Rain rain go away…it has been so beautiful and nice the days I was working it was supposed to hold on for my days off as well. Oh well we have been saving the Baranov museum for a rainy day. While we were down town we took a photo of the Russian Orthodox Church as well as it is so beautiful.
Established in 1808 as best as they can figure it is the oldest building in Alaska today. Built by the Russian-American Trading Company to house the sea otter pelts and the business we felt the title of Baranov Museum was misleading as we had hoped to learn more about Baranov, his family, and more about the Russian Alaskan history instead it was the history of this particular building. After it was a business it was a home, and living across the street from the harbor it is is amazing that it survived to tell it’s tales. There was a volcano in 1912 that spewed 2-3 feet of as hovering the whole community of Kodiak, thre has also been at least one earthquake and a massive tsunami that wreaked havoc in all of down town. It is very solidly built and beautiful still at it’s ripe old age.
The Erskine family was known for their Whaling prowess. Wilber’s whaling boat was named Carolyn Francis (I could be wrong about the second name) after his daughter.
This kyak below is a triple hull used when the Alitiiq people were forced to hunt sea otter. Two hull for the enslaved natives one for the Russian supervisor.
This building is so solidly built there is no chinking only a small layer of moss and spears to be naturally insulated with it’s depth of wall and tightly fitting squared logs. Truly amazing. Now I appreciate this building more for sure, but I do not know anything new about Baranov. Hmmm.
We tried Monks Rock again, but this time even though according to the posted hours it should be open the sign was off and no one was there. We went home instead. After lunch the rain was starting to clear up and the kids had been asking to go fishing. We hit up the Buskin river which we have been told is a great place to fish we did not see a single fish, we still had fun casting and reeling it in. The kids started putting salmon berries on the hook for bait just to play around we figured at the rate we were going it couldn’t hurt.
They gave up quickly on the fishing, but since they were having fun playing in the water and along the bank I continued to fish long after they gave up. I really didn’t care if I caught anything I was having plenty of fun just being there, in the quiet breeze, ripping water, singing birds and laughing kids were music to my ears. Chad was the first one to say he was ready to do something else. We headed from there to Buskin Beach back to the Boy Scout Lake tide pools. Walking slowly down the forest trail to the beach picking as many salmon berries as we could on the way by. We may come back with bowls or buckets we have been tossing around the idea of making some salmon berry jam while we are here and I’m not sure how much longer their season will last.
The kids challenged me to climb the rock too and I did make it maybe half way, and fell a little coming down rain boots are probably not the perfected foot wear for this kind of activity. I probably should not be doing that kind of thing as long as I am our sole bread winner with no sick leave (not a job benefit you get as a traveler).
It is hard to see him, but Caleb is near the top of the rock in the picture below.
We were out looking for beach treasures to take to the library tomorrow for the kids beach art class. I fell asleep in a flat warm rock it was perfect for sunning not at the beach. Eve is all wet from the waist down from wading in the river.
I have a new found obsession with ropes and so I could not turn down this beach find. I was working on it for a short time and getting no where Chad came over to help and made pretty quick work of the ginormous knot.
I am so excited about it.
We left the beach, stopped at the house to get roasting sticks and Walmart to get hot dogs and headed for a bonfire dinner at Mill Bay beach. We didn’t see much drift wood there and we didn’t have enough with us so we left and drove out to Mayflower beach where there always seems to be some. It was a perfect way to end the day.
We had reindeer sausages one each and hot dogs incase anyone one wanted seconds. 
Also, we tried a new thing, roasting chunks of Asiago cheese in the fire. It was a hit. Last but not least we lit off the feast of the black cats from the 4th which is leagal here until 7/15.
Chad replaced the headlights on the car after the kids went to bed and they look great. It seems that instead of getting tired of our car which is getting old and high in miles. We find ourselves more attached to it as time goes on. I think Caleb is hoping that her will get to have it someday, who knows if Chad will we be willing to part with it even then.
Owens Endeavors 