No paper this week — Happy Memorial Day

The Redoubt Reporter will return June 3.

There in spirit — Kalifornsky Village leaves rich legacy

Photos by Jenny Neyman, Redoubt Reporter. Dr. Alan Boraas, professor of anthropology at Kenai Peninsula College, leads a tour of Kalifornsky Village last month. The Native settlement was abandoned in the 1920s but is still home to a rich cultural history.

By Jenny Neyman

Redoubt Reporter

These days, there isn’t much to see of Kalifornsky Village. An unmarked footpath leads away from Kalifornsky Beach Road into the woods, single-file and nondescript. You wouldn’t know it was there unless you knew it was there.

Dead trees and undergrowth have been cleared recently along the muddy path winding toward the bluff overlooking Cook Inlet, affording a clearer view of more branches and tree trunks, sprouting among indentations in the undulating ground.

The structures have long since been dismantled or disintegrated, and the Dena’ina Natives who once lived here were the original “leave no trace” campers, considering it bad form to leave much of anything behind.

Farther along, near the slowly, steadily eroding bluff, there’s two obvious indications of human habitation, or, at least, expiration — a hand-hewn, falling-down fence ringing a cemetery that contains 16 graves, with another just outside, the paint flaking off the whitewashed Russian Orthodox crosses with their telltale slanted bars. Just beyond it, closer to the bluff, is another fence, surrounding the site of an old Russian Orthodox chapel.

But who had lived here? Who had died here? Who is buried here? There is no explanation as far as the untrained eye can see. But on April 15, there was plenty of history for the ears to hear and the mind to ponder. A group of about 15 joined Kenai Peninsula College anthropology professor Alan Boraas on a tour of Kalifornsky Village, to get a sense, through senses beyond just sight, of what is so special about the place.

“How many times have people driven by here — going to wherever they’re going, doing whatever — tucked away in this woods, this remarkable place, this powerful place. That we hope will continue to be a powerful place,” Boraas said. “I’m not saying it will be spiritual to everyone, but it’s a place where we can tell the story of the Kenai Peninsula in many different ways, in dimensions that are far beyond the, ‘Gosh, that’s interesting. Hey, that’s interesting,’ but really get to the core of the relation between people and place. That’s what’s important.”

Kalifornsky Village, or Unhghenesditnu, meaning “farthest creek over” in Dena’ina, was founded by Qadanachen Kalifornsky in about 1820 on the Cook Inlet bluff four miles north of the Kasilof River mouth. Qadanachen had just returned from working at Fort Ross, about 100 miles north of San Francisco, built by the Russian American Company to grow grain to feed Russian colonies. The grain was a bust, rotted by the damp climate.

Qadanachen’s heart was likewise deteriorating, from sadness at being away from home. He had brought a bag of soil from his home village of Ski’tuk at the mouth of the Kenai River, which gave him some comfort of connection. He wrote a song about his homesickness.

“‘Another dark night has come over me, we may never return to our home, but do your best in life, that is what I do.’ When your break down the third line, ‘do your best in life,’ it could easily be translated as, ‘live to enhance your soul.’ ‘Another dark night’ — we all have them, and will have them. Do what you can to live to enhance your soul,” Boraas said.

When Qadanachen returned home, he found disputes in the Kenai village and decided to establish a new village with his clanspeople, choosing an old village site dating back to prehistoric times. Dena’ina thrived here long before European explorers came to Alaska, living in multifamily log houses, called nichił, which were partially dug into the ground, with a hearth in a large room for sleeping, warming and cooking, and smaller rooms along the sides. Scattered around in the woods were food cache pits, in which Dena’ina would preserve the summer catch of salmon to sustain them through the winter.

In the second occupation of Kalifornsky Village, they built new houses and planted gardens. And there was a log Russian Orthodox chapel, where a priest from Kenai would visit periodically to tend to the spiritual needs of the villagers. Dena’ina spirituality and the imported Russian Orthodox religion were an amicable fit.

