AK-Day 4 Igiugig on Illiamna Lake
Eat your heart out anglers!! I’m sitting in a village that is the site of the largest run of Sockeye Salmon in the world, and if that doesn’t interest you, how about the best Brook Trout fishing in the US! Look it up! I’m at the mouth of the Kvichak River at Illiamna Lake. Jason Bickling, the lead teacher at Igiugig School tells me that Illiamna Lake is the largest lake in the U.S. that is not bordered by Canada. By volume it is second to Lake Superior. “Imagine a sea of red flowing across the lake, that’s what you would see from the air if you were here for the salmon run in July” says Mr .Bickling. Over 40 million pounds of salmon are caught and processed during the run.
But let’s back up a little here… I need to tell you a little about flying in a large turbo prop plane, and then turning around and riding in a single engine Cessna style craft with all of my photo equipment, belongings, and food…
As I approached the Pen Air ticketing counter the two employees whispered like two junior high girls telling each other a secret. I told them my name and produced my ID. They were disappointed because one guessed that I was a Susan and other one thought I was a Kirk. It was a game they played to pass the time. Humor was like a friendly virus that infected all of the employees and many of the passengers of this local passenger plane service. There was no security checkpoints. You could just walk on with any weapon you wanted, but the people of this region aren't known for such crimes.
When I arrived in King "Spammin'", Mark and Kristen of Igiugig School were waiting for me. I guess the long lens slung over one shoulder and a camera bag slung on the other gave me away.
They asked if I had everything. I told them that I didn't have my equipment yet, it was supposed to be waiting for me in the cargo area. The lady at the ticket counter told us that on account of it being Sunday, the cargo hanger wouldn't be staffed until my Pen Air flight's luggage service was over. So Mark, who I learned was the primary school teacher at Igiugig, swung the superintendent's SUV to the loading dock. Eric, the air cargo guy let us in and together we located my palette with my fifteen pieces of photo equipment neatly stacked. From there Mark went back to his class on wind energy at the little tech college in town. He tells me that the guy running the class is rich as he got in on the ground floor of the solar energy business, and does wind power as a hobby. Mark and Kristen's House in town is off-grid and powered by wind energy and solar. How inspiring!! Kristen drove me down the only improved road in the region from King Salmon to Neknak, all other destinations you have to fly, walk, boat, 4-wheel, or walk a very long way. We weaved our way through Neknak to a small private airstrip run by King Air charter.
We found the office and strode in, I called out as it looked as if no one was there. Someone came from the leaving quarters. I asked if I could clean up a nasty cut to my ring finger on my right hand. She showed me to the kitchen were I washed the cut and gladly took a bandaid to keep from bleeding all over. The whole time I could hear my wife in my head quoting Anthony Bourdain's, the author of "kitchen Confidential", at his first kitchen job. He burns his hand on something hot from the oven. The black sous chef on the line strides over to him and clutches a red hot pan from the oven and says "What you want white boy, burn cream, a bandaid?!" Well I needed a bandaid and I don't care! I graciously thanked her and went back out to office area to look for my pilot. In the middle of where I was walking was this big mammoth of a dog whose mangy hair fell in clumps on the floor, his eyes were full of matter and clouded with cataracts. This dog was as old as they get. I stooped down to offer my hand to pet his head when my hostess yelled out "Don't touch him!" Well it was too late, I had already patted him on the head. "He bites, he even snaps at me", she said. I felt like the dog whisperer. But all the whispering in the world wasn't going to change the fact that this dog was on his last leg. After loading a recent wedding picture collection into my image editing program, I went out to help the King Air Owner and pilot, John, load his large cessna. Everything fit, but one piece went in the nose cone, my cart. Secretly, I didn't care if we forgot it as this was the very piece of equipment that had sliced my finger up. Returning to the office to verify the flight schedule and say goodbye to Kristen, we had to open the door with the old, cantakerous dog blocking the door. He slowly struggled out of the way. John commented that he had become mean because he couldn't move out of the way like he could as a youngin'. Everything checked out and we were on the way, this would be my first flight ever in cessna!
As we taxied up the runway I felt a surge of excitement. On the other hand it was just another day for John, and he went on about how the last shots in the civil war were fired in Alaska. "You see the British favored the confederates"; multiple switches and instruments were toggled in a cadence to the story, and "they took over several whaling ships" he related. "Back then whaling was an important industry", said John. The throttle was thrown into full and we hurtled down the runway with a slight fishtail feel giving an edge to the experience. We're away!! John swerves a few times, perhaps testing the equipment as he takes a couple hard pulls from his coffee.
Eric would come to the Kvichak River at Illiamna Lake and never want to leave. I am sure Alaska would be paradise to him.
ReplyDeleteI like that you took images from inside the plane and from the inside looking out.
When I read about a proposed mine vs the ecosystem, I am frustrated. Mankind is selfish and greedy. Messing up an ecosystem causes a snowball effect that can stretch across oceans and other continents.