My First Ever "Business Trip"

This past Saturday Mark, Di and I left for a work trip to Prince of Wales (POW), an island south of Juneau, actually the fourth largest US island. We took a plane from Juneau to Ketchikan, and then a float plane from Ketchikan to POW. It was my first float plane trip! The float plane was like a relaxing, scenic roller coaster ride. I got to sit in the co-pilot seat. There were hundreds of knobs and dials, all right in front of me. Thankfully I resisted the urge to press anything. Once we landed we worked for a few hours on respiration, then stopped at a grocery store. Mark and Di told me to choose whatever food I wanted. I repeat, whatever I wanted. As a poor college student, my brain is hardwired to choose the cheapest, more store-brand like option to save money. So when I heard I could buy whatever I wanted I lost all rational thought and started hysterically laughing. I quickly darted over to an empty corner of the store to regain control of myself. That was certainly the highlight of the day. Di and I went for a long run along the coast. We ended in Craig, the town we were staying in for two nights in a Forest Service bunkhouse. We were all so hungry that we feasted on two extra-large pizzas, both loaded with meat. Later that night Mark taught me a few chords on his guitar.

Doing respiration work

In honor of Father’s Day on Sunday Di cooked us all bacon for breakfast. We drove to a place called Naukati, which was over an hour away. On the way there we saw a black bear running down the road! Much less scary when viewed from a vehicle. We also saw tons of fawns which were not that smart, they'd run right in the road, but so adorable! We did respiration work on six different sites. On the way home we stopped at a totem pole park. I had never really been excited about totem poles before but these were awesome, towering over us and each one seemed to have its own story. Later that night, someone staying at the bunkhouse took me out for a ride on a boat. I pulled up a crab trap and we had caught one female crab and threw her back in. I even got to drive the boat for a little bit!

One of many doe-fawns pairs we saw

Out-of-commission totem poles

Totem pole park

A view from the docks

Driving the boat!

On Monday morning we moved out of the bunkhouse and drove to 12-mile-cabin which is owned by the Forest Service. The cabin had a dinner table, a stove, shelves for food, and bunk bed platforms. Simple but so nice to have a roof over our heads! After carrying all our gear to the cabin, we drove nearby to Azalea Creek and did work with release trees. I learned how to use a laser to measure tree height. Di and I ran the last 3 miles back to the cabin and it was so sunny out I actually swam in the water! I never thought it would be warm enough in Alaska to swim. The swim was also a great idea since we wouldn’t be showering for the next two days… We had a gourmet dinner of Caesar salad, pasta, and wine. I also had another guitar lesson and learned how to play a few chords from my favorite part of Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here.” It was pretty tough, one of my fingertips was still numb from playing on Saturday, but it was so rewarding to be able to produce the sound that I love so much.

The path to the cabin

The Forest Service cabin we stayed at

Shelf fungus, which you can write on!

On Tuesday we drove to a nearby site called Camp Creek, where we measured out 5m by 40m plots and recorded and measured every single tree in the plot. It was a pretty rough day- it rained the whole time so we were soaked through. And at one point I looked down at the paper I was taking notes on and it was splattered with blood! I had cut my hand on a metal tape measure so we took a quick break from work to bandage my hand up. When spirits were particularly low, Di went to brush off moss from the top of a stump and it came off looking like a huge moss wig! We all laughed about that which lightened the mood. On the way home we stopped to see a fish ladder, which enables fish to travel farther upstream past steep waterfalls. Back at the cabin we changed into dry clothes and I finally warmed up enough to wander around outside and take pictures. Later we roasted sausages over the fire for dinner- delicious! Di and I stayed up late reading by the fire light.

The moss wig that improved our morale

A view from the cabin

On Wednesday we had another long day of work doing tree plots, but at least it didn’t rain. We moved out of the cabin and drove to the Hollis bunkhouse, another bunkhouse for Forest Service employees. Di and I ran the last three miles of the trip. Unlike the Craig bunkhouse, which had only one person staying in it, the Hollis bunkhouse was full of people. It was quite a shock for us actually, since we had only seen each other for the past few days. Despite the fact that the current bunkhouse residents stayed up late partying, we were all so tired that we just drowned out the noises and went to bed early.  

One of the forest sites we worked at

More Xtratufs than I had ever seen at one time

On Thursday we “slept in” until 6:30 (we normally woke up at 6 on the dot). We did respiration work at a site called Harris, only a few miles away. The work was so easy and the hike in so short that we were finished in less than three hours. The whole time I was expecting something horrible to happen (crazy storm, broken bone, broken equipment) but we sailed through all the sites with zero problems. We rewarded ourselves by pigging out in the car as soon as we finished under the premise that we were trying to get rid of all our food before we left. We had a few hours before we had to leave, so I packed and repacked, strategically placing the smelliest stuff away from the cleaner things. Funny thing was, even the things I hadn’t worn (one pair of socks, one pair of underwear) seemed to be dirty somehow. In the afternoon we drove over to the dock and rode a floatplane to Ketchikan. This ride was even better than the last- we had music playing on our headsets, we saw a pod of killer whales, and at one point the pilot moved the controls over to my side! I was too afraid to really touch them, so the one time an adjustment had to be made he moved it. We got drinks in the airport bar in Ketchikan and read off data sheets to Di so she could put them into the computer, real exciting stuff. On our flight back to Juneau, I almost got off at the wrong stop! It had been a long week. Finally, we arrived in Juneau and I got a ride back to the bunkhouse. I vegged out on the couch with a good book for a few hours. Today (Friday) I slept in then took the bus to a mall for wifi. I don't have to go back to work until Wednesday (!!!!) so hopefully I'll have more adventures to report back about :)

 

Operating a real, live plane!