard good things about the breathtaking scenery and the friendly people. After we return from New Zealand, we will spend some time in Anchorage and Kodiak, buying supplies and running errands. We’ll be home by mid-March.

I have a few posts planned for while I’m away, and my good friend, Marcia Messier, has agreed to write some guest posts for me. I’ll try to send a post from New Zealand to let you know about that adventure, but I may miss a post or two, so I’ll apologize in advance.

My next Mystery Newsletter will be about the biggest mass murder in Alaska history. Be sure to sign up on my home page if you want to receive my monthly newsletter.

 

 

 

Dead Whales

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This summer and fall several dead whales were spotted in the Western Gulf of Alaska, with the majority clustered around Kodiak Island. The number of deaths now stands at 43 whales, including fin whales, humpbacks, and, at least, one gray whale. So far, none of the whale carcasses that could be accessed have been in good enough shape to provide a clue to the cause of the deaths, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is so concerned that they have classified the deaths an “unusual mortality event” (UME). A UME is defined as a significant die-off of a marine mammal population that demands an immediate response.  This designation triggers a focused, expert investigation into the cause.

At nearly the same time dead whales were being discovered in Alaska, whales were also dying off the coast of southern Chile. In November, biologists in Chile announced that in June, 337 sei whales were found beached in a region of southern Patagonia in Chile. This is one of the largest whale strandings ever recorded. While these whales were found beached, researchers think they died at sea and washed up on the beach.

What caused the deaths of the whales in Alaska and Chile, and did they all die from the same cause? Sadly, we may never know the answers to these questions, but biologists in both Alaska and Chile suspect a harmful algae bloom may be the culprit. Most of the dead whales are baleen whales that feed low on the food chain, making them highly susceptible to a toxic algae bloom. What makes this scenario even more believable is that abnormally warm water conditions in the Pacific Ocean this summer led to a massive toxic algae bloom of the single-celled algae Pseudo-nitzschia.

Pseudo-nitzschia produces domoic acid, a powerful neurotoxin. Under normal circumstances, a domoic acid concentration of 1,000 nanograms per liter is considered high, but in mid-May, concentrations 10 to 30 times this level were found in the North Pacific. Domoic acid accumulates in zooplankton, shellfish and fish, and when mammals and birds eat these organisms, the accumulated acid over-stimulates the predator’s nervous system, causing the animal to become disoriented and lethargic. Ingestion of high concentrations of domoic acid can lead to seizures and death.

In addition to Pseudo-nitzschia, the warm ocean water conditions in the Pacific also may have resulted in blooms of other toxic algae, but if toxic algae are the culprit, why aren’t other mammals or birds dying as a result? These are questions researchers are scrambling to answer, and recently they have been rechecking photos to see if there is evidence that the whales may have starved to death. Warmer ocean conditions could have led to a reduction in the prey of these huge whales that must eat  continuously all summer to build a blubber layer that will last them through the winter.

There is no time frame for when a UME must end, and biologists plan to keep researching the whale deaths for a while longer, but they admit the cause may never be known. One dead whale washed up a few miles from where we live, but we saw many other whales this summer that seemed to be feeding and acting normally, and I hope the whale deaths were an anomaly that won’t continue next spring and summer.

Next week I’ll go into more detail about toxic algae blooms. For those of you who have read my novel, Murder Over Kodiak, you may remember that Jane Marcus was studying paralytic shellfish poisoning, a condition caused by a poisonous algae bloom, and since toxic algae have been in the news this year, I think it will be an interesting topic to tackle.

I am FINALLY ready to send my first Mystery Newsletter to those who have signed up for my list. I plan to mail it on January 6th, so if you haven’t signed up for my list yet, do so soon on my home page. My first newsletter will chronicle the events of the McCarthy massacre of 1983. Thanks, and be sure to leave a comment to let me know what you think of my post!

