Every place I have lived offers it's own version of the arrival of spring. In Missouri, robins returned, red bud, plum trees, forsythia bushes, spring flowers, thunder storms and warmer weather were the markers. In the desert, the cactuses bloomed and the air was alive with mesquite and creosote after a rain. Here in Ketchikan there is a whole new menu to learn. We have robins here and their song must be what is so familiar to me. We have enjoyed crocuses, daffodils and other spring flowers. Skunk cabbage has bloomed which the locals tell me is a wake-up treat for the black bears coming out of hibernation. The herring have spawned and their eggs are a local delicacy. The downtown area is engaged in full-tilt spruce up mode. Business owners are power-washing the winter and grunge away in preparation for touristo season. AND perhaps my favorite thing, we have a daily nature show to view out the window of river otters, seals and now humpback and killer whales.
I met a Tsimshian woman at the hospital who belongs to the Killer Whale Clan from Metlakatla Island across the way from us. She taught me that Killer Whale is the older and more proper name of the Orcas. Other local tribes include the Haida and the Tlingit. I highly recommend our award-winning website: www.ketchikanstories.com to learn more about life and things to do in Ketchikan.
My walks with Lucy the Beagle-mix continue to be a fun way to spend time on the beach. I have tried a number of times to practice meditation and cannot seem to pay attention and clear my mind, as one is supposed to. Zen for me is on the beach. This week brought two magical experiences. One morning was frosty and there was a heavy fog that blanketed everything in the Passage with silver. A thick wet fog hung over the water and the rocks on the beach were all outlined in white edging. I was startled by a huge concussion of sound and looked up just in time to see a humpback dive back into the water and flip it's tail. There was more than one and I watched them play and puff big steamy spouts as they leisurely swam along. They were talking to one another and it sounded like a Chewbacca roar....maybe that is where the Star Wars makers got the sound! Then a couple days later I learned something about why Ravens and Eagles figure into Native stories here. Mature bald eagles look ferocious. Their beaks and talons clearly are capable weapons. I was surprised to learn that they are frequently chased by the much smaller ravens especially when the eagles try to raid the raven's nests. Now I understand better why Baltimore chose the raven as their mascot...they are quite brave! Ravens make a sound that sounds like a crow caw with more of a CLOCK, CLOCK, CLOCK sound and the one I watched chase the eagle was tenacious. Twice the eagle somersaulted midair and flared it's talons while upside down toward it's angry pursuer. What a aerobatic show!
April is Poetry month and our public radio station KRBD, features a clever celebration of it called: A Poem a Day Won't Kill You! Local people read a poem of their choosing so we have enjoyed quite a selection.
One of the tag lines for Ketchikan's advertising is Ketchikan....Art Lives Here. Boy does it ever. The Arts Council here offers wonderful, varied and regular concerts, art shows, and dance performances.
April Verch and her band members Cody Walters and Hayes Griffin, put on a wonderful show about a week ago. I don't think I have ever seen anything quite like it. April is diminutive in size but a mega-packaged talent. She is a Canadian fiddler and step dancer who performed at the 2010 Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Olympics. She and her band play a combination of Canadian and American folk and bluegrass as well as original compositions. The music alone would have been enough, but then in the middle of smokin' hot fiddle-fest, you find out she has tap shoes on and while playing she breaks out into equally hot and fast dancing. She explained that the steps are a combination of Ottawa Valley folk, Irish River Dancing, clogging. It is hard to imagine neural networks that work that fast and all at the same time! Check out www.AprilVerch.com for music and show times.
Main Street Gallery is presently featuring La Folie Circulaire: A Journey into Bipolar Disorder. I went to the opening night (which offers terrific hors d'oeuvres). It was an incredibly moving experience. The walls were covered with brown paper and the narration written in white with the gorgeous photography mounted so that one traveled the journey with the young man and woman featured in the piece. Both are local. One, a young man who is a talented musician/songwriter and the other a beautiful young woman. It was educational, heartbreaking, inspiring, and beautifully rendered method of storytelling. They hope to take it nationally and if you have the chance...do go see it!
