Prince Of Wales Island--POW. And HOW! WOW!

Ready for another stunning geography/history lesson, kids?  POW is one of the islands of the Alexander Archipelago in the Alaskan Panhandle, the 4th largest island in the US after Hawaii, Kodiak and Puerto Rico.  Another lovely location in the Tongass Rainforest.

POW is home of the Kaigani (crabapple country) Haida and later--or earlier--Tlingit people, who named the island "Sea Lion."  Then even later around 18th Century times, Mexican, British and French explorers overnighted here, too. I think the Russians just sort of waved on their way by.  (Aren't you happy that I'm not your real history teacher?  I'm pretty shabby at this part.  But if you're really interested, you can wikipee it.)

We flew in on an unusually sunny day in May about a week ago.  By "we," I mean the pilot, a woman going home to Hydaburg from her chemo treatment in Anchorage and me in this little B-1RD:  (That means I don't know what kind of plane it is.)  Not the smallest one I've been in since I've been traveling here in Alaska, but small enough to make me smile about getting into it.  That's a big deal, because I seldom smile about flying in planes--you know, the ones with all those people and their elbows.  It's an interminable, crampy, stiff drudgery for the most part.  Ick. 

Flying in these smaller birds is a noisy experience, but this Island Air pilot had some smoothe music piping through these head sets for us to listen to on the way over from Ketchikan. 

The airport is in Klawock which is where the clinic is where I worked for a day.  I didn't take a picture of the eye clinic building at the Klawock mall because, well, BORING.  But I did take a picture of the Dream Catcher B&B where I stayed in Craig about seven miles down the road.



Let me correct myself here.  I took SEVERAL pictures of this B & B. 

Being the 4th largest island in the United States doesn't mean this little sand bar is big by any means.  And being small doesn't mean it doesn't pack a punch with it's abundance of fjords, steep-sided mountains, dense forests, Tlingit culture...bears, to name a few delights of Prince of Wales Island.

I'm still trying to learn how George Vancouver's "Prince of Wales Archipelago" became "Alexander Archipelago" and the island came to be called "Prince of Wales" island.  Something to do with the treaty discussions between Russia and Great Britain, I presume.  And who named the towns Craig and Klawock and Hollis and Thorne Bay and Hydaburg?  

Alaska has some very interesting place names-descriptive, possesive, incidental, onomastic, commemorative, -from a number of cultural sources.  I might just have to do some more research and see if I can share some of it interestingly.  With pictures.  Later.



Oopsie.  How did Pookie Pye get in here?!  You little wascal, why are you always popping up in my head space?!

Well, OK If I Have To Fly

Penny, You're Such A Dork, (Hear Ye, Hear Ye)

If someone were holding a gallon-sized ziplock bag jumbled full of these things, wouldn't you think they were taffies?  Would you still think that if the person holding a bag of these "softies" were a flight attendant offering them to passengers as they boarded the plane?  I did.  It was as I climbed aboard the PenAir turbo-prop which always seem kind of small and budget to me.  And handing out mini-sized taffies just confirms how cheap the airlines are getting these days.  I mean, even for a turbo-prop ride with only one flight attendant dressed in work pants, that is really budget!

Those planes are noisy, too.  Boy.  My whole body buzzed and rattled all the way til we landed again.  I glanced across the aisle and noticed that a passenger had ear plugs in his ears.  Hmmm.  Next time I'll try to remember to bring some ear plugs.  I could probably pick up a pair at Walgreens or somewhere like that.  

I mentioned to someone later, on the ground, that I wish I had known ahead of time to get ear plugs and she said, "They usually hand those out as you get on the plane. I'm surprised they didn't do that on your flight." 

Oh, those weren't cheap Hallowe'en candies, after all.  They were ear plugs!   I drew in a breath to exclaim I thought they were taffies and then caught myself.  If I had continued to admit to this new aquaintance that I had made that mistake not only once, but twice, I would have advanced from dork to nimrod. 

Now, let me tell you something pretty cool and interesting that you might like to try yourself.  If you drink a coke that makes you burp while you're on one of those excruciatingly buzzy flights that rattle your little melon, and you are using ear plugs, it makes a sound like a didjeridoo right between your ears.  Delightful! 

Yawning makes a funny sort of "wave organ" drone, too, but don't do a lot of facial contortions just to hear concrete acoustics in your head, especially if you're in the front row where the flight attendant can see you and pity you and pretend she didn't catch you pinching your nose and rubber-jawing.  That could be a little embarrassing.