New Year’s Resolution

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It’s New Year’s resolution time again. I used not to make resolutions, because I thought they were a sure way to set myself up for failure, but over the last few years, I’ve decided resolutions are a good idea for me. A few years ago I made a resolution that I would be more diligent about going to the doctor. I ended up having two surgeries and countless floatplane trips to Kodiak and flights to Anchorage for medical care that year, so since then, I’ve focused my resolutions on my writing. After all, these resolutions are apparently powerful things, and I’d better be careful what I resolve!

Last year I resolved to finish my second novel and to reach the editing process on my wildlife book. I did finish my novel, and it will be re-published in a few weeks, but I didn’t do as well on the wildlife book. That book is hard work, and progress is slow, but I’m getting there. On the other hand, I couldn’t have imagined last January 1st that in one year, I would not only have my website up and running, but that I would have written 40 posts by the end of the year. I hope to continue my weekly blog posts and to begin my monthly mystery newsletter soon.

I plan to set a lofty writing goal again this year. I know it may be unrealistic, but it is where I dream of seeing myself one year from now. I once again hope to have my wildlife book ready for an editor, and I would like to have the first draft of my third novel finished.

Writing goals are easy to set, and in a perfect world, I could reach these goals, but there is more to life than writing. Not only is there my day job, but promoting myself and my books is time-consuming and makes me uncomfortable, and then there is social media!!! An author today must have at least a Facebook and Twitter presence and preferably also accounts on Linked-in, Instagram, and Pinterest at the very least. There’s barely enough hours in the day for all of that, even if you don’t have another job, but it’s overwhelming if you do.

I think the best resolution I can make this year is to prioritize my writing and promotional goals. What do I want? Do I want to be popular and sell a bundle of books, or do I want to finish some projects that make me proud? I’d love to do all the above, but I think, for now, I’ll focus on doing the best job I can on the books I’ve already started. These include not only my next novel and my wildlife book but also a cookbook/history of Munsey’s Bear Camp that I am writing with my friend, Marcia, and my mother-in-law, Pat. As long as I make progress on these three projects this next year, I’ll be happy, and who knows, maybe I’ll learn how to tweet too!

Happy New Year!!! Don’t forget to sign up for my monthly Mystery Newsletter. It is almost ready to go!

Christmas in Amook Pass

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Christmas in Amook Pass is a quiet event that sneaks up on me. I was planning to write a post this week about all the whales that died near Kodiak Island this summer and fall, but it occurred to me that I should think of a cheerier topic for a holiday post.

Holidays are interesting when you live in the wilderness. I know city dwellers get tired of the commercialization that goes with Christmas, and every time you walk into a shopping mall from Halloween to Christmas, you are bombarded with holiday music and holiday sales. I’m sure you even get weary of Christmas parties, holiday events, and all the fattening food that is part of the season. I’ve lived in a city during the holidays, and I can remember complaining about the crowds in the stores, endless events, and sometimes even too many family gatherings with all the stress that entails.

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Turn off that holiday buzz, and you have my life. We send Christmas cards to our recent guests, and of course we send a few gifts to family and friends, but since our mail plane comes only once a week, we must plan ahead, and we try to ship everything by December 15th. Better yet, we order our presents online and ship them directly to the recipients. We put up a Christmas tree and even some decorations in the yard to amuse ourselves, since no one sees them but us. We wrap gifts to go under the tree, and because we have no children, we buy too many presents for our cats! I play Christmas music to put me in a holiday mood, but unless we pay careful attention to the calendar, it would be easy to let Christmas slip past, since out here, it is a day like every other day.

A no-fuss holiday may or may not sound nice to you. There is no stress, but it can be lonely. Phone communication is nearly impossible here. Skype does not work well with our satellite internet. We have a satellite phone, but it is also spotty, and who wants to stand outside in December on Kodiak Island and make phone calls on a satellite phone? We usually just e-mail our relatives to wish them a Merry Christmas. We turn on Christmas music, open our gifts and do our best to enjoy our quiet holiday. Overall, I like the peace and quiet. I enjoy Christmas cards from friends and family, and each card is read and reread. Of course with only one mail plane a week and slow mail service to this part of the world, the majority of our cards arrive after the holidays, but that’s okay, they are still a joy.