“Spirits and angels, powers of place, powers of ritual — all of these things would have been common, and just as many Dena’ina and Yup’ik today do not see serious conflict between the orthodoxy that they practice and the traditional ways,” Boraas said.

Soldotna to study expansion — Council approves money to look into annexation

By Jenny Neyman

Redoubt Reporter

The Soldotna City Council has a lot of questions regarding the possibility of annexing land to expand its cramped, 7.5-mile footprint — What areas would be appropriate to consider? What would be the costs versus the benefits? And how to go about it?

Twenty-six people testifying at its meeting May 13 were happy to provide answers — Not their neighborhoods, the cost would be public outrage, and the city shouldn’t go about it at all.

“Tonight you have the opportunity to exercise democracy in action. Do the right thing and put a stop to this once and for all. None of us want to continue to experience the cost emotionally or financially that will occur if this continues,” said Brian Olson, president of Borough Residents Against Annexation. The group showed up in force Wednesday to urge the council not to pass an ordinance that would appropriate up to $150,000 to study the economic, social and logistical implications of annexation.

Of the 28 people who testified, only two — Soldotna resident Penny Vadla and daughter, Kaitlin Vadla, were even notionally open to the idea of annexation.

The rest expressed their vehement opposition in a variety of ways. From touch of local humor, with a resident of the River Hills Subdivision off Ciechanski Road suggesting spending the money proposed to study annexation on studying to remove the new roundabouts on Binkley Street.

To strident pronouncements:

“Don’t force nobody in. That’s what the communist people does, they force you to do stuff,” said Fred Sturman.

Liberty, freedom and America were buzzwords of the night.

“You plan to take my liberty away for economic growth,” said Martin Hall, who lives on Lonesome Street.

“If they want to land a plane on the lake out front at four in the morning, I don’t care. To me, that’s the sound of liberty,” said Mike Denison, of East Lake Avenue.

“This is still America and we should still have freedoms and the right to choose where we live,” said Daniel Lynch, of Soldotna.

“I didn’t vote for you. You don’t represent me. You have interest for people who live in the city, but not me. There’s something fundamentally un-American about the fact that you can have annexation without representation,” said Faith Hall, who lives in the Echo Lake area.

Cultivating learning experience — Kasilof students digging the opportunity to grow

Photos by Joseph Robertia, Redoubt Reporter. Students at Tustumena Elementary School spread soil, dig holes and plant willows and garden crops last week as part of Schoolyard Habitat project.

By Joseph Robertia

Redoubt Reporter

For some students, particularly those living in metropolitan or urban areas, learning about wildlife and wilderness habitats is an abstract concept learned from books or seen only by taking field trips. Not so for Alaska kids. They need only look out the window to see the woods and quite possibly a moose or some other wild animal.

Wanting to capitalize on the unique opportunities afforded students in this area, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service developed the Schoolyard Habitat program, which aims to make school grounds more hospitable to wildlife, while simultaneously providing a place for children to learn about and connect with nature.

Now in its second full year, the program has expanded to three peninsula schools — Kaleidoscope School of Art and Sciences in Kenai, Sterling Elementary and Tustumena Elementary in Kasiof, which took on an ambitious end-of-the-year project.

“It doesn’t look like much now, but come back in five years,” said Dan Funk, district Schoolyard Habitat coordinator, about the fenced-in, 60-by-40-foot area adjacent to Tustumena Elementary. Fifth- and sixth-grade students spread topsoil, dug holes and planted 200 willow saplings, as well as some garden foods, last week.

The bulk of the funding for the project came from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, augmented by in-kind contributions of materials and labor from the community, and a grant from the Scott Paper Company via the Department of Natural Resources.

“We ordered felt-leaf willow, which is a hearty variety and one often used for stream bank restoration projects,” Funk said, adding that currently, the demand for these willows exceeds the supply.

“The intent is, in a few years, these willows could be cut to be sold for those purposes, and in the meantime, the schools can pack in as much education around them as possible,” he said.

Marina Bosick, a teacher at Tustumena and one of the people who championed getting the program at the school, said the willow planting and eventual harvest would be in line with several objectives already taught.

