August 26-28: Work Trip to Yakutat

Since I moved to Anchorage my blog posts may make is sound like I am on vacation here. But I do work some!  Actually, I work quite a bit but I love my job and do not mind going the extra mile if needed.

Without going into any details here, one of my projects involves some health risk assessment and health communication work for members of the Tlingit Tribe living in Yakutat ("The place where canoes rest" in Tlingit), a little town located on the coast of the Gulf of Alaska, about half way between Anchorage and Juneau.  Little did I know but Yakutat is both a popular fishing and surfing spot in Alaska.  Traveling there, I had a good taste of its reputation as a fishing spot. 

My colleague and I flew to Yakutat, via Juneau.  In other words, we passed our destination to go to Juneau and back tracked to land in Yakutat (why does this make sense? I dunno!).  I must have been the only woman on the flight between Juneau and Yakutat.  Most of the passengers were bearded guys in their 50's and above, carrying fishing rods and wearing baseball caps. We landed in the tiny Yakutat airport and as we were walking from the tarmac to the terminal, my colleague pointed to a log cabin  and said "that's where you are staying.  Pretty convenient, isn't it!"  I had booked my room at the last minute, which was a mistake at the peak of fishing season, and had found the last room available at the "Yakutat Lodge" a popular fishermen hangout.  The place was about 50 feet (I am not exaggerating) from the airport.  So it was indeed, convenient.  On my 30-second walk between the airport and the lodge, I caught a glimpse of my first tsunami warning sign.  Alaska is at rather tectonically active spot and I was on the coast so it made sense.

My colleague was staying at another lodge, maybe slightly more fancy than mine but the bottom line is: there is no hotel in Yakutat. So fishermen lodges are the way to go; just a bit more rustic than what I was used to in my former job.  I ended up in a room with four beds, a full size freezer (yes, if you are a fisherman, you need to store your catch!) and a horrible smell of heating oil that ended up stinking up all my clothes.  Other than the smell, it was all I needed.

Yes, I had aaaall these beds for myself!

Among other things, the trip gave me the opportunity to learn about the Tlingit Tribe and to realize how attached these people are to their traditions.  If it is successful, the project I am working on in Yakutat should help the members of the Tribe with the preservation of their traditions and of their subsistence way of living.  Although challenging, this has been a very interesting and rewarding undertaking so far and I hope the collaboration with the Tribe remains fruitful. 

Tlingit art

The three days I spent in Yakutat were busy as I had to give four talks including one to the Tribal Counsel and one at a public meeting. But thanks to my colleague who knew the area and to the generosity of the Tribe who let us borrow one of their maintenance trucks (pretty sweet ride!! See below) I had a chance to visit a couple of very pretty places.

This was our ride for the duration of our stay

First, we went to Harlequin Lake.  We drove 30 or 40 miles on a dirt road, in the middle of nowhere.  I could have taken a nap at the wheel as we did not encounter a single curve in the road.  We parked by the "Dangerous River", a large volume stream, fed by Harlequin Lake and emptying close by in the Gulf of Alaska.  This river appeared to me as a freight train.  I was amazed by the speed of the water, making its way undisturbed like a fast conveyer belt: no rocks, no eddies, just a straight channel leading an enormous volume of water to the ocean.

The Dangerous River coming out of Harlequin lake

 After crossing the river, we hiked in the woods for about half an hour.  I was expecting an encounter with some Hobbits as everything was so green, mossy and lush.  This is area is part of the Tongass National Forest, a temperate rain forest, and the trees were covered with thick moss.  I thought that if there was a tree equivalent of stuffed animals, that how they would look.

A glimpse of the Tongass National Forest

What a "stuffed tree" should look like

We finally emerged out of the wood onto the shore of Harlequin Lake.  And there... WOW!!  What a sight! The stillness of the lake covered with icebergs and surrounded by mountains, the sun piercing out of the gray clouds and the barely perceptible murmur of what sounded like a tiny stream (that we could never identify) made for a breathtaking scene.  Once or twice, the silence was disturbed by a loud "Crack!!" that had us expect some big wave making it to shore.  But the surface of the lake remained undisturbed and as still as a mirror.  The reason for this remains a mystery.

Aside from its pure beauty, this place is very interesting for multiple reasons.  Harlequin lake appeared around 1850.  It is 1,000 feet deep in places. The icebergs floating at it surface come from the Yakutat ice field, a glacier large enough  to cover the five boroughs of New York City.  Sadly, because of the rising of temperatures, this immense expense of ice melting fast and ultimately is bound to disappear.  A particularity of this glacier is its low elevation, with a high point at about 2,000 feet above sea level. 

But what I will get out of this spot is its magic and even though they do not do it justice, I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

Harlequin Lake

After Harlequin Lake, we made our way to the beach. It was so strange to leave a mountainous landscape, drive for 45 minutes and be by the ocean.  But what a beach!! Immense, with fine sand and clear light green water forming perfect waves.  I understood right away why this was the Alaska surfing Mecca.  We stayed there for a while, with our eyes glued to the huge sky, the ocean as far as we could see, and the evening colors changing in the setting sun.  I did not want to lose a second of it.  I felt like a kid walking towards the waves and running away from them as they roll towards the beach to not get my feet soaked. It was a very pretty evening and the perfect way to release the tension of the past two days.

After this, my colleague and I went back to the restaurant of my lodge and decided to celebrate a good day of professional success and beautiful sightseeing with a beer and a feast of local Dungeness crab.  I have had crab before but never was it that good and never was the crab so HUGE!  Dungeness crabs can be up to 8" in diameters and they taste so buttery! DE-LISH!!Totally worth the work you put into getting to that meat.

This Yakutat trip lasted only 3 days but it was dense with new experiences and discoveries (professional, cultural...etc.).  This page only relays a quick glimpse of the whole stay.  But I can say that it was pretty satisfying for a "business trip" and I am hoping for many more to come.