Inlet trek in the family — Seldovia couple brings toddlers on beach walk around Cook Inlet

Photos courtesy of Brentwood Higman and Erin McKittrick, of Ground Truth Trekking, of Seldovia. Seldovia’s Brentwood Higman and Erin McKittrick, of Ground Truth Trekking, are navigating around Cook Inlet with their two kids, seeing some interesting sights along the way. Here a bald eagle snatches a tasty meal, a squid, from the waters of Cook Inlet.

By Joseph Robertia

Redoubt Reporter

For some people the idea of even taking their kids to the grocery store is daunting, so imagine trying to take a 2- and 4-year-old on an 800-mile trek around Cook Inlet.

That’s exactly what Brentwood Higman and Erin McKittrick, of Seldovia, are doing, joined by their kids, Lituya and Katmai, in an effort to find out what people they encounter along the way think about the future of Cook Inlet 50 to 100 years from now.

Why Cook Inlet? According to Higman, because it’s a place where all the diverse issues of Alaska’s future collide with the diversity of all its people.

“Cook Inlet is the heart of modern Alaska. It has Native villages and Russian villages, hippie towns and tourist traps and Alaska’s biggest city. Cook Inlet is our home. It’s home to oil rigs and natural gas plants, coal mine proposals, wind turbines and tidal power proposals, endangered whales and abundant bears, salmon and melting glaciers. It’s home to most of Alaska’s population, and hundreds of miles of nearly unpeopled wilderness,” he said.

They began this expedition March 27, starting from Dogfish Bay just south of Nanwalek, and while this is a huge undertaking with two small children, it is not the couple’s first big trip. Higman, who has a doctorate in geology, and McKittrick, with a master’s degree in molecular biology, have taken 10 walks, starting with their first trek in 2001 from Drift River to Chignik.

After graduating from the University of Washington, they launched their biggest effort by walking and paddling their way from Seattle to False Pass in 2007-08. McKittrick’s book, “A Long Trip Home,” details that epic wilderness adventure and all they discovered and learned along the way. They took their oldest child, Katmai, on an expedition around northwest Alaska’s Chukchi Sea in 2010, when he was still a baby. The next year, the family set off for Malaspina Glacier for a two-month trek with Katmai and Lituya, when she was 1. McKittrick’s second book, “Small Feet, Big Land,” coming out this fall, will detail some of those adventures.

Even though they have practice, walking and occasionally pack rafting Cook Inlet with two small kids is a lot with which to contend. Slogging through soft beach sand, leaning into biting cold north winds and toughing out the discomfort of seemingly incessant rain. But Higman said that they’re a family and that’s how they roll, and walk, and paddle.

4-year-old Katmai toddles along chunks of ice brought in by the tide.

“Well, we have kids, and we couldn’t very well leave them behind. But, of course, we chose to do this particular trip, and considering how that would work with kids was a huge part of that. They’re very adaptable, and I think 80 percent of the time it’s a great environment for them to learn and explore. The other 20 percent of the time it’s hard to be in the wilderness, but we hope that in the long run there are things to learn from that, too.”

For those who prefer to only experience the environment on nice days, or limit it to walking from their car to their home or the office, it may be tough to comprehend how this family is dealing with the weather along the way, particularly in as long-lingering a winter as this has been.

“Does driving rain build character? I’m not sure, but I guess that’s the experiment we’re trying. Engaging Katmai as he walks, and Lituya as she rides and sometimes walks, is certainly a challenge. But we take lots of long breaks, look at interesting things along the way, and it’s been working out really well. In many ways, parenting in the wilderness isn’t really that much different from parenting a 2- and 4-year-old anywhere. Our kids are just regular kids, and have their share of unreasonable tantrums, sibling squabbles, take forever to get dressed in all their gear and out of the tent. But overall, I think we have a more engaging environment in what we’re doing, and a more relaxed schedule,” Higman said.

