Snettisham 2009 - 10:  Closing Up
September 18-20


Looking back as we enter Snettisham

It was a fantastic weekend, shining as one of the best overall Snettisham weekends of the year, even as I write this a month later.  Hopefully the details are more or less accurate after the delay, but the order of a few of the events is uncertain.

With dusk coming on earlier and earlier, I took off work at 3:30 with the intent to leave the harbor at 4:00.  Unfortunately, Chris was called into a meeting in the afternoon with uncertain duration, so he agreed to meet me at the harbor as soon as he could.  I rushed home, quickly loaded up the gear, and booked it to the harbor.  There were too many totes and other gear for one load, so I took two trips with a harbor cart down to the boat.  I had everything perfectly stowed and organized, the boat bailed, and was just heading up the ramp to use the portapotty when I saw Chris pull in.  He grabbed the big rolled up carpet from the back of my truck and we hurried down the ramp.  I was in such a rush that I forgot to take the traditional harbor photo, but snapped one of Chris while he was donning his rain paints on the boat right after we left (see photo to left).

The day was partly cloudy and calm, so it was an enjoyable wait and I wasn't at all anxious about the ride down.  Winds had been from the south with rain all week, but it cleared up in the afternoon and we cruised down Gastineau Channel toward blue sky.  With the change in weather came a wind shift and what little light chop we ran into past Point Arden was blissfully on our stern.  We saw three blows in Taku Inlet, and more south of Grand Island.  The sky over Stephen's Passage was a high, hazy overcast with a sharp line where a low cloud cover cut across the horizon.  And there were more whales as we traveled south.  About half way to Snettisham toward the Admiralty side I saw a lot of small splashing and, given the relative calm of the water and the following seas, we decided to go over there and check it out.  The splashing continued regularly and as we approached the area we discerned a humpback casually slapping the water with its pectoral fins and rolling around.  When we were still half a mile out we watched the whale take a few breaths, then arch its back and raise its flukes super high in the air.  I told Chris to stare at that spot, because humpbacks almost always fluke before they breach and this whale was obviously energetic.  A few minutes went by and that whale erupted out of the water in a magnificent breach with his back to us.

And so we came to hang out with a whale for a bit.  He immediately came up in a smaller breach, then went back to goofing off with his pectoral fins.  It was pretty fun to watch him waving around one or both of his fins and gently slapping the water (see photo to left).  As we drifted we saw whales in every direction.  We watched our whale splashing around for eight minutes (I know the time from my photos) before he rolled over, took a few breaths, and fluked magnificently.  I held the camera at the ready and, a minute later, captured a three photo sequence of a spectacular breach, ending in an enormous splash followed by a half breach (see photo above and the other two below).  Then the whale rested a bit.  It was marvelous--us, all alone in Stephen's Passage on a gorgeous, mild September evening with a playful whale.  After resting, the whale spent some time performing something between a tail lob and a caudal-peduncle throw a little distance from us to the north.  Six minutes after the previous breach, the whale arched its tail comically high out of the water and I was managed to snap a photo of the very white tail (see photo below).  A minute later the whale came up in a fantastic breach 50 or 100 yards out, water pouring off of its body, landing with a gigantic splash.  Fabulous.  I caught much of it on video (to the right) and a few clips are shown below.

The whale seemed to rest a bit after that and we were pretty chilled, so we turned and headed to Snettisham.  As we approached the mainland shore again, more whales appeared, many in pairs, until I counted at least 15 spread out in ones or twos everywhere we looked.  It was the great fall Stephen's Passage group-up, if a bit spread out, and I was delighted that we'd encountered it.  In the middle of Stephen's Passage a little north of Snettisham a huge blue iceberg in the shape of a sounding whale drifted.  As the sun descended, the light became more and more dramatic, especially where it contrasted around the dark line of clouds, now behind us.  The golden yellow light shone around the hazy mountains of Admiralty, each range a different shade of blue, some glowing in the fading day.  The inky water reflected the light.  When we reached Point Sentinel we left the influence of the dark cloud behind and the clear fall sun brilliantly illuminated the mountain across from the homestead (see photo to right and below).