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In a way, I guess our holidays are like everyone else’s. They aren’t perfect, but we look forward to them each year, and we celebrate in our own way. Wherever you are during the holidays and however you celebrate, I wish you all the best!

I’ll have the first installment of my Mystery Newsletter ready to go soon, so if you haven’t already done so, sign up on my home page.

Autumn on Kodiak Island

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Autumn in Amook Pass
Autumn in Amook Pass

Autumn on Kodiak Island is a beautiful time of year, but I’ll be honest, it is not my favorite season.

Once the fuchsia petals have fallen from the fireweed, the leaves turn crimson, and the mountainsides are cloaked in a Christmas quilt of dark green and brilliant red. The cottonwood, alder, and birch leaves fade to yellow, and the abundant sedges along the shoreline gleam golden against the orange rock weed. High-bush cranberry leaves turn scarlet, and the fragrant scent of the sweet berries wafts on the breeze, mixed with the pungent odor of decaying salmon.

On a sunny day, autumn on Kodiak is breathtaking, especially if you view it while skimming the mountains in a plane. Unfortunately, there are not many sunny, calm days during a Kodiak autumn. Low-pressure systems pile one upon the next and roll across the Bering Sea and the Alaska Peninsula, slamming into Kodiak Island. One such storm in late August surprised us with 60 mph winds, and when the mooring for our 43-ft. cabin cruiser broke, we were forced to jump in our skiff and chase after and retrieve it in rough seas.DSC_0762

Our summer trips last into late September, because the bear viewing is very good then. Some years we are lucky, but other years, we are hit with gale-force winds and torrential rains. I enjoy guiding wildlife viewers and fishermen during our summer trips, but by the time the season ends, I usually am exhausted from battling the weather and dealing with boats on windy days. If September is bad, October is worse. October is one of the rainiest months on Kodiak Island, and between rain and wind, the leaves often fall before they have a chance to turn yellow, and soon, the mountainsides are brown, the ground slick with wet, rotting vegetation.

Bears are perhaps the best part about fall. As the temperature drops in late August, bears get serious about eating salmon. They concentrate on the many, small salmon streams around the island, and for a short period of time, they tolerate each other, as they work to build their fat layer to prepare for hibernation. It seems as if overnight, they lose their ratty, light-brown summer coats and their even, chestnut fur shines in the sunlight. We see cubs that were tiny and dependent on their mother only three months earlier, catching their first salmon at their mother’s prompting. Older cubs have improved their fishing techniques and have learned to assert themselves with other bears (with mom to back them up, of course).

DSC_0168Another autumn perk for me is watching the young birds learn to fly, especially in our stiff, fall winds. From baby eagles to sea gulls to terns, watching young birds learn to maneuver in the wind always makes me smile. Then there’s the young foxes who’ve left their dens and sit on the beach, curiously watching us as we pass in our boat. By September, they are nearly the same size as an adult, but their coats are shiny, even, and perfect, betraying their youth.

Kodiak Island is wild and untamed and is beautiful any time of the year, and I guess autumn isn’t that bad, if you can get past the weather.

Wild Pets

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Bald Eagle

The Munsey kids usually had domestic cats, but they also had many wild pets over the years.  Today, Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) laws prohibit feeding and taming wild animals, but in the 1960s and 1970s, ADF&G not only allowed people to rescue wild animals, but ADF&G employees, themselves, often rescued animals and brought many of these animals to the Munseys to care for, nurse back to health, and re-release into the wild.

