Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Random ideas.

Notes from My Father

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08_jan047.jpg

Hey Good People,

Well, here it is, the long-ago promised and highly sought-after follow-up to my dad’s earlier notes about my parents and my recent trip together here in the US. I’ll post it below, only this time, for integrity’s sake, I’ve interspersed a few points along the way, to verify and clarify some of his words. The prequel to this, tales from the first part of our trip, can be found here.

Final Jottings on Our North America Trip

My apologies for the delay with the second instalment. Unfortunately I had some serious affairs of state to attend to, and if you knew how serious our state’s affairs are, then you would understand. Another factor was my agonising over what to buy my wife for Xmas, but I think she really liked her Mars Bar (candy bar) – and it was the extra large size. Continue reading →

Living in a shack, down by the River

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A cabin in the woods in winter, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

My humble abode. This is after I shovelled all the snow off the roof. There’s about another 6-9 inches of snow on the roof already!

The original part of the shed is the part covered by the sloping roof. The porches, the flatter roofed sections, were add-ons later. The main area is probably 14′ x 16′ or thereabouts. There’s a little platform, like a loft in the roof, which really warms up when I’ve had the fire running. I’ve been doing a few little add-ons here and there myself, mostly with just odd bits and pieces of timber I find lying around, in my downtime, here’s a look at the new Shaq, a la Carl style:
Continue reading →

The Latest Update

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Hey Folks

I hope this finds you all well.

Whilst I sit here and delete spam, I’ll add a short post. The other day my generator busted. The 3rd time I used it. Don’t you just love modern technology and manufacturing! The hose from the fuel tank to the carburettor split in half … so it leaked a whole tank of gas .. which TOTALLY sucked.

However, the fellow who owns the cabin, and has lived here in McCarthy since 1955, totally hooked me up .. we (mostly he) mended it and replaced the hose (I still can’t believed he happened to have a piece the right size) .. Jim’s amazing. Then the axe busted .. the handle split right down the middle .. I glued and taped that sucker up and kept on a splitting .. I ain’t gunna get cold because of a split axe.

I’ve gone looking for a particular shot of Mt Blackburn twice now and both time been thwarted, due to weather .. yesterday was SO close .. all but the peak of the mtn was out. It was beautiful, and I did get a few other images that were nice, but I really want a great shot of Mt. Blackburn. This is the only time of year it gets alpenglow on the southside, as during the summer the warmer light happens when the sun is on the northside of the mountains. But the soutside view is spectacular. Try and try again. I did get some nice images the previous evening as well, but the best light on the mtn is in the morning.

I shovelled all the snow (about 3′) off the roof off the cabin, as it was starting to ice up on the bottom .. the heat from the inside of the cabin melts the underlayer of the snow, which then refreezes, and gets icy ..or it melts and comes thru the portch, and gets ice on everything on the floor .. it’s a hassle. But – now it’s all clean.

I cut down another tree the other day .. landed that sucker on a dime. Fortunately, the dime didnt happen to be the one in my back pocket. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the dime I was hoping it would land on .. in fact, it was about 180 degrees from the direction I was hoping it would go. So that sucked – I had to trim the fallen tree, and carry all the logs up this crappy snow-covered hillside, and over to the cabin. took some work, for sure, but now I have tons of firewood to keep me warm at night!

Now that I have the generator working again, I recharged my laptop and downloaded all my photos, and backed them up to another HD. It’s definitely a hassle trying to shoot digital images in a cabin with no electricity. I’ve thought of buying a film camera again and some film to not have to deal with it. I wish I’d saved one of my film cameras, I spose.

Well, that’s about all for now. I’ll try to get some images online and post a few before too long .. a week or so I hope.

Take care and stay warm.

Cheers

Carl

More no Photos

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Hey Folks

Nothing online from my stay here yet. It’s tough, dealing with no electricity. However, I DID hook up a small generator this morning, and all works fine, so I should be able to get some images on tomy computer, at least, and somehow then get something online. In the meantime you’ll have to deal with chatter.

Yesterday I walked with Jim, the cabin owner, over to McCarthy. It’s a several mile walk, and we took our time. Right before we left I thought I should bring my camera, but I figured it would only hold things up, and the weather didn’t look like ti would be nice light anyway. Sure enough, I leave the camera at the cabin, and within an hour, the alpen glow on the mountains north of us was astounding. The first sign of good light I’ll be up early and heading towards the ridges and glaciers up that way, hoping for some images.