Unfortunately, all of our gallivanting on the water put us at the homestead late on a falling tide during one of the lowest tides of the year.  We crept up to the channel closest to the lodge and saw a sandbar in the middle of it.  I wasn't sure whether to hug the shore closest to the homestead or go around the other side of the sandbar.  I chose the far side and tried to cut around the upper end of the sandbar to the other side of the channel.  We went aground instead, with what appeared to be a deep channel in front of us.  I pushed the boat a few inches when I first jumped in, but after a few minutes no amount of pushing between Chris and I would move it.  I gingerly made my way toward the channel to see if it was fordable, the alternative being a detour upriver until the channel narrowed enough to cross.  It began to get uncomfortably deep for my xtratuffs (I was wishing I'd brought my hip waders) and I turned around to find the boat high and dry on a rippled sandbar.  Chris and I then hurriedly grabbed what food we needed for dinner, clothes, the satellite phone (outside its case) and other essentials and stuffed them into our backpacks, leaving the rest tucked securely on board for the night.  I anchored up, then followed Chris upriver a little ways and over to the lodge.  The tide fell so fast that the channel was already much easier to cross and Nigel forded it easily.

When I reached the lodge porch I heard a rustling to the right and glanced over to see an enormous squirrel scurry from the edge of the path up a spruce tree.  When it registered how huge and fluffy the tail was I realized that it was no squirrel!  My mind raced to come up with another climbing animal with a furry tail; I quickly passed up mink (which is more aquatic than arboreal and lacks the fluffy tail) in favor of a pine marten!  It was a marten!  I called Chris over and pointed out where the marten had disappeared around the other side of the tree.  As we watched, he poked his head out and observed us from a branch, his ears comically large.  After a few minutes I dropped my pack, opened the cabin, and returned with a flashlight, as it was almost dark.  The marten climbed a little higher in the tree, but spent long periods observing us from around the corner.  I took many photos in the dark--the camera couldn't focus and the eyes are brilliant reflections, but the photos do capture his face and the white patch on his belly (see photo to left and below).  If I've seen marten before it's only been a glimpse here or there, so this was pretty exciting.  Eventually we left him alone and retreated to the lodge for supper.

The end of the first close breach	The splash of the first close breach	Fluking high for the next breach
Still from video	Still from video	Looking behind us at Point Styleman
The mountain across from the homestead from Sentinel	Our sandbar as we left the Ronquil	Pine marten!

The next morning we began first thing on the ceiling.  The first few rows went up very smoothly, as we used only four and eight foot lengths.  Not to say that we didn't have the typical frustrations, but we didn't have any dramatic problems.  I'd borrowed my boss's cordless finish nailer again, which worked brilliantly.  The day was mild and I measured and cut the last few boards we needed outside.  The closer we approached the side wall, the more awkward the process became as we lost space, and hence leverage, and found it difficult to place the ladders effectively.  We held off as long as we could, but eventually moved most of the items from against the wall to make room.  As we neared completion, we broke our standard full row at a time pattern and started to work horizontally to reduce the number of ladder moves.  The last row we put on was particularly difficult, as we had no room to swing mallets in order to pound the grooves around the tongues.  We wound up using stacks of scrap wood wedged at an angle between the boards and the wall, pounding them up and against the wall which put pressure on the panel, inching it slowly into place.  This row took a lot of time me swear words to finish, and the grooves are only about half way around the tongues, but we decided that was good enough.  This left a gap of about four inches between the last row and the wall, but I'll wait until next spring to rip the last few panels.  The ceiling looks pretty amazing and my lodge looks even more like a lodge.

