I meet a Dutch Harbor fisherman beside a picnic table on the ice of Wasilla Lake

As I drove by Wasilla Lake, I saw a table sitting on the ice. I thought it might be a good place to take Margie out for dinner - a catered dinner of grilled halibut and asparagus on a gusty, chill, night and so went down to check it out.

At this size, he is kind of hard to see, but if you look closely toward the top of the picture just beyond the berm, you will see a man walking toward the lake.

Even from here, I could hear him talking, so I figured that he must be using his cell phone, via Bluetooth or something.

He stepped onto the ice and kept coming, conversing all the way. I did not try to make out his words, because I figured they were directed towards someone else.

As he drew close, I suddenly realized that he was talking to me and had been all the time.

"How deep is it? Pretty deep?" he was asking.

I reasoned that what he meant was "thick is the ice?" 

"Probably close to three feet," I estimated.

True, the ice doesn't look that thick in this two-D pic, but standing on it, looking down through the cracks and frozen bubbles, it did.

"So if I were to try to walk across the lake I would fall right through?" he speculated.

"No!" I answered, surprised. "You can walk across the lake. You can drive a truck across the lake. The ice is thick. The ice is strong."

"J" said he was a commercial fisherman, lives in Wasilla and works out of Dutch Harbor catching cod, halibut and such. He said things were a bit tight at the moment, until he can go out and fish. He made it clear that he is a hand and not a boat owner or permit holder.

The guys who are, he said, take their profits and go off to tropical islands, while he must stay home and tough it out.

He told me repeatedly how dangerous and crazy fishing is - furious activity surrounded winches and cables that a careless person can get caught in or that can snap and slice you up.

A fisherman can rip his shoulder hoisting halibut, he demonstrated.

He pointed down the highway and warned me about a certain, sneaky, cop that likes to hide out and then nail you as you pass innocently by in all good faith and intent.

Then he went his way and this couple walked past.

All this exposed grass is not due to warm temperatures. It is due to scouring winds. It has been windy, windy, windy! and mostly cool, with temps between about -10 F and +teens here in Wasilla, but yesterday, the day I took these pictures, was warm and still. Temperature about 29 F, wind calm.

Today, the wind howls again.

I have not yet stepped outside, but the house was not that cold this morning, so I suspect that the temperature remains on mild side.

This being March, there is no telling what will happen next.

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When no other spatula will do - another spatula will just have to do; two women on opposite sides of the road

As Kalib and Jobe have had but a small presence in this blog as of late, I back up now to Saturday night, when I went to their house to pick up Margie after the Fur Face beard contest. As I walked up the stairs, I saw a little face peeking over the safety gate at me.

Who the hell was it?

Why, it was Jobe!

And he was damn glad to see his grandpa.

Actually, I back up even a little further now - to just before I went to the beard contest, when I dropped Margie off. When we arrived, Jobe was napping and Kalib and his dad were out walking and playing in the nearby frozen and snowy park.

They soon arrived home and Kalib was carrying golf balls. Apparently, there had been some kind of golf tournament out in that park, probably associated with Anchorage Fur Rendezvous.

Some of the golfers had lost their balls.

Kalib had found them.

Margie helped Kalib out of his coat and then I left to find Charlie and his beard.

Now, back to late at night - to just before I took Margie to the car and drove her home. Kalib's spatula appeared, looking just like it always had. As regular readers know, for Kalib the Spatula Kid there was one spatula and one spatula only.

No other spatula would do.

But this was a different spatula.

His parents found it on ebay and it was identical to the spatula that got lost, an event that caused Kalib to pick up and glom onto a pair of tongs. They snatched it right up.

You will note that even though Kalib now has his same/different spatula back, he still carries his tongs.

Kalib is becoming quite expert at manipulating those tongs.

Self-portait: me, Kalib and Jacob.

As for the Iditarod Restart - I just had too much to do and could not take the time to go. I felt bad about it, but there were all kinds cameras there, operated by amateur and pro alike. There will be no shortage of images.

