My footprints on Kashevaroff Mountain:
especially not having to worry about the bears now deep in hibernation. Frequent sunny days made the island into an airport giftshop postcard -- too good to be true.
Bluebird sky day view of Women's Bay:
Salonie Creek at sunrise:
It's not that it wasn't beautiful, because it truly was, but anything too good to be true comes with a catch.
Reflection of mountains in Felton Creek in Middle Bay:
Lake Rose Tead in Pasagshak:
The hitch with this Winter Camelot was spending three-quarters of the day in the dark. I had conveniently forgotten what it was like to spend the majority of the day in darkness, wondering what was going on outside. More importantly, I had forgotten that there is something about the lack of sunlight that makes me hungry. Ravenous, even. I have no idea why. Maybe I have a hibernating instinct or deep down I worry that I might be stranded in the backcountry and need to live off my own fat for several months. When I see sea lions or seals out in the bay with their thick layer of blubber I feel admiration with a side twinge of jealousy. And a little peckish. Beware the fat-laden baked good that comes into my view.
Kodiak, with about six hours of daylight around the solstice, isn't even that bad compared to places like Fairbanks which is located at a latitude that teases one with glimpses of the sun (I watched the sun rise and set over the course of two hours while sitting in a hotel room in Fairbanks in December. That was depressing.). One day in Fairbanks I went to an antique store with my mom. The store had a plate of cheese, salami, and veggies set out which I hovered over while trying to feign interest in a blackened pitcher that appeared to have lived over a campfire for the last century. Eventually, I finished most of the plate, proud that I had exercised enough restraint to leave a couple cherry tomatoes and carrots for another customer. I was still hungry, however, and decided to venture further afield in hopes that I might stumble upon another plate of goodies lying about.
My search was fruitless. There was nothing else ready to eat in the store and someone had taken the cherry tomatoes and carrots by the time I circled back to the known food source. I caught myself considering the merits of gnawing the leather on a pair of old snowshoes hung on the wall. I forced myself to look away and my gaze fell on a cookbook: Cooking Alaskan. Since I was already hungry, I decided perusing a cookbook wasn't going to make me any more famished.
I opened to a page at random and was instantly delighted with what I saw. The cookbook was pure gold. Aside from the mundane recipes for Roast Moose Heart with Cranberry Stuffing, Fried Beaver Tail, or Caribou Agutuk (caribou tallow, seal or whale oil, ground caribou meat and broth all whipped into a fluff with a few berries for good measure. Allegedly sweet.), there is both big game like Polar Bear Braised Steaks with Onions and the dubious, smaller game Chicken-Fried Muskrat. Perhaps some Lynx Stew is in order? Let's not forget the ocean. Four-Day Spiced Walrus sounds rather spicy, but definitely preferable to Boiled Walrus Skin or Whale Oil Sugar Cookies. Perhaps you like living on the edge and feel like illegally consuming something endangered. How about the delightful Sea Lion Meatballs and Spaghetti? If you prefer to stay out of jail, it might be possible to console yourself with Seal Liver and Wheat Germ Saute or perhaps Seal Brains au Gratin. Don't tell me you aren't tempted.
My favorite so far involves our feathered friends: Duck in the Mud. The recipe assumes that one has shot a duck in the morning before having breakfast. I, personally, would have to eat breakfast first, but whatever. Here are the directions: "While you are having breakfast, build up a good campfire in a hollow. Your duck or goose is eviscerated, so wipe it inside and out with a cloth. Rub the inside thoroughly with salt and a little pepper. Stuff cavity with an apple, an onion or both. Fold the feathers to cover all openings and plaster the whole thing with a coat of clay mud (sand or loam will not do) about an inch thick. Place the bird in the bottom of your fire among the ashes and cover it well with wood. Go hunting all day, and when you return for dinner, be prepared for the best duck or goose you ever tasted. Dig it out of the ashes (it should still be hot) and break off the clay. The feathers come with it." Genius. Pure genius. And there are no dishes to clean!
There was no question. It was clear I couldn't live without the cookbook so I bought it as a Christmas gift to myself.
I pored over the enticing pages all the way back to Kodiak. With no muskox or black bear in the freezer, I would be unable to whip up anything in the 300 pages set aside for animals roaming in one's backyard or found mangled on the road. The section devoted to baked goods with sourdough as a main ingredient soon had my full attention, however. Cooking with a batter descended directly from a partially fermented substance that may or may not have included potatoes, flour, and assorted malt beverages thrown together over a century ago is not for everyone. Personally, I love sourdough pancakes and waffles, but had never considered including sourdough starter in baked goods. In my mind that would be an unholy sweet and savory mix like chocolate covered bacon. Excellent separate, yes, but together, well, that's not exactly a taste sensation a person wants lingering on their tongue. I was intrigued. Especially because these would be fat-laden baked goods made with lard. My palms got sweaty just thinking about the possibilities.