A few of these animals were good pets, but most were not.  Mike remembers a baby bald eagle, rescued after falling out of its nest, being a particularly bad pet.  Whenever anyone left the house, the eagle would chase them, demanding food.  According to family legend, young Bob wore a red coat that the eagle found particularly attractive, so whenever anyone wanted to leave the house, they’d coax Bob to put on his coat and run the opposite direction.  The eagle would chase Bob, and the other family members could escape the house unmolested.

Baby seals abandoned by their mothers were cute but often did not survive, and it is likely there was something wrong with the babies to begin with, and that’s why their mothers abandoned them.  A few of the seals did make it, though, and I’ve seen 8mm footage of Pat in the water in hip boots, coaxing a baby seal to swim.  Pat remembers the mess the seals made when the kids would sneak them up to their rooms.

Two of the favorite pets were birds.  Tom Emerson with Fish and Game gave the Munseys a one-legged magpie that he had taught to say, “Maggie,” her name.  Herbie was a seagull chick the Munseys raised, and he became very attached to the children.  One time, just as Herbie was learning to fly, the Munseys were returning home by boat.  Herbie was so excited he took off and flew toward them, but he hadn’t quite perfected the art of landing, and he crashed into the water beside the skiff.  The kids scooped him into the boat and dried his feathers.

Red foxes are easy to partially tame with food, and at times, the Munseys had as many as eight foxes in the yard at mealtime.  A man in Kodiak gave Park six raccoons, and Park released them at the Amook Pass home.  The raccoons would join the foxes for meals, and sometimes the raccoons and foxes would enter the house, where the Munseys’ Siamese cats curiously watched them.  As hard as it is to believe, these wild and domestic animals peacefully co-existed as long as there was plenty of food.

The Munseys soon realized that releasing the raccoons had not been a good idea.  The raccoons began to breed, and since they are not native to Kodiak Island, ADF&G biologists became alarmed that these invasive predators would climb trees and eat the eggs of endemic birds.  ADF&G hired a young woman to stay with the Munseys and shoot every raccoon she saw.  Unfortunately, the raccoons were most active at night, when it was too dark to hunt, and how could she shoot these animals the kids considered pets?  Eventually, to the relief of wildlife biologists, the raccoons died off and did not become a threat to the resident birds.  I should point out that tempting as it may be, biologists now feel it is a bad idea to feed wild animals.  The animals need to learn how to procure their own food, and human intervention, no matter how well-meaning, interferes with their survival instincts.

Mike, Bob, and their fellow crewmen rescued the eagle pictured at the top of this post when Mike was a college student, and he and Bob spent their summers working as commercial gill-net fishermen at Greenbanks, a fish site near the mouth of Uyak Bay.  They found the eagle floating in the water nearly dead and picked him up and took him to shore.  They threw a tarp over him, and the next morning, he was sitting on the tarp.  He was tired, weak and looked terrible, but he accepted food and slowly gained back his strength.  He devoured the fish the guys tossed to him, but he would back away when they tried to approach too closely.  Finally, after two weeks, he flew away without a backward glance.  Mike took the photo at the top of this post the day before the eagle departed, and a few years later, the photo graced the cover of Alaska magazine.

It was a magical childhood to grow up in the middle of the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge, surrounded by wild animals and even having a few of them for pets.  I marvel that after all these years living in the wilderness, Mike still smiles when he sees a deer in the yard or a fox on the beach.  He has never lost that childhood thrill of seeing a wild animal in its natural habitat.

 

Growing up in the Kodiak Wilderness

Historical, Living in the wilderness on Kodiak Island

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When I hear my husband and his siblings talk about their experiences growing up in the Kodiak wilderness, I envision a 1970’s Disney Movie, complete with wild pets and adventures in the air, on the sea, and in the woods.  All six Munsey children grew up to be tough, self-reliant, and creative.  They love nature, and I know they would all agree that they are more comfortable in the woods than they are in a city.  Growing up in the wilderness is not an easy life, though.  Your only close friends are your siblings, and your parents need and expect you to help with the endless chores that are required to carve out a living in the wilds.  When you do move away to go to college or get a job, you may be ill-prepared to deal with the drastic lifestyle change, and none of your new friends understand what your childhood was like.

