Category: Travel

Prince of Whales – Part 9

Travel

This is part nine of our trip to Prince of Whales island. If you missed part eight, you can catch up quickly here.

The next morning we needed to leave at 5:30am to catch our ferry to Ketchikan. Brent was scheduled to drive us there in his truck. When he knocked on our door, he didn’t mince words. “You want a ride to the ferry? I need thirty five hundred dollars.” Edgar started over with a friendly, “Good morning” but Brent had clearly prepared for a fight and was determined to have it. There was a heated discussion about who was responsible for what. Edgar finally agreed to give Brent $3500, saying that he did not accept the responsibility for what happened, and the truck shouldn’t have been given to a guest, but if Brent needed the money that badly, he would help him. By the time they’d walked to Brent’s cabin and the credit card machine, Brent had reconsidered and tried to lower the amount, but Edgar told him to run it for the full $3500.

It was a strained ride to the ferry but we made it with time to spare and had a lovely three-hour ferry ride back to Ketchikan, complete with whale spotting! We had become friends with our neighbors, who had shared the awkwardness of the morning, and who were also disappointed in Brent’s actions. We spent the rest of the time catching up on other travels we’d been on, and sharing photos of our families. They kindly offered to buy us lunch, and we ate in the ferry restaurant as we eased our way back to land.

Meanwhile, the search for our wounded buck wasn’t over. The local hunter who had given us the tip on where to find the deer had also given us his phone number. We let Sam know what happened, and he was determined to go back and find our buck. He was flying a drone and sending us photos to better determine exactly where we’d fired the shot.

Once in Ketchikan, a Sourdough Cab took us to our hotel, where we checked in and dropped off our gear, and tucked sixteen pounds of Alaskan salmon into their freezer. We also dug up all our wet clothes from the day before, and created a clothesline across our room.

All three of the adventurers were tired. Excitement and very little sleep invited a short afternoon nap, followed by a city walk and sushi dinner. The salmon fisherman were still on the bridge, tourist boats still docked at the wharf. The streets bustled with people until after seven when the cruise ships left, shop keepers closed their doors and evening settled like the mountain fog over the town.

We sat around the hotel room discussing our trip and our lives back home. Lights were out before eleven.

Morning broke with my phone grunting out messages on the night stand. Cam, a close friend of the family, had expectedly passed away. I got dressed and went to the mezzanine to make phone calls and have a cup of coffee. Sadness was mixed with relief after a long fight with cancer.

When Edgar and Leigh were ready we went across the street for a few mementos and then had a snack, sweet roll and reindeer hot dog, before catching the ferry to the island airport.

Before we left Ketchikan, one more chat with Sam confirmed our deer could not be found. He’d covered the same paths with the drone and searched for the deer, or the ravens and bears that would surely be taking advantage of the food. He found nothing, and the search had to be abandoned….. for now. Edgar is already talking about a return trip to the island, and to the forest that the big bucks call home. As heartbreaking as it can be, it’s the memories of the ones that get away, that keep drawing us back for more.

The departure from Ketchikan went smoothly and we were soon on a flight to Seattle and the lower forty eight.

From Seattle we left for Houston, and once landed we caught the same Uber driver we’d had on the journey to the airport intially. (What are the chances?) Two in the morning and showers were completed, lights were out, as they both had to get up early and go to work.

I slept in but got productive when I got up, doing laundry and making business calls and of course playing fetch with Max, Leigh’s scruffy puppy.
Leigh arrived about four and we headed toward the Blue Dolphin Marina and Edgar’s floating home. It took us three hours to go fifty miles.

We stowed our gear on the boat and went out for a pizza. Edgar brought lots of left over pizza home so I would have breakfast, lunch and dinner. We took showers and had quiet time with laptops/books.

Edgar left for work before six and I slept until eight thirty. Then I was on the phone with rental work ready to get back to it.
Mid-morning I called a cab and made arrangements for transportation to the Houston airport. I headed back home looking forward to meeting a friend for dinner.