They had planned to walk Cook Inlet, but bringing the kids meant doing it at the pace of those little legs, so they created their plan with an intended average of only eight miles a day. Last week they passed through Kasilof, Kenai and Nikiski, and are currently on the long stretch to Hope, but they said the kids are still faring well.

“Lately we’ve been rafting about half a day out of every four days or so, mostly controlled by weather. In that half day we’ll go a full-day’s walking, so in distance it’s about one-quarter to one-third,” Higman said.

“The big picture is good,” he added, “and there are myriad details and specifics in that. One thing that’s been harder than expected is we didn’t realize how consistently we’d get north winds walking up the coast here. Headwinds make paddling hard, and when it’s cold or wet that can be tough for the kids.

Taking (live)stock — Suppliers manage inventory of farm animals

Photos courtesy of Sarah Donchi, Kenai Feed. Ben Miller holds a pig for Dr. Jerry Nybakken to examine at Kenai Feed last week.

By Joseph Robertia

Redoubt Reporter

There’s something about the smell of eggs cooking in a skillet first thing in the morning, and if recent sales of chicks are any indication, there are a growing number of people who prefer the taste of farm-fresh eggs versus store-bought.

“We got in 700 today alone, and over the course of the season we’ll go through around 8,000 from March to June,” said Dianna Taplin, owner of Cad-Re Feed and Grandma’s Cupboard in Soldotna.

It’s not just about taste preferences, though. According to Taplin, there are many reasons the chicken-raising business is starting to boom. For some it’s about getting a meat product free of hormones, antibiotics and chemicals. For others it’s part of teaching their kids about raising fowl, and for still others it’s about being prepared for any number of situations that could cause a disruption to the local grocery store food supply.

“It’s really exploded the last five years. We saw a slight dip a few years ago when Soldotna changed its zoning laws, but otherwise it’s been steadily growing. I think when people saw the economy tanking and us living so far north, it really kicked people wanting to become self-sufficient into overdrive,” she said.

There are two divisions of chicken — meat chickens, which are bought to be raised and butchered for food, and laying chickens, which are bought to be raised to produce eggs.

“We have two varieties of meat chickens and we carry about 20 breeds of layers because everyone has their favorite. The top is the Rhode Island Red — that’s the biggest seller each year. We also carry a few varieties of ornamentals and rare-breed chickens for those who just want something cute, or to eat bugs or stir up the garden,” Taplin said.

So many chicks in the store — requiring scratch, water, warmth under a heat lamp and almost constant cleaning — requires a lot of planning and preparation.

“I have three chicken managers, I’ve designed a program to keep up with the customers and the hatcheries, and I keep at least eight books of preorders,” Taplin said.

Transportation of the chicks from the farms to the store is the most nerve-racking aspect. The baby birds can’t survive long without food and warmth, so even an interruption as brief as a plane being delayed in Anchorage for a day can have disastrous results.

“Getting them here safely is the hardest part, and it’s been better since the post office made changes to get them here in two days. Now the hard part is when 700 to 800 come in, and there are still others here that haven’t been picked up,” she said.

New teams in inlet oil, gas — Buccaneer, ConocoPhillips partner in North Cook Inlet Unit

Photo courtesy of the Homer Tribune. Buccaneer Energy’s jack-up rig Endeavour is seen in the Cosmopolitan Unit between Anchor Point and Whiskey Gulch last month.

By Naomi Klouda

Homer Tribune

Buccaneer Energy struck a deal with ConocoPhillips that greatly expands the Australian company’s holdings in Cook Inlet and moves a major back into higher profile in the inlet.

Buccaneer executed an agreement with ConocoPhillips that allows it the right to earn a 100 percent working interest in ConocoPhillips deep oil rights in 23,368 acres held by the North Cook Inlet Unit.

That’s a sizable unit that provides a “huge area to explore,” said Cathy Foerster, a commissioner at the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

This area has a long track record dating back to the 1960s. The oil is contained in the Lower Tyonek, Hemlock, Sunfish and West Foreland Formations. Since 1962 they have been penetrated by 13 wells, all of them in North Cook Inlet Unit, according to the historical portion of a press release issued Monday. Seven of the wells were drilled in the 1990s. The remaining six wells were drilled by various majors during the discovery and delineation phase of the Cook Inlet in the 1960s.

