wishing for bears

After my lake edge walk I decided that I needed to gain altitude to better appreciate my surroundings! Mt Tanalian, one of the few officially named peaks in the Lake Clark Basin, sits as a prominent 1219 metre (4000 ft) backdrop to Port Alsworth, presented itself as the most likely candidate. The trail up the mountain was described as unmaintained even though it is one of only a couple of developed trails in the whole of the park. It is a true wilderness! After my last effort I decided I would need company on this hike. There were few candidates, though I’d met a gaggle of people who were working in the park, mostly a fire crew from Denali staying at the bunkhouse who had been removing brush around the parks’ scattered cabins to protect them from fire.  My first night was their last and we’d shared stories about parks and fires as well as a flask of vodka I’d brought for the trip.  They’d run out of beer and there was no buying anything in Port Alsworth - much less alcohol. That night a mix was concocted of an electrolyte drink, the juice of an orange and vodka and shared with Heather, Wes, Brian, Royce, Jon, and Charlie from the fire crew together with Kelsey and Evan, both student volunteers in the park for the summer and me.

Evan was studying science from Oklahoma and he’d snagged a volunteer job through his ex-ranger parent’s connections and Kelsey was a Russian history student from Wisconsin working out her summer as a Student Conservation Association (SCA) Intern. The SCA is such a brilliant program for students in this country. Jen, who I’d met at the NPS in Anchorage, had explained all about this program, that was dear to her heart as she had moved to Anchorage, married and had a great career all because of it! The idea of the SCA was the brainchild of Elizabeth Cushman Titus Putnam in 1955 when she decided that the National Park Service could use some help keeping their tracks and facilities up to scratch, and university and senior school students needed something productive to do with their lengthy summer holidays. As an SCA intern, students get paid a stipend (or living allowance) and are provided with accommodation - usually on park, and as an additional bonus, if they work a set amount of hours get a slug paid off their student tuition loans. Everyone benefits! Elizabeth CTP said recently, when she received the prestigious President’s Citizen Medal: “Serving nature is among the most important and rewarding callings humankind can ever know.” I know this to be true.

With the fire crew gone I spent a couple of evenings socialising at the bunkhouse with Kelsey and Evan who were both lovely, friendly, enthusiastic and welcoming young people. Evan was shadowing Dan, the fish researcher as he measured flow rates in various rivers and parts of the lake, and helped him manage fish counting operations. Kelsey was working in the visitor centre including helping with dispatch - which meant flight following NPS utilised aircraft and keeping tabs on any NPS staff on the lake in boats. I’d spent a bit of time in the visitor centre and it was hard to believe this 19 year old hadn’t been helping visitors and talking on the radio for years. After making them a feed of rice paper wraps with salad and pan fried chicken I conned Evan into going on the hike with me the next day (Kelsey was working). I woke up on Sunday morning I wondered why I organised to get to get up so early and walk up a mountain? I bet Evan thought the same. Even so, we met at the scheduled time and I skittered along the path behind him madly snapping off pics of a kaleidoscope of fungi and lichens.  Some fungi had red caps with white dots just like out of fairytales and the lichens were growing together in miniature gardens like arboretums with a plethora of species. I wondered if they could be considered lichenetum? I guess if they were planted artificially together as specimens that may be the case. 

After my last hiking effort I’d packed sensibly for this foray with bug dope, bear spray that I threaded on the waist band of my borrowed fanny pack (yes I know! - that’s what they call them here), with my raincoat, water and snacks. The trail meandered slowly up at first then down through a creek at the base of the mountain until it started upward with avengence. Evan and I chatted about how Charlie had told us he’d seen a hunter with a rifle stalking a bear on the walking track the day before and as I confided my earnest desire to see a bear on this hike, we both jumped as we heard twigs snap in the distance. Evan loudly declared that ‘WE AREN’T BEARS!’ as we hurried along the path.  The Alaskan National Interest Lands Conservation Act 1980 or ANILCA as it is known, maintained hunting and fishing rights for Alaskans when millions of acres were declared national parks in the 80’s. Henceforth hunting is legal in the park and preserve (with certain conditions) including on the walking track we were on! ANILCA sets Alaskan national parks at odd with the national parks elsewhere in the US where hunting is prohibited. 

