Fish, 4 Wheelers, Great Food... Oh' Alaska

Life at Igiugig Lodge.




Every morning I wake up around 5 AM to think about breakfast over a cold cup of coffee, it's pitch black, 40 degrees, no electricity, and all you can hear are the waves crashing outside. Around 6 AM the sun begins to rise and this is what I see outside the window.


Life is somewhat like this at the lodge, except for the fact you will also be doing lots of fishing. I myself do all the cooking and spend about 15-16 hours a day in the kitchen and love every minute of it. My goal is to make clients feel like this bear come 9 PM. Today they came back from the field sore from catching too much fish, I put dinner out as soon as they walked through the door and an hour and half later everyone passed out.


Fishing. When the guys leave around 8AM I prep dinner then take a two hour siesta on the beach just to get some Vitamin D and love from the sun.

When I'm not cooking I'm fishing, and when I'm not fishing I'm playing guitar, and when I'm not playing guitar I'm wishing I was.

Here's the view of the lodge from the beach. The barrels are for erosion control. The Easterlies can come at us at 70 mph towards the end of the summer so the beach is constantly morphing. Lots of wind and I can't wait to feel a storm.

Here is a picture Rachel took of the fox that hangs around. You can feed him by hand. Yesterday I was playing guitar on the beach and he came right up to the back of my head to sniff me out.

The lodge power station... a diesel generator that's about 30 years old. We turn it off as much as possible to conserve energy. This is the reason why I may not be able to post for several days on end. No communication = smoke signals. Melia

The lodge garage.

The river next to our lodge where the chum salmon are just now dropping their eggs for the trout to eat.

Looking onwards to the village. Roughly 20 some houses... 50 people.

A picture Quinton took of the Rainbow Brad and Bob caught last week. That's a usual for this place. The barge taking the tanker away to get refueled. We have a gas station in the village, 8 bucks a gallon. A gallon of milk is like 10 bucks. A head of lettuce is 6. You get the picture, expensive.

A common scene outside our lodge, locals fly fishing.
The 'houses' across the river.


Looking outside the front of the lodge.

Rainbow.

Trying to catch the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

If I don't catch any on the beach I jump on the boat.

Golden. I don't care for size. I got a fish that's all that matters. Thanks.

And if the boat don't work jump on the horse to find an active fishing hole.

Brad bringing in the groceries.

Quinton taking the groceries back to the lodge.

Here's my shopping cart.
Just chillin.

Now let's cook. Here's the Sous Chef thickening da Beef Au Jus.


Stockyard steak from Chicago... 25 bucks each wholesale. The best steak I've ever had.


I haven't baked much, but I have time to practice now. My first loaves of french bread.
Here's my second round with baking bread... this is a cheese bread. Looks good tastes better!

Friday we had roasted turkey, homemade stuffing, fresh gravy, cheese bread, mac' n cheese' baked casserole, homemade baked beans, caesar salad, and homemade sweet cherry and blueberry pie.

Slow roasted pork shoulder roast (with rosemary-mustard gravy)

Sweet Chery Pie! Reminds me of someone ;)

This is what I did up yesterday.




OMG, 5 flavours in one. I overdid myself on this one.

This is what I eat normally... smoked salmon, blueberries picked right outside, salad, cookies.

The biologists doing their biology stuff. Cool thing is they give me fresh mushrooms to cook. I let them eat them first and if they survive after 12 hours of indigestion I will try it.





A dank 4 cheese wild mushroom pizza.

This is the main office headquarters in the village center, which is also the airplane hanger.

Here are a few pics at the headquarters hallway. Good ol' days.



Igiugig is one of the first Eskimo villages in Alaska to promote conservation and recycling. The story is of a man that came to village in the 1980's from the Alaska Department of Fish & Game. He did some trapping for biology studies and stayed in the village and met a special woman. He decided to stay in the village and help it by writing grant proposals to the government for environmental and local community projects. Many times he was given the grants and would ask local natives to fill in the jobs needed to execute the task, i.e. someone to create a landfill and manage it. By doing this brought employment opportunities to village, as well as good health and a different way of life. I've heard many good things about him and what they say is that he basically cleaned the village up. He passed away a few years ago and now his three daughters have taken up his role and write grant proposals all the times for green and educational projects.

The herb garden.

A yurt. Sustainable, cheap, easy to construct, portable architecture, and roomy.

The hanger.

Fresh eggs. The calendar said that yesterday 8 and a half eggs were gathered.

I recycle aluminum pop cans too, do you?


BP doing good.
Rock On Little Can Crusher!

