Fires n' smoke n' other stuff
Trip Start
May 05, 2009
1
22
48
Trip End
Sep 20, 2009
Healy,
Alaska,
United States
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Yesterday was our first day "off" after 7 days of being “on.” The three of us got up early and headed right for Fairbanks. We looked for signs of wildfires on our way, but we could not see anything from the George Parks Highway that takes us from Denali Park to Fairbanks, Alaska. There are places along this highway where you can see miles into the Tanana river valley, and we thought we might be able to see one of the fires – but no. “We're goin’ to town Remy, goin’ to town…”
Depending on which way the wind is blowing, from time to time we have a smoke haze covering everything in Denali Park from some fires that are over 80 miles away. Val has some pictures for comparison of our views with and without smoke
Savage River Valley May 18
. The bulletin board in the EDR (employee’s dining room) reports that there are two substantial fires in our area. The closest one to us is at Bear Creek, about 33 miles east of Lake Minchumina. It’s about 80 miles from us. That fire has burned 15,847 acres. The other fire is at Zitziana which is about 50 miles southeast of Tanana, and it has burned 8,800 acres. Val has taken a picture of a map of Alaska with some black arrows to orient you. The bottom arrow is where we are at. The left arrow is the Bear Creek fire, and the right arrow designates the Zitziana fire. Some days have been so smokey that we can hardly see nearby mountains. These are not the only fires currently raging in Alaska, just the ones closest to us. The policy here is not to fight these fires unless buildings are in danger. They pretty much just let them burn. Dave took a picture of a red sunset caused by the smoke in the air. Although it’s a pretty cool picture, the redness of the sun does not come through the camera lens as well as it did through the eye lens. We are happy to report that we bought everything we needed in Fairbanks, and a bunch of stuff we did not need, but we were able to secure another lens for the Nikon at a reasonable price, and we are back in business picture-wise.
After a long day on the road, and in and out of stores, we are finally back at Savage Camp
Smokey Savage River Valley
. It is a beautiful evening. Val says that she is worried that we are going to use up all of the nice days before the kids get here on vacation. We are enjoying them nonetheless. We have actually had the windows open, and we run a small fan during generator hours. This represents a significant difference from last year when we had 29 continuous days of rain, and darn near froze to death. Val asks, “Want to go for a walk?” I know “walk,” and yes I do want to go after being cooped up in the truck all day. As we turn the corner by site 24, a red squirrel darts in front of me and then up a big black spruce tree. It seems as though these red squirrels get their thrills out of tormenting me. They will dart in front of me, scamper up a tree, and then curse me in “red squirrel.” Beagles are not normally fluent in red squirrel, but I know enough to know when I am being cursed. Someone should teach these bad boys some manners. Personally, I just ignore them. Val says, “Sticks and stones…” You need to see Dave’s burl. We got it on our last junket for wood up towards Anderson. We don’t know what we will do with it, but it is pretty cool. It is believed that the burls form in black spruce due to acidity in the ground. It may be from naturally occurring arsenic in the soil. This causes cell blockage, then new cells grow around the ones that are blocked
Smokey sunset
. The new cells become blocked, new cells grow around them and on and on. Dave has the bark off, next he will sand it and then put on a coat of varnish or shellac. He’ll finish it when we get home. Maybe it will be a mailbox post, or maybe a lamp, or maybe…Personally, it’s all I can do to avoid lifting my leg on the ugly thing.
Frustrated in paradise,
Remington Beagle
P.S.
Fire updates are pending.