~Kate Riley

Prince of Whales – Part 8

Travel

This is part eight of our trip to Prince of Whales island. If you missed part seven, you can get caught up here.

Edgar and Leigh borrowed the other guests’ truck, dropping them off at the halibut fishing boat and went hunting. I stayed at the lodge, using heat and ice to relieve the pain in my neck and shoulders.

The other hunters had given us a nice deer roast, and I put it in the crock pot with potatoes and onions and a dash of garlic. I also made some coleslaw with the leftover cabbage.

Rain started early and continued all day. My body couldn’t decide whether to be hot or cold – probably just the trauma/drama from the day before. The day crawled along slowly with my neck and shoulders screaming pretty loud. I took more Aleve and iced and hot-packed my neck throughout the day. The rotation of ice and heat worked wonders.

In the afternoon I had a text bounce in saying they had shot a monster buck and were hunting for him. With spotty phone service for all of us there was little to no communication, so it was lucky I even got that notification. Edgar and Leigh were scheduled to pick up the father and son duo from the docks around 4:30p, but the father understood there were a lot of unknowns in the day. The deal they made was if Edgar didn’t show, our neighbors were close enough to camp to walk back. When the father and son appeared on foot, I knew my hunters were looking for a shot deer. It’s one of the worst things that can happen to a hunter, to know you shot an animal and can’t find it. I walked down to the pier three times where I had a better chance for phone service, but had no messages.

During my waiting time, Brent, the lodge owner, came over and said he needed money to pay for truck repairs. I told him he would have to speak to Edgar. I was shocked that he would think we should be liable for the truck when he knew the transmission was bad considering the sticker on the dash. The truck wasn’t even damaged except for a small dent in the camper shell. He still hadn’t asked if I was OK.

My hunters arrived about 8:30p, exhausted and with no deer. They’d found a piece of bone and a few drops of blood, created a grid of the area and worked it systematically for hours, but could not find the buck.

All withstanding we had a nice deer roast supper. I told Edgar what Brent had said about the truck. I also told him that Brent had told me he was desperate for money as he couldn’t even pay his bills for the month.
Edgar didn’t go over and talk to him that night. Loosing a deer and walking the mountains for fifteen hours the day after a traumatic incident was not a good time to deal with this escalating situation. I went over and talked to Brent. He said he needed $3500 for retrieving the truck and repairing the damages. I went back and told Edgar and he said it was entirely out of line. We left it alone for the night. We had a ferry to catch in the morning.

~Kate Riley

Prince of Whales – Part 7

Travel

This is part seven of our trip to Prince of Whales, Alaska. If you missed part six you can catch up here.

In the early morning and Edgar and Leigh were back on the hunt – “first light” as Hemingway would say. No sun to warm them at day break, not raining just heavy cloud cover.

I made egg salad and potato soup for lunch.

They came back early, 11:15. They’d spent a chilly morning scouting, before finding a makeshift coffee stand. The owner was catching rain water from the top of his camper to feed into a cooler, and then used that for his brew. The flavor wasn’t great, but they were glad for the warmth.

They’d also talked to a local hunter out in the timber who told them where the seasoned bucks were congregating. “I wouldn’t tell you this if you were locals,” he’d said. “But since you’re visiting, I’ll let you know where I’ve found the largest bucks.” They had devised a plan. We had a quick lunch and headed out.

The turnoff road was not far from the lodge. We then drove about three miles on the gravel and turned into a narrow trek for about another three miles. We came to an impassable creek. Edgar parked by the creek on a slight incline and he and Leigh got out of the truck to check the availability and distance to turn around. The plan was to turn the truck around, park it there, and walk farther up into the forest.

