Random Photos

Our view looking down the Valley

Rec room in Bunkhouse No. 1

Visitor center with Pinnacle Peak in the background.

In the school room

Farewell Alaska

After two and a half months, my time in Alaska is coming to a close.  I've had a great time living on a mountain, giving tours of an old mining town, hiking, seeing drastic weather changes, and being isolated from most national current events.  I've also had the pleasure to meet some great people, like Matt, Deb, Tan, and Desi.

I am a little disappointed that I never saw any of the local celebrities.  No Sarah Palin sightings.  I have been living close to her hometown of Wasilla.  While in my head, I would have told her how awful she is, I'm sure if actually saw her, I would have been a complete whore and asked for an autograph.  No Bristol or Levi Johnston either.  There aren't many people living in the Mat-Su Valley, have they moved away?  I think Bristol has, while Sarah has been on her part vacation/part publicity stunt bus tour.  Levi might be in a ditch somewhere.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/15/sarah-palins-illinois-vis_n_926988.html

For the BEST Ice Cream: the Matanuska Creamery

A Palmer institution since 1936!

http://www.matanuskacreamery.com/

My Night with a Wolf

Yesterday I had a day off.  When I returned to the Independence Mine State Park at about 3pm, the two employees (Deb and Melissa) told me that a wolf had been sighted near the park and that it had stalked some hikers on the Gold Cord Lake Trail.  (We are above the tree line, so there are some pretty good views.  This particular trail is about ¾ mile long, located right next to the mine’s lower parking lot.)  Well, I didn’t think too much about this, other than “darn I missed it.”  Apparently Melissa, who as an Iditarod runner knows the difference between dogs and wolves, called the incident in to the appropriate authorities.

Around 7:30 pm, after taking a hike, I was fixing dinner when I noticed the wolf.  The black animal (I was still not convinced it was a wolf) was walking along the road, well below the visitor center.  So, I called Matt (the park specialist) to let him know that the animal had returned.  He told me to monitor the situation, that the state troopers had been called, and there’s nothing I can do about it.  Before we ended our conversation, he asked me if there was anyone walking around the park.  I noticed a group of four people walking on the tundra near the Gold Cord Lake Trail.  I said, in extremely bad taste, “maybe the wolf will attack them for walking on the tundra, ha ha ha.”  And that was the end of our conversation.  (On a side note, the tundra is extremely fragile, and the state paid tens of thousands of dollars building that trail.  We get very upset when people walk on the tundra instead of the trail.)  So, as soon as I hung up with Matt, the wolf made a bee-line towards the people walking on the tundra.  I immediately felt very guilty.  Well, I was pretty far away and watched this all from the kitchen window inside the visitor center.  The wolf came very close to the people, though did not appear too aggressive.  Two of the people began to quickly walk to their car in the lower parking lot.  The other two, perhaps the parents, remained behind with the wolf.  After a few moments, one of the couple also began to walk to the car, whereas the remaining man took something out of his pocket and fed the wolf.  The man and the wolf then slowly made their way off the tundra.  By the time they made it to the road, the other three in the party had started the car, and picked up the man.

I was still not too concerned about this series of events and returned to my dinner.  A few minutes later, I noticed the animal had moved to the upper parking lot.  This is the handicapped parking lot located next to the visitor center.  In this upper parking lot, the animal encountered a family of five (including two very small children).  I felt a little panicky, quickly put on my shoes, and ran downstairs.  I exited the visitor center through the main entrance.  This area has a ramp, which leads to the upper parking lot.  Once outside, on the ramp, I began loudly asking, “Is that a wolf?!  That’s a wolf right?!”  I did not want to scare the family, but they were calmly taking photos of the animal as it walked near them.  They did not seem worried.  The adults answered, “Sure it’s a wolf, but he’s someone’s pet.  It has a collar, he might be a hybrid.”  As they talked they walked towards me, and the wolf followed.  The man said, “as long as you don’t show fear, wolves aren’t aggressive.”  The family then turned down the path that led to the lower parking lot and their car.  The wolf, meanwhile, remained at the foot of the ramp staring at me.  By now I was convinced he was a wolf; he was much larger up close, all black, and had yellow eyes.  And yes, he did have a collar.  Was he someone’s pet? 

Well this was somewhat scary (perhaps all the descriptions of wolves tearing out people’s throats in the Game of Thrones series has caused me some prejudice against wolves).  So the wolf is looking at me, we are making eye contact, and all I can think is “don’t show fear.”  I backed away up the ramp and when I was close to the door, I turned and quickly walked to safety.  From inside, I looked through the windows to see that the wolf was still watching me.  This would have been the perfect time to take a photo, but I accidently broke my camera last Thursday.  After a little while, the wolf turned away and went to the lower parking lot, to the car of the family who had just walked away.  The wolf circled the car, but the family drove away without incident.

At this point I tried to call Matt back.  My cell phone coverage is very bad up here, so I could not make a call.  I then turned to the phones in the visitor center, but none (of the three) can make outgoing calls.  Good thing to learn after ten weeks at the state park.  I was able to send Matt a text, “It is a wolf, very big, next to the visitor center.”  There was no reply.  Next, I texted Deb, who told me to contact Melissa.  Melissa then has me call the state troopers.  While this is going on, I have lost the wolf.  He ran off, where did he go?  Two visitors then proceed to walk up to the visitor center and I run outside to tell them there’s a wolf in the area.  Their response was “So?”

