Sunday, December 04, 2005

More Remembering

A River Runs Through it was written by Norman Maclean about his childhood and relationship to his brother growing up on the Blackfoot River in Montana. A much less seen and heard story is his collection of tales from his days as a logger in the Rugged Montana Mountains... In particular, an essay titled "On Logging and Pimping" which was written for a guest lecture and set a record for attendance simply because of its title, the normal agenda being scientific endeavors and research. From what I understand the crowd was quite pleased. It is in the spirit of that shared moment long ago that I seek to continue to avail you all to my own travels and experiences, For now there is little in the way of "pimping" but It is my hope that you are similarly pleased:

I arrived in King Cove to freezing rain and wind, stepping out of the co-pilots seat after a short and bumpy 20 minute hop from Cold Bay. There were about 6 of us in the plane, and due to space limitations I was jammed into the front seat next to the pilot, a quick warning to keep my knees out of the way of the controls and a few cold bruises as I met the metal edges of the front control panels with my shins and feet and that was all there was to it... We landed on a Gravel runway and taxied to a set of waiting cars and a shack, you could see the tracks of the planes that came before set clearly in the rutted gravel below. Welcome to the King Cove airport. Our luggage arrived about 30 minutes later in a second plane, this one with no seats, and jammed tightly with our duffelbags and luggage cases... except of course for my luggage which as I would find out later had been sent from Anchorage to St. Paul, 200 miles in the middle of the bering sea, it wouldn't catch up to me for another two weeks. I hopped in a local car sent by the cannery and it was off to find my boat and meet my crew, the people with whom I would be living for the next 5 weeks. ...