MacLaren Berries

Sue and I headed down to visit Casey at MacLaren River Lodge. It was a luxury vacation- no camping gear since we were staying in the lodge. For $60/night for a double room, we were comfy and warm off the Denali Highway. For those of you suffering from Alaska geography fatigue, the Denali is the highway the cuts across the road system, stretching from Cantwell (by Denali National Park) to Paxson, a crossroads lodge and lake the is about halfway between Delta Junction and Glenallen.

The colors were beautiful and we stopped for a lavish picnic lunch at Donnelly Creek Campground. The wind was blowing like crazy which kept us eating pretty steadily. The 4 hour drive took about 6-7 hours since we stopped for photo ops and driver swaps. In Delta Junction, we stopped at the Calico Cow, a really great quilting store. Sue is a fantastic quilter, but even I, a collector of fabric, really loved the choices. Maybe this is the year I actually make something.

At MacLaren Lodge, Casey was working hard, but we had time to do some blueberry picking. The hillsides were still covered with juicy blueberries and low bush cranberries, inspite of a frost the night before. Sue stayed in one place and picked a bush clean while I picked here and there until we compared baskets. Then I took her lead and finally got enough to bring home. Maybe I'll be making blueberry jam tomorrow as well as canning salmon.

Allan and Susie were great hosts, but the most fun was talking to the varied and sundry guests. There were a few locals, a group of Germans who were going canoeing, and a few people passing through for meals. Bert and Scott were also there working and chatting. Bert (from Delta Junction) made diamond willow walking sticks and Sue bought one with an antler handle.

The photos include a glacier along the Richardson Highway, Sue picking blueberries, Casey standing in front of the Lodge and all the cabins along the MacLaren River and our picnic lunch.

One couple that I enjoyed conversing with was a musher/fishing guide from Talkeetna and a civil engineer, currently working in Minnesota but permanently living in Willow. They reminded me of a story I hadn't thought about in many years.

In 1971, I was living in Gary, Indiana with my ex-husband in a two room house. My father in-law pulled up one day all excited about a few young people he'd met at a welding shop in town. They were from Alaska and were stranded trying to get their car fixed. We went to the shop and invited them to stay with us. They stayed for about 3 days- 2 young homesteading men and their wives-to-be who were returning with them from Maine. Apparently, they went back to their home state of Maine to find wives to bring back to the Matanuska Valley. (weren't there any women between Alaska and Maine?) Well, we had a great time talking to them about Alaska. One of the gals was a vegetarian and we couldn't imagine how she would be successful in the subsistence lifestyle of her new home where everyone was a hunter/gatherer. One of the young men was Charlie Champaine, who later became a fairly famous sprint dog musher, with a daughter following in his footprints. (The vegetarian didn't last long as it turned out). I think that was our first step towards moving to Alaska. Our eyes were on the prize from then on- although we didn't make it until 1974.