When I Grow Up...

Greetings from Ketchikan, Alaska, the salmon and rain capital of the world. I've been ridiculously spoiled since arriving on Thursday because I haven't seen a single drop of rain. Really, not one. I did get the chance to view several salmon, of the miniature variety. On Friday I traipsed along with several other Forest Service employees to Ward Lake, a recreation area 5 miles north of town, to participate in some environmental education. They led the event, and I pretended I was just another ADD 5th grader that came swarming off the bus. I got to identify some fairy barf (a sea-foam green lichen), stick my finger in a sea lion's mouth (it was dead at the time, although some kids had questions about that), and ogle aquatic invertebrates (did you know they have leeches in Alaska? And that everything's bigger up here?).

My favorite part of the day was when the fisheries gentleman was getting the kids to guess the names of all five types of salmon. "Okay" he says, "This one is also known as a chum, it starts with a D, you've probably got one at home as a pet, and it's a...." One girl shot her hand up in the air, waved it frantically, and shouted out "Du...goldfish!"

The highlight of the weekend should be hard to identify, seeing as it's been filled with hikes through mossy woods, a BBQ on the beach, tidepooling, shuffleboard, and all sorts of new and interesting people, but I'd have to say it was the singular event that made my future clear and answered the age-old question of what I want to be when I grow up: momma, I'm going to be a lumberjack! Seeing as it was "Be a Tourist for a Day" on Saturday, and the cost of entry was only one can of food for the local women's shelter, how could we not go see the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show? It was campy, it was kitschy, and it was pretty dang cool. I've been guaranteed that by the end of the summer I'll be able to swing an ax and chop through a log in 30 seconds flat, not to mention run a chain saw like that. All very well and good, but what I really want to do is strap spikes to my feet, throw a rope around a tree, and run up the thing like a monkey. Tomorrow, I've got safety training for the Forest Service. But after that I'm gonna go sign up for log rolling camp.