We continued on through the forest and the grade increased, the width of the path narrowed and my heart rate peaked as I valiantly tried to keep up with the athletic 21 year old who told me he had already climbed the mountain 3 times this summer. A scramble up and across a slope littered with loose greywacke talus, that matched the rocks along the waters edge rewarded us with a breathtaking vista across the lake. As we approached the top of the tree line, looking up, the peak of Tanalian was catching a fog that looked like a misty veil slipping over and covering the face of a shy bride. The freezing damp swirled down from the upper atmosphere and deterred us from making the final scramble to the summit. Walking back though, we were rewarded with a rare sighting of a lynx springing out of the long grass and bunny-hopping for a moment along the track in front of us. I was glad to see Evan was as exhausted as me and we both retired to our respective accommodations to recover for the afternoon. 

The next day Evan, Kelsey and I headed out with Dan the fish researcher across the lake for the river that joins Lake Clark to the expansive Lake Iliamna in the south, to check on the fish counting crew. The journey was slow as we towed a runabout behind the work skiff, and we paused at the opening of the lake while Dan and Evan tied the skiff up to the bank and used the runabout to check the flow rate of the river. The instrument that measures the flow works like the radar that clocks your speed used by police. Kelsey and I unloaded ashore and we were delighted to find we were surrounded by an amazingly diverse low tundra vegetation community dominated by blueberries. We lounged around for almost an hour on the spongy, fragrant plants and ate our fill of the sun-warmed, plump, purple berries. I prayed a bear would materialise and chase us back to the boat, but there were no bears to be seen. We re-boarded the skiff and headed downstream past fish camps on the shore where locals gather to catch and process salmon - hanging the fillets to dry on rickety timber racks.

Dan showed us around fish counting camp, where there was a new small log cabin for meals and socialising, and a group of one man tents surrounded by an electric fence (to keep the bears out) as well as an outdoor heated camp shower in a tiny tent that would have made this miserably wet summer more bearable. The fish counters were organised into a roster of 8 hours each, covering 24 hours per day, and their job was to climb the temporary towers erected for the purpose and count salmon swimming upstream for 10 minutes of each hour. The numbers were extrapolated to arrive at a spawning population number. 

Dan pointed west over a ridge towards the site of the controversial Pebble Mine proposal that I’d heard about since I first arrived in Alaska. The Pebble Mine wasn’t a mine for pebbles - it was the proposal of a company called 'Pebble' to mine a large mineral deposit of porphyry copper, gold and molybdenum right near Lake Clark and Lake Iliamna. Of course it has generated a polarised and passionate debate among Alaska’s residents - the “for’s” arguing that the mine will bring much needed employment, as well as funneling tax revenue to the state and reducing the need for imported minerals. The “againsts” countered that the mine will have an adverse effect on the watershed of Bristol Bay and as a consequence the millions of salmon that return to rivers and creeks that drain into Bristol Bay to spawn. They argue the food chain that rely on salmon, right down to humans would not escape the effects of this proposal. Predictably I bought a sticker against the Pebble Mine while I was in Homer.

Back at the fish camp, Kelsey and I climbed the fish tower, and watched as bunches of salmons swam upstream in the lee of the bank with the aid of our polaroid sunglasses. The dark grey shadows swam silently by in clusters of six or more, with minutes between the pulses of fish. I silently hoped for a bear to turn up, swiping fish out of the river right in front of us, but there no bears were to be seen. Dan and Evan did another stream flow measurement and we all piled in the skiff for the trip back to Port Alsworth.   

a walk along the lake

Over the weekend things at Lake Clark National Park went pretty quiet. Jerry the ranger cruised the near reaches of the lake to check the locals' fish nets to make sure they were legal. Most everyone else had the weekend off, and they were fishing too.