As they were looking over the situation I noticed the truck had began to very slowly roll backward. They must have noticed it at about the same time as I did. They were both standing right in front of the truck and I saw the shock on their faces as Edgar started trying to catch the truck as it picked up speed going downhill. Of course it was impossible; there was nothing they could do but watch and pray. The truck was rolling backward downhill faster and faster. I leaned up over the front seat to throw the gear shift into park in case it wasn’t. But the shift was already in park and wouldn’t budge. There was hardly enough time to become terrified, but I was praying that the bottom wasn’t too far away, the ride wouldn’t become too rough, or it would all end quickly. It’s amazing how much thinking a person does in such a short time. Then BANG! It all stopped. My prayers had been answered and one of God’s angels in the form of a tree stump had stopped the trucks’ descent. I was shaken and banged around. My head had hit the back window pretty hard, but I was okay.

Edgar climbed down and helped me out of the truck and back up to the road. The only choice we had was to get our gear out of the truck and walk out. We had no cell phone service where we were.

About halfway out Leigh got phone service and called Brent, letting him know what had happened. We kept walking. My achy spots were surfacing and I couldn’t quite stop thinking about the “what ifs”. Strange thoughts and not good. I was alive and fine. It was a crazy feeling.

After we had walked about four and a half miles Brent showed up. We all got in his camo four by four and headed back to the truck. I felt very uncomfortable getting into his vehicle and driving back in there, and to make matters worse he drove about three times as fast as Edgar had when we drove in. I wished I had just sat along side of the road in the rain and waited for them to come back.

Brent was angry with Edgar for driving back in there—which I’m pretty sure he would have done himself if he were hunting. Edgar was upset with Brent for sending people out in a truck with a slipping transmission. (There was a note on the dash which warned that sometimes the truck would not start in park and had to be in neutral.) I guess in hindsight we should have realized this and set the emergency break or refused to drive an unsafe vehicle.

No matter what, who, or how the truck was off the road needing a plan to get back up on it. The truck wasn’t badly damaged; it just needed to be winched back up to flat ground so it could be driven out. Brent had brought a chain saw winch with him which they used to try to pull the truck up, but to no avail. The truck needed to be lifted up and and then pulled forward, and the winch was pulling it down instead.


We all went back to the lodge and Brent found someone to go out and try to get the truck the next day. He formed a plan for morning but said he didn’t want Edgar to go along and help.

We had a pretty early night. I utilized Aleve and lineament, but still tossed and turned all night with discomfort.

On day eight, I get an exciting text from the field, and then radio silence.

~Kate Riley







Prince of Whales – Part 6

Travel

This is part six of our journey to Prince of Whales island. If you missed out on part five, you can catch up in quick fashion here. It also happens to be our 100th post on TSY. We want to pause to say thank you to all of our readers, and hope you’ve enjoyed our many adventures! We’re always interested in hearing about your travels also, so feel free to share in the comments anytime.

Edgar and Leigh left the lodge early in a light rain and cool temperatures. I stayed back, not in a hurry to get out of bed but still up by six thirty. In Alaska time, that counts as sleeping in. I cooked the rest of the salmon that was in the fridge so I could make a quick salmon patty supper, roasted the two remaining apples and made Bisquick biscuits, as the bread was nearly gone.


The son of the father/son hunting team next door gave me four little strips of his deer already cooked. I said I should wait until we shot our own, but he insisted. In addition to my thanks, I gave him the remaining vegetable soup and two huckleberry pancakes. He invited me to go halibut fishing the next day. I wasn’t sure how much movement we’d get at sea, and if I’d get sea sick, but it sounded fun. I wanted to ask Brent, the lodge owner, how far the boat they were taking would go out. I was really entertaining the idea.


Edgar and Leigh came back for lunch around 1pm. I served them bacon and eggs and fresh biscuits. Nice for a change.


After the warm meal we went back to the hunt. They were walking a lot of rough miles, and seeing a lot of does, but no shootable bucks. The terrain varies drastically from soggy, muskeg bottoms, to deep rain forest, clear cuts, and tall pine forests. It is hard hunting; there are thousands of acres and bucks that stay hidden, especially this time of year. After giving it our best effort all day, we pulled into the lodge at dark again, exhausted and empty-handed.


