Adventure Ahead in Kako, Alaska

This perfect weather makes it hard to sit at my computer and faithfully churn out blog posts, although I’ve tried. Half-a-dozen posts wait to be finished and shared with you. I promise, I’ll post this one. I want you to know about Kako Retreat Center. Hank and I are looking forward to the adventure of our lives this month when we fly to Alaska for the annual Ladies’ Berry Picking Retreat.

Where in the world is Kako? Well, Kako Retreat Center is in Alaska, about 400 miles from the nearest road that could connect it to the rest of the world. It’s on the site of an old gold mine six miles from the Yukon River, on the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta. Barges bring supplies up the Yukon in summer, but otherwise the only way to get there, or to reach the 56 villages within Kako’s one hundred sixty-mile radius of influence, is to fly by bush plane.

Kako has been the home of missionaries Dave and Vera Penz for thirty years. Since their marriage in1983, these faithful servants of God have been developing this oasis of hope in the wilds of Alaska. With the help of volunteers from all over the U.S.A., they’ve been reaching out to approximately 31,000 Eskimo, 1,000 Indian and 3,500 white people within Kako’s circle of influence. Dave and volunteer pilots from both Alaska and the lower forty-eight have spent countless hours flying young people to Kako for summer camps. They also bring adults and families in for Christ-centered retreats, workshops, leadership training classes, seminars and counseling throughout the year.

Hank and I will be serving in any way we can while we’re there. Hank is even willing to wash dishes! I’ll be doing research for a book about the Penzes and Kako.

 We’ll get acquainted with the women who will spend the days berry picking in the hills near the center. In the evenings, they’ll listen to Dave’s daughter Jeanne Rodkey talk about “What a Friend we Have in Jesus.” Jeanne grew up in the villages and understands their culture first hand.

 Some of these women know Jesus as Friend, some don’t know him yet. But they need a friend like Jesus. It’s estimated that over ninety percent of Native women have suffered some kind of abuse in their home villages: alcohol, drugs, sexual and physical abuse...the whole gamut. Suicide rates are much higher in the villages than in the rest of the country. Even the Christian young people find it hard to resist pervasive cultural influences that cause them to bring babies into this same abusive environment. Many girls are single moms by the time they are fifteen or sixteen.

Kako Retreat Center is faith-based and completely independent. At Kako, people find hope. It’s a safe place for the people to come and rest, away from the noise and chaos of village life. They learn from God’s word, and receive encouragement to help them live godly lives back in their villages.

 Lives are being turned around because of what happens at the retreat center, but the enemy always fights back when evil is challenged. Because of that, Kako and all those involved with it need the prayers of God’s people.

For more about the Penzes, see Sun Breaks for Feb. 12, 2013 (Two Heroes); Jan. 9, 2013 (Bad Decision); Jan. 7/13 (A Memorable Moose Hunt)

Vera (center) and two friends

Icicle Creek Road, a Place to Explore

Icicle Creek

How often have you passed a road whose very name rouses your desire to leave the traveled highway and explore? Icicle Creek Road is one of these for us. We’d seen the sign many times over the years while passing through the Bavarian-style village of Leavenworth on our way to eastern Washington. This summer we took the time to satisfy our curiosity while celebrating our anniversary.
   
The road follows close beside turbulent Icicle Creek. Is it named Icicle Creek because of its cold waters? Or do icicles hang from the rocks in winter? No, the name comes from the Indian word na-sik-elt, which means "narrow canyon." (Pronounce the word icicle with an n at the beginning and a t at the end for a good approximation of the Indian pronunciation.)

Wildflowers and wild water

The stream originates near the crest of the Cascade Range and drains Josephine Lake. The first part of its course lies through a deep, narrow canyon. After a few miles, the cleft takes on the classic U-shape carved by a glacier. Still, until it nears the town of Leavenworth and its confluence with the Wenatchee River, there is scarcely room for the road beside the foaming water.

Bicycling up the Icicle Canyon

  The creek's watershed is the rugged, mountainous land of the Wenatchee National Forest and the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. The area is a magnet for campers, hikers, and rock climbers. Bicyclists pedal along the wildflower-edged road. Forbidding spires thrust into the sky in some views; in others ridges are studded with dead trees left from the Icicle Creek fire that raged through these mountains in 1994. Always, Icicle Creek plunges its way toward the Wenatchee River, growing by the mile as tributaries dump their loads of snow melt into it.

Click for a better view of fire-killed snags against the rugged spires of the Wenatchee Mountains.

We thought we saw an anniversary heart on this boulder.

Peaceful canyon drive

There are eight first come-first served campgrounds along the road, and numerous trails leading up into the mountains. But for time or mobility-challenged visitors, the drive alone, with its wild and lovely wilderness vistas, is well worth the effort.

Leavenworth Anniversary

Leavenworth 

    For each of the thirteen years of our marriage, we’ve spent our anniversary exploring some part of this beautiful northwestern corner of the United States. We’ve stayed on the Olympic Peninsula, ferried to Victoria B.C., and one time drove only five miles away to a local Bed & Breakfast.