Bob, the fifth child in the Munsey clan, was born on a blustery March day in the middle of a storm, when the weather was too nasty for Park to fly Pat to Kodiak to the hospital.  Pat somehow had a premonition the baby would come early, and she might not make it to town for the delivery.  Since she was a nurse who had helped deliver many babies, she prepared an emergency kit and told Park what to do if he needed to deliver the baby.  That day, Eddie Paakinen, the caretaker of a nearby cannery, stopped by to visit.  When Pat went into labor, Eddie nervously waited in another room while Park delivered the baby.   The delivery proceeded without a hitch, and the baby boy was christened, “Robert Amook” after Amook Pass where Munsey’s Bear Camp is located.

The Munsey children had numerous adventures, and every time the family gets together, I hear new tales.  This summer during the family reunion, they were laughing about the time some young fisheries researchers were staying with them and built the kids a zip line.  Apparently it was great fun, but there was no braking mechanism on the rope, so the ride ended abruptly by plowing into a tree trunk.

Mike and Bob helped their Dad around the lodge, and both followed him into the field on hunting expeditions as soon as they were old enough to carry rifles.  Toni, Patti, Jeri, and Peggy helped their mom in the kitchen and around the house, but all the kids were proficient with outboards and knew how to handle guns.

Mike remembers miserable, stormy nights when he and Bob had to help their Dad keep the floatplane tied down and water pumped out of the floats.  One late fall, the Munseys had put all their boats up on a ramp and were closing down the lodge, preparing to move to town for the winter.  That night the wind howled, and when Park checked on his airplane in the middle of the night, he found the dock had been ripped apart by the storm, and there was no way to get to the airplane, which was tied at the end of the dock.  He quickly woke Mike, who was twelve at the time, and they pushed a boat in the water and put an outboard on it.  They quickly raced to the end of the dock, and Park got in his plane and told Mike to head back to shore.  As soon as Mike started for the beach, the engine choked and died, and the wind began to blow him away from shore.  He repeatedly tried to start the outboard, but it wouldn’t turn over.  Park began yelling for him, and Mike was terrified as he continued to pull the cord.  Finally the outboard roared to life, and Mike made it to shore.

In the winters, the Munseys usually moved to Kodiak for a few months, and the kids had to transition from being home-schooled to attending public school.  Even more difficult, they had to learn how to interact with other children and fit in with “town” life.

Life in the wilderness is often not a Disney movie for a child, but as I sat at the table at the recent Munsey reunion and listened to their stories and laughter, I knew not a single one of them would have traded his or her childhood for a more conventional one.

 

The List

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

“The List”is another guest post by Marcia Messier.  In case you missed her earlier posts, Marcia cooked at Munsey’s Bear Camp from 2003 to 2011 and has written some wonderful stories about her experiences.  Marcia, Pat Munsey, and I are working on a cookbook, and Marcia’s stories will be included in that.

One of the toughest things to learn as a cook at a wilderness lodge is to plan ahead on groceries and to be flexible.   During our summer trips, I e-mail the grocery order to the store, they fill it for us, and we receive the groceries on the plane with our next group of guests.  Even when we do a perfect job of remembering everything we need, the grocery store may be out of something, or they may misunderstand what we want and replace it with what they think we want.  For example, this summer we received our groceries, but there were no eggs.  We checked the note from the store, and in neat hand writing beside my order of eggs, was the message that eggs were out of stock.  I assure you, it is not easy to substitute for eggs, so Mary, our current cook, went into “creativity mode,” and I am certain none of our guests were any the wiser.  Another example of adventures in e-mail grocery ordering was when Marcia cooked for us, and she asked me to order malted-milk balls, because she had a cookie recipe that called for them.  When the order arrived, we were surprised to see that they sent us moth balls instead of malted-milk balls.

