It's Official, Winters Here!

I got up this morning and it was obvious that it snowed last night. Not a whole lot, but enough to leave about 1 1/2" on my truck. I made plans with my nephew to go out to his house in Wasilla (about 40 miles away) to install a gate across his stairway in his house. He needed to keep the little ones from taking another tumble down the stairs. It didn't look to bad here in town so I didn't think much about going out there. I loaded up the gate and my tools and took off for the valley. Following is pics that I took as I went to Wasilla.

This is what it looked like when I first left town

This is what it looked like by the time I hit Eagle River (about 10 miles from my house)

10 miles before I hit Wasilla

This is the gate that I built and installed

So needless to say, I think we can say goodbye to summer and hello to winter. Now to get my head all wrapped around the idea of 6 months of snow yet to come.

The Bird House Tavern

Back in 1984 when I first moved to Alaska and met my wife Kathy. She took me south of Anchorage to Bird Creek, just before you get to Girdwood on the Seward Highway. She pulled off the highway into a little dirt parking lot. Then I saw this little log cabin with a blue bird sticking out of the gable end. I remember thinking to myself "just what in the h*** is this?". It's a real small, cramped old log cabin. During the big earthquake of 1964, the log cabin half sank. Putting it on about a 10 degree angle. You go inside and see that the bar was on a slant too. You had to hang on to your beer or the fellow down from you would be drinking for free all night!
But the first thing you notice when you walk in is all the stuff hanging everywhere. Bra's, underware (hers & his.. *shudder*), business cards, driver licenses, military ID's and there was even someones fake leg hanging on a post. After you have a beer or two, the bartender will come up to you with a jar of pickles. He'll calmly ask you if you'd like a pickle. He'll then take the lid off and all of a sudden you get a whif of the most obnoxious smell. Then he'll inform you that if you can eat one whole pickle that you can drink the rest of the night for free. I have to tell you, when I was younger I thought I was pretty daring and would do a lot of things on a dare. But, there was no way one of those pickles was even going to touch my lips. Don't get me wrong, the thought of drinking the rest of the night for free was a real temptation. I figured though that after eating one of those pickles, there was no way my stomach would be in any mood to have alcohol added to the mix.Notice the comfortable stumps for stools? Needless to say, people didn't sit there for more than a couple of beers.

As you can see the Bird House was a fire hazard and the odds finally caught up with the owners and the it burned down about 1996 or so. Since then a bar in Anchorage called Chilkoot Charlie's built an addition to their bar and made a replica of the Bird House for tourists to visit. It's not the same thing but gives you an idea of what it looked like.

All the above pictures are pics that I found online. I had pics of this from before but can't find them.

Bear Update

The sow brown bear that has been attacking people in Bicentennial Park was put down today. Wildlife and game officials were able to shoot the sow but the 2 cubs got away. They will continue to search for them and when they find them the plan is to catch them and ship them to a zoo in the lower 48 in the midwest. The sow was shot over the carcass of a trophy bull moose in Anchorage's Stuckagain Heights neighborhood Tuesday morning around 9:30

Upon going through film from cameras that they had set up on various trails in the area. They found pictures of a couple other bears that are also in the area. There has been no mention as of yet as to what they plan on doing with those bears. Probably nothing unless they endanger humans.

Mountains Surrounding Anchorage

Yesterday Kathy and I were going to head south to Mt Alyeska. They have a tram there that you can ride up to the top of the mountain. But the weather was not the best and pretty cloudy. We wouldn't be able to get real good pictures so we decided to do it another day. I'll post pics of it when we do go.

Mt. Alyeska Tram

Instead, we drove north to Big Lake to visit Kathy's brother. They weren't home either. So far we were hitting "0". From there we drove back through Wasilla to Palmer where our one of our son's live. I got the following pics while we were driving through Wasilla. Plenty of clouds but it gives you an idea just how big the mountains are here surrounding Anchorage and surrounding areas. Notice the snow? It never melts totally. When it gets to the point that you think it might all just melt away. It starts snowing again.

Heading out of Anchorage, looking up the valley

The following 3 pictures were taken around Wasilla

Map of Bear Locations

Here is a map of 11 bears that have radio collars on them that live within the city limits of Anchorage. You can see a couple are where we live. That's just the ones that have collars. There is still an estimated 30 to 40 more brown and black bears in the city limits.

Click for larger Image

More Bear Attacks

Somewhere the bears around here got the idea that it's open season on humans. There has been 5 or 6 bear maulings just since I've moved up here.

August 5th, a teenager in Eagle River was walking home along a creek when he heard splashing sounds in the creek along side the road. He didn't think much of the splashing, figuring it must of just been salmon. A second later he heard the brush snapping and cracking next to him. When he looked he saw a full grown brown bear coming out of the brush in a full out run towards him.