Back at the NPS Alaska Region Office I had been helping out Page, Lake Clark’s chief of natural resources - classifying thousands of digital photographs she had taken in the national park, by adding keywords in a computer program I’d never used before. It was a confounding yet enjoyable task - the program shyly revealed itself over subsequent sessions while the photos instantly spoke volumes of the wonders of the park. I had difficulty trying to decide on the appropriate keywords for some shots- ice; coast; lake; mountains; montane; landscape - as far as I could tell with my keen summer eye, the winter vistas melded together. Photos of bears, wolves, bald eagles, salmon, moose carcasses and wolverines were much easier to distinguish - and were very entertaining - in the absence of seeing the real thing. So on this quiet Saturday afternoon, after a 3 hour ‘walk’ around the lake edge, I continued on with classifying the photos. My walk had not been without excitement. As I wandered toward the lake I was aware I was probably trespassing through much private property, unable to distinguish driveways from roadways, or know allotment boundaries from unfettered lands. At least I was cognisant of my tenuous position and I was on the ready to apologise profusely in the event I was challenged by someone with a shotgun as a persuader. It also occurred to me, as made my way through the forest, that I hadn’t packed bear spray and I was by myself and no-one really knew what I was up to. I added ‘annoyed bear’ to the ‘angry landholder’ watch and continued on, all six senses on high alert.

After a while I spied a young woman near a well hidden, yet impressive, two-storey log house who was packing luggage in a golf cart - the preferred mode of transport around Port Alsworth, (next to the runabout and the float plane) and I realised the road I was walking along was actually a driveway. “Hi” I said in a friendly tone - “I’m trying to get to the lake”. She introduced herself as the niece of one of the founding Alsworths and pointed out a well used narrow track down a steep bank to the lake. She suggested I walk along the shore ‘til I reached a cliff, when she explained I would need to turn back and retrace my steps. I introduced myself, thanked her and then continued on to the lake.  

The shore was haphazardly flagged by a two metre wide margin of book-sized, flat, white rocks that looked remarkably like sandstone, thrown all askew. A rainbow of lichens grew in selected spots along with wildflowers that sprang from neat green beds of mosses, framed artistically by driftwood brought ashore by wind driven waves. As I took photos I considered my possible personal classification system of the pictures I had been capturing on this trip...nature’s art? crazy american stuff! the joys of experiential travel!! and self indulgence!!!...oh well it is my journey! Sooner than I had expected I reached the cliff and I was annoyed. I wasn’t ready to stop here! Surely there was a way around. I considered climbing up. Nope. I mentally added ‘brains dashed out on rocks while foolishly climbing around slippery cliff’ to the ‘annoyed bear’ and ‘angry landholder’ hazards. After a moment of argument between ‘logical me’ and ‘adventuresome me’, we, that is me and ‘Ms Adventuresome’, ignored the voice of reason and clambered around the cliff. I nearly fell off once and it was only sheer bloody mindedness that spurred me on past what was actually logical and reasonable, in order to prove ‘Ms Logical’ a needlessly irritating worry-wart. Hmmm. 

