Our journey began April 27,2002. That was the day we officially arrived in the Alaskan "bush". King Salmon, Alaska...population 385. Where is that? See the map.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Where It All Began
It is at the top of the Aleutian chain of islands on the western peninsula of Alaska. There are no roads into or out of this place. It is completely land locked, which means there are only a two ways you can get there. By air or by sea. This makes it difficult and expensive to visit. However, this rare glimpse of untamed wilderness was worth the price we ultimately paid to experience first hand, life in the bush.
To answer your next obvious question...why? Because Scott got bored and figured that this was his last chance to relive his youth, No! He just got a job in the last place I ever expected and it was too much money to turn down. We put our house in Colorado Springs (population 700,000) up for sale and hit the ground running. Our kids were two and three years old at that time. Yes, this is proof that we are adventure seeking, risk takers, who are certifiably INSANE! What were we thinking? Two toddlers still in diapers embarked on this adventure with their travel loving parents, not knowing all of their toys and other belongings would take over three months to arrive at our new home. That was a mess we can laugh about five years later!
Did I mention the kid's apple juice habit? Two to three gallons a week. This abruptly came to a screeching halt; at over $13.00 a gallon, we could no longer justify it. We soon found out that life in the bush meant all those dollar signs which came with the new job, were there for a reason. Not just because Scott is the best telecom technician in the world... but also because it would take a considerable income to be able to afford even some of the comforts that we were used to.
Everything had to be shipped in...either by barge or by air. So it meant that everything was sold by weight. If you want an idea of how much that would change the way you shop, next time you go to the supermarket, take a gallon of milk, bread, and eggs to the produce scale. If you have 20 pounds of food, those would cost the retail price of items, plus shipping of $40.69. Making your grand total somewhere in the neighborhood of $60.00. That was a harsh reality we never got used to. The summer we spent there, I actually paid $30.00 for a watermelon.
Most of our grocery shopping was done by mail. I would call Costco in Anchorage and tell them I wanted to place a "bush order". I gave them my list over the phone of the things I needed. Someone would then take the list and shop for me. The items were then placed in boxes and shipped to us. We would pick up our boxes at the post office. Nothing perishable could be shipped that way. It changed our diet for the worst! I found it a great excuse to eat Pop Tarts. Our kids hated powdered milk, so we would mix it with Nesquick. Oh Yeah! And who can forget the gallons of Kool Aid...the water was dirty. We were told it was OK to drink, but it was rust colored. It took hours to distill. Forget about bottled water, we might as well have been drinking liquid gold! We finally resorted to buying an expensive water filtration system and having our land lords install it. It was great for the last 2 months we were there though.
I could go on and on about the shock and awe of it all! No department stores, service stations, book stores, office supply places, malls, nothing that a city offers, ease and convenience were non existent. There was no fast food...unless someone went to Burger King in the Anchorage airport and brought it to you on the plane. Not the way it was intended to be enjoyed. And the one good place to eat, had a really good Greek pizza...at over $40.00 a pie, it wasn't THAT good! I mean, how fresh could those ingredients have been anyway? There was way more culture shock to come. Everything from going to church with only five other people; to not knowing anything about the native way of life, or even how to pronounce the names of the places there!
There was little in the way of recreation, except what we made for ourselves. The activities we did enjoy, aside from the television, involved a lot more work than I was used to! Everything required a lot of preparation. This was the wilderness. There were really big bears and other things to consider. One that I never thought of before we arrived was insects! White socks and no see um's. I had never even heard of these bugs before King Salmon.
It still, to this days makes me cringe. Bug jacket anyone? Literally we had to douse ourselves, and the kids especially, with "bug dope" aka 100%, cancer causing DEET. Nothing else worked, except to put on the jacket. This thing was a jacket with a screen like hood that went over your face and could be bungeed up on the sleeves and waist. And we had to wear it or the deet, to avoid terrible bites that not only itch, but would also swell,turn red, and scab over. I still have the jackets, but have had no need for them since we left there!
Some things we experienced while living there included, helicopter rides, first salmon, many fishing trips, smoking and canning fish, learning the art of filleting salmon, picking berries on the tundra, spectacular sight seeing, famous Brooks falls, mail order groceries, full utilization of the US postal service, preschool, potty training, clam digging, bears up close, moose up close, and many, many more that I will talk about in depth later. We also made some wonderful new friends and saw some of the most spectacular scenery I have ever seen anywhere! I will expand on our adventure here more in another post.
