Summer Solstice Edition

Boats waiting to unload at the cannery on Sunday

Happy summer solstice! I actually was awake much of the shortest night of the year (as long as I’m not confused and it was the night of Sunday/Monday; otherwise I was awake for most of the next-to-shortest night of the year).

My fortune cookie today from the Aleutian China lunch I had was, “Your life will be peaceful and happy.” OK by me! Peaceful sounds good, probably for the first time in my life. But only if punctuated on a regular basis with adventures and challenges…

I’m still enjoying this adventure…and I’ll be ready to be home when I get there. I miss my family, my dogs and cat, my friends and my own bed. Sounds like I haven’t missed a thing, weather-wise, though, since summer still hasn’t started at home yet either.

The motel I moved down to is pretty clean and has all the basics, including a small kitchenette, and it is very generous of EAT to pay for it for me. And it does have some interesting features, mostly due to the difficulty in getting parts and things, all of which have to be flown or barged in. Apparently that includes tape measures, since the freestanding sink/cabinet was installed so that you can’t close the bedroom door because the door was open when the sink was put in and the sink overlaps the edge of the door. Hey, that’s better than having the door permanently closed…the mini blinds open and close via a flattened coat hanger, but it does match the blinds, colorwise…and I suppose it’s testimony to the cold, rainy weather that we’ve been having, that this morning I picked a mushroom out of the interface between the shower stall and the wall…minor things, and I’m glad to have a place where I can cook and not impose on anyone too much. Laura, bless her heart, was willing to put me in her spare bedroom when the other NP came back to the apartment I’d been living in, but I really didn’t think it was fair to her to impose on her for TWO weeks at home along with imposing on her at work too. So, since EAT was willing to put me up in the motel, I thought that was the better course.

So now I have access to TV, a real novelty for me. I saw Deadliest Catch for the first time last week and had a hard time sleeping after that! I kept wanting to tell them to get down off that slippery stack of crab pots! Watch out for that falling ice! Watch out for that 800 pound crab pot loose on the deck! I tell you it was nerve wracking. They are crabbing all around the Bering Sea and going into ports that are around here and many people here have met them. My new fisherman friends say it’s not an inaccurate portrayal of winter time crabbing, but of course the hair raising stuff and drama doesn’t go on non-stop like it appears to in the show. This new world of fishing is fascinating to me; there is so much to it. I’ve never been remotely interested in motorized boats for recreation, but have always been intrigued by working boats and the whole lifestyle that revolves around using the ocean and rivers for a livelihood and transportation. One lifetime is just not nearly enough to explore all the interesting things in the world!

The Canadian halibut research boat, the Free to Wander out of Pender Harbour, British Columbia


Skipper David Adams (center) (husband of our case manager), his son Marcus at right, and crew member at left of the Buldaro out of Sand Point, AK

Mending the net; a whale went through another net last week and tore a panel in half

The most exciting thing that happened last week was a medivac to Anchorage that we had to take care of in the ER for about 18 hours until the weather cooperated enough to get the jet in here. I can’t talk about what the condition was that required medivac, but I can say that things turned out well eventually. To add insult to injury (literally) the power went out on the whole island (except the cannery which has its own power generator) while the jet was circling, trying to get enough of a visual to be able to land. That meant no runway lights and no radios. Even though it only gets truly dark for an hour or so right now around 2:00 or 3:00 AM, the skies were so low and the fog so thick that the lights were really needed. So the jet had to return to ANC and try again later, and we turned the ER into a hospital room, kept IVs going and kept our patient stable. They came in again around midnight, and the visibility was much better—and a good thing too, since the power went out AGAIN about 2 minutes before they landed!

Obviously, Alaska Girls are tough!


Community Health Aid Lou tends to a young fisherman with a swollen elbow

The plants are just JUMPING out of the ground and into flower with all the light, but since it’s been in the 40’s and below most of the last three weeks, the alders are still not leafed out all the way and the locals tell me that the wildflowers are slow in showing this spring. Some of the plants are very familiar species that we have at home, but many are completely new to me. I’ve been meaning to go up to the school library, which is open to the public in the evening, and look for books on plants and wildlife specific to the Aleutians, but haven’t made it yet. There is a bird that I haven’t been able to identify, that has a very unique call, but no one has been able to tell me what it is and none of the likely candidates on the bird ID sites on the web have the same call.

wooley lousewort

I mentioned last time that my advisor, Lorna Schumann, and her husband David were coming out so that Lorna could do my site visit, which consists of watching me see patients for a couple of days and talking with Laura to see how she thinks I’m doing. It was a good visit with Lorna, but unfortunately the weather wasn’t very cooperative so David didn’t get much fishing or 4-wheeling in. We did have a break in the weather on Saturday and walked out to the far breakwater where the ferry and the cargo barges dock and watched them load containers of fish onto a barge. Lorna and I asked the young men, who were dangling on cables above the containers with zero safety equipment, if their moms knew what they were doing! They laughed, said NO, and we don’t want them to! We told them that as both mothers and nurse practitioners, they were scaring us half to death and we hoped that we would NOT see them again at the clinic later. Laura also took us out to the end of the New Dump Road, to a rock formation reported to be an old volcano vent, which we climbed up on and got a view of Red Cove Lake and the other side of the island.

ancient volcano vent above Red Cove Lake (Laura's picture)



me, Lorna and David Schumann with Red Cove Lake and the ocean in the background on the other side of the island from town (Laura's picture)


Sand Point cemetery with some Russian Orthodox crosses


purple mystery plant

chocolate lily in bud


wild geranium



How far?


Eagle in the mast of the Dominator

All-weather patio


short cut

I’ve been mulling over what I said in the last post about it being tiring to be in an environment where everyone knows so much more than I do. And I realized that the thing that is stressful about walking away from a career that you’re good at is not the loss of status, or the tediousness of starting at the bottom again, or giving up the income, or even giving up the reputation and the colleagues; the hard part is no longer being able to do something that you’re good at. There’s a real satisfaction in doing something that you excel at, and it’s the same satisfaction that comes from playing a sport for the love of the game. It just feels GOOD to knock in that goal, stack a tight load of hay, or write a good forest management plan. I gave up just about everything I was good at to start over again and try to master a whole vast new body of information. I don’t regret it, but I’m seeing the subtle ways that it can take its toll, and I’m getting tired of being in the minimally-competent stage. Like just about everything else, the only way out is through, and I’m hanging in there.

I have one more weekend here, then if the weather cooperates I’ll be flying out to Juneau to get on the ferry early on the 29^th. But I’ve been looking at the weather forecasts for the next week, and I’m thinking seriously about hedging my bets and getting out to Juneau early, like on Sunday if possible, just because the weather promises to be cloudy and rainy forever. I guess that the only real downside of that is having to pay for a motel in Juneau, not cheap. Then it will be 3 days through the inside passage to Bellingham, then to Seattle, then to Walla Walla for a wedding, then home on the 4^th of July. There are a lot of places where the timing is very tight to pull off this itinerary, so it’s all subject to change, especially where the weather controls the flying. So stay tuned and I’ll see many of you in July.