    This year we took one of our favorite drives, the Cascade Loop, crossing Stevens Pass, driving north along the Columbia River, and home via the North Cascades highway. On the way we spent the night at Washington’s own Bavarian village, the little town of Leavenworth.

    Where Icicle Creek and the Wenatchee River come together, several tribes had long fished for salmon. The first white settlers established a trading post there. In 1893, the Great Northern Railway came through Tumwater Canyon. The town was platted that same year by Captain Charles F. Leavenworth, for whom it was named. With the coming of the railroad, timber companies' logging flourished along the nearby hills and valleys. People poured into the thriving town.

    Then, following the great Wellington avalanche disaster, the railroad changed its route, bypassing Leavenworth in favor of the less dangerous present route. The timber companies along Icicle Creek went out of business, many townspeople left, and by the 1960s, the town had nearly gone extinct.

    Town leaders came up with a plan to base the town’s economy on tourism. They would transform the frontier town of Leavenworth into a Bavarian village. The setting already greatly resembled the Bavarian Alps. With the addition of a series of annual festivals to bring in a million tourists a year, Leavenworth quickly became a popular tourist destination.

    We didn’t need a luxury hotel or souvenirs so we skipped the fascinating stores, except for a cozy little bakery-coffee shop with a porch. We ate delicious pastries while gazing past the building tops to the nearby mountains.
   
 After exploring Icicle Canyon, we drove through town, looking for a place out of the ordinary but inexpensive where we could spend the night. We crossed the Wenatchee River and found ourselves on our way to Peshastin, so turned around and headed back. As we again approached the bridge, we spied a sign nearly hidden in the trees. It read “Bindlestiff’s Cabins.” A narrow road led into the canyon.

“Turn here,” I suggested, my serendipity meter pinging like mad. A row of tree-shaded, one-room cabins lined the edge of the bluff, each with its own railed deck overhanging the river below.  The rushing river drowned out any sounds of civilization. The water tumbled past, powerful, foaming, swirling. No rafters braved its rapids while we watched, but the river itself provided hypnotic entertainment.

Our cabin had the necessities: cleanliness, an adequate bed, kitchenette with fridge and microwave, a shower. We didn’t turn on the television. Instead we watched swallows dipping after insects just above the water’s surface.

Next morning we watched the sun strike through the trees to the green water below while we ate our breakfast of coffee, fruit, and white-chocolate raspberry scones from the bakery.

Soon we were off on the next leg of our trip, up the Columbia River, then west over the North Cascades Highway and home.

Mountain Top Waterfall in the Tumwater Canyon

Wenatchee River in Tumwater Canyon

 Stevens Pass on Highway 2 crossing the Cascade Mountains is a spectacular route for a roadtrip anytime, but particularly in early June. As we headed east toward Leavenworth to celebrate our anniversary, we watched for the changing vegetation to signal our crossing into Eastern Washington. Soon lodgepole pines infiltrated the Douglas firs and vistas became more open.

  We knew we were almost to our destination when we entered Tumwater canyon. Nineteen years ago, beginning in July, 1994, a raging wildfire had started on nearby Icicle Creek, destroying a number of homes near Leavenworth. It burned over the mountains and down to the tumbling waters of the Wenatchee River, leaving a blackened skeleton forest interspersed with untouched trees. Now the slopes were green again, though bleached and ghostly snags still stood along the ridges.

It was while I gazed up at some of those craggy ridges that I glimpsed a waterfall I'd not noticed before. It seemed to pour out of the very top of a mountain as if blasted from a fire hose. I saw it for only a minute before another mountain's shoulder hid it from view, although we saw a large creek plunging down the rocky bank into the Wenatchee River.

Next morning we went back, hoping for pictures. Fortunately not too many people were on the road that early, because we had to drive back and forth several times before we found it again. We pulled off where the shoulder widened a bit and I shot the photo below. The waterfall looked much smaller than it had the afternoon before. I wondered if it came from snow melt which would increase as the day warmed. Perhaps it isn't even there later in the summer. (Can you see it, next to the peak in the center?)

An east-side Cascade waterfall and snags burned in the 1994 Hatchery complex fires

Through a telephoto lens

From http://www.iciclevillage.com :

In 1994, about 180,000 acres of forested land in Chelan County burned. In Leavenworth two fires – “The Hatchery Complex” and “Rat Creek” – burned out of control and people were forced to evacuate.
 

• 2,400 firefighters from 24 different states worked to save the town.
• The fire traveled at speeds exceeding 50 mph.
• 950,000 gallons of retardant were dropped over Chelan County.
• 14 homes were destroyed in the Icicle Creek Canyon.
• The fires started July 24th and were out December 24, 1994

Rainy Memorial Day Picnic

Joan and Marcella at Gold Basin on a sunny day last year

Here in our corner of Northwest Washington, it was a memorable Memorial Day weekend for a lot of people. It started when a freakish accident sent part of Mt. Vernon’s I-5 bridge tumbling into the Skagit River. Three people rode their vehicles with it into the swift, frigid current, but were rescued without serious injury. Hundreds watched astounded from the river banks while the rest of us gaped at our TV sets.

