20060822 Amalik Bay/Geographic Harbor Trip Part 3 The Accommodations
Part 3: THE ACCOMMODATIONS
Somehow we can go through many years of life speaking every day and be unaware of an expression, a phrase, or a reference understood by many. We hear it for the first time and inquire as to the meaning. The speaker seems shocked that we had not heretofore been aware of what was understood to be common usage. I recall the first time I heard the word ‘bling’.
Me: Bling? What is bling?
Megan: You mean you have never heard of bling? Have you been living in a cave?
Me: Well, something like that.
Likewise products that seem essential to some have escaped our notice. While I had never heard of them before this my first months-long experience in a cold wet place like the Alaska Peninsula, everybody here seems well acquainted with the Helly-Hess brand of raingear, a line without an ounce of overrated Gore-Tex fabric. Most everyone’s closet contains a pair of Super-Tuffs, a respected brand of rubber boot. How is it that I have never heard of these? I guess this can be traced to cultural differences related to income, education, geography, climate, or some combination thereof.
Here in Alaska where a number of people live in remote places often without a source of sizeable trees and construction crews, prefab housing is popular. Panabode, makers of kits with everything you need to assemble your own cabin in the wild, seems to be the most popular brand. People here use that name as you might use Nike—you assume everyone else knows what you mean.
Most of the buildings in Brooks Camp come from Panabode, including the tiny cabin Travis and I share. A 15’x18’ efficiency, while warm and dry with a bathroom indoors, is not an ideal shared space for two. Shrink the size to 12’x15’, remove the bathroom, add two more people and you get the idea of our Amalik Bay living experience. It very quickly becomes an exercise in tolerance.
This place 40 yards above the high tide line is Big Al’s home, a home he is required to share.
The same airplane that Saturday took away two weeklong uninvited guests brought in three more: Niki, Jason, and myself. When all four of us were inside, moving about was a bit like those tile games, the ones where you have 15 tongue-in-groove tiles in a 4x4 grid, leaving one empty space. The object is to rearrange the jumbled tiles to form an image, like the face of a tiger.
N
iki: Al, would you like to move to the sink?
Al: Why, yes I would.
Niki: Then I’ll move from the sink area, but I must ask Jason to move from the stove area.
Jason: I’m happy to move. Since Tim is seated at the writing surface, I guess I’ll just step outside for a moment.
The writing surface, sink and countertop with cupboards above and below, propane stove, propane furnace, a few shelves, a couple of kitchen chairs, and bunkbeds furnished the place. Two dim 12-volt light fixtures, domelights from a Honda really, pretended to illuminate. The lights and a satellite phone charger were connected to a couple of deep-cycle RV batteries, which in turn were wired to a solar panel on the roof.
After giving us a tour of the cabin, Al broached the subject of sleeping arrangements. “Of course Niki will have a bunk, because that is just the way we are.” Al explained that he sleeps on pads on the floor, but if a second person sleeps on the floor all of the spaces in the tile game are filled and no one moves. That meant that either Jason or I would sleep in the second bunk, and the other…. Like me you may be new to Panabode but surely you know Kelty. Since I brought a nice two-person tent provided by the Park, I volunteered to sleep outside.
I volunteered to sleep seven nights outside in brown bear country, separated from the furry ones by a couple of sheets of ripstop nylon and an electric fence. Peter, my supervisor, had prepared me for the possibility of sleeping outside should the cabin be crowded or even if Al just preferred it that way. The tent would be pitched within a portable electric fence powered by a solar panel. Funny thing, though. The Park’s portable electric fence was in Hallo Bay, not Amalik Bay. I was not to have an electric fence.
Back in March, while still in the Everglades, people asked me about my upcoming stint in Alaska. Jokingly, I explained that my goal was not to be eaten. Now it seemed the achievement of that goal was in question. On the upside, I might get the chance to put to put the pepper spray training to use. Well, not really. We did not see a bear in the cabin vicinity the entire week we were there.
It turns out the tent was the place to be. Not only was it relatively spacious and watertight every minute of the several rainy days and nights, it gave me privacy unavailable to those with the coed arrangement inside. Lights out occurred at my discretion. I slept without hearing the snoring for which two of the cabin occupants were notorious, leading the third to wear earplugs. Most importantly, after a generous helping of Niki’s cabbage salad I could pass gas with impunity. Ah, life’s little pleasures—understood the world around.
