Fall arrives in Alaska...sort of.

"...In some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him--all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men. There's no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is detestable. And it has a fascination, too, which goes to work upon him."

--Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness


I had every intention of using this month's blog to complain about the weather in Ketchikan. October has notoriety around town for extreme wind and rain. It seems, this year, we have been spared...for now. This gives me a blank sheet of paper to write and that intimidates me.

September 28th, 2006: 8:00pm

The cruise ship, Zuiderdam, sits humming on the waterfront. The dark night accentuates the dominance of the 13-story ship over Ketchikan's humble skyline. A small crowd of parka-clad locals gathers on the dock to wish the last ship of the year farewell.

"This was my favorite stop!" yells a passenger high overhead.

"See you next year!", calls back out a woman on my left.

She follows up with a few words utter low, under her breath. The crowd around her cackles with laughter.

The ship's crew responds to the captain's invisible signal and fore and aft lines are release. Pointed south, the ship accelerates toward more profitable waters for the winter. And the town sit quietly, brightly watching her sail away.

Fireworks! Business owners celebrating the end of a successful season? Or locals celebrating another thwarting of the visiting masses?

As if the ship was giving the season its queue the wind began to blow and the rain began to fall as I walked back to my hotel room.

Strolling past one of the many jewelry stores in town, I hear an accented voice announce, "$350,000".

Among its other nicknames, Ketchikan is known as the "St. Croix of the North" because of its abundance of jewelry stores. Even before the ship is out of sight each of the store managers is either pouring over his or her books of inventory or packing merchandise in boxes so that all may be ready to open that identical store on a tropical island just in time to welcome the arrival of the Zuiderdam from the winter season.

For a fleeting moment I think to myself, "I'm in the wrong business."

The town now gets to keep itself to itself for the next 7 months without any major human disturbance from the outside world beyond the occasional Alaska Airliner. But even the airport is on a separate island. With the exception of the downtown waterfront, Ketchikan now belongs to the local folk. Of course the exception mentioned above is why I'm here.

In the past two months, we've demolished an old boat harbor, built half of a 1200-ft waterfront pedestrian promenade, and begun pile driving for a cruise ship dock extension. Before I head south, we'll also build a floating cruise ship dock and a new small boat harbor. The project extends over 1/3 of a mile of waterfront inspiring my dreams of driving around in a golf cart to check in on the work. Of course, by doing that I might as well paint a big red bullseye on my hardhat for the construction crew to chuck rocks at. Instead, of the golf cart my company has sent in reinforcements from the south. Tim Fisher arrived two weeks ago in order to watch construction on the second of the two cranes; relieving a great deal of my work load.

On the homefront, Michele has just finished her last classroom test for nursing school. Just a couple more weeks of clinical work and a little bitty exam that tests everything she's learned in school over the last two years and she'll be an RN. Tomorrow she's comes north to Ketchikan for the fourth time to visit me. Typical of my lovely wife, she has met more people in town during her brief visits than I have in two months. We are now over half way to December and the her move north.

In the meantime, I'm doing well and miss all of you: my friends and family.

--Rian

North to the Future

I wanted to send you a brief 'Howdy' and update from Ketchikan, Alaska.

Before I get into the details, let me briefly explain how the heck I got here for those of you who may not know the rest of the story.

The story goes something like this: back in March, Michele and I had couple of opportunities present themselves.
A) The opportunity to stay put (sweet, sweet status quo!)

B) Accept an offer to go to grad school
C) Volunteer to be resident engineer for construction of a project my company had designed.

After much discussion and prayer, Michele and I choose door 'C'.

Of course, as the resident engineer I had to 'reside' within proximity to the project. This year long construction project was in Ketchikan, Alaska. To make matters more difficult. Michele was committed to stay in the Seattle area through December because of nursing school. Nevertheless, we pressed forward.

At some point during the summer, we decided our lives weren't in enough upheaval already so we sold our condo and bought a house in Central District (Seattle). And that is where my lovely bride resides now.

As for me, I left for Ketchikan on the Alaska Marine Highway on August 11th. The Alaska Marine Highway is a ferry system that connects many of the isolated communities in southeast and southwest Alaska with the contiguous North American highway grid. Most towns in southeast Alaska are only accessible by boat or airplane. Ketchikan is no exception. The ferry ride from Bellingham was 36 hours long so I pitched my tent (light blue) in close quarters on the back of the boat. A day in a half seems like a long ride on a state ferry but with the stunning scenery and wildlife the time went by too quickly. I did see two humpback whales and pod of orca whales on the ride up.

On August 13th, Ketchikan greeted the ferry to a cold and drizzly Sunday morning. I hit the ground runny: inspecting the condition of the existing waterfront that same day with Johnny Cash's "Sunday Morning Coming Down", repeating over again in my head. Since, then the details of my life have been quite inconsequential: work and more work.

Over the last month I've been staying in the "New York Hotel" and will be moving into an apartment near the project site shortly. However, the hotel has been good to me and I recommend it for anyone who visits town (to visit me?).

Now a word on Ketchikan. Known as Alaska's "First City", "Gateway City", or "King Salmon Capital of the World", Ketchikan is a town with a population of 8,200 people. This makes it the fifth largest town in a state more than twice the geographic size of Texas (no, I'm not kidding). Located on Revillagigedo Island (don't ask me to pronounce it) what the town is best known for is rain: lots and lots of rain. In 2005 Ketchikan received 196" of rain, making it the fourth wettest place on earth last year. That's over five times more rain than Seattle. After this experience, I'll never complain about the rain back home again. The rain does keeps the island green and the population covered in a full layer of pvc rain gear for most of the year. Most every local also sports a pair of Xtra Tough rubber rain boots as well. My knock-off pair of rain boots were immediately noticed and I was labeled an "outsider". So far I can't complain too much about the weather, it's only rained about half of the time I've been here. We've even had a few blue sky days. There is nothing quite like a nice day in southeast Alaska. It is stunning. The kind of beauty that make your chest ache. Do you know what I mean?

That's not to say I don't miss Michele. I do terribly. However she visited me last weekend and got to experience the town for the first time. I can't wait until she comes up permanently and I get to outfit my L.A. bride in her first pair of Xtra Toughs.

It's getting late and there is so much more to share. I'll save that for another posting.

Love,

RJ