Toward the end of the ceiling project, I stepped outside to get another board and saw a small white bird fly by and land in the currents downriver.  That was too exciting to pass up, so I took a command break, slid on my xtratuffs, and went in pursuit with camera and binoculars.  This bird wasn't just pale, it was white, with maybe just a blush of smoky gray and some bluish-gray highlights on the wings and tail and a pale line over the eye.  It clearly wasn't a snow bunting, which was the only white bird I could think of.  I saw him for a few brief flashes in the binoculars, and managed to capture him in two extremely blurry photos (see below).  He was a song bird, small thrush sized, and his tail reminded me of the way winter wrens hold their tails, though that may have been more a product of the bobbing branches he was sitting on than habit.  Once I saw him fly from the ground into a seed stalk at the edge of the meadow as though he were looking for seeds, but he disappeared into the grass immediately afterwards.  I stared at the spot where I thought he'd landed at the edge of a log for a long time but couldn't see him.  I finally moved closer and flushed him out--apparently he hides well despite his coloration!  Eventually he disappeared into the dense thicket of currents and alders and, though I traipsed through there on the way back to the lodge, couldn't locate him again.  In the bushes around him were chickadees, juncos, flycatchers, and Wilson's warblers.  He was no doubt a partially albino bird, but of what species I don't know.  One avid birdwatcher suggested a Townsend's solitaire, which does seem to fit the bill quite well.  Of course we'll never know.  Later that afternoon I saw him again flying across the front of the lodge, but couldn't locate him after.  Seals watched us from the water (see photo below).

At about 1:30 the tide was high, so I kayaked out to the Ronquil to unload it on shore and anchor it a bit closer.  This was the first time I'd seen a 19.2' tide at the homestead (about the highest the tide gets).  The meadow in front of the lodge was flooded, water coming within 15 feet of the deck.  The area where I usually stage kayaks while I'm at the homestead was a pool of water surrounded by the top four inches of grass sticking above the water's surface.  Downriver, the water licked at overhanging alders.  It was pretty exciting.  Nigel had disappeared again at the onset of the nail gun, so Chris went to find him while I kayaked to the boat.  We had a hunch that he was hanging around my cabin; Chris quietly snuck up and found him fast asleep on the front porch.  As you can imagine this was an adorable image, so Chris returned to get a camera.  In the meantime, I'd started the engine on the boat and Nigel showed up at the lodge just as Chris was on his way back.  I like the fact that, of all the places at the homestead for a dog to haunt, his second choice (aside from the noisy lodge) is the front porch of his sleeping cabin. 

Lunch and a nap on the couch followed.  I'm not entirely sure about the chain of events post-nap, but I think that I worked outside for a bit, first cleaning up the chaos on the porch (discarded boards, sawhorses, skillsaw, ladders, etc.) and tucking all the unused ceiling panels back onto the pile on the lower deck.  To that I added all the pressure-treated lumber that I'd stashed under the lodge and covered everything securely with a tarp.  One of the first tasks next season will be to move this lumber elsewhere so the entire deck is free.  I also went around to the first three cabins, gathering all the linens and tidying them up.  I delivered a tarp to Schist House (the outhouse above the cabins) and made sure that as much lumber in the lumber staging area near the lodge as possible was covered up and the tarps secured.

With a few of the outside tasks complete, I came back inside to work on propane lights.  The lodge was lit in the evenings by only two gas lights, installed two years ago in the fall.  The one above the kitchen adequately lights the rear of the lodge, but the other light was installed along the upriver wall when the couch was 90 degrees from its current position.  The light is helpful enough in the evenings, but only people sitting on the upriver end of the couch can see clearly enough to read after dark.  So several weeks earlier I'd made a pilgrimage to Amerigas, the one store I'm aware of in Juneau that sells gas lights, to pick up two more lights and some fittings, stopping by Cameron's Plumbing on the way back to get dividers for the line and another 15 feet of copper tubing.  I'd measured the copper tubing I had stored down at Snettisham earlier in the summer and estimated what I still needed.  I had tubing left from the first lights I put up as well as a roll of tarnished tubing donated from the marbled murrelet ADF&G camp the year before.