And this one from India:

Two ladies walking on opposite sides of the road at dusk.

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I follow Charlie to a tough Fur Face battle at Miners and Trappers, where I find myself in Wonderland; Miss Rondy Queen; Kalib and Jobe

As I had already made a post on Charlie grabbing the championship at the UAA Winterfest Beard Contest, I knew that I had to follow him into the big-time Anchorage Fur Rendezvous Fur Face competition at the beard contest that took place last night at the Miners and Trappers Ball. Tickets were pricey, so I got myself a press pass.

Miners and Trappers is a costume ball and this year's theme was "Highways in the Sky - A salute to Alaska Aviators." I stuck religiously to the theme and dressed as an Alaskan photographer/aviator who used to fly his little airplane all about Alaska and hopes to get another and do so again in the future.

The ball was held at the Egan Convention Center on Fifth Avenue, so I parked a few blocks away, hiked through the night and entered, looking for Charlie and Melanie, expecting to see tons of people dressed like Alaskan pilots.

Once inside, this was the first costumed person I came upon.

I suddenly knew that I had entered Wonderland.

I walked around looking for Melanie and Charlie, but I could not find them. Shortly, however, I came upon this rugged looking guy - Mr. Kenneth C. Feiber - who would not only be entering the Mr. Fur Face beard contest, but would be competing in the same category as Charlie - the Ptarmagan category, or freestyle.

At the UAA contest, as soon as I saw the competition charlie faced, I was quite certain he would walk away with it.

When I looked into this face, chill dread shook my body. I knew that on this night, here in Wonderland, Charlie was about to face a real battle.

In the restroom, I found Santa Claus, eying himself in the mirror, trying to look tough. Santa, however, would pose no threat to Charlie - at least in the first round - for Santa was entering as a Polar Bear and a Pole Cat and Charlie was neither.

During his round of competition, in answer to a judges question about how it was to have so many women run their fingers through his beard, Santa would answer that it felt normal. Women always run their fingers through Santa's beard.

He would not win first, however, but second.

I searched through all the hallways, the cloak room, the Fur Face room and every room but the ladies restroom and main ballroom, because I could see through the door that it was dark in there and I did not think that people who wanted their beards to be seen would disappear into the dark.

But, since I couldn't find them anywhere else or connect with my phone, I stepped briefly into the ballroom. It was early yet and only a few people had gathered.

I found this fellow on the stage, making music.

I did not find Charlie and Melanie.

And then... I found them! Charlie, the grand winner of the UAA beard contest and his magnificent stylist, my own daughter Melanie.

I could see right away that Charlie was dressed as the moon, his beard pummeled by meteors just as is the surface of the moon. I did not for one moment wonder if perhaps he was supposed to be a bearded baby wearing some kind of strangely designed bonnet, his beard curled by upchucked curdled breast milk.

I did not think this because a baby would never shoes such as this, the right of the pair that Charlie had on his feet, but a moon would wear such shoes.

Here is a better look at Charlie's moon, pocked by craters, and his beard, also pocked by craters.

Oh-oh - it wasn't long before Charlie encountered Fieber. It was tense - just like when Mohammed Ali faced Sonny Liston before going into the ring. They cursed and threatened each other, and insulted each other's mothers.

They did it all in a very jovial manner, smiling, as though the whole world of bearddom was filled with nothing but good will - but beneath the veneer of good humor, the boiling anger, rivalry and tension could be felt.

Karle came only to root for Charlie. He did not intend to enter. However, when he saw that only one other person had entered the black bear category, he signed up, figuring that at the very worst, he would take second place.

Well, he had a surprise coming to him. By the time he stepped in front of the judges, there had been three or four more new entrants.

Now he faced some real competition.

He would not get his second place award.

He would take first.

This left the rest us all shocked, dumbfounded, and awestruck.

Charlie had not intended to enter the Honey Bear category, but somehow found himself being labeled a Honey Bear, onstage with the other Honey Bears.