Later on, around 9 pm, with the help of binoculars, I saw the wolf on the tundra (near the Gold Cord Lake Trail).  Besides him walked a man.  The wolf was still not aggressive, and this man occasionally put out his hand to the wolf.  The man and the wolf walked—at a normal pace—to a pickup truck on the lower parking lot, the last vehicle in the lot.  The man stood next to his truck, while the wolf walked around.  The wolf sniffed the trash cans and the picnic tables that line the parking lot, and would then return to the man.  This went on for 15 to 20 minutes.  As I watched, I thought to myself, “This is better than tv.”  When the man got in his truck and drove off, the wolf followed him.  The man drove slowly, so (as far as I could tell) the wolf would be able to keep up.  While descending the road, the truck occasionally stopped and the wolf caught up.  By this point, I began to hope that the wolf would just go away.  See, if he’s still around when the state troopers arrive, he’ll be shot.  I also don’t want him to eat any children or visitors to the park.  Well, as the pickup truck drove off, it passed through an obstructed bend in the road.  When the vehicle came back into view, it was driving at a normal speed with no wolf behind it.

I’m not sure where the wolf went.  I did not see him later that night (I also did not go outside to turn off the generator), nor did I see him this morning.

Independence Mine Ghost Stories

In July, I posted an entry about the haunted Independence Mine.  Allegedly the ghost is a former miner and caretaker, Phil Coleman.  During the 1950s, as an elderly man, Phil Coleman had been painstakingly preserving the mill, performing maintenance and shoveling snow off from the structure’s roofs.  The caretaker’s work was cut short when the Alaska Pacific Consolidated Mining Company auctioned off the equipment housed in the mill complex (the ball mill, generators, etc.).  Without notifying Coleman, the mill structure was ripped apart in order to retrieve the machinery.  Soon later, he died of a heart attack (in what is now the visitor center). 

I have more to add…former ranger Pat Murphy was in the living room of the visitor center one autumn night, and while looking out the window, he saw the reflection of a man walking in the room.  When Pat turned around, no one was there. 

Within the visitor center, where I have lived for the past ten weeks, I have recently had some abnormal experiences.  One morning around 545 am, I awoke to the sound of knocking on the kitchen door.  I got out of bed, expecting to find one of the other volunteers in the building.  I found no one at the door.  I looked out the upstairs kitchen window, to see if anyone was knocking on the main door to the visitor center.  No one was standing outside.  I then walked to the other side of the building to see if anyone had knocked at the back door.  Again, no one was waiting there.  The question is: did I actually hear any knocking?  I think I did, something woke me up.  Did I imagine it?

Well a few days later, I awoke around 8 am, to the sound of the kitchen door opening and closing.  I have a better recollection of this event, since it took place around 8 am, as I was beginning to wake up.  Plus, the kitchen door (which is upstairs and marks the entrance to my small apartment) has an audible creek when it opens and closes.  I heard the noise, but this time I stayed in bed.

My last odd experience took place in the mess hall, which has been the site of quite a bit of paranormal activity of its own.  Past volunteers have noticed open doors in the building, when they swore they had closed and locked them.  Perhaps this was people who had broken into the building to explore?  A few weeks back, as one volunteer (Desi) gave a tour she believes she saw a man out of the corner of her eye.  When she turned, the man was not there.  The guests noticed her reaction, and no doubt had a memorable tour in which their guide saw a ghost.  Ok, so over a week ago, Matt Weaver and I decided to go into the basement of the mess hall.  So far this summer, we had not ventured there (it’s the location of a shooting range, a room used to store potatoes, etc.)  Well the door to the staircase had been nailed shut, thus we had never entered.  Matt and I took a hammer, to undo the nails.  Downstairs in the basement, we noticed a plastic lantern.  Now the mess hall no longer has electricity, and during our tours we use plastic, battery-powered lanterns to light the way.  Matt bought these lanterns at the beginning of the summer.  It was one of these lanterns that we found in the basement.  The question is: how did it get there?  We did have some break-ins around that time.  Did one of the people who had kicked in the outside doors, remove the nails to the door by the basement staircase?  Did that person take a lantern downstairs and leave it there, to then nail the door shut when he/she left?  Who knows?  One last part to this story: when Matt and I were in the basement we heard footsteps on the floor above us.  When we went upstairs, we didn’t find anyone there.  Logically, that could have been the footsteps of intruders.

So maybe the mine is haunted?  There have been a number of incidents.  Most have logical explanations.  Maybe we just want to scare ourselves?   

Giant Cabbages

Due to the continuous daylight during summertime, the produce in Alaska can get really big!  Courtesy of Matt Weaver's garden.

CSI Hatcher Pass

During the early morning hours of Sunday, August 7th, some person(s) kicked in the doors of several of the buildings at Independence Mine State Historic Park.  The buildings included the mess hall, the apartment house, the school house/warehouse building, bunk house no. 1, and the assay office.  As far as we can tell, nothing was stolen from the buildings, nor was there much vandalism, aside from the broken doors.  Interestingly, the buildings (bunkhouse no. 2 and the visitor center) that had people sleeping in them were not touched.

Why didn't anyone hear this?  Well, when the visitor center was built in 1939, it was purposely set apart from the rest of the Independence Mine structures.  With the sound of rain hitting the roof of the visitor center, the distance between the buildings, and running water from the waterfall and the creeks, the noise of the trespassers did not carry. 

At any rate, Sunday was not a fun day.

Deadwood

This summer I've been watching the HBO series Deadwood.  Although this represents gold rush Dakota Territory during the 1870s--which is more reminiscent of Alaskan boom towns of the turn of the twentieth century--it still reminds me of the Independence Mine.