Tenakee…aka Rural Alaska

My mom and step-dad have a cabin out in a little place called Tenakee. There are no cars. Except for the fire truck which I’m pretty sure has never left the firehouse. It is a small dirt road with enough space for 4-wheelers to pass each other on the trail. It is probably about a community of 50 full time residents and 50 more like my mom and step-dad who come out for weekends and holidays.

There are 5 students in the school K-12. The general store just recently closed. Other than that there is a boat harbor, small restaurant/bakery that was not open my entire visit, and a church with no nun or priest. There is also a community hot springs. It serves as the place of bathing for a lot of people in the town. It is kind of like the roman baths, but far less romantic. Bathing is done completely nude. So there are separate hours for males and females. There is no mosaic lining the walls, just a concrete sitting area and enough room for maybe 6 people to get into the hot springs at once. It’s a little awkward the first time you get into the bath and there is a 90 year old dude with a beard down to his waist, but that oddness quickly leaves. Although the hot water and natural minerals is quite relaxing.

I hope you can see how quirky the place is, but the real question is what do you do?

1. Read Books…this break was rather sub-par for me as I only finished four: The Amber Spyglass (Book III of Golden Compass…I think there were a lot of religious references that I didn’t pick up on, it was good but it will definitely require another read through) Into the Wild (not as good as the movie, but still good), A Walk in the Woods (Bill Bryson is hilarious, read it) and The World is Flat (WOW! My world view is slowly but surely being changed, run over and destroyed…in a good way. If you haven’t read this you should, although be weary as it will push you to be more efficient…more in a separate entry).

2. Watch movies…very successful trip: High Fidelity (staple…always good, especially considering recent events), Constantine (a little weird, didn’t get most of the references, a little too long. It was alright though) , Baseketball (Matt Stone and Trey Parker are wonderful. Watch it), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (When are 6 and 7 coming out so I can have a marathon viewing), Snatch (Brad Pitt, per usual, is a badass and he has a ridiculous accent), started North Fork (awful…literally turned it off 30 minutes in) and numerous episodes of SCRUBS (my brother really likes them, I’m kind of warming up to the idea)

3. Food: This activity can take several forms. Snacking on various meats and cheeses. Consuming the normal daily meals. Or going out and hunting/catching our own food to eat. This trip we went deer hunting. Which really wasn’t deer hunting as much an extended hike where my step-dad took a hunting rifle. We didn’t see any deer, but lots of sign (tracks, urine, etc.) As for catching food we were a lot more successful. We set a dungeness crab pot (http://www.geocities.com/oscmarinetech/images/crab.JPG) and kept about 5 for lunch. We also filled nearly two 5-gallon buckets with spot shrimp (http://hmsc.oregonstate.edu/projects/msap/PS/masterlist/imageAFSC/Akinvert/spotshrimp.gif) as well. When you go crabbing/shrimping the method is pretty similar. You take crab/shrimp pots fill them with rancid fish, we generally use salmon heads or old herring. You put it inside the pot and then the animals crawl into the pot to get the bait but can’t get back out again. You just leave the pots overnight and check them the next day, pretty simple. With the crab it was a little easier as they can be found in 30 ft deep water, the shrimp we had to go out to about 300 ft deep water. Luckily we had a wench to pull up the pots or it would have been a long laborous haul.

4. Exercise: This took the form of runs or long walks. Since it was winter there is a very small window of daylight that you can take part in such activities. Usually about 8am to 3pm. Luckily it was winter so we didn’t have to worry about bears as they were all hibernating. The summer is…more exciting…but you have to be more careful as you could run into a griz at any time of day just hanging out on the path.

5. Play games: We played much while I was in Tenakee. Cribbage. Scrabble. Chess. Gin/Rummy.

Other than that you just enjoy yourself. I kind of rotate between all of those activites. I’ll eat for a bit, read for a bit, catch food for a bit, exercise for a bit and then watch a movie. It’s pretty relaxing. We have huge windows on the front of the cabin and we are literally on the ocean. During a high tide I could jump off the deck into freezing cold water and then swim back to shore and walk into the house. We can look outside and see huge tree/snow covered mountains across the inlet and observe as seals swim by the house, Bald Eagles fight over food and whales swim further away. It’s pretty incredible.

D.