Greetings all: Just a hello from the east side of anchorage or Muldoon if is map ready. Technically living in anchorage is neither a new or separate existence from the years past. I spent more time in anchorage in meetings or traveling elsewhere in the 1990s then anywhere else. The never ending road and highway running is a separate existence and someday I’ll write that up. What I miss is the 4 to 10 days I used to get to go walking and listening to the evening settle in. That was my prize and way of keeping anchored. A journal was in place where observations and changes were kept on a continuous basis. The journals are home in a box under the table, six hours of driving from here but key points are always in the forefront such as: when did the porcupine lose their place in forest. When did the cranes quit coming over the lakes in the home area. When did the gnats move from August to May. When did the rest of the bugs stop showing up in the spring. Why did the rabbits not rebound from their cycle in the mid 1990s…. These kinds of observations take the whole gambit of being physically in place. Sight sound feel and exposure. For instance the first spring I saw that lacked bugs was in 2016. But the last time we had bats was in mid 1990s. I grew up around flying squirrels and bats as a part of the evening coming to a close. Did I record their disappearance? No, I spoke to the fact that the first time it dawned on me that these components of my time and youth were no longer in place. I suspect up to a decade in passing before I knew the change. Yet there were certain things I could live directly. The wind changing, the ice moving up the mountains from the passes to the 8,000 ft level. The dying of lichen due to permafrost disappearing. The changes in animal behavior, the way trees change color or shape. All this was my touching the times but in Muldoon I get noise and a little glance out the window. It’s common now to speak to the numbers like salmon or caribou but no scientist or agency has yet to speak to the food chain and the acceleration of response by species locally and in flight. Be well, Wilson
Observations From Members 