Life in a Gray Mist

August 15th - Clam Gulch National Park

We left Anchorage on Wednesday, Aug 11 stopping at the Alaska Native Medical Centre on the way out. Not for illness - this hospital has an amazing gift shop where First Nations artists leave their works on consignment. I looked at a paddle and a ptarmigan mask - both exceptionally beautiful and both about twice what I could afford. Even the walls of the different wards were hung with artwork.
At Portage we stop in to see the Alaska Wildlife Rehabilitation Center and I learn just how much bigger an Alaskan Brown bear is than a Grizzly.

Kenai Fjords

Sea Otter

Stellar Sea Lions

From Anchorage we drove down the Turnagain Arm and gradually lost the sun. We camped Wednesday night next to a salmon stream beneath blue glaciers on the mountains that surrounded us. It was lovely but would have been more so if we weren’t cloaked in mist.
We’ve now worn that mist - cloud, fog, rain, drizzle - for the last three days. We camped in Seward, on the beach. I’m sure it was beautiful - but it was difficult to tell. On Friday we took a boat tour of the Kenai Fjords National Park, which I highly recommend WHEN IT’S SUNNY! Half of a fjord is the water. The other half is the mountain that surrounds it. We saw the first half.
There was wildlife too: sea otters, seals, sea lions, humpback whales and a host of birds but everything was overpainted with a coat of wet gray.
Apparently this part of Alaska is having its wettest summer in the last 30 years. One has to feel sorry for these people. They don’t get a long summer. To have a month wiped out by rain makes it very hard on many of the local businesses.
On Saturday we walked up to Exit Glacier and I asked Darlene “ Tell me again why I said I didn’t need to bring my rain pants.”

Dar at Exit Glacier

Today - Sunday - we motored out of Seward heading for Homer on the other side of the peninsula. The biggest educational opportunity came in a Fred Myers (big grocery superstore chain where you can get five types of Mexican beans, fifteen types of tofu or a bottle of Gefilte fish.) I found a long cylinder with a “T” handle attached. Turns out it’s for digging clams but a friendly clam enthusiast said the shovel method was better as long as you dug beside the clam and not behind it.
In Ontario, grocery stores will soon be putting out all the supplies for putting up preserves. Here they sell the supplies for doing your own salmon canning! It’s a shame that all this fish is lost on me.
This afternoon we try for  the State campground at Johnson Lake. It turns out to have access roads like a battlefield and we are both seriously worried about damaging the hitch when the truck twists one way and the rig, the other. And so we move on to Clam Gulch where we are the only people camped high above a popular clam beach. Clam season for August ended yesterday and now this place is empty.

Tuesday, August 17th - Homer, Alaska

And still the rain continues. We pulled in yesterday and have found a beautiful spot, camped on a beach, the rear window looking out on Cook Inlet and the Kenai Mountains. And for about two hours, in the late afternoon, we got to see it. Right now? Grey waters and mist. ( Darlene is becoming a weather network junkie: searching for the sun but never finding it close by. )

Homer is a fishing town. Halibut is the name of the game. I was considering an afternoon’s trip, but what would we do we 20 kg of halibut? And some of these monsters go up to hundreds of pounds. Soon we shall head for the library - free Wi-fi - where we can catch up on some banking and then we’ll probably do a scenic tour. Had a great clam chowder yesterday at Captain Pattie’s - will probably return so that Dar can get a fish dinner tonight. I may even try fish & chips.