Dinner was mac and cheese with broccoli and leftover bacon bits with salmon patties, and baked apples for desert. We were all in bed shortly after ten.

On day seven we got an insider’s tip on where the big bucks were hiding, but getting there proved quite the adventure.

~Kate Riley

Prince of Whales – Part 5

Travel

This is part five of our trip to Prince of Whales. If you missed part four you can catch up quickly here.
The kids left early again for hunting. I stayed back and played camp cook. I prepared a beef vegetable soup as the day was rainy and cool. I wanted to warm them from the inside out when they returned for lunch. I also whipped up fix-ins for huckleberry pancakes with some of the berries that I had picked while out in the mountains. Of course there was a little leftover salmon salad – good on crackers with the soup. (What’s a meal without salmon?)


After lunch we cleared the table and left the dirty dishes for later so we could get going out scouting/hunting. We drove up one logging road and Edgar and Leigh left walking to circle up and around and I drove the truck a couple of miles down to wait for them. I was apprehensive about driving on those narrow, steep, gravel logging roads, but it was all just fine. Not even really exhilarating like I thought it would be.


It had been steadily raining all day and it never let up, like a quintessential Prince of Whales forecast. The creeks and rivers were gurgling to a loud roar, very different than the little meandering streams of the day before. Water was running across the roads in several spots. Edgar and Leigh walked right up and around and down to the truck but saw no deer. Lots of sign, deer and bear, but no sightings.


We continued to drive with Edgar at the wheel, checking out other logging roads. There are hundreds of logging roads, some quite old, some blocked off, and some new, with silent logging machinery waiting for a dry day. Numerous clear cuts barely concealed a few does, fawns and spike bucks. In one lovely green grass clearing Edgar spotted a deer, and after glassing decided it truly was a buck.

(A buck like this one, but not this one)


He tip toed then belly crawled to get within a comfortable shooting distance and discovered it was a small forked buck. Just a few days into our trip, it wasn’t big enough to take home. Edgar came back and got me and took me up where the little buck was. No sneaking required. He just stood and looked at us, munching grass. He must have had a feeling there was no danger.


We were loosing our shooting light so we headed on home. Back at the lodge we ate left over vegetable soup, huckleberry pancakes, salmon nuggets and cabbage salad. I tried to come up with interesting meals, using what I had in the cupboards. Fun but challenging. Poor little Leigh had blisters on both heals. She didn’t complain but it was obvious she was uncomfortable.
We all showered and crawled into bed after ten, hoping to rise before the deer in the morning. Day six would bring a drizzling rain, and a welcome visit from a next-door neighbor.

-Kate Riley

Prince of Whales – Part 4

Informational, Travel

This is part four of our visit to Prince of Whales. If you missed part three you can catch up quickly here.

Edgar and Leigh left early to go hunting; I stayed home and baked cookies, literally. I found the ingredients for made-from-scratch oatmeal raisin cookies in the kitchen cupboards at the lodge. So I baked up a batch. They are my favorite cookie and I very seldom get the time to bake them at home so I enjoyed the opportunity. I shared some with the father and son hunters in the cabin next door and carried some over to the lodge owner and his son.

Edgar and Leigh came back to the lodge for lunch and we had salmon salad out of left over poached salmon from the night before. Fresh and delicious.

Then we all climbed back in the truck to scout and do a little fishing. We saw several does but no bucks. We stopped at the same river bridge on the way back and caught eight pink salmon. Really, Edgar caught the fish. I was acting like a novice. I couldn’t cast the strange rod and I kept getting snagged every other cast and loosing lures. Oh, he let me reel one in, which felt good, but I’m not nearly the salmon fisherman that I am a bass fisherman back home. Guess I will just have to live with that humiliation.