“It’s our hope to be able to use cuttings from our willows to help with projects on Crooked Creek, where the sixth grade is already a part of the Adopt-A-Stream Program. There may also be other projects on the Kasilof we could help with in the future, as well. Hopefully, these activities will translate into good environmental stewardship,” she said.

The willow is only one part of the project. Some of the designated area will be used for a small garden.

“We didn’t want to do just willow. We wanted to do something annually, and a little more exciting for kids,” said instructor Shonia Werner, another key person in bringing the program to Tustumena.

View from Out West — Name that plume — Song identification can be for the birds

Photos by Clark Fair. Yvonne Leutwyler and Nathan Coutsoubos watch seabirds on a University of Alaska “Birds of Alaska” trip to Cape Constantine near Dillingham recently.

By Clark Fair, for the Redoubt Reporter

It may be unfair of me to say, but, as of now, I find trying to learn the identities of birds by their songs disturbingly akin to trying to learn French in college by closing my textbook and just listening to my instructor.

I’m trying, damn it, but it’s hard. And I don’t want to give up, as I did with French.

In the 1980s at the University of Montana, after two and a half years of German and one year of Spanish — two languages that sound the way they look — I decided to tackle French. In the first class, our instructor told us to put away our “livre de langue française” and simply listen. At that point, she ceased speaking English and spoke only French. She pointed to herself and said, “Professeur.” We dutifully echoed her word. Then: “Bonjour, classe!” That was an easy one. We responded with a chorus of, “Bonjour, professeur!” But each subsequent sentence or expression grew increasingly complex, and the more visual learners among us became increasingly perplexed learners.

I dropped the class after only one term.

Flash forward more than 30 years. I’m in Dillingham in mid-May, I’m with friends on a chilly early morning “bird walk” — my very first — and I’m doing my darnedest to follow the chorus of whistles and cheeps and tweets and chirrups that some of my companions are identifying faster than I can process the French words for “totally confused.” (That’s totalement confus, by the way.)

I realize, of course, the near necessity of learning the musicality of birds, particularly the LBBs (“little brown birds”) that frequent the forests and tundra and waterways of Alaska. To begin with, with the exception of robins and thrushes, most of the LBBs have a body the size of a golf ball, so they’re tough to see well unless the light is perfect or they happen to land on a branch next to one’s face. They also don’t stand still long — they dart, they flit and they zip. The moment I’d raise my binoculars for a closer view, they’d be gone. They also prefer deep cover — the branches of spruce trees, for instance, or tall grass or thick brush — so their sounds can appear directionless, almost coming out of nowhere.

So learning birdsongs is the best alternative. If one can learn their individual tunes, one can nail down the species — even if, like the French words in my textbook I wasn’t allowed to use, one never sees the actual bird at all.

HOWEVER, confounding the whole process is the fact that nobody seems to have informed these LBBs that it’s not polite for all of them to talk at the same time.

Plugged In: New organization has heart for public art

ART SPACE FONT OUTLINED1

By Joe Kashi, for the Redoubt Reporter

We’ve had more than enough discussion in this space about lenses, gear and other technical topics lately, so, as the Italian side of my family would say, “Basta!” (Enough, already!)

Instead, let’s give some thought to how art and other visual attractions might make our area a more pleasant place to live and work, in the process boosting the local economy over the long term.

There’s a lot of public art happening in Soldotna this summer, with something for everyone. Soldotna’s free public arts festival will be held May 23 in Soldotna Creek Park, attracting new and emerging artists from around Alaska. There’s music, free snacks, demonstrations, a lot of fun and the award of some serious cash prizes on the agenda. It’s a free, new, family friendly event with accessible artwork suitable for all ages.

Soldotna’s Alaska Emerging Artists Festival is open to any “emerging artist” working in a 2D medium who has not had more than one solo exhibit. Established artists with several shows on their resume are just that, “established,” and more easily able to secure recognition and exhibits. “Emerging” artists, on the other hand, are usually students or people with a regular job who need a first “break” and some encouragement and public exposure. The invited musicians, too, are “emerging.” More information and the day’s schedule are posted at www.artspaceak.org.