The first step was assembly.  I have to say that the directions for these lights are some of the worst I have ever seen--only a tiny, blurry drawing showing the order in which the 15 or so small pieces fit together, but the drawing was so poor and small that it was very difficult to tell which pieces were which, and the cryptic names were wholly unhelpful.  I remembered having similar difficulties with the first lights I installed, and patiently managed to piece these together.  Some debate followed as to where the lights would be most effective and attractive.  I'd originally hoped to place one on the downriver side of the lodge next to the couch and the other over the couch to illuminate the whole area.  The lights are designed to attach to a wall, however, and I'm not sure whether I want to add a vertical piece to the ceiling to support one.  So we toyed with many options, eventually settling on a light between the windows and a light just beyond the second window, both about six feet up.  Chris helped me laboriously screw in the mounting pieces which required pounding nail holes first to get the screws started. 

Then came the interesting part.  The folks at the propane store had assured me that a single 20 lb. tank would be large enough to support an additional two propane lights, which saved me the expense and hassle of installing another propane system.  Instead I only needed to splice into the existing line.  I turned off the propane tank and got out the strange tools borrowed from my parents--a metal cutting tool and flaring tools.  Near the ceiling along the back wall I cut the line, clamping it between the notch and the blade of the cutting tool and spinning it around and around until the tubing split (which was more awkward than it sounds, as the tubing was pretty stiff and close to the wall.  Then I got out the flaring tools, fumbling in the dark to set them up correctly while standing on the sink.  That's right, the sun had set while we were assembling the lights and attaching the mounts to the wall, and now we were working in the dark, having just cut the line to the propane lights.  Chris lit the area with a flashlight (see photo below).  I think the flaring tools deserve some description here.  There are several varieties, but these were satisfyingly down to earth.  One piece was a metal vice that, when opened, allows you to place a metal tube into one of several slots depending on size.  The tube fits snugly when the vice is shut and secured, but one end of it flares a little where the tube comes out.  Another devise with a cone-shaped drill is clamped on and the cone is screwed into the end of the tubing, forcing it to take on the contours of the flared vice, giving it a trumpet appearance.  That flared end fits against special brass fittings and a nut holds the tubing to the fitting.  Amazingly, this metal-to-metal fitting passes gas through without leaking.  At least, that's the idea. 

One thing to keep in mind when using the flaring tool is that the nut that screws onto the fitting and holds the tubing in place must be slid onto the tubing before it is flared, or it won't fit.  I remembered to do this before I flared the two ends of the tubing that I'd just cut, but forgot to when I tried to add the new piece of tubing to the T fitting.  This, of course, required cutting the tubing again and starting the flare over after sliding on the nut.  All of this was accomplished balancing on the sink by the light of a flashlight. 

From there we gently manipulated the new copper tubing in a straight line along the ceiling in the opposite direction of the existing copper line, securing it every few feet with little copper brackets.  Chris went ahead of me feeding out line while I moved the ladder bit by bit and secured it along the back wall, bent it around the corner, and started along the side wall.  I ran out of the first piece of tubing over the wood stove and got out one of the connectors to splice in the second piece of new tubing.  We thought it would be enough to make it all the way to the farther light between the windows, so decided to splice in a separate line when we got above the first fixture to hook it up.  There we cut the tubing and attached another T fitting, cutting a piece of the tarnished copper tubing and running it down below the fixture.  The input fitting on the fixtures is on the bottom, which makes it awkward if the line is coming from above.  We had to bring the line along the side of the light and somewhat below, carefully bending it back up to meet the fitting.  Once that was in place we went back to the top, reattaching the rest of the newer copper tubing and bringing it along the ceiling until it was above the second fixture.  There we discovered that the fixture would need to be moved because it was too close to the edge of the window.  (When I installed the siding around those windows I did not cut out the panels to fit around the edge, deciding to return later and cut them out after they were installed.  The result is that, although the fixture itself was mounted to the wall, once the panel was cut away to the actual outline of the window, the copper tubing would pass over window space and the light would not be centered between the windows.)