We heard that two of the people in the river had been on their way to Verlot for a camping holiday. Many people suddenly changed their plans for the weekend rather than face a long, complicated, jammed-up detour around the collapse.

In our little town further south, the only threats to my holiday hopes were that hubby and partner-in-fun Hank was off on a solo trip. And the skies threatened rain. Oh, well. I could take flowers to the Granite Falls cemetery, rain or shine.

Long-time friend Marcella, who’s living at Verlot where we both grew up, is turning 84. I’d called to suggest an impromptu picnic celebration to follow my cemetery visit. Marcella’s still game for anything and quickly agreed.

I assembled flower bouquets from our garden to decorate the graves, and another bouquet to give with a thank-you card to veteran Amelia, who is Marcella’s granddaughter. Amelia is a beautiful young woman whose life has been on hold since she returned from the war suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. Marcella helped raise her and still looks after her. I packed our lunch and put in a plastic tablecloth and plastic to sit on, just in case.

By the time I reached Granite Falls, drizzle kept the wipers busy. Drizzle continued on the drive up into the mountains. No problem...we could eat our lunch in the house. But as I bumped up their long driveway, I saw Marcella and Amelia waiting on the porch. They hurried to the truck, ready to picnic. Maybe we could find a shelter in one of the parks further up the road.

We circled thru Gold Basin park. My friend pointed out where a row of houses once stood in the early 1900s. Her mother had grown up there because her grandfather worked in a nearby lumber mill. She remembered walking there as a child and her mom pointing out the site of her old home. Marcella discovered an ancient caulked logging boot half buried in the moss and wanted to take it home to plant flowers in. Her mom said, “Leave it there. Your grandfather wore that boot.”

The trees dripped. Most camping spaces were empty. Anyone brave enough to go camping in the rain had already headed home. We chose a peaceful spot walled in by evergreens and vine maples, spread an oilcloth on a wet picnic table and pieces of plastic on the benches, and sat down to enjoy egg salad sandwiches, potato chips, and fruit. We had such a good time visiting we didn’t notice the paper bag holding store-bought cookies turning soggy. Fortunately, it had a waterproof lining, so we finished up with still-crispy cookies and coffee. I looked at the three of us sitting there, two elderly ladies and a young one, laughing and ignoring raindrops plopping on our heads, and thought, “One is never too old to try something new!”

Memorial Day...a time to make new memories, as well as to honor old ones.

Camera Moment

Springtime in Alaska! It was 1973 and my children were young. Their grandparents were making their first visit to the far north, the Chena River ran clear and cold, and the mosquitoes wouldn’t be bad for a few more weeks.

Mom took this blurry slide photo which I just recently rediscovered. My father is about to share his fishing expertise with his excited grandson, whose idea of fishing was to make no more than one cast in any one spot. Lenora was far more interested in the blooming fireweed than in trying her luck. I’m behind her with fishnet and camera bag. I can’t believe I was ever that slender.

It’s a moment frozen in time, a lovely memory forgotten until that old box of slides was resurrected.

Thanks, Mom. I hope some day my own snapshooting will bring back special memories for my family as yours did for me.

Breaking Through the Fog

    We sat with our coffee near the big front window as the morning’s fog began to dissipate. The farmlands below came into view. Then the thick bank hiding Port Susan retreated over Camano Island. Soon the snowy Olympic peaks rose startlingly white out of the thinning mist. In a few minutes, the entire island with its backdrop of shining mountains had emerged out of seeming nothingness.

     Of course, the peaks had been there all the time. But if we hadn’t known that, we might have reacted with the same surprised delight as did my 95-year-old mother when she sat at the elder-care-center window, watching the mountains appear and disappear among the clouds. “They rise and then they set,” she’d puzzle. Knowing she wouldn’t remember, we tried to explain what was happening. But every time the clouds lifted to reveal the mountains, she was surprised and delighted all over again.

    Isn’t a lot of life like that? Certain basic truths never change, like God’s love for us. Like his desire for us to be all that we’re created to be.

    The fog that obscures our vision is made up of half-truths we’ve been taught:

        ~You are the master of your fate, the captain of your soul.
        ~You’re # 1.
        ~You deserve the best.

            Or, conversely:

        ~What makes you think you’re important?
        ~If you don’t fight for your rights, no one else will.
        ~You’re a bad person.

    What helps us cut through the fog and see the truth? Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.” Jesus knew how much the heavenly Father loves us. Because of that love, Jesus was sent to die for us on the cross. His sacrifice opened the way for us to come to the Father.

    No longer must we pretend we’re in charge. The Creator of the universe fights for us. When we see our place in God’s scheme of things, we know we are important. He has gifted us to fill a place that no one else can fill. We’re not good in ourselves, but Jesus died to make us good in God’s sight. The Bible, God’s word, teaches us all truth and clears away the fog of the world’s lies.

    There’s no better way to live.