 Of the 13 wells drilled, a total of 10 wells were successfully flow tested.

“This could mean good news for more oil production and more revenue in Alaska,” Foerster said.

The NCIU has produced almost 1.9 trillion cubic feet of gas from the shallow Sterling and Beluga formations since the 1960s. Now the NCIU is currently held by gas production that has been predominantly used to supply ConocoPhillips’ 100 percent owned LNG facility. The shallow gas production will remain owned by ConocoPhillips. But oil drilling will be new to Buccaneer.

Bob Shavelson, public advocate at Cook Inletkeeper, sees the agreement as a sign that a major oil and gas company has moved back into the inlet. And that means the state needs to look at how it allows discharge of drilling wastes into the waters of Cook Inlet in the face of increased production.

“One of the rationales to continue the dumping in Cook Inlet when the EPA set these rules in 1996, was that Cook Inlet was a declining oil and gas province and they did not anticipate growth or new discharges,” Shavelson said. “Cook Inlet is the only coastal area where industry can discharge their drilling waste. The state carved out a loophole that didn’t anticipate this new interest.”

Troubled waters a head

Photo courtesy of Christine Cunningham. Christine Cunningham hauled this beauty from the deep during a fishing trip.

By Christine Cunningham, for the Redoubt Reporter

The captain scuffed around deck in his XTRATUFs. He sniffed over his boat as if he’d only know it by smell. He was like many sportfishing guides in Alaska who’d slept all winter and were waking up from hibernation with the bears. He talked a lot but only had one thing on his mind. If you didn’t have the same thing on your mind, you’d be in trouble. There were four of us who’d tagged along with him for his first trip of the season. It was a scouting trip for the Homer Winter King Salmon Derby.

“I don’t know if the toilet is going to work,” Captain announced.

“I put the blue stuff in it before winter,” he said, while taking out tackle. “Never know if anything’s going to work the first time out.”

A boat across the dock from us started up. The motors emitted a fog of success. We all watched.

“Lucky bastard,” Captain said.

I had to use the restroom, and I’d better do it before we left the harbor or else endure the stigma of being one of those people who actually uses a marine toilet.

The toilet on Captain’s boat was merely ornamental. That the boat contained an enclosed restroom was an advertised feature. A girlfriend recommended the boat, not for the potential success of the charter or the demeanor of the captain, but for the enclosed toilet. Should anyone aboard the boat make use of the feature, they must do it with skill and diplomacy. The captain had many times instructed guests on the proper use of the head. I’d taken a few notes over the years:

“No butts in head” is not a personality prerequisite for marine toilet use.

“Nothing should go in the toilet that has not gone through a person” does not mean you have to eat toilet paper if you want to use it.

“The water is calling” only refers to fishing, not marine toilets.

Whether seated or standing, brace yourself as if you were about to ride a bull for eight seconds because nothing says “story that will be retold in mixed company” like being the person who smells like a urinal the rest of the trip.

It would be better to wear Depends than use the marine toilet.

“Going down for a beer,” is one of the many acceptable euphemisms for using the toilet.

“Never used a marine toilet in 50 years,” is something men will sometimes say to impress each other.

A “midendeavor flush” is not a courtesy, it’s a mechanical necessity.

“Every bullet has your name on it.” The decision to use the toilet is yours alone. If you do not clean and replace parts, you will be specifically referenced for the rest of your life by the captain.

Don’t use a marine toilet unless: A, you are the person that maintains it; B, you have no shame; C, you want to be infamous.

“One time,” Captain said, “I was waiting in line at the launch. The boat is still on the trailer. And this 300-pound guy uses the boat toilet!”

The four of us all shook our heads.