I have never worked in psychiatric health care, but it seems to me that a number of movies have done a better job of connecting us to those experiences than public education has. Some favorites: Lars and the Real Girl - the story of how a sensitive doctor, family, co-workers and town support the healing of an agoraphobic painfully shy young man so that he might reconnect to people after a lonely and painful childhood; The Fisher King and Reign Over Me- a peek into how traumatic loss can unravel the lives and mental health of previously functional professional people; Silver Linings Playbook - This year's Oscar nominated depiction of life with Bipolar Disorder. I'm sure I am forgetting others, let me hear your favorites.
Ketchikan is quite creative in inventing its own fun. Last weekend I went to the 2nd Annual A-Pork-a- Lypse. It was a fundraiser to help a local student raise the required funds for Rotary Student experience to Thailand. The celebration of BACON involved a $5 cover at the door and $5 bucks to enter your celebration of bacon-inspired culinary creation. As a guest, you sampled the various dishes and then voted with dollars. There was a bacon cake, bacon brownies, marmalade with homemade pretzels, sopapillas, halibut wrapped in bacon with apricot sauce, bacon popcorn. A guy showed up wearing a bacon shirt and there was a great sign that said: BACON - The reason you are not a vegetarian!
I have spoken about The Point before and I'm hanging out with the ladies of the knitting bunch to learn how to make a scarf with te linen stitch. If you want to get a better view of what The Point is all about you can go to their Facebook page and see the inside as well as what is for lunch.
I am now a big fan of seaplane travel! We had had clear skies and mirror-like water for a week and I was really looking forward to my maiden voyage on the DeHavilland Beaver with Pacific Airways to fly over to Prince of Wales Island for clinic. But, as luck would have it, I woke up to wind, whitecaps and very cold weather. We were supposed to depart at 0730, but when I arrived the pilot said they were postponing until 0900 when they thought things would be fine. Secretly, I was hoping they wouldn't be. Yikes, I have flown with my husband in Arizona, Colorado and Missouri and I liken it to feeling like a bouncing spider on a string. I was a bit nervous about bush plane flying. I have heard repeatedly, however, that the pilots for Alaska Airlines and the local bush pilots are awesome, so I figured they wouldn't really take off if the weather was too dicey. Sure enough, although the weather didn't look too different to me, we loaded up mail, supplies and 3 passengers and off we went. Gravina Island is across the Passage from Ketchikan and is where our airport is located. Jeff, the nurse practitioner from Craig clinic, was scheduled for pickup on that side for some reason so we actually took off, circled around, and landed to pick him and some more mail up. We got pretty wet reloading for that pickup but we got reloaded and I must say the rest of the take off, landing, flying experience has made me a real fan. The radial engine makes a great sound if you like engines and it was so much SMOOTHER than the bouncy hot air of desert flying!!! Scenery was gorgeous and when we arrived in Hollis at Prince of Wales, we unloaded all the mail and supplies and hopped into the Pacific Airways van for the hour trip over the mountain pass to Craig, Alaska. I chatted with Yvonne, a chef for the M/V Misty Fjord, a small charter yacht that offers a more intimate Alaska touring experience. If interested, check out their website at: www.smallshipalaskacruises.com. They explained that winds in the pass can wreak havoc on flying so unless the weather is near perfect they don't try it and passengers utilize the shuttle. The return flight was lovely with several rainbows and clear weather most of the way.
May 3rd will be Tourist for a Day. Celebration of the Sea Art Walk and the opportunity to try all the beloved summer activities will be offered to locals at discounted prices. There will also be a Blessing of the Fleet by the Fish House (which serves terrific chowder!)
Today our weather is back to clear and lovely. Let us do what we can to support the victims of the tragedies in Boston and Texas last week. I will close with a quote from one of my favorite historical people:
"We must preserve the right in the United States to think and to differ" Eleanor Roosevelt
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