By this time I was getting pretty tired and a little frustrated.  My hands were filthy from handling the flaring tools and the tarnished copper tubing and working in the dark was really not ideal, especially working above my head near the ceiling.  We struggled more with bending the tubing to meet the second fixture, eventually creating a pear shaped loop that, though attractive, did not match the other.  It was nearly 9:00 when we finished.  I tightened all the fittings with a crescent wrench and turned the propane on.  The first step, of course, was to make sure there weren't any leaks.  I'd had pretty good luck fixing the few leaks in the propane lines that I'd found in the past, so I didn't expect the agony that followed.  The first leak became apparent when I squirted soapy water where the tubing attached to the first fixture, but this was quickly fixed with a little wrench work.  The T splice above it, however, hissed out big bubbles from all three lines.  The left and bottom leaks were fixed easily with a little additional tightening, but no amount of effort, including unscrewing it all the way several times, would stop the other leak.  I finally gave up and moved on to the next splice above the stove.  One of the leaks was fixed by unscrewing, adjusting, and rescrewing, but I could not stop the other.  I also fixed some leaks in the splice above the kitchen, but could not get the others to work.  I must have been turning the gas on and off while doing this, going up and down the step ladder in great frustration.  It didn't help that I'd been so efficient and tidy in running the copper line along the ceiling that I didn't have any extra line to work with; if I had to reflare, it would involve splicing in a new line.  I was hungry and cranky and felt pretty stupid for eliminating the gas light option for the night.  I managed to cook salmon, stuffing, and salad for dinner by flashlight and we ate by kerosene lantern.

Mystery bird	Nigel anxious about the engine noises (photo by Chris)	Look how close the water is!
Another view of the close water	T fitting and flaring tools in action	Chris rocking the flaring tools

The next morning I got up around 8:30 during a very low tide (see photo below) and walked down to the boat to finally drain it out.  As I did so, a female marsh hawk flew overhead and across the river (see photo below).  From there I went on my COASST survey, finding neither dead birds nor anything of particular interest that I remember.  When I returned, Chris and I set about the close up chores.  First we covered Schist House with a tarp and secured it with lines tied around the structure and to the step ladder in back.  We repeated the task with the other outhouse, then hiked up to the water source in the creek, manhandling the olive barrel over the slippery rocks and onto the bank above the high water mark.  Close to the lodge on the way back down we passed a tree whose girth I often stop and admire.  It's at an angle above the path that doesn't do its size justice and the more I looked at it that day, the more I realized just how enormous it is, probably the largest tree on the property.  I had Chris stand next to it for reference (see photo below).

Most of the rest of the close up chores are better accomplished right before leaving, so I decided to tackle the propane fittings again.  This time I was a bit more meticulous about the rescrewing attempts.  In both of the trouble spots, it looked like the angle at which the tubing was naturally approaching the fitting (if I wasn't holding it) was not quite parallel to the fitting itself.  It was a pretty minor deviation, and I would have thought that the pressure of the nut would force the copper to seal, but I decided to try gently bending the tubing as it approached the fitting so it joined more naturally.  Amazingly, this seemed to work, or at least the fittings stopped leaking.  I checked all the others again, finding a few problems above the kitchen, which were fixed easily.  I dumped a lot of soapy water over everything, including the original lights, before I decided it was all sealed up.  We installed the glass globes and lit the mantles on fire (see photo below) before turning on the gas and illuminating the lodge.  Of course it was daylight, so I have no idea how it looks at dark, but I was fairly pleased to have them working and they look beautiful (see photo below).  Can't wait to try them out next spring.

