Alaska days 1 and 2

The harbor (left) and Laura Clark below

I made it! Actually it was a pretty easy trip--Cole and Victoria brought me to Spokane on Thursday afternoon where I spent the night with my friend Julie. Then the cab picked me up at 0515 for the trip to the airport, where I flew out at 0700. The entire trip was sunny until the very last part, when low-lying clouds covered Popof Island and we had to dip down under them to land. If you can think of every synonym for big that you've ever run across, it still won't describe the sheer magnitude of this incredible landscape that is Alaska!

I flew over the most beautiful enormity of snow-and-glacier-covered mountains to land in Anchorage (almost missed my flight in Seattle due to gate changes at the last minute) around 1100 Alaska time, which is an hour earlier than Idaho time. So I got a do-over of one hour! Waiting in the gate area for the little regional air carrier, Pennisula Air, was definite proof that I had arrived in Alaska. There was no security check, just had to show your id with your boarding pass and traipse out across the tarmac to a 30 passenger turboprop. My seatmate was a long tall red bearded kid who had made a cage for his cockatiel out of a milk crate, and was able to just barely shove the poor bird under the seat in front of him. He was heading to Sandpoint to fish on his brother's boat. The stewardess handed out ear plugs all around, and it quickly became obvious why. Although noisy, it was really a pretty easy flight over the 600 miles of peninsula and islands from Anchorage to Sand Point, alternating between flying over water, brown tundra and snow-covered peaks, with the occasional ancient caldera.

From what I could see it appeared that we must have had acquired pontoons that I didn't see when we took off, because I was pretty sure that we were landing on the water. It turned out that we did kind of an aircraft carrier landing, minus the bungee cords, flipped a U-turn at the end of the runway and taxied back to a small metal building, the Penn Air terminal. My preceptor, Laura Clark, picked me up in the Eastern Aleutian Tribes pickup, and we headed to the town, passing huge stacks of crab pots and fish traps sitting along the road waiting for the fishing season to start. We went down to the harbor to see a french couple and their 7 year old daughter who were traveling the world in an old tugboat, and were leaving the next day. The tug was pretty big, painted a nice red and was the Le Manguier out of Corsica. They had crossed along the top of Russia and come down the Bering Sea just ahead of the ice last October, spending the winter moored in the harbor here.

We talked to several people who were busily working on their boats, getting ready for the season to start, and later that day saw one of them in the ER at the clinic. He thought it might be paint fumes, but turns out something is wrong with his heart. But with fishing season coming up, he won't agree to see a cardiologist, so we told him to stay down off the tall masts!

I also saw my first case of scabies. Poor guy slept in a boat bunk that apparently wasn't the cleanest! I saw him again at the local latte shop today, and he greeted me cheerily. I didn't say, "How's your scabies?" since he was with some fisherman buddies. I'm pretty sure that's a HIPPA violation, not to mention downright rude.

Everyone here has been so warm and friendly and welcoming! I have a fully furnished 3 bedroom apartment just a 4 minute walk from the clinic, and it has a phone and wireless internet. Unfortunately, not only have I not been able to make the internet connect, we also disabled Laura's connection (she's my upstairs neighbor) in the process of trying to figure out what the right password was for me. So I'm at the clinic, just finished part of the homework that is due on Monday, and will be leaving soon to attend the Ducks Unlimited banquet this evening. I'm Laura's date, since it was $75 for a couple or $50 for a single. The contract physician's assistant, a wonderful young man named Thai, is also our date because he doesn't want to be the date of the village physician who is making his semi-annual visit this week.

I took a long walk around today, covered at least 3/4 of the road system on the island in less than 2 hours, and made friends at the latte shop, did a little VERY expensive grocery shopping (come on CSA box!) and petted a few free range dogs, waved at all the vehicles that passed me and took some pictures that I'll try to post here. If I fail this time, I'll do it tomorrow. Stand by for more adventures!