May 31, 2003

• Trapper Creek

  
  

  I had a meeting this evening in Trapper Creek, thirty miles or so up the valley.  I took both digital cameras with me, hoping to get some shots of the annular solar eclipse.  It was too cloudy for that, but I did get some excellent scenic shots.

  
  

  Not exactly “scenic”, this pic of the airstrip at Trapper Creek is typical of the many small airstrips that help keep Alaskans flying.  One of the big surprises for me when I first moved to this quiet valley 20 years ago was the amount of air traffic.  It’s quiet here in terms of auto traffic, but the corridor following river, railroad and highway also carries air traffic.   Now I’ve gotten used to hearing the planes going over.

  
  

  This shot at right, of one of the prettiest little campgrounds I’ve ever seen, was taken from almost the same POV as the airstrip shot above, just rotated about 180 degrees.  The campground is between the highway and airstrip, right in the middle of the town of Trapper Creek.  I have never seen this place with all the campsites full.  When I go up there to the nearby laundromat, I like to just wander around the camp… it is so peaceful and beautiful. 

  
  

  I know a woman who moved up here maybe ten years after I did, from somewhere in the Lower 48.  She wanted to come to Alaska, knew no one here, and just picked Trapper Creek off a map because she liked the name.  I guess it’s as good a way as any to pick a spot.  It’s a great spot.

  
  

  The prominent plant in the foreground here is one to watch out for in these woods–our only poisonous plant, devil’s club.  We have no poison oak, ivy or sumac in this part of Alaska, nor any venomous insects or spiders, and no snakes, lizards or other reptiles at all.  We do have some frogs, neat, tiny little frogs that spend the winters buried deep beneath the ground.  They can survive down there for several years in dry weather.  In wet years the frogs’ spring chirping drowns out birdsong for weeks.  Last year was so dry I didn’t hear any frogs.  This year, I heard only a few, and only for a couple of days before the muskeg dried up.  I hope they all had time to find mates and do their little multiplication thing.  They are such cute, magical little things.

  
  

  This is the river from which I took my Xanga nic:  the Big Su is what  we call it.  The full name is the  Susitna River.  There is a “little” Su river that joins it farther down the valley, too.  This place is maybe 15-20 miles from where I live, but we’re only a mile from the river.  In the area where we live, it doesn’t look like this, all wide and open.  Near here, it is a maze of braided channels and little islands, a couple of miles wide.

  
  

  On my way up the valley, I noticed that the beavers had been busy on Montana Lake, one of the prettiest spots in our end of the Susitna Valley.  I stopped on the way back, drove as far off the highway as I could and walked the rest of the way, hoping to get some beaver shots . 

  
  

  No luck, though.  They didn’t show up, but there was plenty of evidence of their work, such as the gnawed-off little stumps in the foreground here, and lots of new sticks added to the dam in this shot, and to the “house” mound out in the lake, visible in the middle distance on the right in the shot below.

  
  

  

  
  

  When I posted the third episode of the Adventures of Melody Andrewsdottir, Lady Shaman on Greyfox’s site today… uuhhh, yesterday, I mean… I promised to tell the story behind the in-joke with which he concluded that episode.  It’s a good story.  Unfortunately, after my drive up the valley and traipsing all over the riverbanks and lakeshores, then saving and uploading these images after Doug went to bed, it’s already tomorrow and I’m pretty sleepy.  Go ahead, read the funny stuff, and I’ll come back in the morning… I mean later today after the sun is up… higher, I mean.  These long summer days can just sorta run into each other somewhere in the space or time that might be expected to be night.  Oddly enough, when we run short of night, I seem to run short of sleep, too.  I’m half asleep right now, just in case that’s not as painfully obvious to you as it is to me.  Later….

  
  

  

  • 4:34 am
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