Independence Day

I decided to escape to the Stikine River for the 4th of July to spend a couple days away from the chaos and revelry that always accompanies the birth of our nation in Wrangell.  Wrangell REALLY enjoys the 4th, patriotism is still admired and unashamedly openly expressed.  One of the many reasons this place is a great place.  We love our country but many of us have a healthy skepticism and criticism of our government.  I think that is a general feeling in Alaska.

I spent a night camping up the river with a few friends gillnetting sockeye salmon during our latest stretch of very hot weather.  We have had another string of sunny clear days with temperatures nearing 80 so it was a great time to be in one of the most beautiful places on Earth catching food for the coming year.

This post isn't really much about the gillnetting portion of the trip, I just wanted to share a few photos of one of my favorite places (again).  This photo of our jet skiffs with one of the buoys of one of the nets off to the right is the only photo of actual gillnetting or salmon this post will have.

Almost a thunderstorm there over the distant mountains in Canada.

An eagle silhouette in a tree silhouette.

Same mountains, later in the evening.

The majority of the town of Wrangell plus hundreds of their family and friends from other places watching the boat races from the cruise ship dock.  We watched a few heats of the race from the boat on our way back to town on the 4th.

The Coast Guard was obviously poised to respond to any mishaps which fortunately did not occur.  I didn't get any good shots of the fast boats but there were some very speedy ones!  The fun of gillnetting was done for this trip and now the work of preparing and canning it begins!  I just bought a second canner so the work will be twice as fast at least.