This is not a battle that he had prepared for.

He gave it his best, subjecting his craters to the exploratory touch of random, pink-haired females, but he did not even make it into the finals.

His friend, however, Todd Davy Crocket, who readers met at the UAA contest, did. And he won second place. This will probably seem most unfair to the first place winner that I have placed Todd's picture here but not his, but, you know, life is not always fair.

Plus, there were all kinds of categories, and all kinds of winners - short ones and tall ones and fat ones and skinny ones, the rude and the erudite, male and female, the debonaire and the debunked and I just cannot picture them all.

So I'm sticking pretty much to those I know, at least a little bit.

I was pretty certain Charlie would be devastated by that loss. In fact, he was - but he was stoic, pulled himself back together, put on the face of good humor, found out that he could still be a ptarmigan.

He resolved that there, he would rise to fight again.

I thought about the guy with the four circles curled into his beard.

Again, that bitter chill shook my body as I thought about the tooth-and-nail, hand-to-hand, beard-to-beard fight that still lay ahead for our good-hearted Charlie.

Well before the Ptarmigans, the Mountain Goats took the stage. I could not believe my eyes when I saw my own nephew, Thos Swallow from Salt Lake City, walk out onto the stage.

Oh, he used an assumed name and denied altogether that he was Thos, but a quick glance at the pictures that I took at Thos's wedding last October prove beyond any doubt that this is Thos.

How in the heck did he grow such a long, mountain-goat beard in less than five months?

And you know what?

He won! Thos won first place in the Mountain Goat division.

I was going to invite him over for dinner, perhaps even to spend the night and save a hotel bill, but he pretended not to know me, so I didn't.

At the back of the room, a gang of beer-drinking nuns and priests called on me to repent. We spoke for a little while. I warned them that if they kept drinking that beer, they might accidently break their oaths of celibacy. They assured me that they would never do such a thing.

They still insisted that I must repent.

I told them I was not Catholic but grew up Mormon.

Their eyes went wide. "YOU REALLY NEED TO REPENT!" they demanded.

Finally, the Ptarmigans stepped before the judges - including Charlie and Kenneth C. Fieber. They both fought hard, standing there, as grimy fingers that had been who knows wherre pawed at their beards all over again.

For many of the categories that preceded them, it had taken the judges quite awhile to settle upon the winner, but in just minutes, the judges announced that they had already chosen the Ptarmigan winners.

First, they announced the second place winner - Kenneth C Fieber.

The emcee put the mic to Fieber's face and asked how he felt to have come in second.

Fieber said he didn't like it. "I should be first," he said.

Let me stress that I am serious. I am not joking. Fieber contended that he should have been first.

But they had announced that he was second.

It was a done deal.

The door was open to Charlie.

Charlie was beaming, waiting to be named first place.

But then a hand rose into the air from the judges table and began to wave frantically.

A message was relayed to the emcee.

She then informed the crowd that a horrible mistake had been made.

Her earlier annoucement was wrong.

Kenneth C. Feiber had not won second place, he had won first!

Charlie won second.

Despite the setback, Charlie continued to beam.

So the contest was over for Charlie. Charlie would not get to enter the final round to battle for the Mr. Fur Face Trophy.

I suppose that if I had been functioning as the serious photojournalist that I am, I would have hung tight to the very end and would have photographed the final Mr. Fur Face, sat him down for an interview and then published his life story, right here on this blog.

But I had left Margie at Jacob and Lavina's and I hoped to get back there in time to see Jobe and Kalib before they went to bed.

I would have rushed straight out, but there was a young woman who I had been keeping my eye out for all evening: Desiree Merculieff, this year's Miss Rondy Queen.

Desiree is Unangan, from the Pribilof Island village of St. George and now lives in Anchorage.

She is the daughter of Sally and Chris Merculief, who still live on the island and who treated Melanie kindly when she spent some time working on a road project there this past summer.

And now, just when it was time to go, Desiree appeared and offered her congratulations to Charlie and Todd for their second place wins.