Skilak stuck in same spring ruts — Lower section reopens to 4×4 traffic Tuesday

Photos by Jenny Neyman, ,Redoubt Reporter. Skilak Lake Road has been closed since Thursday. The lower section of road, miles 19 to 8.5, was reopened to four-wheel-drive vehicles Tuesday, though RV and trailer traffic still is not allowed.

By Jenny Neyman

Redoubt Reporter

Alaska in the springtime is a sloppy situation.

Best-case scenario, breakup mud is shallow, short-lived and segregated to soggy spots away from where anyone walks or drives. Skilak Lake Road, though, is more of a worst-case scenario, every year turning to mush when the trees turn to green. This year has been so bad the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities closed the gravel road to all traffic Thursday for as long as conditions dictate, potentially up to a week.

“It is very wet and very saturated in a number of places to the point where even four-wheel drives are getting stuck. Having vehicles try to get through the area, they’re creating huge ruts, that, a, they’re getting stuck, and then they’re destroying the road surface, so the whole thing is shut down,” said Shannon McCarthy, spokesperson for DOT.

McCarthy said the plan was for maintenance crews to work on the road Thursday and Friday and reassess the situation Monday. The lower section of road, miles 19 to 8.5, was opened to four-wheel-drive traffic Tuesday. The upper section, Miles 0 to 8.5, remains closed, and the entire road is still closed to RVs and trailer traffic.

“They got some dozers down there. First of all they filled in the ruts and then they leveled the road with a crown of course in the middle so if it can shed any water it will. And then time. They have to have the road dry out because if you let cars back in on a road that’s that wet they will just re-create those ruts, and of course ruts hold onto water really well,” McCarthy said.

The 19-mile loop road off the Sterling Highways at Mileposts 58 and 75.2 accesses several trails, campgrounds, cabins and boat launches. And while May isn’t peak activity time for the popular Skilak Wildlife Recreation Area, the closure is having an effect. McCarthy estimates the road gets an average of 100 vehicles a day, as many as 200 in the summer, and as little as 25 to 50 in the winter.

Keith Burton, from Utah, and Taryn Dixon, from Texas, are two of the more dramatically affected. They got to Alaska last week, planning on heading to their summer job at Alaska Wildland Adventures Lodge across Skilak Lake on Saturday. Instead, they couldn’t even head down the road to the boat launch.

“We haven’t seen it yet,” Burton said.

“I’ve seen what I saw on the Internet when I applied, and we drove out and saw the road closed sign, but that’s it,” Dixon said.

They were making the most of their change in plans, since the road closure gave them the weekend to explore the central peninsula.

“We like what we’ve seen so far, it’ll be a good summer,” Burton said.

“I’m from flat Texas, no mountains no trees, no anything. I saw my first moose yesterday, so that was cool,” Dixon said.

Kenai project a step ahead — No bluffing: Final feasibility study is furthest erosion work has gotten so far

By Jenny Neyman

Redoubt Reporter

For Kenai’s mile-long bluff stabilization project along the mouth of the Kenai River, the easy part will be building the thing. And that’s saying something, because construction will be no easy task — piling giant boulders to armor the toe of the bluff, plus re-sloping and revegetating the bluff face and installing drainage and erosion-control systems throughout.

But compared to the process of getting approval and funding for the project, construction will be a piece of cake. The city has been actively pursuing a fix to the 3-feet-per-year erosion problem for 30 years, and the estimated price tag for the project has risen in that time from a lowball $10 million to the current $43 million.

“So, you think about a century ago there was a football field out here. But you can see here’s the senior center and it’s really riverside property in 2053, and there’s a loss of improvements and properties along here,” said Kenai City Manager Rick Koch, who moderated an open house at city hall May 6 to update the public on the project.

There wasn’t any great news to share — that a construction date had been set, for instance — but there was the good news that progress is being made.