Whet appetites to wet hooks — Fly Fishing Film Tour lands in Kenai

By Jenny Neyman

Redoubt Reporter

With a closure from May 1 through June 11, this is the spring doldrums of trout fishing on the Kenai River. Nothing for a diehard angler to do but prepare gear, practice skills and daydream.

And if you’re going to dream, why not dream big? Of escaping the hectic working world to the refuge of a quiet backcountry river system, of the thrill of chasing the jewel of California sea bass, of the adventure of plying the waters of a Bolivian jungle, or the excitement of enticing the strike of an aquatic tiger in the pristine jungles of northern Thailand.

 Those are just some of the escapes available in the 2013 Fly Fishing Film Tour, a compilation of fly-fishing footage shot on waters around the world.

“Trout season in this area closes from May 1 to June 11. We’re in that period right now and there’s not too much to fly fish for at the moment. So this is really going get people raring to go,” said Mark Wackler of Fishology Alaska, which is sponsoring a showing of the Fly Fishing Film Tour on Friday at the Kenai Visitors and Cultural Center in Kenai as a fundraiser for the newly formed Kenai Peninsula chapter of Trout Unlimited.

Wackler has been going to Anchorage to see F3T, as it’s called, for years, he said. After last year’s showing he got to talking with event organizers about what it would take to bring the tour to the Kenai Peninsula. A local host sponsor, was the answer.

“I decided to do it. It sounded fun and was coincidentally about that same time the TU group started to get organized, and I got involved in that, as well. It worked out perfectly as an event for the new TU chapter here on the peninsula,” he said.

Films are submitted from all over the world for inclusion in the tour, including from Alaska. The Kenai showing won’t include Alaska clips, though. There are a couple of packages to choose from in hosting a F3T showing, and Wackler couldn’t resist the option of including more exotic locales.

“I started thinking to myself, ‘One of things I really appreciate is seeing these fisheries that I don’t know anything about — one in Thailand, and all over the world. That’s one of the cooler aspects, being introduced to some fisheries that are not familiar,” he said.

Besides, anyone wanting information on fishing in Alaska, or particularly on the Kenai, needs only to ask around at the film showing, since it’s also meant as a social gathering.

“It’s a cool event. The atmosphere is fun, and beer for sale doesn’t hurt,” Wackler said.

Picture of community — ‘Paint, Pen the Kenai’ celebrates residents’ talents

“Kenai La Belle” by Fanny Ryland.

By Jenny Neyman

Redoubt Reporter

Most striking wasn’t the colors, though they were vibrant. Nor the designs, though they were eye-catching. It was more the content of the imagery — the interestingly different takes on the theme “Life on the Kenai,” and yet the similarities running throughout all the pieces in the Paint and Pen the Kenai summer art show, which opened with a reception Thursday at the Kenai Visitors and Cultural Center.

“I think it’s very diverse and there are a lot of neat possibilities for public art. And there’s so much similarity, too — most have planes, most of them have fishing and the Russian Orthodox Church,” said Anna Widman, who teaches art at Nikiski Middle-High School and submitted one of the mural paintings.

Hers references salmon runs with a Native-inspired motif and recreation with a campsite, a fishing fly, a guitar player seated at a bonfire and a snowmachiner. There’s a moose amid summer wildflowers, and it’s all set at the mouth of the Kenai River with the Russian Orthodox Church and Veronica’s Cafe in Old Town, a few oil platforms out in Cook Inlet, a plane flying overhead and Mount Redoubt framing the scene in the background.

By Anna Widman

“I thought that togetherness was a theme, so I wanted to show that,” Widman said. The lines of the Kenai River and sandy shoreline in her vertical design converge into two hands holding each other at the bottom of the frame.

Kenai Peninsula residents were invited to paint a mural panel or submit writing sharing their vision of “Life on the Kenai” for display in the summer show. Starting this week viewers of the show will be able to vote for their favorite painted panel, and the winning design will be reproduced as a large-scale, permanent public mural somewhere on the peninsula. The placement also is going to be community-driven, with people suggesting and voting on possible locations. A Pen the Kenai writing will be selected to go on permanent display with the mural, as well, and a book will be produced commemorating the project, showing the mural designs and writings.