Sadly, she can only wear her official Miss Rondy Queen regalia when her chaperones are with her.

Although she had never been in sight of my eyes in it, she had worn the regalia to the ball, but her chaperones had grown tired and left, so we found Desiree dressed in street clothes - but still beautiful.

Her parents, Chris and Sally, are in the background with Melanie.

So here she is, Miss Rondy Queen: Desiree Merculieff - the first Alaska Native to wear the crown in 22 years. Everywhere she went, her mother told me, the Native people that saw her - especially the elders - expressed their pride and Joy in the honor that she had earned.

Sometime, before her reign is over, perhaps I can be fortunate enough to catch and photograph Desiree dressed in her full regalia. She must get permission to do an interview, but maybe we can get that permission.

No promise.

I never know what will happen in the future.

But maybe.

I said "goodbye" and headed toward the door. Before I could reach it, I found my path blocked by The Five Amigos. I drew my Canon and shot my way through them.

I stepped from the Fur Face room into the hall and was startled to find the answer to Paul Simon's lingering question, "Where have you gone, Joe Dimaggio?" standing right before me. 

Right here - Joe Dimaggio had come right here, to the Miners and Trappers Ball of the Anchorage Fur Rendezvous!

And he had ressurected Marilyn Monroe - more abundantly endowed than ever - and had brought her to the ball with him.

And me, I had the privileged of snapping the both of them as I walked by.

Think of it - Joe Dimaggio and Marilyn Monroe, together again, photographed by me in the year 2011! I ought to be able to get at least $10 million dollars for this photograph!

Then I will finally have the resource necessary to do this blog the way I want.

I will finally be able to buy another airplane.

But what if it wasn't Marilyn and Joe? What if it was just two Alaskans, dressed in costume? 

Depressed, I stepped out of the Egan Center onto Fifth Avenue only to see this airplane, flying down the sidewalk.

I had my answer! I can build my own airplane - just like this guy did. It won't cost much to build such an airplane and it won't take very long, either.

I could do it in a day.

And then I could fly all over Alaska, just like I started out doing, before I crashed the Running Dog.

It was after 10:30 PM now. I was a bit worried that Kalib and Jobe might have gone to bed already.

But they had waited up, for me.

Jacob had given Kalib one of those green dog biscuits called "Greenies" and had told him to feed it to Muzzy. Instead, Kalib had taken a bite and was eating it himself.

Jobe, as always, was simply thrilled to see his grandpa.

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With her vision going bad, Rose Albert opens her last Iditarod Show; how she came to wear her famous beret

When I was in Barrow for Kivgiq, I received an email from my friend, Rose Albert, telling me that she would be doing her final Iditarod Art show. She invited me to come. 

So of course, when it opened, I was there. The show features her paintings from along the Iditarod Trail, but she also brought a box with her, made of different woods, include alaska yellow cedar that she spent much time searching for.

She carved the box in honor of Lance Mackey, whose Iditarod racing career had appeared to be at its end when he came down with throat cancer. Mackey fought off that cancer and last year won his fourth consecutive race.

That's Mackey above with his team in a 3D image that she carved out of the wood and painted.

Rose will be at the Iditarod restart in Willow tomorrow and she will have the box with her and it will be for sale. She told me the price, but I am not going to quote it here. By my estimation, the value of the box is greater than the quote, so if any reader is a person with a good budget for Alaska Art, that reader would do well to go to the restart and pick up this box from Rose.

The show opened yesterday evening at the Alaska Native Arts Foundation at 6th and E in Anchorage and will run for two months.

Rose brought some of her personal mementos to the show from inside the box. Among them was this belt-buckle that she earned when she ran and finished the race in 1982. Rose, who was born on the Nowitna River and grew up in Ruby, was the first Alaska Native woman to do so.

That's Jeff Schultz doing a high five with Rose. When it comes to photography, Jeff is Mr. Iditarod. This will be his 31st year straight following the race. Anyone who has seen much Iditarod photography has seen Jeff's work.