Past the cliff test and I wasn’t going to let a thick tangle of alder bushes growing in water stop me from my quest to continue around the lake to my mental finishing spot, back at the 2nd runway at Port Alsworth and in doing so claim a victory over Ms You-Know-Who. A high bank prevented me from avoiding all this unpleasantness and to add injury to insult every branch I pushed aside, stepped over, or shimmied under yielded a cloud of miniature biting insects that were happily disturbed to find their favoured prey item: one chemical free, Australian woman with exceedingly thin, white skin. 'YUM!!' I could hear them all buzz in unison! Add bug dope to the list of things I had omitted to provision myself with on this quest that was becoming more ludicrous by the moment. ‘Bug dope?’ I can hear you asking? It’s personal insect repellant - the more chemicals the better! In fact you can buy ‘sport’ clothes infused with DEET - and at Walmart what’s more! As it happens Alaska is renown for it’s suite of biting insects including 35 species of mosquitos, tiny insects known as “no see ums” and “white socks” that both draw blood and enrage your skin with an allergic cocktail of acid saliva and believe me - they are all voracious. Some people resort to head nets to protect their face from the uncomfortable and temporarily disfiguring effects of these tiny monsters.   

Undeterred and doggedly determined, I struggled through the alder, my boots becoming saturated, as the drone of a motor boat approached. It was Jerry. I smiled cheerfully from under a particularly large and heavy alder bush, clouds of insects buzzing around my head, ankle deep in the by now, muddy lake edge. ‘You are bush bashing!‘ he unhelpfully observed. “Yes, the lake is certainly beautiful” I countered, hoping all the while that he would pull the boat up to my side, forcing me to abandon this lunacy I seemed so wedded to, and I would have no choice but to get in the boat through sheer politeness. Nope! That was it, with a wave and purr of the motor Jerry released me into my own recognisance. 'All good' I thought as I jollied myself along - it can’t be too much further around. Well, a good hour later with squelchy boots and in full view of a group of tourists waiting for a guide to take them fishing, I made another, although much shorter cliff scramble, then retreated to an accessible but possibly bear infested forest behind the alders and emerged victorious! I hastily beat my retreat, removed my sodden boots and enjoyed the overheated office and the photos that comfortably and safely toured me around the park for the rest of the afternoon.  

(photos to be added when internet speed allows) 

First day in Lake Clark goes off with a BANG!

My first boat trip across Lake Clark was rough. Together with Jerry and Rich, the rangers, and Logan, a historian- come- explosives expert, I headed out in the brand new stainless steel work-skiff across the windblown lake. The boat bumped heavily across the choppy white caps ‘til finally we made it to an old log cabin being restored about 45 minutes north of National Park Service headquarters at Port Alsworth. Apparently there had been rumours for years that there were old explosives on the site, so it was no surprise when a decaying plastic bag was uncovered in the collapsed food cache, exposing 66 unused sticks of dynamite from the 70’s.

The cabin was a classic log construction right out of Daniel Boone, situated with a million dollar view through a screen of spruce trees across the picturesque lake to the snow streaked mountains beyond. Recently it had been jacked up in order to remove and replace the rotted lower logs and the floor. Inside lime green flagging tape indicated original elements of the building that were to be retained – the fuel tin flues and a birch branch fashioned into a coat rack.  Immediately around the cabin were piles of cut brush – alder and spruce, cleared to reduce the fire hazard, and nearby stood a makeshift tent constructed of saplings, canvas and a blue plastic tarp that housed the tools and a couple of pieces of original rustic furniture. Once refurbished, it was intended that the cabin be made available for park visitors to use during the summer months.    

Logan explained the first task was to check the stability of the explosives by attaching a string to the bag and tugging at it from a distance, protected behind a tree (!) followed by a search for any old detonating caps which involved carefully raking around in the pile of rubbish that had fallen out of the old cache. While those jobs were underway I was happy to go with Jerry in the boat to warn the nearest neighbours of the impending explosion.