I think Marcia does a beautiful job summing up the never-ending adventure of ordering groceries in the Alaskan wilderness.

The List

by Marcia Messier

A major grocery store has never been more than 10 minutes from my home.  If the egg or bread supply is low, no problem, jump in the car and go to the store.

Robin taught me about planning ahead and “The List”.  It was simple, notice when an item was low and write it down. Plan the weekly meals and make sure you can cover them. Groceries came from Kodiak on a float plane along with the guests, once a week, as long as the weather was flyable.  If the grocery store in Kodiak didn’t have what was on the List, we didn’t get it, or we got some strange, useless replacement item.  If produce was wilted and old, we got wilted and old, or none at all.  I remember a young man who filled our orders at the grocery store in Kodiak one summer.  I vowed when I got back to town, I would track him down, and I would speak to him about how his inattention to our List……made me a better cook!

There were instances, however, due to my own inattention, that I forgot to write items on the list and we had to do without that item until the next plane….for instance, eggs and bread!  To my surprise, guests seemed to like sausage gravy and biscuits, piles of pancakes, apple crisp, potatoes, beans and breakfast meats.  No one seemed to notice (or were too polite to mention) the absence of eggs on the table.  At lunch, Focaccia bread sandwiches were wildly popular as a substitute for sliced store bread, when I failed to notice every last loaf in the freezer was gone.  Maybe that had something to do with fish taking over my corner of the freezer…maybe not.

Now, once in a while there was something beyond my control that upset the menu.  Something got into the soup?  Open a few cans of canned soup and throw in a few odd spices…exotic!  Veggies all torn up from a rough ride in the plane?  Open a few cans of green beans and make a casserole…yum!  Salad boring?  Cold canned carrots and sliced onions in a vinegar dressing….surprisingly tasty!

Our guests were always happy and had a big appetites after being out on the water all day fishing and bear viewing with Robin and Mike.  At the end of the day this made me happy too, and the List was forgotten, until tomorrow.

 

Living in the Kodiak Wilderness

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Living in the Kodiak wilderness is not a lifestyle most people would choose. Over the years, many of my high-school and college friends have visited me here, and some say to me, “You are so lucky! I’d love to live here!” Others, though, give me a bewildered look and ask, “How can you stand to live out here all by yourselves?”  A few of my friends even seem to pity me, which amuses me, since I think I am lucky to live and work in the wilderness. People either tend to romanticize a peaceful life away from civilization, or they picture it as a type of prison. From my perspective, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Living in the wilderness is much easier today than it was even fifteen years ago. We no longer have to depend on spotty radio signals to communicate with Kodiak, as we did when I first moved here. We have a satellite phone, satellite internet, even satellite television. We are fortunate to receive essential air service once a week in the winter that brings us our mail, freight and groceries. When I need to order something from the grocery store, I simply e-mail my order to the store, they fill it, deliver it to the airlines, and we receive it on our next mail flight.

Munsey's Bear Camp
Munsey’s Bear Camp

The scenery on the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge is spectacular during every season, and we often have deer, eagles, and foxes in our yard, and whales, seals, sea otters, and sometimes sea lions in the cove in front of our house. The quiet is complete, especially in the winter, and I don’t miss the hustle and bustle of the holidays. We work hard from April through November, so those peaceful, winter days are a nice change of pace, and should the mood strike me, I can always spend a day shopping on the internet.

 

Living in the wilderness does have its drawbacks, though, and this life isn’t always easy. I miss having close friends, and most of the friends I do have, can’t relate to my lifestyle. I miss attending concerts, plays, movies, and other cultural events, and I definitely miss going out to dinner. My husband, Mike, grew up in the wilderness, and he said the hardest part as a kid was the lack of friends and the social awkwardness he and his siblings felt when they did go to town and were around other children.