His image of Dee Dee Jonrowe mushing through the Rainy Pass area in the Alaska Range was chosen by the US Postal to adorn the Alaska Commerative stamp on the 50th anniversary of statehood.

Jeff and his wife Joan are numbered among Rose's best friends.

Rose and Jeff did the high-five after sharing a joke about the painting on the wall just behind them. It shows the village of Eklutna and was inspired by one of Jeff's photographs - as were the other works on display.

Also in the Mackey box was this picture of Rose taken during her Iditarod 1982 race. Riding the sled with her is her late brother, Howard. This is the only picture that Rose has of her historic race - the only one she knows of. I feel badly about that. 

I did not know Rose in 1982, but I did hear of her and when I heard that she was going to be the first Alaska Native woman to run in the race, I wanted to cover her effort for the Tundra Times. I was still new at the paper, had not yet gained much power there and the paper did not have much money.

My request to follow or do a photo essay on her training was denied.

The next year, Rose pulled back so that her brother could run again. By then, I had a little more power and the Tundra Times allowed me to go spend a couple of days with Rose and Howard at their trapping cabin 50 miles upstream from Ruby, at Barron Slough, fifty miles up the Yukon from Ruby. Rose's dad gave the slough that name after a barron moose cow that roamed there. "My happiest memories in life were spent there," Rose says.

It was a wonderful couple of days. Someday, when I write my big -wandering-Alaska-memoire, I think I might begin right there, at Kokrines Creek.

Even though I got to spend that time with them, the Times denied my request to allow me to follow Howard on the race.  I can't blame them. I had not yet learned to fly, I did not have my little airplane, we would have had to charter an airplane and that would have been extremely expensive.

Late the following summer, in a black and tragic moment, Howard left this life behind.

I badly wanted to go to his funeral in Ruby, but the Times said no, if the paper went to the funeral of one prominent Native, then we would have to go to the funerals of all prominent Natives and that would take up too much of our time and resources.

Among the paintings hung was this one of my friend, Mike Williams, who gained fame as the Sobriety Musher after he lost six brothers to alcohol abuse and used the Iditarod Trail to launch his personal war against alcohol and substance abuse.

And this is Rose's depiction of Mike Williams Jr., Mike's son, who will be racing again this year.

This is Trina Landlord, who works at the gallery and was overseeing last night's opening. Trina keeps a blog of her own, Eskimo to the World. 

So now readers who haven't already have two new places to visit - Trina's blog and the Alaska Native Art Foundation.

Among those who came to see the show was Glenn Elliot and his five year old daughter, Abigal. Glenn grew up in Bethel but now lives in Anchorage, but works as a guide in many of Alaska's wild regions.

As for Abigal...

...she had just lost her two front teeth and was pretty proud of it.

Alice Rogoff, cofounder and Chair of the Alaska Native Arts Foundation, purchased the painting behind them for herself. Alice is also coowner of the Alaska Dispatch. Most importantly to me, when Margie broke her knee and wrist in a bad fall that she took in Washington, DC on the day of President Obama's inauguration, Alice moved us into her Washington DC guest house and let us stay there for as long as needed for Margie to heal enough to travel back to Alaska.

It was a terribly hard trip, but it would have been so much worse without the help of Alice.

And it was Alice who invited me to present my slideshow last spring at the Alaska House in New York City, which, sadly, has since closed.

As she did last year, Alice will be following this year's race in her airplane.

Rose explains to Alice why she decided she must make this her last art show. Last fall, Rose began to see streaks of light in her left eye. Then, when she started to work on this show, steaks of light would appear in her right eye and a film of mucas covered it and would not go away.

It grew harder and harder to paint until finally she went to an eye doctor. He informed her that she had vitreal detachment in both eyes and this would cause her vision to change for the worse. She also had a virus in her eyes and is being treated for it. 

