Cooling Down

I walked up last night to the UAF Schiable Hall lecture by Dave Payer about hiking/canoeing the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The 4 rivers highlighted in the show, Marsh to Canning, Kongakut, Sheenjek and Hulahula, looked really exciting and accessible, assuming you can pay for being dropped off by small plane. It seems like the most economical way to get there is to drive to Coldfoot and fly in a C-206 out to the takeouts/dropoffs. The scenery in his slide show was breathtaking, highlighting again the difference between hiking the AT and hiking in Alaska. Even though ANWR is the 2nd largest wilderness area in the US (2nd only to the Wrangell-St. Elias), only about 1500 people visit annually, including all uses. ANWR is also the only wilderness area that has all 3 bears- polar, black and grizzly. In almost every slide, the canoeists were wearing parkas and warm gear, even though they were June/July pictures- that's telling. I think I would start by going in a group of 4 or more (being bear conscious) or on the lower Sheenjek to the Porcupine Rivers where it is gentle and rolling.

Yaayuk stayed with me last night. Her youngest child, Mattie, graduated from RAHI, Rural Alaska Honors Institute, a college experience for rural Alaskans. Yaayuk (Bernadette) and I had a short time to visit before she left today.

I also had coffee with Erin Kavanaugh. Shout out to you, Erin. She's working on her master's degree on blogging with students, a great topic. I hope I see more of her before she heads back to Bethel for the new school year. I'm encouraging her to present her findings at the literacy conference in October. The conference will be great- Dinah Zike, the foldables guru will be a featured speaker so what's not to like about that!

The rain and wind cooled things down here. I'll be hopping on my bike and heading out for exercise and errands before stopping in to say hi at the ARSC (Arctic Region Supercomputing Center) annual picnic, then out to North Pole to drop off garage sale stuff.

I'm also hoping to reread a few scenes of Othello before I go to opening night tonight. It's one of my favorite Shakespeare tragedies because of its beautiful language. I do wish that the virtue of the daughters were not so commonly discussed persooth. Tis marry, no merry, that the knaves doth hold entwined in the dialogue in this perfidy.