From a practical standpoint, you must be a jack of all trades if you live in the wilderness. From fixing our outboard to our computer, if we can’t figure out how to do it, we’re out of luck, at least until we can get the broken item to a repairman in town. If it breaks, we either have to fix it or buy a new one. If our internet goes out, we’ve lost our main source of communication, including the internet provider who could help us fix the problem. Calling help lines on a satellite phone is expensive and frustrating, since the call is often dropped before we can talk to a live human.

Frozen Stream
Frozen Stream

We are also on our own if we have a fire or need immediate help from law enforcement. The troopers will arrive eventually, but they are a long distance away and can’t provide immediate support. We can call the Coast Guard if we have a serious injury or a medical emergency, but again, it takes time for them to deploy and get to us, so we make sure we have the knowledge, training, and equipment to deal with most medical emergencies. You can’t depend on others when you choose to live so far away from civilization.

It is often frustrating to me that the rest of the world doesn’t understand where or how I live. Try ordering something without a street address! We receive a mail plane once a week, and the post office has issued us a postal code that even they do not recognize. I am constantly trying to convince online stores that I will receive their merchandise if they mail it to the address I have provided. Some tell me I’m wrong, my address does not exist, and they will not ship to it. We even run into problems with businesses and doctors in Kodiak. I once spent $1000 on a trip to town for a blood test that could have easily been ordered during my doctor’s visit the previous week. It is also frustrating to make an appointment months in advance only to have to cancel it at the last minute, because the weather is too bad to fly to town.

There are pros and cons to living in the wilderness, just as there are pros and cons to living anywhere. Our lifestyle is different, but for the most part, I enjoy it. I love welcoming people during our summer trips and showing them around our world. Many are anxious when they first arrive, unsure of what to expect, and it’s fun to watch them relax as they leave the problems of the outside world behind them and become in tune with the rhythms of our world. I know living in the remote wilderness of Kodiak Island is not a lifestyle most people would embrace, but that’s one of the reasons it’s so special to me.

 

Kodiak Time

Living in the wilderness on Kodiak Island,

Kodiak Time is another guest blog by Marcia Messier. I think she perfectly captures the transformation new guests make when they arrive at our lodge in the wilderness. At first, they are often dismayed that they won’t be able to use their cell phones or watch youtube videos, but over the course of the next five days, we watch them relax as they unplug from their lives and embrace our lifestyle, if only for a short while.

Kodiak Time

by Marcia Messier

100_1092 Faces of newly arrived guests charmed me. Stepping down from the float plane “first timers” were usually a bit shy and taken aback by the rugged beauty they were witnessing and the adventure at hand. Their eyes were big! Returning guests had a knowing grin, a twinkle in their eyes and a familiarity with camp. Introductions were made, they were shown to their cabins, and soon all were back in the main lodge, gathered around the table for lunch. Mike explained the plans for the week, fishing, hiking, meeting the bears, and how camp operated. He answered the many questions knowledgeably and reassuringly. Ready to go!

There are no roads in this part of Kodiak Island and so no automobiles, there is no cell phone service in camp, no land lines, no TV, no ice machines, and limited internet service. Guests were now on “Kodiak Time”.

Most guests experienced a very new and different environment at Munsey’s Bear Camp. They were enchanted by the bears they met, excited by the fish they caught, stunned by the rugged beauty of the island. The week went by too quickly and soon it was time to go. But, once in a while guests got an extra day in camp. Weather can change quickly, clear and beautiful one day, a raging storm might blow in the next. Invariably, a “no fly” day happened once or twice during the summer season. Travel plans were fouled and people got nervous.   We all had to stop and take a deep breath, because after all, we were on “Kodiak Time”.

The table in the lodge was cleared for games, stories were swapped, snacks brought out, 100_0320and even naps were taken. During this unplanned time on Kodiak, guests realized that they’d had an adventure of a lifetime and also acquired a roomful of new friends….perfect!