"The virus is clearing up but my vision definately got worse, making it harder for me to paint in fine detail even with glasses so I use a magnifine glass now. There is nothing that could be done for me at this point unless I start seeing shadows which would mean retinal detachment and they would have to do surgery," Rose told me in an email.

Rose's beautiful Athabascan mother also had French blood in her. By the time Rose was 16, her artistic talent and desire was clear to all of her family. Her father told her that in France, the artists all wore berets and that as she has French blood in her, she should wear a beret, too.

She took her dad's statement to heart. When she is working with and showing her art, Rose always wears a French beret.

I had parked right across from the Fur Rendezvous carnival. It was cold and windy, but before I drove off, I took a five-minute stroll through the carnival. I found these kids fishing...

And this young woman from Phoenix manning a balloon-darting booth.

These two rode an amusement ride. On the first year that we lived in Alaska, we came by the carnival on a day that the temperature stood at -17 F, (-27 C) and the rides were packed, going like crazy. It looked crazy. It seemed crazy.

It was warmer than that yesterday - the temperature was above our F zero but well below the C zero - and it was still cold.

Especially with that biting wind.

What can I say?

Alaska is just a crazy place.

No way around it.

I love this crazy place.

Even Anchorage.

Which is too big and crowded for me.

I knew that I was getting low on gas, and yet I forgot. As I approached the South Birch Creek exit, I suddenly noticed the message that I had five miles to go to empty. I thought I might turn off there and head back to Eagle River, just a couple of miles away, but there is a gas station at Peters Creek which I knew to be just under five miles ahead.

So I continued on. I was a little worried, of course, but when the gas station came into sight, the message said I had one mile to go until empty. I was in good shape.

Still, to get to the station, one must drive past the station a fair distance, take the exit, turn left, pass under the freeway, turn left again, and then drive over about a quarter of a mile to the station.

So that is what I did. But when I made the second left turn I was thinking about something else and not paying enough attention.

Then I realized, all too late, that I had turned left not onto the frontage road to the station, but into the Anchorage-bound lanes of the freeway.

Just as I got back onto the freeway, the fuel message switched to "O miles to empty."

OH NO!

The North Birch Creek Exit was less than a mile away. So I turned off there, then doubled back.

So I drove about two miles on O miles to empty, but made it back to the pump okay.

When I hit the Parks Highway, I found myself behind this wide load. There was no way around it. It was a slow drive. But in time, I made it home.

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One study of the young writer, Shoshana, involving chicken soup; three buses and a really tight squeeze

Taking my one break away from the computer from just after I got up to just before I went to bed, at 4:00 PM I headed to Metro cafe to get my Americano. There, Shoshana greeted me with a bowl of chicken soup.

Shoshana's mother, Tobi, had made the soup and knowing that Margie was sick, Shoshana thought a bowl might do her some good.

Hence we have:

Study of the Young Writer, Shoshana, #21,324: Shoshana brings chicken soup for my ill wife.

Shoshana was a little surprised when I raised my camera to photograph her with the soup. I am not certain why, since I photograph just about everything, but I am pleased that she was, as her reaction gave the picture an added touch.

Bus # 1: spotted driving into a sunbeam as I was driving the soup home to Margie.

Margie was surprised and touched when I presented the soup to her.

In the evening, Margie heated up the soup. She took her first spoonful even before she could sit down. She pronounced it excellent. She shared a small bowl with me. It was delicious - seasoned just right, with an elegant touch of broccoli.

Thank you, Shoshana.

Thank you, Tobi.

And this from India: the really tight squeeze

Buses #2 and #3:

On Monday, I included a picture of two trucks passing by each other while traveling in opposite directions. One reader, Mrs Gunka, commented that it was "a tight squeeze."

So I decided it was time to show this, a really tight squeeze.

Furthermore, notice that there is a surprisingly large gap between our taxi and the bus ahead. No matter how tight, in India, no such gap can be left unfilled for but a fraction of a moment.

Just as nature abhors a vacuum, the Indian highway abhors a gap in traffic.

 A guy on a motor scooter shoots the gap as the buses slip by each other.

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