Loving it. And what's next? 4 more weeks of clients, fishing, beach life. I'm working on a possible future opportunity to cook in Panama, but I will leave it at that for now. Eat well, smile, sleep good, embrace the sun. The simple things. For 5 days I didn't have internet and I loved it, in fact, I wouldn't mind it if I didn't have it forever. When you're not starring at the little box your starring at right now, you're usually out walking and talking, being active and living holistically, or at least I hope so. Well, over and out, time to get off my arse and do some planning for tomorrows meals. One of the visitors brought me 20 lbs. of special steaks from California, more or less like my Nannies Cowboy steaks.

To keep Igiugig alive, put an end to Pebble Mine. Google it. I will talk more about this later when I get my facts all together. Stop Pebble Mine. Save Bristol Bay. Renewable Resources Coalition.

Rachel's First Fish Caught at Igi Lodge

A few days ago the bugs came out around sunset, but so did the Silvers. The Silver Salmon are almost done for the season for our river yet they still are making a few rounds. Rachel caught her first fish (Silver) with a fly rod, good job yo. Let's smoke it.

Flying Over Mt.Redoubt (Active Volcano)

The pilot looked down and said that the inside base of the couldron has grown twice it's size over the last couple months indicating pressure is building. It could blow anytime. The longer it waits to burst it's bubble the bigger the bang will be. It erupted several months ago and sent ash all over southern Alaska, making it cold and making fishing unpleasant. I've been keeping an eye on earthquake activity and sure enough there's activity in our area. Just last week a 5.4 earthquake hit this area :)

Welcome to Igiugig

The day before I left...

Igi is where we are headed, an Eskimo village, next to Lake Iliamna which is the second biggest lake in the USA. It's roughly 200 miles from Anchorage.... one hour flight by twin otter.

The twin otter.

Pilot and Rachel (Kitchen Assistant) reading the paper while flying.

After takeoff.






The volcano Mt. redoubt smoking.

Snapshots of the scenes below. So beautiful.








Once we land Quinton (Rach's BF and fishing guide) picked us up with an ATV and trailer.

Then he took us for a ride on the boat to the lodge.

After being hypnotized by volcanoes, glaciers, ice sheets, big lakes, big fish jumping... we made landfall.

Right away I got to work studying Brenda's menu. It consists of mostly comfort southern foods with a bit of Alaska... BBQ babyrick ribs, ribeye, shrimp scampi and scallops, grilled fresh salmon caught right outside the lodge. I've eaten smoked salmon for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the last 3 days.
My homework.

Half of the kitchen.

My bedroom. Extremely cozy. On the bed is about 10 blankets haha, but you need it because it drops down to 40 almost everynight.

Looking towards the kitchen.

Big bear on the wall. Brad, the lodge owner, is also a bear guide. The neighbour told us today that the locals saw a giant (+1,000 lb.) bear in town today, and it's most likely roaming around the woods behind us. Quinton (Q) said a bear used to visit everynight until a couple weeks ago, maybe the neighbour shot it? On my 6 mile run today to the lagoon I saw plenty of bear skat at tracks. Foxes are plenty around here too.

The living room. I still haven't seen the TV turned on yet.

Salmon in brine.

Salmon drying after you take it out of the brine, this causes the fats to remain in the meat and not leech.


Big chief knows what smoking... salmon and Mt. Redoubt.

In just a couple days I've already eaten probably 3 lbs. of smoked salmon. I'm contimplating going on the eskimo diet... fresh berries and fresh salmon.

By the way two steps out the door and you're walking in a field of wild blueberries. This morning I made crepes with blueberry filling, blueberry muffins, and fresh blueberries in blueberry yougurt.

Here's just one of my smoked salmon concouctions; smoked salmon 3-cheese quesadilla.

Igiugig Rocks!!!

Sorry, but I must keep this short, I have honey-tarragon chicken drumsticks and chocolate souffle cooking right now and it needs some babysitting. But, let me just say... this is one of the best journeys I have yet been on this summer. Last night I met up with Rachel at the airport, her and I stayed in some shady motel in Anchorage and this morning we went to the small airfield where we hoped on a twin otter with 9 other dudes. The flight was 100 miles westward and the views were astonishing. Glaciers, ice fields, mountains, rivers, lakes, kettle lakes, and not to mention the volcano Mt. Redoubt that we flew right above while it was smoking. Pilot said she's ready to explode anytime now given that the hot stuff inside the cauldron has doubled over the last few weeks. If it does explode then we will see, taste, smell, and feel the effects. Ash. No good says Brad, the Igiugig Lodge owner, who by the way is an awesome dude. From the Igiugig (an Eskimo village with population <50... style="text-align: center;">

Igiugig Lodge Here I Come

I've been in Cincinnati for about two weeks, and I'm headed back to Alaska. Probably should have stayed up there eh? A few days ago I landed a Chef job at Igiugig Lodge. The red salmon are running and the trout are gigantic. Looks like I have my first week cut out for me and it feels great to start off strong. I've been cooking up salmon various ways and fine tuning my shrimp scampi dish over the last few days. I depart on Wed. and fly into the bush on Thursday, there is internet so I'm hoping to keep this updated at least once a week. Here's a link to the lodge:

http://sites.google.com/site/igiugiglodge/

Nature Conservancy Photo Contest

I just uploaded my photos from 2008-2009 into the contest. Fingers crossed. To see the album click here.

