“If you can’t get hold of me then just call 911”, Mike Livingston wrote in an email a few days before we arrived in the community of Sand Point. In reality, there was no need to call the emergency services to report being a bit wet and cold as Police Sergent Livingston met us in the harbour, along with a couple of dozen other folks who had been following us on Sarah’s tracker. As usual in all these small fishing communities, we have been welcomed with open arms, and on this occassion a glass of Scottish single malt! We’ve been here 3 days so far while Easterly winds whip up unfavourable kayaking conditions. Relaxing and catching up with bits of work on Mike’s computer have featured highly on our activity list, as has chatting with locals and eating all sorts of delicious cakes, homemade salmon pate and white king slamon. Berries are at last on our menu as we’ve travelled far enough east to find ripe salmon berries. They are easily three-times the size of the wild raspberries that I find in Wales which means that we either get full quicker, or eat more! YUM!
There are 4 policemen here in a town of 900 residents and 200 cannery workers. They seem fairly busy, with people occupying both of their small police cells tonight. Sarah and I have been on our best behaviour as we’re staying with Mike and enjoying being driven around in his police car – taking it in turns to sit in the front, or in the back with bars on the windows.
Today was the first day of Sand Point’s 12 day ‘Culture Camp’, where dozens of kids get together to learn traditional Aleut craft skills that are being lost in a sea of ‘progress’. In King Cove, I chuckled when we talked to 6 year old Jada about making popcorn while out camping. “Oh, you make it the ‘old’ way”, she said inbetween mouthfulls of her microwaved bag, which she was generously sharing with us. If putting some corn kernels and oil into a pan is too difficult then it’s a wonder that any traditional skills survive with all the machinery available to ‘make things quicker, more efficient and easier’. It was great to see kids chatting and laughing and settling down to try their hand at weaving baskets out of grasses, making headresses from beads, preparing seafood to eat and making an Aleut kayak. Sharon Kay, who has been teaching basket weaving for 20 years told us how she feels it’s important to pass on these skills.
“It’s our way of preserving our culture. You see more things in museums than you see in our own land so it’s my way of keeping our culture alive”.
It takes 40-50 hours to weave a small basket and that doesn’t include preparing the grass for weaving. The end result is very beautiful and the finest weaved baskets would have been used for carrying liquids.
It seems the weather is conspiring to keep us in many of the communities that we visit along our Aleutian journey. Easterly winds tend to blow for several days while we’re in the comfort of a warm house, getting to know people. 20 knot headwinds are forecast for the next 2 days so perhaps we’ll be here a bit longer – unless the reality is different. It seems in contrast to the last few days of paddling we had to reach here. Our last day paddling along the beautiful Unga island was fairly calm with just a gentle wind pushing us in the right direction. We enjoyed several stops exploring the only forest in the Aleutian islands. Black and white tree stumps and wood fragments litter several miles of beach on the west coast of Unga, and pass by inches under our hulls. Only these trees are made of solid rock – a forest engulfed in mud or ash 25 million years ago, and the wood slowly seeped into by minerals, which preserved the original grain. I’m enjoying my time in Sand Point, but I’m looking forward to getting back on the open sea and finding more natural wonders along the beautiful Alaskan peninsula.
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