Walking with Dinosaurs, 8/21

We participated in another Rain Forest walk, this time along the Ohmer Creek Trail.  The rainforest is on such a grand scale, you can imagine Dinosaurs walking there.  With the giant skunk cabbage leaves and overturned trees with root systems larger than a car, everything green with moss, you think that if you were still and listened carefully you might catch a glimpse of a prehistoric beast moving through the forest.  We nibbled on a variety of berries.  I'm beginning to recognize the edible from the poisonous without assistance, but still wait to be told something is safe before popping it in my mouth.  Except the blueberries. Those I eat whereever I find them!

Ohmer Creek is a temperate rain forest.  We followed a wooden boardwalk across the muskeg.  Muskeg is the spaghum moss and is very absorbent. We also saw an interesting plant called  "sun dew", with lovely pink flowers, down in the peat and the muskeg.  This deceptive little darling acts like a venus fly trap!  People in this area pick them and put them in their kitchens because the plant eats fruit flies!

As always, I dawdle along, photographing and listing the plants I see so that I can look them up later.  On this walk we saw: deer heart (false lily of the valley), skunk cabbage, splash cup fungus, devil's club, elderberry, huckleberry, blueberry, watermelon berry (twisted stalk), bunch berry, dogwood, and currant.

On our drive to the rainforest walk, we saw a Sitka deer and a porcupine alongside the road. Our driver came there to work in the cannery.  There were 7 men to 1 woman and that sounded pretty good until she learned that quantity didn't equal quality!!  She was just about to leave when she met her husband, a local boy. 

There is an area of the highway they call the Big Dipper, where each year's graduating class paints their names on the road.  They can still use studded tires there, too, so the names get worn off.  Petersburg gets around 90 inches of snow and about 110 inches of rain annually, so there ends up being alot of slush!  All the kids in the town learn to swim since they are surrounded by water, and they have a large pool facility. They have never had an accidental drowning.

The Petersburg industry is fishing.  The town has approximately 1000 people.  The big cruise ships can't go there, as they can't fit through the Wrangell Narrows. There is no mill in Petersburg and the one in Wrangell closed, so you have to send wood out to be planed.  Residents can harvest a certain amount of wood for firewood or building. Selective logging is done, taking trees here and there, but no clear-cutting.  They don't have to plant, as the trees re-seed themselves. Homes outside the town are served with electricity but not water; those people must collect it or have it delivered.  The water wagon seems to be a symbol of life in many parts of Alaska. 

For kids who go to school in Petersburg, gym is alternated with "wet" and "dry" months, meaning one month you work in the pool and the next you do land sports.  Those who play sports have to travel 8 hours to Juneau, stay in the homes of their competitors, then ferry 8 hours back! The road in Petersburg is 38 miles long and dead-ends.  The only way in is boat or plane.