We motored around half a dozen bends along the lake shore to a couple of houses, partly hidden behind tall birch trees in the shadow of a towering mountain with a bald top. As we approached I could see a man bent over at the lake edge, pulling in a gillnet with a single sockeye salmon mortally tangled in the fine mesh. Jerry introduced me to Steve, a local non-fiction author and shortly after we were joined by his wife Anne, a poet, and their flash of a black sheep dog, Zippy (who clearly took his name very seriously). Zippy barked a warm welcome as he paused momentarily from careening crazily along the shore of the lake like Speedy Gonzales. Anne told us Zip doesn’t see many people and gets pretty excited at company. I laughed and tried to pat him but he was too busy to stop for long - running and leaping madly every which-way.  Meanwhile Jerry explained about the explosives and Anne and John listened intently and asked lots of questions about how the old dynamite was to be dispatched. Anne then told us she was writing a novel as ‘nobody reads poetry these days’ and asked if we could call back before we left so that she could check some details of an explosion she had written into a part of her novel for accuracy with Logan. We agreed to call back if time allowed.

We turned the boat around and followed the shore in the opposite direction to warn Tish, an elderly and well known local artist, who lived by herself. Jerry and I jumped ashore and with nowhere to tie the boat up I held the anchor rope so it wouldn’t drift away while he went up to the cabin. Shortly after Jerry returned with Tish who was keen to say hello to an Australian woman, and she invited me for a quick inspection of her cabin. It too was a log construction, dark and warm inside with a picture window looking out onto the lake, framed by a purple patch of fireweed, a striking wildflower that grows ubiquitously throughout the state. As soon as my eyes adjusted to the dark I could see shot guns learning in every corner of the cabin and I commented to Tish that she had a lot of firearms at the ready. She said “I don’t ‘spose anyone would hear me scream if a bear came after me” and I nodded in agreement. She showed me her studio at one end of the cabin with intricate wood cuts and oil paintings decorating the walls and told me she hadn’t done much work since her husband died 3 years before. “You must miss him” I said quietly. She said she did very much and explained that nowadays spends her winters in Port Alsworth in a rented apartment, as it is hard living alone in the freezing weather. We said our goodbyes and jumped aboard the boat to go back and help with the preparations for the explosion. 

Upon our return Logan and Rich had completed their search and the test on the old explosives which were deemed stable. The site for the blast was to be on the beach and Jerry and I pulled armfuls of brush from the piles around the cabin and carried them down to the beach as Rich constructed the pyre to detonate the explosives on. A heavy reinforced red steel box with a large padlock that Logan had hauled along on the trip contained a modern two-part explosive that was to do the deed on the old dynamite. The preparation was fascinating. Plastic tubes of white crystalline powder were decanted into double zip-lock bags. A tube of what looked like thick red cordial was then massaged through the crystals until they were slightly moist and pink. An explosive cord with a knotted end, known as a monkey’s fist, was poked into the side of the bag and taped up into a tight package, the cord hanging out like a fuse.

After the new explosives were prepared they were positioned carefully in the pyre with the bag containing the old explosive sticks and the empty plastic tubes on top. The fuses were tied together and joined to a detonating wire that Rich and Logan first tested to ensure the current was true. Once the electrical wire was connected, Rich shouted “FIRE IN THE HOLE !” meaning it was all live, connected and ready to blow. Logan had earlier briefed me regarding procedure for the blast. I was to stand well back, facing the explosion ensuring I was ready to step aside should any debris fly toward me. He assured me I would have time to step out of the trajectory of any flying object as it would appear to move in slow motion. Rich then shouted “FIRE!” and I involuntarily jumped as the percussive blast permeated my whole being with an extraordinary force of energy I had never experienced before. 

The boom echoed across the lake as a light grey mushroom cloud of smoke erupted from the site of the pyre. Nothing flew out in my direction thank goodness and I waited until I’d been given the ‘all clear’ to inspect the remains. Everything was shredded to millimeter sized particles that had rained down on the lake and the beach. I was expecting a crater on the rocky shore but the only evidence of the blast was a small depression in the pebbles and mostly minutely mulched brush. It was a very neat job indeed! I wondered if any salmon or bears were concussed as Logan told me that abandoned or forgotten explosives were more common than one would expect, and the call on his services was quite frequent.