Somehow we can go through many years of life speaking every day and be unaware of an expression, a phrase, or a reference understood by many. We hear it for the first time and inquire as to the meaning. The speaker seems shocked that we had not heretofore been aware of what was understood to be common usage. I recall the first time I heard the word ‘bling’.Me: Bling? What is bling?
Megan: You mean you have never heard of bling? Have you been living in a cave?
Me: Well, something like that.
Likewise products that seem essential to some have escaped our notice. While I had never heard of them before this my first months-long experience in a cold wet place like the Alaska Peninsula, everybody here seems well acquainted with the Helly-Hess brand of raingear, a line without an ounce of overrated Gore-Tex fabric. Most everyone’s closet contains a pair of Super-Tuffs, a respected brand of rubber boot. How is it that I have never heard of these? I guess this can be traced to cultural differences related to income, education, geography, climate, or some combination thereof.
Here in Alaska where a number of people live in remote places often without a source of sizeable trees and construction crews, prefab housing is popular. Panabode, makers of kits with everything you need to assemble your own cabin in the wild, seems to be the most popular brand. People here use that name as you might use Nike—you assume everyone else knows what you mean.
Most of the buildings in Brooks Camp come from Panabode, including the tiny cabin Travis and I share. A 15’x18’ efficiency, while warm and dry with a bathroom indoors, is not an ideal shared space for two. Shrink the size to 12’x15’, remove the bathroom, add two more people and you get the idea of our Amalik Bay living experience. It very quickly becomes an exercise in tolerance.This place 40 yards above the high tide line is Big Al’s home, a home he is required to share.
The same airplane that Saturday took away two weeklong uninvited guests brought in three more: Niki, Jason, and myself. When all four of us were inside, moving about was a bit like those tile games, the ones where you have 15 tongue-in-groove tiles in a 4x4 grid, leaving one empty space. The object is to rearrange the jumbled tiles to form an image, like the face of a tiger.N
iki: Al, would you like to move to the sink?Al: Why, yes I would.
Niki: Then I’ll move from the sink area, but I must ask Jason to move from the stove area.
Jason: I’m happy to move. Since Tim is seated at the writing surface, I guess I’ll just step outside for a moment.
The writing surface, sink and countertop with cupboards above and below, propane stove, propane furnace, a few shelves, a couple of kitchen chairs, and bunkbeds furnished the place. Two dim 12-volt light fixtures, domelights from a Honda really, pretended to illuminate. The lights and a satellite phone charger were connected to a couple of deep-cycle RV batteries, which in turn were wired to a solar panel on the roof.
After giving us a tour of the cabin, Al broached the subject of sleeping arrangements. “Of course Niki will have a bunk, because that is just the way we are.” Al explained that he sleeps on pads on the floor, but if a second person sleeps on the floor all of the spaces in the tile game are filled and no one moves. That meant that either Jason or I would sleep in the second bunk, and the other…. Like me you may be new to Panabode but surely you know Kelty. Since I brought a nice two-person tent provided by the Park, I volunteered to sleep outside.
I volunteered to sleep seven nights outside in brown bear country, separated from the furry ones by a couple of sheets of ripstop nylon and an electric fence. Peter, my supervisor, had prepared me for the possibility of sleeping outside should the cabin be crowded or even if Al just preferred it that way. The tent would be pitched within a portable electric fence powered by a solar panel. Funny thing, though. The Park’s portable electric fence was in Hallo Bay, not Amalik Bay. I was not to have an electric fence.Back in March, while still in the Everglades, people asked me about my upcoming stint in Alaska. Jokingly, I explained that my goal was not to be eaten. Now it seemed the achievement of that goal was in question. On the upside, I might get the chance to put to put the pepper spray training to use. Well, not really. We did not see a bear in the cabin vicinity the entire week we were there.
It turns out the tent was the place to be. Not only was it relatively spacious and watertight every minute of the several rainy days and nights, it gave me privacy unavailable to those with the coed arrangement inside. Lights out occurred at my discretion. I slept without hearing the snoring for which two of the cabin occupants were notorious, leading the third to wear earplugs. Most importantly, after a generous helping of Niki’s cabbage salad I could pass gas with impunity. Ah, life’s little pleasures—understood the world around.
posted by Tim at 2:13 PM
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