The Hairy Stick-Eaters

PRIVATE LOG
Star Date 2008.23.12
Local Date 23 DECEMBER 2008, 1930 h.
Earth, interior Alaska.

The hairy stick-eaters were here again today. Fortunately, we had escaped before dawn, traveling the 10 km to the employment facility, and so missed their onslaught. Upon our nocturnal return, the seasonal retention of precipitation as frozen particles (“snow”), which covers the earth here in a white blanket for half of this planet’s annual cycle, gave clear indication of their earlier presence. We were lucky to have missed them, but they had been unable to erase their tracks across this seasonal slate. And, perhaps to taunt us, they had once again turned out the lights. We keep a seasonal array of many small lights wrapped around a nearby perennial plant (a “tree”) to give some dimensionality to the ports in our dwelling. During the excessively long nocturnal periods here at this time in the annual cycle, these transparent panels are usually cheerless, reflective black surfaces, only less oppressive when the shades are drawn, enabling us to focus inward, rejecting their presence. This is the season when the hairy stick-eaters come in greater numbers to threaten our security. Drawing the shades also prevents them from spying on us, and we hope that it thwarts their planning.

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The Bold Vole of the Meat Hole

What a summer. Cool, wet weather. Too much traveling and running around. And a rather poor season for salmon on the Copper River at Chitina—on top of many constraints keeping us from going at the few, brief good times. On the bright side, we had a lot of great visitors this year, which was fun. But when the traveling was finished in mid-August, Rose and I were both home at the same time, and the fishing report sounded decent enough to make a run for it. We’ve become fairly addicted to Copper River red salmon, and not even attempting to fill the freezer with those tasty beauties just didn’t feel right. So we made a fast run during the last week that the charter operated.

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Winter’s Solstice, 2007

The shortest day of the year has just passed us by—and we didn’t have to be awake long to see the daylight portion of it pass. Up at the crack of dawn means about 11:00 AM. And you’d have to be sick to go to bed at sunset (about 2:45 PM). It’s been a little cool up here this week. It was -36 F a couple of days ago on my drive in—crispy cold. But we’ve been keeping busy and warm, looking forward to the holiday break as everyone else has. Today we begin creeping upward in day length (a whole minute!). The sun is skimming low across the southern horizon, and it looks like a Christmas card outside with the snow sparkling in the tree branches.

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A Dictionary Moose

We’d been having a gorgeous fall this year—lots of sun, warm, but with enough rain to keep the risk of fire low. As 1 September approached, I found myself wishing for some cooler temperatures and some cloudy weather so that when moose and crane season began the chances of the mighty hunter would be improved. Last year we’d had similar weather—clear blue skies and bright sunny days had the cranes flying too high, and bright nights near a full moon seemed to have kept the moose from ambling about during the day. I’d hunted a lot, but hadn’t done much more exciting than lock myself out of my truck at a remote hunting spot. More on that later. In sum, our weather was nice for humans but not very good for bringing wild friends home for dinner.

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Ten Years of Dip Netting at Chitina

Very shortly after I returned from fieldwork in Russia this year, Rose and I packed up and headed for Chitina to catch enough salmon for another year of tasty fish. Copper River red salmon, recognized as prize gastronomic fare, is available to Alaska residents through a “personal use fishery” on the Copper River while the salmon are running. A household of two or more can catch 30 red salmon or 29 reds and a king. The latter combination is about as good as fish eating gets, raw or cooked.

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