Just got back from a trip to Alaska. My oh my. Such a beautiful place. Actually, if one is to consider the population and its tendencies, Alaska is Alabama with mountains, rivers and lakes. Fortunately, there are a lot more mountains, rivers and lakes than there is population... so, one can easily focus on the better aspects of the place.
Besides all my bird and mammal watching with promoter Mike McCormick, I played a few gigs. The first was at a place called The Moose Pasture (The Moose Pasture? Yes, The Moose Pasture)... a small scrubby parcel in Kasilof, on the Kenai Peninsula. When I arrived there I took one look at the place and realized that my career had sadly come to an end. In front of me was a rickety trailor with plywood add ons sitting on the edge of a field with a stage at the far end. The place looked like late-sixties Mendocino style. A guy with a big smile - a suspiciously big smile - welcomed me as he brushed the mosquitos off his shiny forehead. When I got inside the trailor, I checked to see if I could survive the night. I saw a set of syringes on one of the tables. Well, that did it... "Let me outta here!!" But I held tight.
As I looked around the place I noticed a lot of books... then CDs... then LPs...then videos...the place was a damn library of American culture. The owner, Mike Morgan, started to reveal his knowledge of things hip. I began to relax. "I like this guy", I thought. But the syringes... what about the syringes? I took another look... oh, oh, I get it... they had ink in them... something to do with the printer for his computer. Maybe things weren't that bad. Perhaps I could make it through the night until my getaway in the morning.
The gig turned out to be terrific. A breeze came up to shoo away the skeeters and the people who came to the show couldn't have been more welcoming and appreciative. Somewhere in a field behind the stage a Sandhill Crane cackled during my show and all was jake.
After the show I enjoyed the company of some of the good folks at the concert, and later got treated to a nice showing of digital photos taken of migratory waterfowl in Dutch Harbor, The Yukon Delta and other way-out-of-the-way Alaska locations. This by a nice, young fellow who works with the Fish and Game Department.
I woke up the following morning unscathed and rather satisfied.... a more complete person for the experience I figured. Mike fixed up a home-cooked all-American breakfast and we said our goodbyes. He with the same big smile smile. But now I got it.... it was a Moose Pasture smile, and I was a convert. I had become one with Moose Pastureness. I headed up the road to Anchorage, birding along the way.
The next day I drove to Palmer for the The Songwriters' Camp - put together by Rick and Sheila Miller - where I was to spend four days trying to figure out what the heck I was doing there. I don't do much songwriting, so I didn't really know what I could contribute. I shared the instructor duties with a couple of real and legitimate (and friendly) songwriters - Carrie Newcomer and Stephen Fearing. They knew what they were doing and, thankfully, they led the way.
After a while though things worked out. I began to find ways to corrupt the students, offering some musical approaches to songwriting while leaving the words to those more qualified. Speaking of the students.... what a bunch! Ex-businessmen, members of the Fish and Game Department, a male nurse, a firefighter, a champion skier... you name it.... even some professional folk pickers.
The night before I left Palmer we drove up to Hatcher Pass to check things out. What do you know... a mama moose and two babies crossing the road in the twilight.
After Palmer, McCormick and I headed down to Seward. There we took a boat out of Resurrection Bay around to Aialik Glacier and back past the Chiswell Islands. It was a #10 day - calm, with a misty fog that burned off to sunshine as we headed out. We were looking for sea birds - and we saw quite a few - puffins, an eagle on a nest, common and thick-billed murres, rhinoceros auklets, red-faced commorants... but we also lucked out with the mammals - humpback whales, sea otters, Stellar sea lions, harbor seals, mountain goat....I shall return!
From Seward we drove back around the Kenai Peninsula to Homer where we stayed at a beautiful home high up on a hill above the town. Looking out across Cook Inlet from that location is hard to describe. For you people in Oregon, think of 35 Mount Hoods strung in a line and resting on the water.
We did a little birding in Homer the next day, then a radio show at the local station and, later that evening, I played a nice little gig in a coffee house. Some of my 'students' from the Songwriters' Camp showed up to my surprise and pleasure. Getting comfortable.
The next day we took a ferry from the tip of Homer (The Spit) across Kachemak Bay, stopping biefly at Gull Island to look at the rookeries, then on to Seldovia for the Summer Solstice Music Festival. Susan Mumma runs it and she put me up in a nice B&B (hers) on the old boardwalk facing the Seldovia Slough; sort of Gilligan's Island in its sixth season (enough time to buy necessary appliances). What a beautiful spot except for all those damn bald eagles! People were snagging big Salmon in the Slough at low tide... that's when they bunch up.
I played two evenings and a workshop. The festival was a real family affair with plenty of little ones....nice for singing "C-H-I-C-K-E-N".
The second morning, McCormick and I took a birdwalk on a nature trail called the Otterbahn. It started slow but as the sun peeked through and warmed the woods the birds began to show. Boreal chickadees, golden-crowned kinglets (with young), orange-crowned and Townsend's warblers, red-breasted nuthatches and at trails end by the bay.. harlequin ducks and common loons.
The next morning we flew out of Seldovia in a little prop plane and bumped our way over to Homer... and from there we birded our way back to Anchorage again for my flight back home.
Someday I'll be going back to Alaska.... maybe you can tell... I've hopelessly fallen for the place.
Next week I go north up the California coast to Portland Oregon. I'll let you know what unfolds.
Geoff