We packed up and on the way home dropped in on Anne who met us on the shore with the ever exuberant Zippy. After introductions she handed Logan a couple of printed pages from her draft novel for him to check for accuracy.  Zippy provided a repeat performance of his antics as Logan read and made notes and we discussed the ancient Kijik name for the area; Qiz’jeh Vena, which translates as “lake where many people gather ".  Anne explained her personal crusade to get the park renamed, particularly as the lake’s namesake John W Clark, had only briefly visited the area in 1891 and had somehow ended up immortalised despite such a short association with the place. Logan grimaced and asked Anne "Does the dog survive?" as he read the text and she laughed and said "Of course". We were all relieved!

Lake Clark National Park

Lake Clark is one of those places in Alaska that you can only realistically visit by aircraft. You could probably walk there in summer if you had a lot of time and a lot of motivation. Although I was motivated to visit, I sensibly chose the plane. Flights leave from Merrill Field; the secondary airfield in Anchorage and the hangar I was looking for was in the middle of what seemed to be a maze within a maze.


Once located, Lake Clark Air was bustling with activity and bursting with stuff…boxes of food, stacks of dressed timber, boxed white goods, more boxes of food, pilots and passengers all waiting to get on light aircraft. As I checked in, the pretty dark-haired young girl weighed my bag and wrote its weight and my name, with her own spelling, on a blue luggage tag and attached it using a twist of wire. She then asked me to step on the scale and noted the total weight on the flight manifest. I must have looked coy when faced with the scale and she whispered a little too loudly she wouldn’t tell anyone my weight! Everyone waiting turned to watch as my face flushed crimson. Later I heard her ask a very large man if he’d lost any weight over the summer. He slowly shook his head as he stepped on the scale.

My experience to date with checking in to other flights here necessitates a much longer process, particularly the security, where you can queue for as long as an hour to have your carry-on luggage and shoes x-rayed, producing your ID at least 3 times through the whole process. I learned the hard way that you cannot carry liquids on domestic flights as I kissed goodbye a litre of duty free, top shelf grog when leaving LA.


Back at Lake Clark Air, passengers sat on the deep lounge chairs or milled around as they waited to be called for their flight by the pilot who helped to load the plane including grabbing boxes of frozen food to be transported from the freezer at the last moment.


This was my second trip to Lake Clark National Park. My first was two weeks prior when I went for a day trip in a parks’ Cessna with oversized fat rubbery tyres, leaving from the same airfield to a spot on the coast called Silver Salmon Creek. That day I tagged along as the national parks staff flagged an alternate route for a swampy eroded access track to an in-holding. As we took off from the airfield, Leon the pilot/ranger, Lee the chief ranger and Page the chief of natural resources all chatted knowledgably about the changed tower procedures, and I realised I was the odd person out - as the only non-pilot. It is not unusual to be a pilot in Alaska where many individuals own aircraft especially floatplanes (seaplanes) and some don’t even have cars. Many locales cannot be accessed except by plane or boat, and naturally aircraft is the preferred mode of transportation as it is fast and efficient.

Out at Silver Salmon we cruised overhead as 10 or more brown or grizzly bears were feeding in the meadow just behind the shore and on the beach digging for razor clams. The bears we saw that day were all blondes – local lingo for light brown bears - and some sows had young cubs in tow. I learnt male bears are known as boars, but the babies are not bearlets! From the plane I could see tourists standing in groups at a respectable distance from the bears, with a guide watching over them, no doubt snapping thousands of photos as we floated by unnoticed. On our approach I could see the beach had a considerable slope and was strewn with small pebbles. As we touched down I automatically but unnecessarily braced since Leon landed the plane as gently as a mother lays her sleeping babe in a cradle.

At Silver Salmon the land holders, Dan and Nancy were awaiting our arrival along with Kevyn, a young backcountry ranger. Kevyn, I learnt spends much of her time cruising the beach on her ATV (quad-bike) supervising and educating the bear watching tourists. Her arsenal includes an air-horn and the ubiquitous bear spray so I was in good company as we all headed off into the forest to try and find a survey mark on a tree from the 50’s and flag a new route.


