Akun Island

Last week I took a quick trip to Akun Island in the Aleutians.  We chartered a plane from Anchorage and were gone for only four nights.  As usual, the Aleutians did not disappoint with spectacular views, interesting beaches, and archaeological sites.  With a little luck we had a break in the weather, and were able to perform our hydrographic survey from the little inflatable boat we brought with us.  Here are a few of my photos.

Artifacts we found lying exposed on the ground in a circle of cobles

Beach vegetation making art in the wind

Getting ready to launch the boat and go survey

Eric standing in a Aleut house pit

Beachcombing

East end of Surf Bay

Our chartered flight.  A Pilatus PC-12

Late Summer Canning

I unexpectedly found myself at home this weekend and took the opportunity to cram in some late summer canning, although I'm not sure there is anything summer-ish about the weather right now - the produce is from somewhere where it's still summer though! My sister brought a bag of adorable little jalapenos from her garden in Montana (who doesn't fly with a giant bag of jalapenos in their purse?). Taking advantage of what will probably be the last decent peaches and corn we will get in Alaska, I used as many jalapenos as I could in a batch of peach salsa and then a batch of corn salsa. The remained  were made into "unfancy" pickled jalapenos from Food in Jars.