Back at the lodge we cleaned and vacuum-packed our salmon, and put them in the freezer to await transport home.


Dinner was, you guessed it, salmon tacos. I turned some of the salmon into fried “catfish” nuggets just like I do back home. They were very good on the warm soft shells with raw cabbage and salsa.

Once the table was cleared and the dishes loaded in the dishwasher, all six feet, six legs, and six knees were ready for a hot shower and prone position. The walking and climbing around on unstable, steep, rocky terrain tires the lower extremities. We fell into our beds where sleep came easy and sound.

On day five, we enjoy pancakes fit for the bears and get close enough to a buck to give it a scratch behind the ears.

Kate Riley

Prince of Whales – Part 3

Travel

This is part three of our adventure to Prince of Whales, Alaska. If you missed part two you can catch up quickly here.

By 8am, a new installment of cruise ships arrived for a nippy, rainy, foggy morning in Ketchikan. The hotel provided another Sourdough cab ride to our float plane, which was to take us to our destination: Thorne Bay, a tiny town on Prince of Whales Island. A few other customers came into the office to ship packages, and we moved our luggage down to the four-wheeler with a wagon on the back, so it could be rolled down to the plane. One of the pilots came in muttering under his breath, and asking for a magnet. It seems the keys to his favorite plane had dropped into the water.

The flight was a thirty-minute panorama of fantastic postcard views. Breath-taking water ways, mountains, and small islands dotted the landscape.

The Thorne Bay Lodge owner picked us up in a 350 Ford, gas-powered crew cab with a camper cover on the full-size bed. The Ford could have easily been our abode for the week. But instead of camping in a pick-up truck he drove to our newly-constructed, modern, “rustic” home for the week. The cabin was located less than a mile from the one grocery store, gas station and bait shop that make up Thorne Bay.

We stowed our gear, had a hard salami and crackers snack and piled in the truck for a deer scouting afternoon. We drove to higher elevations, around three thousand feet, to get above the muskegs and alpine forrest terrain. We spied nearly a dozen large does and two-year-old fawns, but only one buck with a fork. He was more of a “last day” shooter. Coming back down the mountain we stopped at a river running into the sea, which was plentiful with salmon making their final run. Focused on fun and dinner, we brought five eight-pound fighters home. We cleaned our fish and headed out in a different direction to scout a little more.

Our second expedition didn’t turn up much, just a few more does, so we stopped at the grocery store for supplies for the week. After we organized and stowed our stuff, we enjoyed fresh poached Alaska salmon for dinner, and then turned in, ready to start the hunting and fishing in earnest in the morning.

In part four, I put my baking skills to use, and we find out why the bait shops in Ketchikan sold so many lures.

-Kate Riley

Prince of Whales – Part Two

Travel

This is part two of our hunting trip to Prince of Whales, Alaska. If you missed part one you can get caught up quickly here.

The 6:15am flight to Seattle was uneventful except for a delayed start. I napped, entirely missing out on wheels up.
Our late departure made for a late landing in Seattle, and we watched in trepidation as our plane coasted right by our gate and kept on going. We had to sprint it through the airport, peppering our fellow travelers with “excuse mes” to create a path. We made it to the gate with four minutes to spare, partly in thanks to a pilot who saw us running and pointed us in the right direction. En route to Ketchikan, I visited with a couple local ladies and learned a little more about the town.

Ketchikan’s airport is on an island. The mainland is accessible by a seven-minute ferry ride. We carted our suitcases down a ramp and fell in line with the rest of the passengers. It was easy to spot the fisherman headed in the other direction, loaded up with boxes of frozen fish. We dumped our luggage cart and handed it off to a large group, struggling under the weight of their success.

We watched the locals from the ferry and took in the scene. Flannel shirts and rubber muck boots were the common attire on everyone. There were no suits or fancy Dans and the vibe of the city was rustic.

