travelogue, entry 5

0815 08MAR06 Petersburg, Alaska Petersburg receives an annual average of 100 inches of rain*. Not a lot of snow, but lots and lots of rain. In town today we awoke to about two inches of accumulated slush on the ground. Not snow, not rain, just opaque, slippery slush. Here at the office, which is a few miles out of town, there’s about three inches of fluffy white snow on the ground—I even spotted ducks floating on the Wrangell Narrows who had snow on their backs. I had my very first moose burger last night. It was good, but tasted an awful lot like hamburger. I learned earlier in the day that hunters will usually add beef or pork to moose and caribou meat because the two latter animals are so darn lean, the meat doesn’t stick together very well and needs some added fat to keep it together. I have learned more about hunting in the last few days than I ever really expected to know. I miss Eric immensely, even more so than my “normal” field trips because I wish he were here to see this corner of Alaska with me.

* One of the people I am working with told me that when considering new hires, the federal agencies up here will ask “can they handle the rain and do they really want to live here?” before they even look at job qualifications.