Today we drove down town to Ship Creek to see if the salmon were running. There is a salmon hatchery in the upper stream that puts fingerlings in the stream so they can head for the ocean which is quite close by as we are on the coast. In the summer months the mature salmon (about 3 to 10 years old) return to spawn and in fact, climb water stairs to return to their spawning grounds. None were running as much as we could see. The creek is very popular for the people who love to fish. They go there during lunch time. Our tour guide said "it takes 10 minutes to get there, so they have 40 minutes to fish and then go back to work". Can't beat that. We saw a few fishermen but they weren't catching any.
Lunch timers?
Athabascan Woman
As we walked along the creek, we observed a Magpie following us, so I got a few photos of it. They are quite people friendly as they were in Australia .
Looks similar to the Australian Magpie but not the same beautiful tune-more of a caw
We were stopped by a couple who wanted to know where we were from. Patsy and her uncle KC were Athabaskan Natives. Very friendly and we had a short conversation. KC looked up at the sun and said "look, a sun rainbow, a sun dial", (a ring around the sun). Then they looked off to the side of the sun and saw another small one, and Patsy said "it must be one o clock. I looked at my watch and it read 1:10. I thought wow!, just like the Aborigines in Australia-they read the earth for their guidance. Unbelievable.
Patsy and her uncle-KC
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The flowers in Alaska are just gorgeous. with such a short growing period, they make the most of it. Lots of business places have hanging baskets of flowers outside the stores and the city hangs 12,000 of them from lamp posts An employee or city employee waters them almost daily.Here are a few we have seen"
Wild Rose with a bee that wallows around gathering nectar and to cross pollinate it
Right next door to the creek is the Ulu Knife Factory. They are the sole manufacturer of them and distribute them everywhere, in and out of state. It's an innovative knife that's used for chopping, slicing, etc or whatever you want to use it for. It was the standard knife used by all the native Indian tribes. they only needed one. It's amazing to watch them work a fur pelt with this knife. The more expensive (and original) have caribou antler handles instead of wood. Very innovative knife.
Ulu Knife and rounded out wooden chopping bowl.
Rounding out the bowl
Knealing the blade
Knealed Blades
Making the handle using a sander and router blade
Next, we were off to the Aviation Museum at the lake airport museum. It was late after we watched a movie about Alaska and the WWII fighting with the Japanese Army. A part of the war not many people knew about but yet had a very important part of our winning. We will go back tomorrow and spend most of the day there. Don't miss the next episode!
We decided to go to the "Sourdough Mining Company" for dinner. Yep, it's a restaurant and a very good Bar B Que one at that. Very decorative inside with all the birch wood tables and chairs as well as the mining decor and the animals mounted to the walls and a huge stuffed bear at the door. We ordered a half rack of ribs because they are large and come with delicious sourdough bread, corn, huge corn fritters with honey butter.and ice cream for dessert. Boy!, they love their ice cream up here.
our gorgeous waitress, Suerea
After dinner we walked across the street and visited the Wildberry Chocolate Factory
where we saw the worlds largest chocolate-fall. It is 20 ft tall. Of course, it was for show and the chocolate wasn't eatable. Interesting though.
20 ft chocolate-fall
Dusty was a U.S. Marine A-4 pilot and Vietnam Veteran who flew from the decks of the USS Constellation in 60-70. The A-4 is a small wing yet very versatile attack aircraft that served the Navy and Marine Corps for 20 plus years. We shared a wee bit of military service since I was also on the USS Constellation in 1967-1968 in Fighter Squadron 142. He sangs two songs about Alaska by Johnny Horton, "North To Alaska" and "When it's Springtime in Alaska". They were sing-a-longs so most joined in the song. He also sang Lee Greenwood's song "Proud to be an American." It brought back memories of having attended Lee's performance in Sigonella, Sicily and our reception afterwards. It was a pleasure meeting all his family. I still have the VHS tape of it.
Dusty Sourdough
He told us a story about the Alaska Gold Rush that (I guess) most folk don't know. Dusty is also a writer who has written several books, (the adventures of Dusty Sourdough) and has a DVD about his stories. Anyway, he professes that Alexander King was supposedly the first person who discovered gold--but actually, he wasn't. It was discovered by a prospector, Charlie, who bragged about it in Seattle and was killed and robbed of his map by Alexander. While there is no record of the killing, etc, Alexander did discover gold in 1888 on the Kenai Peninsula and it may have been outside of Hope, AK. (Gold was first discovered in Alaska by the Russians in 1849. The record shows that Buck Choquete discovered it in 1861.) Dusty said he had written a book about Alexander, but was unable to get it published because "it had no ending". ??? Alexander was caught, convicted (of killing another man) and hung. Is that not an ending? So, do your research and decide for yourself. At any rate, We found him very interesting and a GODly person. He travels extensively in the winter months in the lower 48 (as they call it) and is in Anchorage in the Summer. He has a dog just like the one in the picture on the cover of his book.
There was a flower flower garden outside the restaurant that had the most gorgeous flowers in it. Here are some photos . Have no idea of the names
Butter and Eggs
The Alaskan's say the 20+ hrs of sunlight is what makes everything grow so big and beautiful (130 lb cabbage). I think the volcanic soil has something to do with it too. Ya think?
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