Starting Life in King Salmon

Yesterday was our second day in King Salmon.  I would like to tell you that the wildlife is
is all over the place but we have yet to see any mammals running around the area.  We have
however seen quite a few birds. 

After breakfast yesterday we walked the mile an a quarter to town.  We went down to the river first
as we heard you can see beluga whales when the tide was coming in.  Unfortunately, it must have
been low tide as we did not see any.  We did see a large flock of tundra swans, a large flock of
pintail ducks and a few gulls I have yet to identify.

We then visited the visitor center, which was pretty interesting.  We were given an information
packet, a local calendar, and were invited to use their research library anytime we wanted.

We then went for breakfast at Eddies.  That is the only place to get internet right now.  We only had a
short time for breakfast as we needed to get to the post office which is a half a mile on the other
side of our house and is only open a hour and a half on Saturdays. This walking to everywhere is going
to take getting use to because it takes longer to get anywhere. So if yesterdays blog looked bad I'm
sorry as I was writing and eating at the same time.

We were expecting lots of packages to be waiting for us at the post office but we could have saved
ourselves a trip as there was not a single thing for us. We did however have a nice talk with the people
there.  We heard that we live in an area that will see bear activity soon, as we are close to the creek.
I was taking Camille on walks with us but she may stay home. With no packages being delivered for us that also means that no food has arrived.  We are down to just a few items and I don't want to spend a fortune on groceries at least until I get my first paycheck.  However, I do not want everything to show up at once and the two of us have to figure out how to carry hundreds of pounds of food the half mile home.

While walking around the yard yesterday I found what I think is the lower part of a walrus skull.  You could see where the tusks would have gone and there were teeth in the jaw bone.  It has quite heavy.  It now sits on our back deck.  We went down to the creek last night and on the walk over I noticed the ground was covered with low bush cranberries.  I think that we will be doing quite a bit of berry picking when they get ripe.  One item of food we can collect without paying for.
 
The morning was beautiful here but the afternoon was showers and by supper it was cold enough to be a mixture of precip.  I am up here in the bush and my poor husband is in ND after a blizzard living with no power, water, heat or phone and internet connections.  He should have came with us.

This morning I took Camille for a walk around the housing complex.  We were walking on a road with the houses on the left of us and trees and shrubs on the right side of us.  While we were walking we heard a crash. Both of us stopped and looked around but we could not see anything.  We started walking and we heard the same noise.  Now usually I would have gone to investigated but I stopped myself just in case there was a bear in one of the local dumpsters.  Here they do not have house to house garbage removal.  There are local dumpsters placed around the area.  It gets emptied once a week.  You are not suppose to take your garbage to the dumpster until the morning of pick up as the dumpsters are not bear proof.  To me that doesn't make much sense when you live in bear country.

The sounds here are quite different from anywhere else I have ever lived.  It is absolutely quiet with the
exception of an eagle cry once in awhile it was so still.  I really liked it.  Then I heard a turkey gobble.
Not a bird I was expecting to hear up here but it was cool. 

Today's plan is to read "Building in an Ashen Land: a Historic Resource Study of Katmai National Park and  Preserve".  It was a book given to me when we got here.  Inside was the temporary monthly schedule. This week the main activity takes place on Wednesday and Thursday.  We have B3 and Dunker training.  B3 is the park planethat takes the staff to Brooks Camp.  Dunker training is where you are strapped into a seat and dropped into the water which simulates the plane crashing into the ocean. You have to get yourself released from the seat and return to the surface before you die. Can't wait. 

Needless to say I am going to try to calm myself down.  I am nervous about the first day of work, the fact that food is low and I am depending on the postal service to rescue us, and the fact that I have dunker training on Wednesday and Thursday.  Take a deep breath.