“We will continue to be diligent. I know the council, as I’ve told you, has year after year after year, identified this as number-one priority project … especially since we are slowly moving forward and the Corps is involved in a way that hasn’t happened before,” Koch said.

The city and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently executed a funding agreement to go ahead with a final feasibility study on the project, which will coalesce all previous studies, prepare documentation for National Environmental Policy Act permitting, and come to a final recommendation on whether or not an erosion abatement project should be built. That should be finished in August 2017. And at that point, assuming the conclusion is to build the thing, the process to obtain federal funding will begin, said Dave Martinson, a representative with the Corps.

“Because I’m sure next thing that you’re wondering is, ‘OK, when will something be built? When will construction happen?’ And, to be honest, that is really out of my hands, because we’re at the mercy of a nation that is struggling with a pretty incredible debt, with a project workload that they’re trying to accomplish. So, no offense, but the community of Kenai doesn’t weigh very high, as you can tell, from a national standpoint. … With us doing as much as we can to show the importance of this we’re going to present that argument,” Martinson said.

Moose malaise is only skin deep

Photo by Joseph Robertia, Redoubt Reporter. A cow moose afflicted with infectious cutaneous fibromas has been seen in Kasilof lately. The “warts” are caused by a virus and are generally harmless.

By Joseph Robertia

Redoubt Reporter

Moose never look regal in the spring. They’re scrawny and lean from the long winter without fresh forage and scruffy while shedding their ragged-looking cold-weather coat. But one young cow lingering in Kasilof lately has an even more unappealing presence.

“They’re called infectious cutaneous fibromas,” said John Crouse, a wildlife biologist at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, in regard to the dry, hairless, apple-sized tumors dangling from the moose’s body.

Actually a virus, fibromas affect nearly all species of the deer family and have been documented in white- and black-tailed deer, mule deer, fallow deer, red deer, roe deer, Sika deer and caribou, in addition to moose.

“The ‘warts’ can be anywhere from golf ball sized up to volleyball sized, and they can have just one or be covered in them,” Crouse said. They may also grow in individual tumors or in large clumps of them.

As a virus, fibromas are spread from moose to moose via direct contact with an infected animal, contact with an object that a moose with a burst wart has rubbed on, or by insect bites.

“It’s not too big a deal for them or their long-term health. Usually it’s the younger animals under 2 years old that get them, and it will clear up after a few months,” Crouse said, although on rare occasions some tumors can develop in sensitive areas, such as around the eyes and nose or in the armspits, and affect the animal’s sight, breathing or movement.

View from Out West: Spring in your continued step — ‘Tis the season for keeping it up, not just waking up

Photos courtesy of Clark Fair
Clark Fair poses on a ridgeline high above the Cottonwood Creek Trail terminus in August 2013.

By Clark Fair, for the Redoubt Reporter

Once upon a time, my plans for spring were portended by failures from the preceding autumn. However, for the past few years, I am happy to say that this pattern of behavior has changed.

Autumn on the Kenai Peninsula usually arrives in two waves — starting with the often beautiful, crisp wave that features frosty mornings, clear blue skies, brightly turning leaves and the welcome death of biting insects. That’s followed by the sodden, browning, wetter wave that features decaying organic matter, grayer skies, ephemeral snows and a softening of sound that heralds winter. Over much of my life, it was during this second wave that I began to abandon my outdoor-adventure goals and set them aside for next year.

Unfortunately, “Wait ’til next time,” often meant, “Just forget about it.” While teaching high school English in Soldotna from 1988 to 2008, much of my “planning for next year” amounted to little more than wishful thinking. Those “saved” treks — climbing Mount Ascension, for instance, or finding a way up Mount Alice and returning to the high country above Cottonwood Creek Trail — usually wound up unrealized and saved again and again, like items on a to-do list that are never crossed off, due largely to a deeply ingrained blueprint of seasonal behavior.

