News from the little town of Eagle, Alaska

Today finally feels like the first day of spring. Never mind that the season actually came almost two months ago...It was a long stretch of cool, often wintry weather between March 20 and today. At that, today is a lovely 55 degrees, and we couldn't be happier. The nicest thing about this in-betweeen weather is that it keeps the bugs at bay. The sunshine is warm and pleasant, but the shade is still fairly cool. But if it means the mosquitoes and flies aren't out yet, that's fine. And I can finally sit on the porch to blog. That's saying a lot!

The days have been incredibly filled since I last wrote. March seems like one big active blur: from the steady pace of the Winter Tracks weekend, to a quick trip to St. Cloud for a sister visit and a college visit, all the way to the end of the month when we took off and went to Arizona to visit relatives and the Grand Canyon---whew! If time allows, I hope to share stories here as I go along through the summer. We came back in mid-April, and I was naively hopeful that we had missed mud season. Not to be. The snow and melt cycle continued, and I remembered all the reasons why it is fun to travel to the southwest during that month!

But now it is May, and although it's not perfect, I'm perfectly happy. We've been open for the last two weekends, first with Gunflint Green Up, and now with the fishing opener. The weekend has been a busy time for the fishermen and women. We've been hearing good things about walleye and bass and northern, and even a report or two on the trout. As I've mentioned before, those are our favorite. We're happy that folks are finding some fish out there.

The real story that I wanted to relate today, though, is not about Gunflint Lake. It has to do with the small Alaska town of Eagle. Many of you know that Greg's mom, Sharlene, and her husband Jim, have a cabin in Eagle. The town is located on the eastern straight-line border of Alaska, right on the Yukon River. Sharlene has been enjoying the opportunity to visit Eagle every year since the early 90's, as she says it reminds her of Grand Marais forty years ago. She usually spends about three months a year up there.

Unfortunately, Eagle has not being faring well this past week. In the course of the break up of the Yukon River, massive flooding occurred in town, mostly along the main street that generally sits well high above the river bed. The place that Jim and Shar own is about a mile uphill from the town center, so they have been safe. But many of their friends, and the community as a whole, have been deeply affected.

The first wave of flooding came about a week ago. Along with the water rising came huge chunks of river ice, which washed up on the banks and literally surrounded cabins, the store, motel, cafe and some historic properties. People had to evacuate in the middle of the night, and over the course of the week, the water rose and fell a few times. In washed more ice chunks. The photos in the Fairbanks News Miner are incredible. I will include a link later in this post.

By the latter part of the week, the ice jams had broken up and the water was running freely. The danger of continued flooding was over. But left behind were scores of ice chunks and blocks, some as many as twenty feet high. Eagle is very far north. It takes a while for the day to warm up there. This means that some of these ice chunks will be hanging around until well into July. The other unfortunate side of the coin is that winter returns there much sooner than in these parts. The townsfolk know that they must prepare now, even though the last winter has barely finished. It's going to be a tough road ahead.

That's the capsule version of the events. There is lots to read and see in the Fairbanks newspaper. Go to http://newsminer.com/photos/galleries/2009/may/05/2009-breakup-flooding/ for a gallery of photos. For the news articles, do a search at http://www.newsminer.com/ and you will find the stories.

Sharlene and I spoke last night again, and she says that things are moving forward as best can be expected. I can't help but be reminded of our own disaster two years ago, when the Ham Lake Fire roared through our area. Interestingly, it was two years to the day for the flooding event. In 2007, Shar and Jim had just arrived back in Eagle, when they learned of the fire. They were glued to the phone and the internet, looking for any updates they could find. Now here we were, in the opposite position, scouring the 'net, and recognizing friends and buildings in the photos we were finding. It's tough to be in that spot, watching. The sense of wanting to be there, to help in anyway we can, is such a strong one.

For Robert, that sense has such a pull that it turns in to action. Two years ago, he could no longer stand it. He called Greg and said, "I can be on a plane in two hours. I'll be there tomorrow." Greg replied, "You better get to the airport." In this case, Robert was already in Fairbanks, with plans to leave for Eagle later in the week. He planned to return to his summer job, doing maintenance for the Yukon-Charley River Preserve, an entity of the National Park Service. But first, he needed to be there early to assist in any way he was asked.

