SUMMER ADVENTURES: Alaska, Canada, and Home Again

(#8 in a series that started on July 22nd at: http://carbwars.blogspot.com/2008/07/summer-adventures-southern-california.html ) We took the float plane back to King Salmon and then flew to Yakutat, our last stop in Alaska before crossing into Canada. Dean (top) and Ron pumping self-serve jet fuel in Yakutat. “Food, Shelter, Booze” at the Yakutat Airport We passed up the fine dining offered at the airport in favor of sack lunches from the Lodge—sandwiches, chips, and oranges. Dean and I supplemented the ham and cheese from our sandwiches with…

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“Good Calories, Bad Calories” due out in paperback!

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Gary Taubes’s book, Good Calories, Bad Calories, was an expose of how far the medical establishment has drifted from science-based advice on nutrition. The paperback version is due to be released on Sept. 23, 2008. If you haven’t bought it yet, now you can get it for less. I originally bought two copies, one to use and one to loan out, but I gave the loaner away, so I’ll be placing an order for a new one myself. The new paperback is:Good Calories, Bad Calories:…

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SUMMER ADVENTURES: Alaska’s Volcanoes and Another Voracious Predator

Half of the active volcanoes in the world are located in Alaska. We traveled over 26 miles of gravel roads and through three rivers from Brooks Camp to reach this eerie moonscape of devastation. “The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes” is the site of the largest volcanic eruption of the 20th Century. It was first believed that Mount Katmai was the source of the huge blast on June 6 of 1912 that left 40 square miles covered in ash ranging from 200 to 700 feet…

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SUMMER ADVENTURES: Evidence of a Prehistoric Lifestyle

The Brooks River barabara, a reconstruction of a house dated to about 1200 AD . Several prehistoric trade routes intersected in the Brooks Camp area and there was a village on the site for more than six thousand years. A reconstruction of one of the 900 early dwellings that have been excavated nearby gives some insight into the lives of the people who lived here. The semi-subterranean houses, called barabaras, were built of logs with a deeper excavation at the entrance that served as a…

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SUMMER ADVENTURES: Brooks Camp and Bears, Bears, Bears

Part 5 (This series started with the July 22 post.) A little background: Brooks Camp, in the Katmai National Park, boasts the largest concentration of brown bears in the world. Kodiak Island is just offshore. Grizzlies and brown bears belong to the same species, but Alaska’s coastal brown bears are bigger than their inland kin because of their protein-rich diet of salmon. Brown bears can weight up to 1,500 pounds. Everything that comes into Brooks Camp, including food, supplies, and tourists, comes by water or…

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SUMMER ADVENTURES: Our First Close Encounter with a Bear and Very Expensive Pizza

After returning to the airport in Gustavus, we flew to King Salmon, the last stop before Brooks Camp. It was another beautiful flight, executed flawlessly by Ron, our pilot. There was one complication after we landed, however. We were greeted by a bear on the runway. We quickly retreated back to the plane and closed the door to wait for our transportation to the hotel. Ron radioed in a report about the bear while it roamed around, in and out of the brush-filled ditch by…

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