Living here is something else. It’s extraordinary. The mountains, the snow, the forest, the quiet, it’s another world. The cabin warms up incredibly quickly with a small fire, and I’ve cooked on the wood stove most nights. Maybe 2 nights I fired up the little 2 burner propane stove and treated myself to a little luxury. If I didn’t need a computer and batteries recharged, I’d see no reason for electricity here at all – though when I want to next start my van that may change.

Every day I walk in the woods, snowshoeing or just hiking along .. there’s tons of snow machine trails here, so often I don’t need the snowshoes.

When the weather’s really crappy, I read some, write some, lounge by the fire, chop wood, and enjoy the quiet. It’s nice.

I’ll try to write something at least semi-thoughtful next time here, regarding life in the Alaskan winter woods, but usually I’m so pressed for time when I cmoe over to do email, it just doesn’t work for me. If I didn’t have Spam, my email time would be about 1/1000th of what it currently requires.

For now, I’ll finish up deleting spam, and then head back over to Shacky, where it’s snowing right now. Tomorrow the weather looks promising, so I’ll aim to do some early photography.

Cheers

Carl

No foto?

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Hey Folks

No photo today – I’m on a borrowed computer, in the middle of the woods. I’ll try to get some from my camera to my laptop to the internet somehow.

Just to be brief .. all’s fine. No chains needed, no hasles on the road at all – other than starting my van the 2nd morning on the way in, at 25 below .. my van didn’t like that too much.

The wather here has been awesome .. cold, but clear and still. I love it.

The cabin is warm, I’m comfy and all settled in – pretty much.

I’ll try to post again before too long.

Cheers

Carl

Bighorn Ram, Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada.

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Bighorn ram in the Canadian Rockies, Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada.

Hey Folks,

A few more posts before the electricity goes and I scrounge around in the eternal darkness of the Alaskan winter. This one is a bighorn ram that I photographed on my first trip to Jasper National Park a few years back. I recently rescanned it, and am spending some downtime now getting caught up on editing and processing images. It’s funny looking at scans of slides these days, after shooting digital for just a few years. Pretty amazing the difference – though I think that’s a function of scanning more than film versus digital quality.

Well, it’s insanely past my bedtime, and I’ve had a big day, so this will be short and I’ll head to my room. You all have a good one and enjoy it while you got it – whatever it is.

Oh wow – just as I’m ready to hit “publish”, one of the dogs upstairs goes insanely off her head. At this time of night that means one thing: I looked outside and there’s 2 moose in the front yard. How cool is that? A cow moose and her calf under the street lights wandering through the front yard. Awesome!

Cheers

Carl

A Little Web Design time.

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A young grizzly bear cub near Brooks River, Katmai National Park, Alaska.

Hey Folks

Hey Folks,

So what have I been up to all this time, if I wasn’t pushing my van around Alaska in the winter? Well, I’ve been updating my website/s, giving them some new content and a slight aesthetic overhaul as well. Nothing too major, but learning a few things about design and tweaking some little things. One of things I’ve been working on is integrating a coding technique called “Flash” into the web pages. It’s pretty cool, though I know some web users are averse to Flash stuff.

For all you “non-web-design” people (i.e., my dad) “Flash” is Continue reading →

How to find a campsite, by Carl.

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backpacking campsite, Wrangell St. Elias National Park, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

There’s a lot of things I’m not good at. I can’t do math (I quit, right around the time our class began studying something they referred to as ‘long division’). I can’t play basketball. I have a black thumb when it comes to all things computer. I’m not good at remembering where I put things ….. BUT!!!! ……. Continue reading →

Things I’ve learned about winter in Alaska.

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Glacier wall, Kennecott Glacier, Wrangell St. Elias National Park, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

Well, I’m in still on my trip here to Wrangell St. Elias National Park. This is really my first time taking a solo venture into the park in the winter time, and I’ve learned a lot. So far, the things I’ve learned include:

* If your van breaks down on the McCarthy Rd, it helps a lot to have a satellite phone with you.
* If your van breaks down on the middle of an ice-covered bridge, and you have to push it across the bridge, it really helps to have a set of crampons with you.
* It costs an awful lot of money to have your van towed to Glennallen.
* A fuel pump going bad is very expensive. Continue reading →