Our reservations were at the Gilmore Hotel, and they had a deal with Sourdough Cab to give us a ride from the ferry dock. Our driver was playing both cabbie and dispatcher, and was quite the character. When we stepped back for a picture of the hotel, he was happy to be featured.


Because we’d left Houston early and changed time zones, we had arrived before noon. We spent the rest of the day exploring Ketchikan, the quaint little sea shore town with a giant influx of tourists. Locals told us some days there were five or six cruise boats at the dock. The giant ships dwarfed the rest of the town, and the tourists flooded the streets, buying fish dinners, Alaska t-shirts, and the occasional totem pole.

Kids were toting fishing poles down to the bridge and we followed them to enjoy their efforts. The water was teeming with salmon, and it was cool to look down from the bridge and encourage the fisherman. “They’re right there!” “Oh, they’re over there now! Big ones!”

All the shops and activities are poised to take advantage of the bee hive of cruise business, with customers only available until the sound of the horn. Shops line the streets selling everything under the Alaskan sun. Orca corn, anyone?

I don’t know what it is, but I’m not putting it on my lips.

By seven pm the ships closed their doors, and the shops did too. Ketchikan returned to a quiet fishing village. We chose a spot for dinner and enjoyed chatting with the waitress about her plans after high school. (Frankly, not specific enough to our liking, and we encouraged more exploration and fine tuning.)

Next up: We take a float plane to Thorne Bay, check out our cabin, dump our gear and discover that the deer are everywhere…. but there’s just one problem…

-Kate Riley

Prince of Whales – Part One

Travel

It began the way it always does, with a phone call. “Kate, do you want to go hunting in Alaska?” He sometimes calls me mom, but in recent years mostly “Kate”. It’s not with disrespect— we have become friends.

“Count me in,” came my immediate reply. I even extended my trip by putting two extra days on both ends. Edgar lives on a trawler just outside of the Houston ship channel. I enjoy a little time on that boat. Thursday I flew to Houston and Edgar picked me up at the airport. We drove straight to the Bow Out, the 1973 40-foot DeFever PassageMaker. I dropped off my luggage and he took me out to dinner for some “catching up” and contemplation of the adventure ahead. We were off to hunt sitka deer, the small black-tailed deer native to southeastern Alaska. The conversation drifted from logistics of getting to Prince of Whales Island, our hunting destination, to our hopes for the hunt itself. The “what ifs” and “whens” exhausted, we headed back to the Bow Out for a great night’s sleep. I rest very well on that old boat.

The next morning Edgar got up early and headed off to work. He makes that forty-eight mile rush hour drive every morning to downtown Houston. I didn’t get up until almost eight. I enjoyed a leisurely coffee on the fly bridge in the hot Houston morning. Then I spent some time getting a little “house” cleaning out of the way. The captain will come back to a clean ship.
The one hundred-plus degree afternoon was a good time for me to take care of some business calls inside the comfortable air-conditioned galley…. no matter how much I enjoy the view from the upper deck. Edgar arrived after work and we packed up and went to Leigh’s, through Houston’s Friday night traffic. They took me out for a Vietnamese dinner, then back to the house for packing hunting and fishing gear. Showers and bed did not come nearly as early as that 3AM alarm.

Next up: On the first full day of our adventure, we found ourselves in an all-out airport sprint, and got our first glimpse of the quirky town of Ketchikan… a place where salmon runs and cruise ships oddly intersect.

-Kate Riley

Traveling North

Travel


They call it “north of normal” for a reason and you realize why just before entering the Yukon. A grand geographical area it is!

Mountains and hot springs are everywhere and a plethora of tectonic activity lies just beneath the surface. This trip up was my first time laying my eyes on the Northern Rockies, although I’d just spent two months relatively near Rocky Mountain National Park itself in Colorado.

The area of the Northern Rockies is a part of the world where the power of nature is the most authoritative being. In this day and age sometimes we need that visual reminder.

-Marie