Happiness is a man of maximum practical application

 

... His father, Ed Gelvin, was more diversified. Over the years, he had become, it seems safe to say, as much as anyone in Alaska an example of what Steve Ulvi has in mind when he speaks so admiringly of "the man of maximum practical application". Mining, as it happened, was what first drew Ed and his wife, Ginny, into the country. ... Trapper, sawyer, pilot, plumber, licensed big-game guide, welder, ironworker, mechanic, carpenter, builder of boats and sleds, he suffered no lack of occupation. ...

-- John McPhee, Coming Into The Country (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977, 1991 paperback), pp. 232f. 

In Alaska happiness is a cake from a mix

From a delightful read in The New York Times, here:

“Cake mixes are the center of our little universe,” said Cynthia Erickson, who owns the only grocery store in Tanana, an Athabascan village of 300 along the Yukon River in central Alaska. “I have four damn shelves full.”

Radioactive Salmon?

The Vancouver Sun provides this discussion of the possible impact of the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster on Pacific Ocean salmon:

Radioactive water leaking from a reactor at Japan’s damaged nuclear plants isn’t likely to harm [British Columbia] salmon because they don’t travel as far as the coast of Japan, said Nancy Davis, deputy director of the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission.

“They tend to go to Gulf of Alaska, the Bering Sea, or maybe as far as the central North Pacific, but they are not maturing off Japan and swimming all the way back here,” Davis said. “Immature and maturing salmon are in the deep ocean, they’re not on the Japanese shelf or near the nuclear plant.”

She said it’s possible that Japanese chum salmon might be in the waters near the damaged plant, but that they would not be returning to Japan for another three or four years. Japan mostly produces chum salmon, which Davis said is very unlikely to be imported into British Columbia.

Davis said it is important to consider what elements are involved and what their half-lifes are, and how the salmon would come into contact with the radioactive materials.

Another [Simon Fraser University] professor said he could not say what the effects on salmon would be.

“Given the limited information available, I cannot even speculate about the effects of radiation leaking into the ocean. It is far too early to say anything with any confidence,” said Randall Peterman, SFU professor and Canada research chair in fisheries risk assessment and management.

For the rest of the article, which also discusses radioactive contamination of seaweed, go here.

We eat a fair amount of wild Alaskan salmon in our house, and will continue to do so.