Devon showing his bandaged body and shredded pants

The teenager ( Devon Reese) said he knew the attack was on and even though they say the best thing you can do in this situation is to drop, cover your head and play dead. The bear may nibble on you a little but hopefully it'll figure you for dead and no threat and leave you alone. Devon said to heck with that. If the bear wanted him, he was going to have to earn it. With that Devon fought back. Swinging with fists, elbows and feet. As fast and furious as he could. The bear got in the better of the licks to say the least. Gouging Devons legs, thighs, scratching his face and biting his arms. Then for no reason the bear turned around and walked back into the woods. Devon made it to safety and called for help on his cell phone.

August 8th another jogger was attacked in Bicentennial park. Clivia Feliz, 51 was jogging and was attacked by a brown bear. She recieved bite marks to her head, arms and torso. She was injured pretty bad. She was jogging in the same area where the jogger I wrote about in earlier blog was attacked. This same sow bear with 2 cubs is said to be the one that attacked another young girl just before I moved up here and injured her real bad. She is still recovering in the hospital. A bike rider was said to have been attacked by this same bear. He was able to outrun it though.

Game & Wildlife Biologist heading down the trail in search of sow bear responsible for several attacks

The police have been out along with game and wildlife biologists trying to find the bear to put it down.

There was another attack on Admirty Island to a woman tourist. She is in fair condition. The bear was scared off by a man with a gun. She recieved a couple bite marks.

Yet another woman was attacked about 2 weeks ago at a resort. She works there in the summer and was going outside for some fresh air and was attacked just feet from the door of the lodge. She recieved bad bites to the head and torso. A tourist that was staying at the lodge scared the bear off and got help for the lady.

My wife Kathy went rasberry picking last weekend (August 2) in the Spenard area of Anchorage. That is where we lived when I first met and married Kathy in 1984. She was picking the rasberries behind a friends house in the alley along the back fence. While she was picking she came across a fresh pile of..... well, lets just say the bear left a present. The grass was matted down around the rasberry bushes where it was eating the berries. Needless to say she decided she didn't really want to make rasberry jam that day. She got in the car and came home with a cup of berries.

Hopefully we won't have any more attacks. But people obviously aren't listening and still use the trails, put dog food out on their decks and other things that bring the bears in.

Bears in Anchorage

After my first post I got to thinking about all the bears here in town. I needed to get some pics to post for you all to see that I wasn't just kidding.

I just couldn't see me on crutches running around town with a camera trying to get shots of bears. So I went to our newspapers website (Anchorage Daily News) and found these pictures that were contributed by readers.

Click on images for larger picture
This one amazes me. A large bear like this balancing on the top of a fence. You can tell this one has had to outrun the law before! I wonder if the homeowner insurance will repair the fence?

Makes you a little leary about just going out to have a BBQ on the deck doesn't it? The dog food on the deck lured this bear in with her cubs.






This one was taken within a mile of where I live. The easy pickings in the garbage persuades the bears to come in to town for the free meal.






This big brown bear was spotted in Eagle River just out of Anchorage.

I am buying a new digital camera as my old one was broken in the move to Alaska. So will be posting new pics of the town, scenery, etc soon as I can so keep coming back for updates.

Made it Home!

Well, after months of planning, getting things done and waiting. I finally made it back home to Alaska & Kathy. I can't tell you how happy I am to be back up here. It was a heck of a trip to say the least. I wasn't able to drive myself due to my broken leg that I got in a bad motorcycle accident. So my sister Spud flew out from L.A. to NC. That in itself was a miracle as she is scared to death of flying and usually drives where ever she goes. How's that for sisterly love? It took us 5 days to drive the 2600 miles. We drove pretty much straight through. Well, except for one stop in Sturgis. Even though it was a month before the yearly celebration, we just had to stop so we could say that we've been there. One of those once in a life time thing you just have to do. Stopped in Seattle for a week and visited my mom and put my truck on a barge. Then I flew up to Anchorage to finish my trip.

After getting up here I find out that the animal population in the city limits was just as bad as it was in 1984 when I moved up here the first time. They say there is about 50 brown bears, 35 black bears and over 100 moose living in the city limits. Just last week a jogger was attacked by a sow who had 2 cubs with her. The jogger could feel the bear snapping at his rear as he was trying to outrun the bear. He made it without getting mauled but only because the bear quit chasing him. Lucky to say the least.

The salmon are running here and lots of good fishing. There is a small river that runs in off the ocean right through town called Ship Creek that the salmon use in their yearly quest for reproduction. I haven't been fishing yet but hopefully I'll get to before the season ends.

The biggest news of all though is that Kathy and I got remarried! It was just a small wedding at home. Her Brother married us as the rest of her family watched. Unfortunately no body from my side of the family was physically here but I know they were here spiritually.