Once fall arrived I began to fatten up for winter like the bears of the Kenai. I slowed my metabolism and grew slothful as I mostly hunkered in my den, waiting for waning sunlight to wax, for snow to melt once more from the trails, and for the energy of springtime to jump-start my diminished battery and provide the impetus to push me out the door.

Each spring I eventually emerged from dormancy to lumber off in search of adventure, but doing so was not easy. Hibernation always exacted a price — the pain associated with overcoming muscle atrophy and increased bulk.

I then exacerbated that pain by starting most summers too fast.

One of my first targets each year, usually on a warm weekend in mid- to late April, was the Slaughter Gulch trail in Cooper Landing. I felt exhilarated — between the panting pauses that punctuated my pathetic pioneering — to return to alpine terrain, briefly unfettered by lesson planning and grading, and breathing nonclassroom air. And as I shambled back to my van at the trailhead, smiling and usually muddy and wet, I was consistently unprepared for the aftermath — my knees would lock up during the drive home, the soles of my feet would become hamburgery, and for two or three days my hamstrings and quadriceps would be sensitive to the lightest touch.

On Monday, I’d hobble about the high school, grimacing on the stairs, fearful of bumping a thigh against a student’s desk. On Tuesday, the grimaces became slight winces, the hobbling more of a clumsy shuffle. By Wednesday, I was miraculously healed and swimming once again in denial concerning my lack of proper conditioning.

At the end of that full week of sitting at my desk, snacking on doughnuts in the teachers’ lounge and nursing my wounds, I would re-attire myself in Weekend Warrior regalia. I’d set aside Saturday or Sunday to assault more topographic contours, typically Skyline Trail or Hideout Hill, whichever appeared most snow-free. And so it went, punishing weekend after punishing weekend, until the school year ended in late May and I was liberated from my self-imposed sedentary life.

By the time June arrived, hiking uphill and down hurt less or not at all, and I was moving on to longer and more adventuresome treks — training, I probably claimed, for the bigger trips to come. But I kept postponing the major outings, waiting for perfect weather or a perfect opportunity. In other words, stalling for a time that almost never arrived.

After I retired, however, things changed (although I’d be lying if I said they changed right away). I joined the Kenai Peninsula Outdoor Club. I got back in shape under the ministrations and patience of trainer Darin Hagen. I also altered my mind-set. No more sloth. No more painful transitions with the seasons. No more sitting on my ass all winter.

Eventually, I was hiking year-round, often on snowshoes during the winter. I was skiing more often. I make longer treks on my mountain bike. And I started running for the first time since my college days.

Alaska opened up to me.

Yvonne Leutwyler approaches the final climb to the summit of Mount Ascension in July 2013.

With much-appreciated pretrip advice from Pete Sprague and the accompaniment of Yvonne Leutwyler, I finally summited Mount Ascension. Accompanied by Tony Eskelin and Tom and Stephanie Kobylarz, I finally crossed Skilak Lake again and climbed above the terminus of the Cottonwood Creek Trail. With Yvonne and my brother, Lowell, I pounded up Pioneer Peak in Palmer. And with the assistance of inside information from a Seward resident, I at last learned the location of the Mount Alice trailhead and ventured up its rocky spine.

Now, instead of pocketing my plans in the autumn and digging them out with the lint in the spring, I’m planning constantly, seeking adventure regardless of the season. Each season, I’ve learned, holds special promise. (Of course, nonsnowy winters, high winds and extra-rainy summers can provide unwelcome challenges, too, but generally I’m much less interested in excuses than I used to be.)

The summit of Mount Alice is revealed as Jenny Neyman and Patrice Kohl crest another rise in August 2013.

Here in Dillingham now, I’ve struggled a bit more to get out as consistently and to be as fit as I’d like. We live on the second story of an apartment building. We have one car. The area has only three recognized trails, few roads and no public gym or recreation center. But those are just excuses. Such obstacles force us to think unconventionally. We seek access, or create it, where none appears to exist. We look for alternate means of transportation — kayaks, packrafts, friends with motorized boats and wheeled vehicles.

And we save money to shell out for trips to places beyond our reach.