The response to the disaster has been phenomenal. I like to think that it is always this way, based on my experience here in Cook County. It was incredible the way the whole community came out to help us all during the Ham Lake evacuation. Listening to Shar, and reading the articles indicates to me that Eagle is very similar. The evacuation center is at the school in town. Meals are a community effort, with Sharlene, and Dana (a friend of Addie's) and Amanda (Robert's girlfriend, and also a friend of Addie's), amidst many other neighbors, taking their turns at cooking. Plane loads of donated supplies are coming in daily (as weather allows) from Fairbanks. Buildings are off of foundations; some even ended up in the river, headed to the Bering Sea. But folks are hanging in there, doing what they can to make things better.

One of the things that Robert and Amanda did was to rescue a little critter. They were walking around town the end of last week, surveying the damage and taking pictures. They came to a block of river ice that was about twenty feet high. Robert retrieved his ice climbing gear and made it to the top of the block. Up there, he could see the remnants of someone's roof, imbedded in the ice. Then he heard a sound, and low and behold found a cat in the insulation of the roofing. He was able to free the cat, and bring it down to Amanda. The poor little thing was plenty dirty, so they cleaned it up, and later were able to reunite it with a very grateful owner. Even little acts of kindness like this can mean so much at a time like this.

So that's the story for the day. Both Robert and Sharlene have been taking many photos, but neither has internet connection for the time being. Shar will be home in mid-June, so by then we will be able to see her pictures and hear more of the stories. In the meantime, please keep Eagle in your thoughts. It's a wonderful little town that needs all of the good wishes it can get right now.

Friday Morning at Fifteen Below...

....and no wind right now, which makes it feel quite nice out there! I rolled out of bed before sunrise, and got about fifty layers on. My first mission this morning was to go out and light the bread oven. In case I haven't mentioned it already, it's Winter Tracks time here on the trail, and we are making pizza today.

Of course, in true Heston's style, we weren't quite totally organized at 6:30 am. As I was pulling on my boots, Greg said something about the new roof on the bread oven, the incomplete chimney system, and how we probably should have shoveled it off yesterday, as the hole for the smoke to draw was completely covered. Hmmm, I was trying to process all of this without having had any coffee yet. I realized that this meant that I would be shoveling the roof before I was even starting the fire.

I'm not fond of ladders, especially when I have bulky clothes on. But when I stepped out, and the early morning light was gathering in its beautiful pastel palette, I couldn't help but feel happy. It looks like it will be a fantastic day. I went digging for the ladder, put it up against the roof, and climbed up with my shovel. Slowly I pulled snow off the roof in the vicinity of the chimney spot. Mostly I did it slowly because no matter how I tried, each scoopful would fall right down on me, not the ground. What a sight! Good thing the guests were all still sleeping, instead of watching me. I worked on it enough to get a little hole open, and thought it would be just right to let the smoke escape.

Next I got the fire started, which is a bit of a trick at this time of the year. It takes a lot of birch bark, even if the kindling and wood is very dry. Pretty soon, though, that smoke was sneaking out of the little hole on top, so I knew that it was going to work out. I paused a moment to listen to the birds, who are getting to be very vocal right now. I think they know that we are nearing the change of season, and they want to let everyone else know, too. I filled the bird feeder up for them, and saw several little puffs of redpoll, all fluffed up in a tree waiting for me to finish.

Then I noticed some ravens circling, and I could hear their conversation, too. Since I have yet to learn ravenspeak, I chose to walk down to the lake shore, in case they were talking about a deer kill on the ice, or some other interesting thing. No sign of activity down there, but plenty of fresh wolf tracks all over the place. I saw more birds in the sky downshore a bit, so I am guessing that there might be a fresh kill over near our rustic cabins.

So now since I've started this writing, it's time to go stoke that bread oven again, and try to get the temperature in those fire bricks to about 500 degrees. What a climb from fifteen below. Greg got a laser temperature reader, so we will test it out on the bread oven for the first time today. We will finally know how hot it is in the oven when we bake. But at this air temp, I don't think we will have to worry about burning anything.