We let the fire die out as we had lunch and relaxed.  The chores were going so well that I camped out on the couch with Chris for a while, reading and relaxing.  Eventually I started back at it, sweeping up the lodge and continuing to gather the items I wanted to take back to town for the winter, lining up all the gear on the porch outside.  At some point, possibly the day before, I went through all the non-perishable food that had accumulated over the summer and filled totes and bags to bring them back to town.  It's surprising how many cans of soup, boxes of creamy pasta, and top ramen I managed to take down there!  I also unscrewed the filters from their housings outside and brought them in, allowing the rest of the water to drain from the hose and later putting crumpled pieces of tinfoil in the inlet and outlet to keep critters from climbing inside.  Chris helped me take down most of the stove pipe, dumping out the soot and carefully placing it inside.  We nailed a board over the opening and I stuffed it full of insulation.  We also manhandled the plywood for the front windows up onto the porch and nailed that into place. 

It was finally time to head home.  I kayaked out to the boat, coming in right at the high tide.  With all the gear to bring home we were grateful for the short walk!  I brought the kayak onto the top porch (access under the lodge is limited by the stack of lumber), did a final survey inside, and sadly locked it up.  All in all, the closeup had gone remarkably well, just as planned, and we'd also managed to finish the ceiling and install the extra gas lights that weekend.  Already I was thinking about things I'd like to do next spring.  Delighted with the weekend, though a little wistful at closing up, I lifted Nigel into the boat and we puttered off down the river.

Snettisham was flat calm all the way to the entrance; turning around Point Styleman, we entered a following sea that built as we passed between the shore and the Seal Rocks.  The tide was so high that only the tips of the rocks were exposed.  A huge raft of scoters occupied the area.  By the time we passed beyond the rocks the seas were 3 feet and very choppy and set my nerves on edge a bit.  It was not weather I was anxious to spend the next few hours crashing around in, getting turned this way and that on top of the squirrelly swells.  Thankfully they diminished somewhat by the time we hit Limestone Inlet, steady but not uncomfortable coming from the stern.  It was decent enough that when we passed a pair of whales outside Taku Harbor I paused long enough to wait for them to resurface for a few last photos.

There were more white caps as we left Grave Point for Arden and I snapped a few photos to try to capture the stormy moment (not slowing down this time).  Rain came in droves now, just the kind of weather you want coming back from the last run of the season.  Not harsh enough to be scary, but the sort of conditions that you don't want to think about bucking next weekend on the way back down, a reminder that it really is fall and sensible to finally put summer to bed.  I loved it, completely pleased with the season and with my boat, sliding and crashing over the following seas in the driving rain.

By the time we reached Gastineau Channel, the wind had really picked up and I commented to Chris that my parents were probably worried about us.  We pulled into the harbor thoroughly soaked and cold to the bone, less than two and a half hours after we departed the homestead.  I tied up the boat and started to unload our prodigious gear while Chris fetched harbor carts.  We filled two of them up, then I managed to snap some photos of Chris and Nigel in the sideways rain (see Nigel's tail in the photo below).  The tide was still high enough that we made it up the ramp with our loaded carts without trouble, dumping everything into the truck as quickly as possible so we could make it home to showers and warmth.  I called my parents when we arrived and they were shocked that we hadn't stayed an extra night, as the winds were high around Juneau and the forecast called for five foot seas.  We were happy to be home.

Devil's club on the way to the water source	Chris next to the enormous tree	Burning the mantle
Finished ceiling	On the way home (Grand Island)	It's so windy back at the harbor!

The rain continued all week and I made three trips to bail the boat over my lunch breaks before I finally pulled her out of the water on Sunday.  As I type this I can hear the rain on the tarp outside that covers the Ronquil for the winter, all scrubbed and tidy, both engines fogged.  All of its summer contents are on the floor of my garage (emergency bag, life jackets, poles, paddle, net, battery, fenders, lines, bucket, etc.) awaiting a de-greasing before they, too, are stowed away.

Happy winter.

Buttoned up for the winter