I started off with something simple: Sourdough Squash Bars. With no canned squash on hand due to a terrible summer for the greenhouse, I used the allowed alternate ingredient of canned pumpkin. So basically the Sourdough Squash Bars became Sourdough Pumpkin Bars. But what bars they were! Not too sweet and satisfyingly moist, they tasted faintly of sourdough in a pleasant way. Not at all like chocolate covered bacon. I made three batches.
As winter progressed, sourdough bars led to sourdough cookies and sourdough cookies led to sourdough cakes. By now I was confident enough to improvise and in a flash of inspiration I added a bit of peppermint to a sourdough chocolate cake recipe. It was superb (and 2 1/2 inches high in the cake pan!). I'm fully convinced sourdough is the way forward for baked goods.
Cooking Alaskan has become my favorite cookbook ever -- the ultimate antithesis of all the low-fat and vegetarian cookbooks clogging bookstore shelves. Although the baked goods section is well thumbed, the game section sits patiently while I look outside at the snow,
Cope and Erskine mountains just before sunrise:
View from Salonie Creek flats at sunrise:
waiting for hunting season or for someone to bring me some seal brains, whichever comes first.
but I would also have time to go local. First I just had to find a place to stay.
The little red shirt is Mike in the stunning Grande Grotto:
Rock climbing is easiest when one has all limbs intact so Diana and I had even more incentive to find lodging outside Pothia. Our goal was to find a place in Masouri -- the town most centrally located to developed climbing on the island -- so we took the bus there (we used the bus so much that the drivers started to let us off at unscheduled stops) and started to poke around. We decided to drop in on Fani, a women who runs a mini market that we had frequented when we were in Kalymnos in May. Turned out she and her mother managed the flats around her market, as well. When she found out that we were staying in the area for a month, she decided to put us in a room reserved for clients arriving in a few days, booting them to some other building. Diana and I felt guilty about dislodging the folks until we saw the view. 
Done deal. We had an apartment and deck. 
It was time to get climbing!
Me gearing up:
Diana rests before making her next move:
rental guy who organizes jungle raves in Thailand in the off season, and maintains the only mullet with dreadlocks (mullocks?) I've ever seen. Or the pub proprietor with the magnificent skullet who is the only registered fan of Deadliest Catch on Kalymnos and dreams of visiting Alaska one day (I'm sending him an Alaskan flag to hang in the bar). Tradition mixes with the modern in Masouri creating a cultural mashup where one can use wi-fi while watching herds of goats pass by, 
or see women sunbathe topless who are watching other women swim in the ocean in dresses. (I observed that particular scene only for it's anthropological novelty, of course.) 
Diana and I couldn't figure out why we kept missing the bus and then discovered that while the bus schedule had officially changed, the posted times were not updated for two weeks. I tried to make reservations online to fly from Kalymnos but the websites only showed options for the airport at the neighboring island of Kos. (Luckily, cheap ferries run several times a day between Kalymnos and Kos so it was not a problem to catch a flight.) Allegedly, it is possible to make reservations to/from Kalymnos only through a travel agent for a few of the winter months, although some locals maintained that the planes stop flying during that period. I gave up trying to figure out the transportation puzzle and went climbing.
George, Diana, and me waiting for the first ferry to Telendos (background) for a day of climbing:
Mav loves the nightlife:
Albin pulls rope:
George showed up a few days later with about 12 hours of warning, although we weren't really sure from his Facebook posting if he was truly coming. 
Fani was as surprised as we were when he showed up. "Your friend?" she asked quizically, perhaps recalling the ruckus we made the night Mav showed up. Things got really good when Mike showed up a few days later and we had no idea at all he was joining us. 
He had been cycling in Turkey, heard we were climbing in Kalymnos, and decided to pop over. I happened to be hanging laundry out on our deck when I heard a voice say "Mzungu!" (Swahili for white man/foreigner), looked down and saw Mike grinning at me from street level. Although he knew we were on Kalymnos, he had no idea where we were staying yet still found us almost immediately. The man has serious tracker instincts. I think Fani tossed her hands in the air when a couple of fun French guys started hanging out with us.
When a perplexed Fani came up to Diana and asked, "Your friend, this Mike, why he have his camp on the bed? How can we change the sheets?" there was a moment of confusion. Was there something wrong with the fact that Mike had erected his tent on top of his bed and was sleeping inside of it? Perhaps it was the mosquitoes or perhaps he really liked his tent. Who could say for sure? It didn't seem particularly odd or unusual when compared to, say, an electrified shower, overzealous dynamite explosions, or a disappearing ATM -- events that barely turned the heads of locals. Maybe that was it. Odd and unusual behavior no longer seemed especially odd or unusual to us. We were going local! 
Sailboat passes by the Kastelli Church:
George belays in the evening sun:
Telendos Island:
Cool flower:
Clear waters:
Mav picks another climb to do just as the sun is setting. Typical:
Alexis, Diana, and Albin hamming it up:
Church on Telendos:
Inside the church:
George and Diana on the descent after our day climbing the fun multi-pitch Wings of Life on Telendos:
Diana, George and me waiting for the ferry back to Masouri (in the background) from Telendos:
My attempt at sewing the rip in my trousers:
George exhausted after a climb:
Lovely sunset:
Those ancient Greeks were onto something with their design aesthetic and it is still impressive to see the grand structures. Even with a crane in the middle. 
