Another pass through Glenallen

I’ve gotten nearly to Carson’s place last night, but it was late enough that I didn’t want to bother him and/or press on all the way. Talking in the morning, they share their plans with heading down to Chitina for brunch. Chitina is where the pavement ends heading into McCarthy. I’m sure they were thinking they’d meet me halfway and that I wouldn’t have made it this far north yet. I had just breezed through that town however, and It evidently has some interesting history as well as amazing breakfast. I tell ‘em I’m game despite the backtracking and head on into their place for coffee. Soon after we load up in their Subaru with their pup and head back down. The breakfast is pretty darn good, and we nose around the little art store and NPS outpost there afterwards. We head back to the Copper river to see what the fisherman are up to, but there isn’t much activity. Hearing of a interesting side road that leads to a lesser known fishing spot, we veer off that way into territory none of us had seen yet.

It turns out to be a great little secret with apparently quite good fishing according to the couple of fishermen we talk to as they clean their catch under the watchful eye of a horde of hungry gulls. Evidently it can make for some good bear watching too, when they descend from the surrounding forest to dig the fish carcasses from the riverbed. After a bit of poking around we head on not too far down the road, back to the Copper river to check out a fish wheel in action.

They are ingenious devices, modernized from what I can only assume was originally native designs. It is essentially two large baskets and two paddles on a cross like structure suspended above a floating platform. The baskets and paddles turn into the open center of the platform, basket then paddle, basket then paddle. The basket is open on one side, the one that hits the surface of the water and then travels nearly touching the ground with its upstream edge then coming out of the water downstream with the open end up, hopefully scooping up salmon that are swimming upstream into the basket. On its travel over the top of the wheel the salmon fall into a chute that deposits them in wire baskets on either side of the platform for collection. The group whose wheel we were admiring had caught 60 salmon over the past day and a half. Collecting them and walking the platform evidently is quite dangerous and there are deaths every year associated with them. Primarily from falling into the center and being pinned to the riverbed by the dropping basket with no way to overpower the force of the water coming downstream and turning the wheel.

We walk the river a bit picking berries and talking, then head back to their place. I do some much needed laundry; they do a bit of gardening and then we cook dinner. Grilled salmon and seasoned pork ribs with a (likely also much needed) salad. I opt to head on although staying in that wonderfully comfortable bed was appealing. I make it about halfway back to Palmer on the same road I took over from Talkeetna not too long ago. Anchorage and the Kenai peninsula south from there is the plan. We’ll see how quickly I get there and what I can get into.