I am now a hunter-gatherer of insights and information to bring back to the homestead. My first destination,   Lower Manhattan, to catch up with friends and immerse myself in metropolis energy. I sojourn with family at the apex of City Hall Park and the Brooklyn Bridge, a few blocks from Zuccotti Park.

For almost a week I open myself to NYC, join the walking throngs, crisscrossing town by foot, registering neighborhood changes from Tribeca and Greenwich Village to Chinatown, Little Italy, Upper Broadway and the East side. I mingle with OWS and nearby union protesters, listen to stories and take in the glint of Mad Men and Women. The Zuccotti zone sings with purpose and inquiry, the rest of the Big Apple throbs with the revolving door power of ignoring anything outside of arm's reach and the next text message. The diversity of impressions heightened by restauranting on Japanese, Indian, Korean, Greek, and nibble of sticky buns sprinkled with sesame seeds and a dab of bean paste in the middle.

A side trip upstate on Metro North from Grand Central, traveling along the Lordly Hudson to Beacon brings broader vistas, a walk across the Hudson at Poughkeepsie on the Rail To Trails bridge, and a challenging art adventure at the cavernous DIA-Beacon gallery in the renovated Nabisco box factory overlooking the Hudson.

From NYC I fly to Savannah International and head to Hunting Island State Park to tent on the beach fringe under wind-rustled Palmetto palms. Hunting Island is one of my favorite retreats going back to the early '70s when our kids were toddlers and our little gang of friends would fly kites, picnic, swim and nap away long summer days. We ran into one of that gang at the supermarket on our way to the beach. His comment on our camping trip, "I camp at the Ritz Carlton."

This past weekend my friend Jay and I were docents for the Beaufort County Open Land Trust fundraiser tour at Auldbrass, a modern plantation designed and built over 20 years (1938-1959) by Frank Lloyd Wright for industrialist Leigh Stevens. Joel Silver bought the plantation in 1986 and has spent millions working closely on the restoration with Wright's grandson, Eric Lloyd Wright, and a team of artisans and landscapers who continue to restore the architectural masterpiece. I was stationed at the front door--a sort of homeland security agent for the arts--and enjoyed meeting and talking with people from around the country, most sharing a genuine interest in Wright and his work, some curious to see Silver's blockbuster restoration. On one occasion, talking about the restoration, the producer of Diehard and Lethal Weapon glibly announced, "I paint with a checkbook." The night before the tour Eric Lloyd Wright, now in his late 80s, gave a touching, firsthand account of the painstaking effort to restore the long-abandoned and incomplete complex of structures.

All inspires ideas for the homestead...especially Wright's genius for discerning fundamental characteristics of nature such as walls that echo the angle of mature live oak trees, rain spouts that parody the flow of Spanish Moss from expansive live oak branches, copper roofing that captures the light and shadow play on palmetto fronds, and interpreting and transforming the essential qualities that draw the eye to the built environment's place in nature.

OWS Zuccotti Park, NYC

For The Birds - An immodest proposal

ActBlue. The color of Rainbow Glacier peeking through last night’s snow. I could send $5 to side with the plight of Wisconsin workers and support the campaign to unseat Governor Scott Walker or I can ponder the future of resident and migratory birds that visit Southeast Alaska. I’m not registered in Wisconsin. I’ll vote for the birds.

After a silent winter I awaken in early dawn to a melodic cacophony streaming through my open window. Droves of birds newly arrived elude my eye, but call me to action.

A thousand washable bird bags, 25 mist nets and poles, a bird-banding table, banding tools and rubber bands. Easily acquired items and a shelter for inclement weather and tool storage comprise the physical necessities to host a bird observatory at Seven Echoes Homestead.

The idea of creating a bird observatory at the homestead hatched when Pam Randles shared her desire to achieve Master Bander status.  I learned that the Takshanuk Watershed Council is looking for a suitable location to establish an educational bird observatory in Haines. Pam, the watershed education program coordinator, believes in a citizen science approach to learning about our environment and is heading up the observatory site search. The purpose of the proposed observatory: to collect information on migratory birds and band birds for further study, and to establish a nature center for students and community members.

I invited Pam to walk the flats on a brisk autumn day. Binoculars in hand, we headed down an overgrown logging road and within minutes she enthused, “I’ve already identified 25 different species by sight or song!” Before we reached the open flats the underbrush was disturbed by an immature robin thrashing at the edge of the path, beating its way into the brush as we approached. On our return several hours later we found the robin lifeless in the path. On closer observation in Pam’s cupped hand we saw a deep puncture wound, probably from a weasel or a hawk.

