“Earthshaking” News

Wednesday morning, just beforeĀ 4:00 a.m., a 5.8 earthquake shook our region. As it happened, we were awake to feel the shaking, and hear our wine glasses ring against each other in their rack. Spice must have sensed it coming, as she had gotten squirrelly moments before. We’re currently back to sleeping in the cabin (see Cat-less Naps). Friends elsewhere seem to have gotten a good rattling. Our little cabin doesn’t shake much (“so far,” he thinks, hopefully!) partly because it’s set on bedrock, but also because the man who built it experienced a sharp quake while working on the second story. That experience convinced him to build more sturdily than originally planned, apparently!

Later that morning, as I sat at the breakfast table, I looked out across the water to see a Native cedar canoe passing by! Its crew are paddling it south to Juneau, along with another canoe from Klukwan, to attend the Native dance convention, Celebration 2014 in Juneau.

The new canoe heads south (Photo: Mark A. Zeiger).

The new canoe heads south (Photo: Mark A. Zeiger).

In the past, canoes like this in a variety of sizes plied the waters of Lynn Canal constantly, conducting commerce between the communities of Southeast Alaska and the interior of Alaska and the Yukon. Seeing one in this day and age is a unique treat.

Tlingit canoe (Photo: Mark A. Zeiger).

Tlingit canoe (Photo: Mark A. Zeiger).

I learned yesterday that a copy of my audiobook, Sacred Coffee: A “Homesteader’s” Paradigm sold! As far as I know, this is the first sale, after 3 months on the market. Someone local, to whom I am very grateful, stopped in at our local bookstore, The Babbling Book, and requested three copies of the print edition. The store only had two left, so they bought the audiobook version.

What a relief! I’ve been close to despair about the audiobook, and book sales in general. My press release (see Press Release: First the Press, then the Release) generated one radio interview from the Wrangell station, but it hasn’t aired as far as I know. The local radio station and newspaper have so far shown no interest in the story. As a result, work on an audiobook edition of my other book, Shy Ghosts Dancing: Dark Tales from Southeast Alaska are on hold indefinitely.

But, at least the fishing has been good! I caught an 18″ Dolly Varden char off our north boundary rock, after about an hour of watching it through the clear water as it chased my lure, then shied repeatedly. The water magnifies the fish, so a good-sized Dolly like that looks like a monster when seen from above. Dinner and a show!

Best of all, Aly has returned to the U.S. from her class in Ireland. She’s got another few weeks of school, then she’ll start for home, to spend the summer here with us.

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