If anything, the crane made me appreciate even more the amount of effort it would have taken to do repairs before the advent of modern machinery. These are the musings that plague my mind.
At least the hill made for nice views of Athens.
An expat squatter of mysterious origin, Tom creates an ever changing structure on his corner lot from objects he finds. 
Call it art or call it a shanty, his political views were on full display.
Eventually, I had numerous bear encounters in other parts of Alaska when I spent summers counting fish for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, but they weren't a Kodiak Bear which I was convinced would be a majestic creature the size of a Hummer (H2 at least), fur continuously ruffling in a light sea breeze. Now I know they are more like vermin.
It seemed like a person couldn't walk more than 10 feet without tripping over one. When the bears weren't trying to gnaw their way into someone's home (this really happened, I just can't seem to find the link through the local paper), they were busy developing dumpster diving skills to pass the time until the salmon and berries arrived. At one point a friend counted 12 of the lumbering beasts on the two rivers within a mile of my mother's house. 
It became a daily occurrence and cars would line the main road to gawk and take pictures when one of the bears appeared. It was as though they had unilaterally decided to stop skulking behind chicken coops and go public in some sort of weird Bear Pride movement.
So real, in fact, that on a couple of occasions I thought I might have the opportunity to examine my own viscera. One morning I was blithely biking along on my roadbike enjoying the 6 a.m. sun on my shoulders when I belatedly noticed a large boulder start to move out of the corner of my right eye on the side of the road. Much slower than the gears on my bike, my mind recalled that there are no boulders in the river marsh flat and boulders don't typically move on their own and wait a minute THAT'S NO BOULDER! I accelerated from cruiser speed to Tour de France sprint finish speed in half a pedal stroke before my brain had even processed the word "bear." I'm pretty sure I left some rubber on the pavement. It took half a day before I lost the coppery taste in my mouth from all the blood vessels I had spontaneously burst from my overdrive effort.
I wasn't about to let some bears stop me from getting a run in, however, even though my options seemed rather limited -- I have yet to see running shorts featuring gun holsters or pockets to accomodate pepper spray. There was some logic to the idea of testing an area outside my normal pattern, one away from the bears, for instance. They all seemed to be congregating around the rivers at sea level for the salmon so a nice mountain trail seem reasonably safe. Silly me.
The Timothy Treadwell wannabe was literally crawling toward the bear commando style, popping his head up occasionally to determine his progress. Who tries to sneak up on a bear? Yes, things do get rather large in Alaska, but that 2,000 pound animal is not, I repeat NOT, an overgrown ground squirrel. I almost hoped the bear would get surly and smack the dimwit down so that I could nominate him for the Darwin Awards. Another time I saw a bear approach a woman fishing on a river. She simply crossed the river in her boots and continued fishing while the bear stopped directly opposite her on the far bank and watched. I couldn't believe it. I've seen how fast a bear can move and that bear could have been across that river in three steps and had her head in its mouth before she had a chance to drop her fishing pole. This isn't a zoo, for crying out loud. Please, have a little healthy respect toward keystone predators, people. Some healthy respect and we can all co-exist.
We took the groom to a luau as part of his bachelor party 
and thought the fire eater there was amusing even if his lines seemed a little too polished. He had to leave in a hurry to go to a wedding. A couple of days later he made an appearance at my friends' wedding reception, sandwiched between two other weddings he was performing at. 
Busy fellow. I'd say with his crammed schedule there is room for an understudy.
the morning after the luau (It wasn't anything like the world's longest 
Dueling zipliners!:
we did learn from one of our guides that there is no bungee jumping on Kauai. 
Yet another business opportunity. That is, of course, if you don't want to be a fire eater. From the same guide we learned that...
What a difference a mile makes! Energized once again, we fired up our deathtrap and headed toward our campsite, trying to mentally block out the obnoxious whine of the motor in the stillness by looking at the scenery. 
the wildlife was standard issue, 
and exploring the WW II bunkers was positively boring (there's only so much concrete one can look at). 
Occasionally something moderately interesting became crammed in the rocks on some beach after a good storm, 
but when the novelty wore off after a few minutes, what else was there to do? Look at flowers? 
Exactly my point.
the beaches look pretty in the rain, 
and fresh bear tracks in the mud add an extra shot of adrenaline more effective than coffee to my morning run. 
I knew it was going to be different from snorkeling in the tropics, but I didn't realize how different. I had fished for halibut and thrown out a subsistence crab pot or two on the waters around Kodiak, but sitting in a boat on the surface of the ocean I might as well have been 3,000 miles away from the scene happening below me. The waters are cloudy in the summer because they are literally teeming with life. Tiny life. Plankton and algae and mini bits of other organic matter swirled in the currents and I suddenly realized why these waters are so productive. All this life in miniature supported all other life in the ocean; it's the base of the food chain, and it is one massive base. 