Seven Echoes Homestead forms a ragged green crescent at the head of Mud Bay. On most maps look for Flat Bay on the east shores of the Chilkat Peninsula. The tidal flats and uplands provide sanctuary for scores of migratory and resident bird species. Approximately 250 bird species frequent the Chilkat Valley. Equally as many residents are casual birdwatchers, 30 are serious birders. My closest neighbor keeps a notebook of unusual sightings while crossing the mud flats at low tide or exploring the flats and uplands with his daughter. His journal pinpoints unusual valley visitors, a Sandhill Crane resting in the upper bay, and a Redtailed Hawk and fledgling. “Kee-eeeeeeee-arrr,” rings down through the woods some summers.

The Chilkat Valley is strategically located to gather needed information about migratory birds from all parts of North and South America, from Asia, Australia, the Caribbean and Mexico. Millions of birds catch the North American and Pacific flyways to summer over and breed in Alaska. There are three Bird Observatories in the Yukon and one in Fairbanks, none in Southeast Alaska. An observatory at the homestead would honor our family legacy by helping ornithologists understand changes in bird populations in this time of climate change.  4.11.11

Geology--History Emergent

I wasn’t prepared for the first words Cindy Buxton spoke as we stood on the mud flats looking up toward the homestead. “There are world class rocks on the Chilkat Peninsula that would excite every geologist in the world.”

Cindy’s authority stunned me in much the same way I find myself humbled by the raw grandeur of Alaska’s landscapes. I wanted to learn something of what formed the ground we stand on. A history mysterious to me shaped the Chilkat Peninsula, the craggy peaks on the far sides of Lynn Canal and the Chilkat River. A Haines geologist was willing to share her knowledge. In less than an hour I gained a deeper understanding of our past which I share with you in Cindy’s words:

Encompassing the intertidal flats at the head of Mud Bay, the Nelson Homestead was shaped by the rich geological and geomorphic history of the Upper Lynn Canal and the Chilkat Peninsula. All three major rock categories—igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary—are found on or near the homestead.

About 220 million years ago lava flows covered the landscape, coalescing into a thick pile of basalt. Near the end of the volcanic episode some of the lava flowed into the ocean, forming spectacular pillow basalts and other rocks similar to what one might find on the coast of Hawaii today. These lavas were then buried by about a 5-mile thick sequence of ocean sediments over tens of millions of years. The heat and pressure at such great depths caused metamorphic changes in the basalts and sediments. Over time immense forces lifted the buried conglomeration of metamorphosed materials. Huge portions were eroded away, once again exposing the lower sediments and the now metamorphosed lavas. 

Approximately 18,000 years ago at the peak of the last ice age, the entire homestead was under about 3500 feet of ice. The moving ice eroded the area into its current dramatic landforms leaving glacial striations on mountain tops and numerous large glacial erratic boulders to dot the landscape. The ice advanced again during the Little Ice Age, likely filling only the deeper valleys and then retreated 300 years ago. No longer depressed under the huge weight of the ice, the crust began to “rebound” upwards, a total of about 15 feet since 1770. Currently the rebound rate is about 0.9” per year, a rate second in the world only to the uplift in Glacier Bay which is rising at a little over 1” a year.

Two faults cut through the homestead, connecting the major parallel faults running up Lynn Canal and the Chilkat River, both of which in the past were equivalent to the San Andreas Fault. Movement on the “Mud Bay” faults is sideways rather than up and down, shifting the peninsula south of the homestead to the northwest in relation to the peninsula north of the homestead. Erosion on these faults by streams, and especially the large glaciers, formed Mud Bay and Letnikof Cove.

No earthquakes have been recorded on the small faults on the homestead, although many small to medium earthquakes are known to occur on the faults in Chilkat River and Lynn Canal. The two “Mud Bay” faults partly control the local distribution of fresh water and salt water in nearby wells. One of these faults likely funnels fresh ground water up to the artesian well on the homestead.  Many wells on nearby properties hit salty water.

Cindy’s description prompted me to renew my vows of gratitude. Whether filling water jugs at the spring, gathering wood for the wood stove or joining friends at the garden to harvest vegetables and share a potluck meal around the fire, I find myself remembering the essence of these thoughts penned by John Muir over a century ago:

“This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.”