The vegetation was thick with spruce trees, alder, devil’s club, ferns, lichens and mosses. Fallen spruce trees and the multi-stemmed alder bushes made it tough going but the devil’s club was vicious with sharp spines hiding on the stems and underside of the leaves that went straight through my jeans like a red hot needle through butter. Page pointed out the evidence of bears as we scrambled through the undergrowth - little turfs of bear hair caught in bark, a bear scratching tree and well-used bear trails through the forest. Later we saw bear tracks on the beach.

The job finished and I enjoyed chatting with Nancy as we made our way back to the plane. She told me she was a grade school teacher in Anchorage before she and Dan finally retired and spent the last couple of years full time on their block that they have owned for 30 or so years. We lingered taking photos before taking off along the slopey rocky beach and heading back past breathtaking mountain scenery to Anchorage.

On this second trip to the park I was booked on a commercial flight in a twin engine airplane, packed to the gunnels with building materials and three other passengers heading out to the tiny setllement of Port Alsworth on the banks of Lake Clark itself.


Once down the coast we turned to the west and threaded the narrow gap between twin towering mountain ranges and followed the twists and turns of an astoundingly steep green gorge. The mountain tops on either side were regularly punctuated with the terminal ends of glaciers; some prettily gleaming with opalescent blue ice like backlit gemstones, others filthy and brown, the ice covered in dirt like a white dog’s wet back after rolling in the dust. For the last part of the journey we flew over the luminously aquamarine Lake Clark, fringed with dark green vegetation and backed by mountains that stretched endlessly off in every direction.

As the plane landed on the smaller of two parallel gravel runways and shut down, vehicles converged and pulled up close to the plane to collect either cargo or a person. A parks vehicle pulled up for me and I was collected by Angela, the parks administrative technician who drove me back to the park headquarters and showed me to my accommodation. I was delighted to find I had been accommodated in a park duplex with another woman, rather than the bunkhouse as I had expected.


The next morning Ria, with whom I was sharing left for work early and keen to get to the headquarters bright and early, I jumped in the shower. Minutes later when I tried to open the bathroom door I was somewhat dismayed to find that it was locked tight. I methodically pressed the two buttons variously trying every combination of pressing; to no avail. I closely examined the lock but could not discern any markings indicating directions such as ‘open’ or ‘lock’ or anything else. I shook the door – it was firmly locked and I was nude, save for a towel, with dripping hair. I cast around to see what tools were at my disposal, after all I am a ranger – I can do stuff, I can fight a bushfire, I can sharpen and tune a chainsaw, I can drive a truck, and I can find my way in the bush! But I can’t get out of domestic bathroom! I thought to myself – ‘what hope did I have here in the wilderness?’ I was convinced I would be the laughing stock of the place and I would be a dismal ambassador for Australian rangers. I tried using the flat end of my tube of conditioner to get between the door jam and the lock – no dice. I grabbed the plunger and tried to lever the door open, no luck. With no other tools at my disposal except my toothbrush I considered kicking the door down, but decided it was not a great way to make an impression, particularly as the building looked relatively new.

I had met the neighbour in the other half of the duplex, John a helicopter pilot the night before so I put pride aside and started banging on the wall and yelling “John??? Are you there?” more banging… no response. I considered the options – I had very few and was on the verge of tears at the prospect of spending my first day at Port Alsworth locked nude in a bathroom. Twenty minutes into my ordeal and I sat on the toilet to calm myself and think. It just can’t be that difficult! I tried again and the door sprang open with the greatest of ease. Thank goodness! Minutes later a Jerry the ranger was at my door asking me if I wanted to come on a trip up the lake to do a job at a cabin they were restoring. I quickly threw my stuff together…