Virtual Alaska - Day 6: 09-28-99

Coho (Silver) Salmon; One type of salmon that Mr. Pickett and his students
raise in their school salmon hatchery.



THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO HAS SENT E-MAIL. MOST RECENTLY, ANGELA VOGEL WROTE AND ASKED WHEN I'M RETURNING HOME. THE ANSWER TO THAT IS SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3. I'LL FLY ALL NIGHT FROM JUNEAU TO SEATTLE TO MINNEAPOLIS, THEN ON TO COLUMBUS.

Tuesday has been a very fine day. I woke at 6:00 a.m. I walked outside at 7:15 to find the clearest skies I’ve seen since arriving in Alaska. Absolutely crystal clear! The sun was low and behind the mountains to the east, hidden from view. But sunlight was striking the tops of the white peaks to the south and west. The moon hung over the snow topped mountains against the blue sky. What a scene! The walk to school was fantastic!

Overnight Skagway experienced its first frost of the coming winter. I saw several folks scraping their car windows. At school it was a most interesting day. First period physical science class made progress on its web site. I worked with two or three students on it. The chemistry students also moved along on their web site. The highlight of the school day, though, was the three field trips Mr. Pickett’s students went on.

Mr. Pickett is free to take his science students to sites around Skagway for field study at will. Mr. Pickett has a 15 passenger van at his disposal. Today the biology students went out the Dyea Road to gather plant specimens for identification. The marine biology students went to the esturine waters at the mouth of the Skagway River and to a couple of points along the shore of the Taiya Inlet (Pacific Ocean) to check traps for marine life. The estuary trap had two live and one dead fish in it. These were removed to the classroom/laboratory to be identified.

During the last hour of the day hatchery class students took a new cage they are building to the weir at Pullen Creek. They are adding this third cage to hold unripe female salmon until they are ripe for harvesting eggs. While some students were building the new cage, others were gathering trapped Silver (Coho) Salmon from the weir and putting the males in one cage and unripe females in another. Students were looking for ripe females today, but found none.

After school I returned directly to the hostel. The acting managers, Dave and Meredith, went to Whitehorse, YT, for the day and asked if I’d be at the hostel to greet and settle any new guests that arrived on the afternoon ferry. I was happy to accept that responsibility, especially after all the kindnesses they have extended to me.

After making individual pizzas in the hostel kitchen and finishing supper I went to an intermural basketball game at the school. Seventh and eighth grade students were playing tonight. Mr. Pickett was refereeing the game.

Back home after the game. I did my laundry and some reading. The sky at the end of the day was perfectly clear. Some were predicting that the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) would be visible tonight, so I set my alarm for 2:00 a.m. to go out and check for them. All that was visible at 2:00 a.m. were lots of stars. The most noticable constellation in the night sky here is the Big Dipper. Maybe that’s why it ended up on Alaska’s state flag.



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