Bush Flight into Limestone Gap

The Finale of Limestone Gap, AK 2009

On the 12th we packed up and headed southward from Fairbanks to Gar's place, which is about 100 miles East of Palmer. It took Bill and I 9 hours in the yellow submarine (cook truck). No break downs this season :) Half the time we were driving through bushfire haze, as you can see below. Half the mountain was hidden due to smoke in the valley.

Here's the pipeline that we followed down most of the way from Fairbanks. An Earthquake a few years back moved it off it's foundation and caused numerous issues for the pipeline. Since then, geologists have mapped the predicted Denali fault movement and constructed steel 'skates' beneath the pipeline such that it can slide around a bit even if the ground moves 20 feet horizontally. But, what about vertical movement?

Our destination on the 12th was Gar's place, which was right next to the Hanger. Gar's cub (bush plane) is 40 years old and was recently refurbished.

We set up camp at Gar's and I got to cooking while the students relaxed after the long drive.

Gar and Jan hung out and chatted with the students. Their house is an amazing location right next to Sheep Mountain with towering cliffs all around. Some of the students debated rock climbing, but didn't think they'd make it back in time for dinner.

After dinner I took a stroll to check out the sun setting behind the hills.

Never seen this before, a complete mesh tent. Great for stargazing.

Next morning I got up, made coffee and put out breakfast/lunch for the crew. Then snapped a few pictures of the streaky valley fog, which I thought was picturesque.

Let's do this.

The flight from Gar's to the field campsite was about 20 minutes. Along the way I saw a few mining station and heards of caribou migrating south.

Amazing rock formations, I was excited to see what the students would be doing. I think their objective was to look at structures and stratification of rocks along the rock exposures, and then map then.

I got to camp and set up my site. It took about 25 flights in total to deliver all of our goods, which started at 7 AM and ended late in the afternoon. I cooked up a relatively easy dinner and then it was time to get some rest.

Woke up to a herd of caribou. Dinner anyone... Layne, got your gun?

Just a taste of Mexican night... bean, cheese, and rice burritos with a spanish rice medley. Along side of this was a big salad, vanilla pudding, manilla cookies, taco sesaoned fried chix, and nachos with several optional toppings.

Here's the pantry. I bought it all, organized it all, unpacked, packed, unpacked, packed, carried it all. The biggest grocery cart I've had to deal with in all my culinary career, but from here on out I reckon it's just going to get bigger, gotta start somewhere. I brought for the first 10 days 4 coolers of frozen cheeses, milk, lunch meats, liquid eggs, and dinner meats. My hope was that the frozen milk jugs would stay frozen for at least 4 days providing adequate cooling to keep everything below 41 for at least the first half. Also, I was hoping that the large logs of frozen ground beef would assist the conduction and retention of cold with the cooler. Well, the first 3 days it was 80 degrees and I was sweating for two reason, one it's hot, two the food was thawing out quickly. Nothing I could really do since there were no glaciers around and we couldn't dig a hole, but I thought about carrying jugs of the water (water temp. = 35) from the streams. With a little rain dancing the storms came and temperature began to drop to 30 at night. That saved our meats and cheeses. For 12 days we didn't need a restock of anything, everything worked out great. Most of the produce stayed ripe until consumed, exception being the lettuce and a few bananas. We had one freshy restock after 12 days and two frozen meat restocks, which I had prepackaged before heading into the field. The planes would fly in, drop off the coolers, take some of our trash, and fly off.

Here's Colin excited after grabbing a big dish of slow cooked boneless pork shoulder BBQ ribs that melt in your mouth.

Most of the time everyone ate in silence, enjoying the scene, enjoy the food, and laughing at the squirrels and their antics. As soon as the humans left the food tent, the squirrels moved in.

Here's one after-dinner Geology lesson by Doctor Wes.

The red sun in the morning... bushfires were getting close to Gar's and the smoke was traveling 5,000 up into the mountains. Our bodies were still adjusting to the altitude change and dense smoke in Limestone Gap didn't help one bit.

