Festivals of Feasting

Today was a glorious Sewardian Thanksgiving, with much merriment to enjoy. The day started as pictured below: ice fishing on Grouse Lake. Tyler, having grown up a native Iowan, was our expert fishing guide, showing us all the proper use of an auger, which drills a hole in the ice as shown below. Being a Washingtonian, it was my first time walking across a solid lake and drilling a hole in the ice to the cold waters below. After Tyler drilled his hole, it was my turn. I was very proud of my hole, and drilled into 10 inch thick ice almost as well as the hubby. I felt like a Weddell seal--quite possible the saddest of all marine mammals. They live in the Antarctic and have a very short lifespan. This is not due to predation or disease, but rather to the fact that in order to breathe, they have to scrape open holes in the ice with their teeth. Their entire life (between the random fish hunt) is spent scraping these breathing holes with their teeth so they don't ice over. Consequently, Weddell seals all die from starvation: their teeth get too stubby to actually catch fish with. And yes, I felt like a Weddell seal, scraping at the ice to get what I needed. However, I was quite happy in the process.

Once the holes were drilled in the ice, it was time to pick the proper bait and/or tackle. Pictured below is: Tyler in the bright orange life preserver coat (yes, there really is a built-in life preserver made of foam in that jacket), Chad (one of our new found Sewardian friends) in white on the left, and my boss Nikki on the right. Tyler, of course, is showing everyone how to properly bait their line. We were all quite grateful for his expertise. Chad and his girlfriend Sara (who is my friend from the SeaLife Center) are from L.A. Nikki (my boss) is from Texas. We are all sharing our first Alaskan winter together, and Tyler has become our expert to lead the way. It gets colder in Iowa, but our wind is worse. Pictures can't describe the force we had to deal with upon this lake. The wind was clocked at 72 mph in Seward's harbor yesterday.

Once the lines were baited, we dropped them in the hole. I never knew ice fishing poles were so tiny! The handle to the pole in the picture is literally right where the picture ends. What you see is the complete length of the rod. So miniature! Nikki and myself each got a bite from a fish, but none of them hung on long enough to reel in.

Once ice fishing was finished, we tried to find a place to sled. We drove up and down the Seward Highway looking for a place multiple people had recommended, but no one in Alaska seems to be able to give adequate directions. We ended up in Sara and Chad's backyard and made quite possibly the best snow run I have ever been on in my life. There were a myriad of airborne takeoff points, and by the end of the day, we had the thing so smooth you shot out of it like a Jamaican on a bobsled! (Cool Runnings, anyone??) We have decided to have a weekly sledding/potlatch night complete with a sledding code of ethics. It shall be quite enjoyable, perhaps comparable to the next Free Mason club.

Once the Bobbsled Snowathon was finished, we retired to a wonderful Thanksgiving feast with some friends from the SeaLife Center. The meal was wonderful, complete with a Peppermint ice cream cake and more food than any of the 10 of us could eat. It was definitely the next best thing to my Dad's home-cooked meal (nothing could have replaced that, of course). Food, Friends, and Fun, the best thing there is about the holidays!

We wish you all a happy Thanksgiving! Love to you all as well! We wish you were all here to share our adventure. We're enjoying ourselves in this beautiful, sparsely populated land!

Oh--by the way--I have a new position at the SeaLife Center! Starting on Saturday, I will be working part time in our bird department, feeding birds, cleaning bird poo, and learning all about animal training! I'm so stoked--It's exactly the experience I want to gain to put on my resume, and it'll be so much fun! Hoorays! (and yes--I work at an aquarium, and these are seabirds, much like seals and whales are marine mammals, these are marine birds. Raddness!)