Breaking out the XtraTufs

I made it across the inlet to the town of Beluga last weekend. It's a quick flight, but any time in a small airplane is time well spent.
Beluga's a small community consisting of a few cabins, an airstrip and a power plant near the mouth of the Chuit River (yes, the entire town is in the picture above). Not a bad place to live off the land . . . so long as you don't mind fending off open pit coal mines and brought your woman with you.

I was in Beluga on a site visit for work. One of the River's primary tributaries is the site of a proposed coal mine. The so called Chuitna Coal Project is a hair-brained idea of marginal economic value that would sacrifice the strongest salmon-producing system on the west side of Cook Inlet in the name of coal exported to foreign markets. A great idea, I'm sure.
Thanks to a bit of mud and mosquitoes the size of pterodactyls, actually getting to the stream took a little work. I'm not sure I had been on an ATV since participating in a Forest Service ATV safety session that resulted in a medevac flight for one of my coworkers. It's no wonder why rednecks love those things.
The main stem of the Chuit was running low and clear with a few Chinook splashing around here and there. This place is so rich in coal that chunks of the stuff literally were all over the gravel bars. Amazing.

We eventually worked our way up to "Stream 2003," the tributary where the mine is planned to go. Despite having a name that sounds like it came from a GIS technician who had never been to the stream, it's a great place for coho salmon.
This fish weir on Stream 2003 is operated by a contractor as part of the mining company's efforts at collecting baseline information. Josh, if you're interested, I'm sure they pay well.

After spending a couple days tromping around the watershed and meeting with locals, it was time to head home. No fishing for me on this trip; although, I'll have to head back this fall for the coho run.

Getting beat to the water

The Wife came back from her recent "business" trip complaining about all her mosquito bites and how her arm was sore from fishing too much.
Don't think for a minute she got any sympathy from me.

Sale Pending

Sometimes things just fall in place. Just weeks ago, The Wife and I were facing the very real prospect of having to make mortgage payments on a vacant home in Wyoming while making rental payments in Anchorage. Something that would have broke our bank account's back in short order. Instead, we were able to sell our old home, and find another in a matter of weeks. Pretty sweet, huh? If everything goes according to plan, we're set to close on July 10.

In other news, I've been slacking on the blog big time. Between work, the chaos of moving, and an impending bar exam, It's become too easy for me to neglect The Lunker. It's not that I haven't had material to post about, it's that I just haven't been finding the time to sit and write about it. I'll see what I can do to remedy things...

A Little Public Radio

Two things crossed my mind yesterday while listening to my weekly dose of public radio. First, there's a direct correlation between how rural an area is and the quality of it's public radio station. Either that, or the lack of competition for a person's entertainment in rural areas creates quite an illusion. Wyoming, which is about as rural as it gets, has great public radio. KSKA, based in Anchorage, is pretty good, but leaves a little to be desired. KLCC, based in Eugene, is a fine station, but lacks the charm of it's more rural brethren.

However unrelated, this gets us to my second realization--that too many American's really are arrogant cusses. I found myself enthralled with a program on KSKA yesterday. This American Life was chronicling the experiences of a Man and his adoption of a Samoan girl. You can listen to the program here.

The gist of the story is that an American family had adopted a Samoan girl in the hopes of providing a better life for the girl, only to find out well after the fact that the adoption agency was fraudulent and had, more or less, stolen the girl from her natural-born family. What's more, the U.S.-based adoption agency had enabled nearly 1,000 similar adoptions between Samoan children and American families.

The story is quite compelling, pitting the childhood provided by a wealthy adoptive family in America against the upbringing provided by natural parents in a poor Samoan community. It seems to me, you need to be awfully arrogant to believe that you can provide a better life for a child than that child's natural parents just because you have more money. But, what do I know, I've never been adopted and, even at my poorest, my wealth wasn't the limiting factor.

Some Alaska Culture

A number of years ago, The Wife and I were driving up to Prince Rupert, BC from Oregon. From there, we planned to take a couple ferries to Thorne Bay, Alaska and work away the summer season for the Forest Service. It must have been mid-May because I had just finished my first year of law school.

The drive from Oregon to Prince Rupert was a leisurely three day drive. Somewhere on the second day, along the Fraser River Canyon, we got a hell of a show. The highway runs along the canyon wall through sporadic tunnels. After the first tunnel or two, we got in the habit of holding our breath as we drove through a tunnel. Something to pass the time, I guess. All was fine and dandy until one such tunnel. Here we are out in the middle of nowhere doing our best blowfish impersonation when in the oncoming lane we spot a fully naked man running toward us. Everything flapping in the breeze, so to speak, without any effort on his part to hide things.

Desperately, we tried to hold our breath through the remainder of the tunnel.

Once through, all I could think of was to try and remember if he even had any shoes on. Well, as it turns out, it's become a pandemic. From the Anchorage Daily News:

JUNEAU -- A man is under medical observation in Juneau after he was seen running naked on downtown docks and ultimately was subdued by police with a stun gun.

The man's name has not been released and charges have not been filed.

Sgt. Steve Hernandez says police were called about the jogger just before 10 a.m. Wednesday. Police say the jogger refused to comply to a responding officer's order to stop, so the officer used a stun gun to subdue the man.

Fire department medics responded and took the man to a local hospital.

Earlier this week, state troopers in Fairbanks arrested a naked man seen walking on a bike path