Scoopin' the News

Though geographically we cover a large area, this neighborhood of ours on the Gunflint Trail is really a small one that feels as close and comfortable as the kind I grew up in. We keep track of each other, and we watch out for each other. As the list of local bloggers grows, we also find that it is harder to not report twice on what is happening around us. But I've come to realize that even if our news is a little old, or it has already been written up by someone else, that's okay. My voice is different from the next person's, so my readers can get a few perspectives on what's new, what's happening, and what we are chattering about.

It's hard somethimes, though, to actually get a scoop---you know, like they do in the newspapers. I already blogged about this on the Gunflint Trail blog, so in a way I scooped myself (!!), but I am going to post it here, too.

This is the moose I saw on the Trail today, on my way home from town:

Mike Schelmeske of Grand Marais carved this guy, with an owl on the antlers. It is the first of our snow sculptures for this weekend's Winter Tracks Festival. Mike did a fantastic job! My photo doesn't do it justice. Hop on over to here for a larger view (though it is the same picture.)

Being a fiber worker, it is hard for me to imagine working in a material like snow. I can make a snowman as good as anyone else, provided the snow is nice and sticky. Mike showed me the saw he used on parts of this moose. It must be like working with wood, though much easier to cut. He told me that he once worked on a block when it was 35 below zero, and the snow squeaked like styrofoam when he cut into it. I get the shivers thinking of that sound. Yarn and fabric are so easy for me to manipulate. I like to say that I can make them do what I want them to do. I don't think it would be that easy with snow. I actually have a memory of attempting to carve something. It was when I was in grade school, and our neighborhood had a summer recreation program that included arts and crafts. We were supposed to carve a figure our of a bar of Ivory soap. Easy enough, right? You can guess what I ended up with: a pile of soap slivers!

What's even more amazing to me is that the block he started with looked like this:

Last week, Greg and Bob (from Gunflint Pines) used plywood forms to hold the snow. They used the loader to fill them, and in between bucketfuls, they had to jump on the snow to pack it down. Greg reported that it is a much harder task than he realized to jump in that stuff. But it helps to compress the snow, for a nice solid block. That Mike could see a moose in that cube is so cool.

I'm going to stick with my yarn and fabric. And I'm going to make sure that I get out this weekend and early next week to see all of the sculptures that will be springing up in the neighborhood. But as I said over on the Gunflint Trail blog, I'll have to hurry. That sun is already foretelling a hint of spring, and that makes these sculptures very temporary....But what a wonderful opportunity to see some art on the Trail.

Working on Winter Tracks

Seems there is always something to fill the days, when you own your own business. Lately, my attention has been directed towards the upcoming festival, Winter Tracks. I am the registrar of the committee, and as we near the big event, other jobs come along to build in to my days.

Heston's will be a busy spot for the festival. On Thursday, I am hosting a sock knitting meet-up. I tried this last year, mainly because we wanted to add some indoor events to our line-up of outdoor activities. Sadly, no one was able to join me. And without other knitters here, I didn't get to knit! But I am trying it again this year, and I already know of one person who is game to come. Even if you don't knit socks, come on along and join us!

On Friday, we will again be firing up the bread oven to bake pizza, from one to three in the afternoon. This will be our third year of hot pizza slices on a winter afternoon. Doesn't that sound tasty? I have a wonderful memory of skiing in the mountains of New Mexico, some twenty-eight years ago....when we got off the chairlift at the top, I could smell bratwurst and polish sausage being grilled outside. Of course, we had to go have one! Why not make your own memory, with pizza and cross-country skis at our place?

Saturday morning, we will be hosting a snow sculpture competition on the lake in front of the lodge. Now this is one activity that I am really looking forward to watching. Again a memory from years ago involves a snow sculpture festival that the Art Colony sponsored on the Gunflint Trail, back in the early 90's. Watching the sculptors work was amazing. They started with a drawing of their concept, and soon I could see it emerging from the block of snow. How do they do that? At one point they asked if they could borrow a spatula to do some finishing work on one spot, and I noticed the variety of tools they were employing....shovels, scoops, spades, spoons (funny, they all begin with "s"). If you are interested in carving, then by all means, plan to come on over.

The list of activities at all of the resorts is a long one. Check it out on the website, and make some plans to come up to the Trail the weekend of February 26-March 1. It's a great way to have some winter fun!