Cindy Buxton is a geologist with 25 years of extensive experience in resource estimation and geologic mapping for a variety of mining companies. She has worked as an independent consultant since 1996. Her experience in Alaska includes the Brooks Range, Seward Peninsula and Southeast Alaska. She has a Master of Science in Geology from the University of Washington, Seattle, 1990, with a thesis, “Geology and Pre-Metamorphic Evolution of the Nome Group Blueschist Terrain, Horton Creek Area, Seward Peninsula, Alaska.” Her Bachelor of Arts in Geology, 1987, is from Rice University, Houston, Texas, with a thesis, “Field Guide to the Precambrian Rocks of Central Texas.” As a hobby she documents the local geology and leads school and community field trips under the auspices of the Takshanuk Watershed Council program, Living in the Forest Presents, to teach Haines residents and visitors of all ages about our geologic history. Her most recent geology field trip was “Volcanic Rocks of the Haines Peninsula.” She also gives occasional geology talks at the Haines Public Library.

Loving Well is the Best Revenge

You Can’t Go Home Again loomed large in my psyche during my teen and young adult years. “Home? What’s that?” was my mantra. My life embodied the alienation and existential angst fed by a world in rapid transformation. Now I understand there is a difference between nurturing comforts and transforming love. They aren’t always packaged together, found under one roof, or in one place.

I did come home to the land of my father’s dreams, and my mother’s nightmares, wilderness at the end of a seven mile gravel road thousands of miles from her mother and sisters. Dad’s dream came to fruition with the homestead, the Juneau Symphony, and French horn and piano duets with Nancy Nash. Mom hid her dreams inside, and with Louise Homested joined the Haines social network and potluck society.

Walking Mom and Dad’s path for ten years allowed us to see each other in different contexts. I’d shed the drive to save the world. They softened. I gained strength. Working the soil with my hands and tending the vegetable garden, day after day preparing meals from the harvest and sharing the bounty at table engendered empathic listening. Innumerable care-giving gestures: bathing, grooming, taking mom and dad on separate outings to visit friends when they could no longer walk prepared me for the dying part of life. Dad’s top destination was Budge McCray. Mom visited friends and family in her sleeping dreams.

From the Alaskan life my parents shaped for themselves emerged an image of what they accomplished, and a realization that human frailties pale in the face of even modest accomplishments. By etching out the homestead they took the steps I can follow to realize my dreams.

Challenges lie ahead. Challenges I peel away layer by layer, like the pungent onion skin that in turn burns my eyes and brings promise of subtle delight to innumerable dishes.

My dreams begin with protecting the wildlife corridor and wetlands for resident and migratory birds, moose, bear and other ranging creatures. A conservation easement and bird observatory top the list for this dream.

 Expanding Dad’s organic garden and introducing sustainable agriculture in the upper field is a dream in progress.

Rather than build a castle, I dream of the homestead as an eco-learning center where sustainable lifestyle practices are modeled, tested and shared community-wide; where a K-12 arts-and sustainability-integrated curriculum for life-long learning is brainstormed.

A retreat for artists, writers, musicians and healers is a core dream. Perhaps Haines High School shop students can build one-room retreat cabins nestled in the woods.

The homestead eco-lodge for community meetings, concerts, conferences and a locavor eatery could also serve as a mini-culinary arts school linked to Haines schools.

As the year-round resident steward I will live in a small and sustainable green home that preserves viewscapes from the water and across Mud Bay.

Walks in undisturbed forest will inspire visitors to dream.

Bewilderness

 

“So you’re goin’ to the Bewilderness.” Her brow furrowed, drawing my gaze to her dusky eyelids. Mom’s cleaning lady looked up from the dress as she set the iron on end. “Who’d’uv guessed you’d leave Rochester an’ drive all that way. An’ fo’ what?”

Duct-taped to the aqua 1954 Ford station wagon window, a hand-crayoned sign proclaimed, “Alaska or Bust.” The day America’s Last Frontier joined the Union, Dad’s dream took flight. An Alaska homestead and hunting grounds that dwarfed his haunts in Pennsylvania and Wyoming awaited him up north.

It took three boomerang trips to land in Haines. On the first two cross-country camping trips, the odd-ball dictates of our Ma and Pa Kettle parents caused me to think they were among the authors of Murphy’s Law. From New York to the Dakotas we heard “Your Aunt and Uncle So-And-So will be glad to see us. No need to call ahead.” Only to be greeted by “Nothing much going on here.” In Yellowstone, a sporting night with other teen campers and human-conditioned black bears got my older sister and me whopped with the belt that “hurts me more than it does you.” 