I hope you enjoyed the scenery and got the general lay of the land!
To answer your next obvious question...why? Because Scott got bored and figured that this was his last chance to relive his youth, No! He just got a job in the last place I ever expected and it was too much money to turn down. We put our house in Colorado Springs (population 700,000) up for sale and hit the ground running. Our kids were two and three years old at that time. Yes, this is proof that we are adventure seeking, risk takers, who are certifiably INSANE! What were we thinking? Two toddlers still in diapers embarked on this adventure with their travel loving parents, not knowing all of their toys and other belongings would take over three months to arrive at our new home. That was a mess we can laugh about five years later!
Did I mention the kid's apple juice habit? Two to three gallons a week. This abruptly came to a screeching halt; at over $13.00 a gallon, we could no longer justify it. We soon found out that life in the bush meant all those dollar signs which came with the new job, were there for a reason. Not just because Scott is the best telecom technician in the world... but also because it would take a considerable income to be able to afford even some of the comforts that we were used to.
Everything had to be shipped in...either by barge or by air. So it meant that everything was sold by weight. If you want an idea of how much that would change the way you shop, next time you go to the supermarket, take a gallon of milk, bread, and eggs to the produce scale. If you have 20 pounds of food, those would cost the retail price of items, plus shipping of $40.69. Making your grand total somewhere in the neighborhood of $60.00. That was a harsh reality we never got used to. The summer we spent there, I actually paid $30.00 for a watermelon.
Most of our grocery shopping was done by mail. I would call Costco in Anchorage and tell them I wanted to place a "bush order". I gave them my list over the phone of the things I needed. Someone would then take the list and shop for me. The items were then placed in boxes and shipped to us. We would pick up our boxes at the post office. Nothing perishable could be shipped that way. It changed our diet for the worst! I found it a great excuse to eat Pop Tarts. Our kids hated powdered milk, so we would mix it with Nesquick. Oh Yeah! And who can forget the gallons of Kool Aid...the water was dirty. We were told it was OK to drink, but it was rust colored. It took hours to distill. Forget about bottled water, we might as well have been drinking liquid gold! We finally resorted to buying an expensive water filtration system and having our land lords install it. It was great for the last 2 months we were there though.
I could go on and on about the shock and awe of it all! No department stores, service stations, book stores, office supply places, malls, nothing that a city offers, ease and convenience were non existent. There was no fast food...unless someone went to Burger King in the Anchorage airport and brought it to you on the plane. Not the way it was intended to be enjoyed. And the one good place to eat, had a really good Greek pizza...at over $40.00 a pie, it wasn't THAT good! I mean, how fresh could those ingredients have been anyway? There was way more culture shock to come. Everything from going to church with only five other people; to not knowing anything about the native way of life, or even how to pronounce the names of the places there!
There was little in the way of recreation, except what we made for ourselves. The activities we did enjoy, aside from the television, involved a lot more work than I was used to! Everything required a lot of preparation. This was the wilderness. There were really big bears and other things to consider. One that I never thought of before we arrived was insects! White socks and no see um's. I had never even heard of these bugs before King Salmon.
It still, to this days makes me cringe. Bug jacket anyone? Literally we had to douse ourselves, and the kids especially, with "bug dope" aka 100%, cancer causing DEET. Nothing else worked, except to put on the jacket. This thing was a jacket with a screen like hood that went over your face and could be bungeed up on the sleeves and waist. And we had to wear it or the deet, to avoid terrible bites that not only itch, but would also swell,turn red, and scab over. I still have the jackets, but have had no need for them since we left there!
Some things we experienced while living there included, helicopter rides, first salmon, many fishing trips, smoking and canning fish, learning the art of filleting salmon, picking berries on the tundra, spectacular sight seeing, famous Brooks falls, mail order groceries, full utilization of the US postal service, preschool, potty training, clam digging, bears up close, moose up close, and many, many more that I will talk about in depth later. We also made some wonderful new friends and saw some of the most spectacular scenery I have ever seen anywhere! I will expand on our adventure here more in another post.
I hope you enjoyed the scenery and got the general lay of the land!
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