Near Dillingham is the largest state park in the nation — Wood-Tikchik, the crown jewels of which are the series of five interconnected freshwater lakes that feed the Wood River and part of the most productive red salmon fishery in the world — Bristol Bay. North of those five lakes lie a half-dozen more, the most northern of which is Nishlik. This summer, rafting and fishing, camping and hiking at Nishlik is on our radar, among other things.

We’ve also discovered a dry ridge that will give us access to hills lying across stretches of wet, spongy tundra and winding watercourses. We’re eager to access this “gateway” and to explore new mountaintops and peer beyond them into new valleys.

But when next fall arrives, we won’t fret about what we haven’t accomplished. And we won’t worry about waiting out the long winter. We’ll ski across snowy marshes, fish through the ice of area lakes, explore on snowshoes the brushy confines of meandering salmon streams — searching, always searching, and ever in motion.

I’m not interesting in slowing down anytime soon.

Clark Fair, a resident of the Kenai Peninsula for more than 50 years, is a lifetime Alaskan now living in Dillingham.

Drawn to moviemaking — Cartoonist creates ‘Moose the Movie’ Alaska-themed spoof

Images courtesy of “Moose the Movie”

By Jenny Neyman

Redoubt Reporter

Sooo, there’s this half man, half moose, and a kid in a tin hat, some squirrel hunters, an overly aggressive redneck and his overly chilled-out brother, a troupe of mimes and a mountain pirate who is plenty piratey but lives inland due to his probable fear of the water.

Oh, and a Wasilla cartoonist who decides to become a moviemaker and created a supernatural creature feature-slash-comedy for DVD release that is now so popular it’s being shown in movie theaters across Alaska and the Lower 48.

That last part is real. The cartoonist is Chad Carpenter, author of the Tundra comics, and the creature feature is “Moose the Movie.” He got the idea on a drive home from Fairbanks about two years ago that it’d be fun to make a full-length movie.

“I thought, ‘If I want to make one of these in Alaska, what would be kind of a fun creature? And I thought a carnivore is too easy. A bear or a wolf, that’s too easy.’ So I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be kind of fun to make a moose the bad guy?’ And that’s where the half man, half moose came up and I thought, ‘Ah, a moosetaur,’” Carpenter said.

Plugged In: Stay sharp when buying high-end lenses

By Joe Kashi, for the Redoubt Reporter

In preparing this series, I tested quite a number of Micro Four-Thirds single-magnification prime lenses and ultrawide-angle zoom lenses, finding several that are both optically good to excellent and relatively affordable.

Ultrawide-angle zooms are difficult to design and manufacture compared to lenses with more moderate magnifications. Corner sharpness, in particular, tends to fall behind. Producing one at an affordable price is a minor miracle.

I’ve never particularly liked medium-wide-angle lenses optically equivalent to a 28-mm lens on a traditional 35-mm film camera. Somehow, their field of view and perspective never looks quite right to me, yet ultra-wideangle lenses with a 35-mm equivalent of 18 mm to 24 mm produce images that I often find powerful because of the exaggerated foreground perspective. Your personal taste, and hence your mileage, may vary.

When comparing the optical effects of an M 4/3 lens, simply multiply its focal length by two to get the 35-mm equivalent. Olympus lenses do not include any optical image-stabilization hardware because that’s built directly into Olympus’ camera bodies. Both Panasonic and Olympus lenses are image-stabilized when mounted on Olympus bodies, but Panasonic camera owners will likely be happier using Panasonic lenses that include optical image stabilization built into each lens.

There are at least four ultrawide-angle zooms currently available for M 4/3 cameras. Of these, I’ve found that Olympus’ older, 9- to 18-mm ED zoom is the sharpest affordable option. It’s even quite sharp when used at 64-megapixel resolution. This is an older lens, originally designed for use with moving mirror Four-Thirds dSLR cameras, so this lens requires an Olympus MMF-2 or MMF-3 adapter for fully automatic operation with current M 4/3 cameras. This relatively large lens remains available both used and new. I know that I won’t part with mine.