We managed to survive the thousand miles of serpentine, permafrost-heaved, gravel road of the AlCan Highway, despite flat tires and rocks spat at our windshield by caravans of oncoming semi-trucks. In the Yukon Dad’s puckish disappearance with a concealed weapon and return announcement “let’s have chicken tonight” turned out to be a campfire roasted porcupine. All four Nelson children went without supper.

For nearly forty years after “proving up” on the Mud Bay homestead, Dad stuck to the routine etched in his being as deeply as the ruts in his clay driveway. His gnarled hands worked the soil and harvested lettuces, kale, chard and root vegetables. When subsistence fishing opened on the Chilkat River, he hauled his skiff to Letnikof Cove and gill netted Sockeye that he smoked and canned to hold him until the following season. He collected eggs and set a lantern in the chicken house to keep the water dish from freezing on the coldest nights.

Except for those three road trips—the last one in 1966 to move my family to their temporary home in the Fort Seward Quonset hut—I only visited my Alaska family one time—the summer of 1973 after my third child was born. At some point in the mid-1990s, now dim in my memory, Mom’s once perfect script looked like hen scratchings and Dad’s scrawling block print letters foretold of barged food orders so enormous my children could inherit 50# bags of black beans, green lentils and brown rice.

The decision to spend winters in coastal South Carolina and summers in Haines was easy, thanks to the Internet. Who wouldn’t want to look up from their work to see the panoramic emerald waters of Lynn Canal with a backdrop of jagged peaks? I teleworked between the East Coast and Alaska, and commuted the seven miles between the homestead and Mom’s cabin on FAA Road. The same fingers that raced across my laptop keyboard tended my declining parents’ every need. I took on new tasks each day until their life became mine. And their dreams became mine.   

Frugal

No one ever told me why Grandma Benson took her glass eye out every night or why it was in her head in the first place. I have both eyes, but only see with half of each eye. Fortunately, it’s the right half. So even though our partial blindness, well, was different, I always identified with her, because we were both frugal. We knew how to use what vision we did have to advantage.

When my parents fought over nothing and the house became frigid, I packed up my little red wagon and followed the cracked sidewalk over to grandma's for an extended stay. She never turned me away. Or said, “Where’s that stiff upper lip, kiddo. You belong at your own house.” No, grandma let me play shadow. I learned how to sleep in a cuddling S, so close our bodies breathed in unison. In a duet we jumped out of bed seconds before the alarm blare. With flowing Isadora Duncan movements we flounced the feather pillows, folded over the starched cotton sheet and straightened the limp chenille bed spread around the pillows.

I felt as though I looked into my future sitting across from grandma at the grey and white Formica kitchen table as we breakfasted on the everyday half of grapefruit, the bowl of Irish stone cut oatmeal, and sipped black coffee I shouldn’t be drinking at such a young age. Grandma let me. She accepted me exactly as I was.

Weekdays she sat at her cubby desk and dialed routine morning telephone calls to fellow Rebeccas, Royal Neighbors, Busy Bees, Eastern Stars, 4-H and Girl Scout leaders, and the shut-ins.—after listening to the farm report on the radio and making strategic calls to the corn futures broker and sometimes her banker. If she had been a man, she would have been a CEO. Instead she managed an Iowa corn farm and wore cotton print dresses.

Business over, she spent a few minutes on the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle published each week in the De Moines Register. She finished the puzzle and sent it in religiously for decades. I listened carefully to glean her networking skills. I read the hints Down and Across and decided I wasn’t cut out for trivia.

Grandma made a life from scratch: soap from lye and lard, deep-fried donuts in rendered bacon fat, her own patterns for her and her daughters’ dresses. She recycled and composted everything. Water from her eaves went into a cistern for bath and laundry. No water went down the kitchen drain.

At night after supper she carried the dish pan out the back screen door to the garden compost pile and flung the water over the fence in one graceful arc.

This is my opinion and it's very true.

When Tony Schwartz made this amazing statement to a grad class at the Center for Understanding Media sometime in the mid-1970s, I fell out of my seat laughing inside, and a moment later I was hit with the realization that we all have slightly different truths. His uncanny ability to proclaim advertising truths relevant to millions of people—oxymoron intended—and my love-hate relationship with the all-encompassing world of public relations, caused me to lend credence to each person's truths. And now, after all these years, to speak my own truth. As you might imagine, some truths are fiction and some are not.