“Everyone will get a chance to vote on what they want to see and where they want to see it. I’m looking forward to having one of these awesome designs be a mural in our community,” said Marcus Meuller, president of the Soldotna Rotary Club, which is organizing the Paint and Pen the Kenai project in conjunction with the Kenai Chamber of Commerce. “Thank you to all the artists and all the writers. I’m just astounded by the quality in this community.”

Almanac: Even Kehl — World War II vet uses experiences as basis of expertise in counseling

Editor’s note: This is the final of a series of articles about Fred Kehl, of Soldotna, a veteran of World War II. Part One, on April 17, looked at his experience on the front lines of the U.S. push into Germany and the liberation of Dachau Concentration Camp. Part Two, April 24, recalled Kehl’s life prior to being drafted and what led him to re-enlist into the service, using his German language abilities in the realm of intelligence. This week’s Part III follows Kehl’s life after the war and how he found another kind of service.

By Jenny Neyman

Redoubt Reporter

As an infantryman with the U.S. 7th Army’s 42nd Rainbow Division on the front line of the German theater in World War II, it was easy to discern the enemy — the ones shooting at you.

Enemy was more nebulous once active hostilities ended with Germany’s surrender in 1945. It became more challenging to suss out the Nazis, no longer in uniform squaring off across a battlefield. Staff Sgt. Fred Kehl’s job became accordingly more nuanced. Being fluent in German, Kehl went from being a harbinger — an interpreter communicating officers’ orders with German prisoners and citizens as Allied forces secured new areas — to working in the Counter Intelligence Corps stationed in Berlin — using records, surveillance, interviews and investigations to tell the spies, Nazi leaders and covert operators concealing themselves among the rest of the citizenry.

Nowadays, in Soldotna, Kehl’s work is subtler still. The insidious enemies he now seeks are guilt, anger, confusion and frustration, his tools of investigation are in the arsenal of emotional intelligence, and the battlefield is the stormy minds and aching hearts of those struggling through the grieving process.

For all the physical injuries he witnessed in the war — starvation of concentration camp prisoners at Dachau, gunshot wounds, carnage suffered in explosions — it is the mental wounds that can be much more damaging and harder to heal.

“Pathological grief, going on and on, can end in suicide, or mental institutions or something mentally and physically going wrong,” Kehl said. “There has to be an ending point somewhere on this journey.”

Kehl is a certified grief counselor, helping people heal from loss and escape the sometimes-debilitating cycle that mourning can become. In a way it’s not so unlike his duties in the war — acting as interpreter, now to explain the grief process to those caught in it, and as intelligence officer, to figure out where the enemies of healing lie.

“I know the grief process backwards and forwards and with all that knowledge I can put together a program and can explain why you have good days and bad days, why that is so you can start to deal with grief much better instead of resisting it,” he said. “Primary grief is not your enemy, it’s your end to grieving. But people often don’t understand it. They don’t know, ‘Why is this happening to me?’”

Though grief counseling is not a common field to pursue — especially among his stoic, emotionally restrained German immigrant, Midwestern, war-veteran, Depression-era generation and upbringing — it seemed a natural expertise to develop for Kehl, who says he has always been something of a “cracker-barrel psychiatrist from years back.”

That and he’s had an entire career of firsthand exposure to people struggling with grief, once he started work in funeral services.

“As a funeral director you’re sitting next to it all the time, and it got interesting seeing how it affects people, some deal with it differently than others. So then I did college classes on grief and death and dying,” Kehl said.

And now, in his 80s, retired from funeral work and at an age where he’s long since deserving of retirement from any sort of work, he chooses instead to open his home and heart, free of charge, in service to others seeking change for the better.

That’s something Kehl can relate to. At one point in his life Kehl, even with his honorably squeaky-clear service record, sorely needed change himself, in the form of a swift kick to the rear.