RIP MJ. Before heading to Alaska I saw a series on the travel channel were some dude was checking out diners in the Western U.S. He came to one joint that did just fried foods, and one of the things on the menu was deep fried macaroni and cheese. I promised myself that I would have to do it, and I spent a whole day perfecting it. There are billion things you can do with it.

Limestone Gap Field Camp Continued

Here's all my gear: guitar, tent, thermarest sleeping pad, sleeping bag, rain gear, workout gear, knives, fire, tarps, nylon string, iodine, and compass.

One of the students being brought in by a bush plane.

My small tent and the other tents way out on the other side of the valley. This valley is the Limestone Gap.

The boys waiting for food...

My kitchen. No fridge, freezer, just two coleman stoves.

Hiking above the river of fog.

Arctic ground squirrel. Friends.

Smoke in the gap. For three days we had a massive cloud of smoke in the mountain camp due to forest fires 5,000 feet below us. It was so hard to breathe given that we were already at a high altitude and still adjusting to the relative lack of oxygen.

Great rock exposures. Many fault lines.

Fish n chips night.

12 days without a shower or bath... smelling like 20 different meals.

Once a bubble in the magma.

University of Alaska Remote Geology Field Camp

The final lag of this summer Alaskan job was in Limestone Gap, which is about 1.5 hours east of Palmer. We were flown out via bush plane (Gar and Mike at Meekins air service) one by one. Once all the bodies were flown out the gear was flown out, most of which being the food I had purchased and the geology equipment. The first two days it was sunny and 7o deg F, awesome weather we thought, then it turned into 40 deg F, rain, mist, hail, frost, cold, windy, cloudy for the next couple weeks in the mountain environment, some 5,100 feet above sea level. Criky mate, that's no fun.
Below is my culinary playground... set up, purchased, designed, engineered, packed, unpacked, organized... by me. It felt so good to find empty totes and coolers. My indirect way of telling time was figuring out how many totes and lbs. of food we had rid of. No food = time to leave. Fortunately, I have just arrived back at homebase in Fairbanks and have about 200 lbs. of extra food = 5 days of emergency food ration.

My bedroom. I slept as far as I could away from the rest, just because, but it was also closest to the food tent. Wonderful view from my hill top nestled next to the squirrel nests. Some nights I'd awake to hear a racket that sounded like a bear was gnawling at my tent... it was a squirrel of course... with one strong and sturdy kick the noise was silenced. No holes in my tent.

Looking southward from the hill top where my tent was stationed.

South eastward towards Billy Mountain. That mountain to the left was fun to climb. 2.5 hours up after breakfast/lunch and 2.5 hour down, just in time to get prepping for dinner.

Our worksite. 1 big tent was a cook tent and the other two student workshop tents where they worked on their maps and studied cool ammonites, calcite formations, silica, ultramagic findings, etc . So much exposure in Limestone Gap, perhaps one of the best in Alaska. This field camp was planned out well with good location.

Looking southward again on another day. I hiked it all solo in spare time.

Again, here is my panty, inlcuding the guitar. I would serenade the clients as they dug through the double battered extra crispy deep fried chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy, or whatever was on the menu for that night. Music is essential for proper menu execution and preparation.

My buddy squeeks. He loved the flower. I got to know the squirrels after spending weeks alone with them while the students were out in the field. Boss didn't care for them too much, but I found them appealing because they were something other than food to stare at.

A caribou pelvis I found... looks like the Donny Darko bunny eh? Getting crazy... just maybe... 10 days in...

Here's an eastward shot of my tent and main body camp....

Get me out of here... 15 days... 2 weeks was cool, but after having no one to really talk to except squirrels and shit weather, it was time to start dreaming about getting out.

My office. Loved it.

Student work station = Steve.

Student work station = Andrew.

Student work station = Gus.

Our water came from a stream about 100 yards from camp. It was captured from the stream via several funnels and sent downwards via gravity to a capture basin (tote) that collected all the organic debris and left the clean water ambient in the container...

The purple box is the water collector with the 4 hoses going into it... the next step was for gas water pump to pump the water uphill to our campsite to be treated by a filtration system....

Here's the hose to the camp... squirrels loved it... thank goodness for duct tape.....

The H2O plant in work tent 1...

So many thoughts, so much to see, so many lyrics, so many recipes...

It's been 10 hours since I left and I think to myself... this was one of the most challenging environments I ever worked in, even moreso than Antarctica, because we had to self create our work stations, and as Chef I was entitled to creating the kitchen, cooking the food, managing the food, and keeping the squirrels away (or at least just monitoring their consumption of scraps on the floor). Squeeks I miss you man. More photos to come shortly once I hit the store tomorrow...