Photo by Derotha Ferraro - The South Peninsula Hospital's Women Auxiliary helped with a garden designed by Master Gardener Brenda Adams, pictured here after Adams was named for the highest award given by the Perennial Plant Society for the Serenity Garden.

The Perennial Plant Association announced it has awarded its highest award for garden design to Brenda Adams for her creation of the Serenity Garden at the entrance to the South Peninsula Hospital.
The award is the result of an international competition among top professional garden and landscape designers. Each year, a panel of experts in landscape design and horticulture make the award selections. They base their selection not only on artistic merit of the design, but also the creative horticultural use of perennial plants in implementing the design. The Honor Award is the Perennial Plant Association’s highest award and is not necessarily granted every year. The award is additionally unique in that Adams is the only Alaskan ever to win this prestigious honor.
The landscaping project at South Peninsula started in 2009 after the hospital created a new entrance area and new access to the Emergency facilities. Members of the Hospital Auxiliary focused their attention on the power of gardens to bring solace and healing power to visitors and wished to create such an area for the new addition. To make this happen they brought highly acclaimed garden designer, Brenda Adams, into the project.
The first challenge they had to wrestle with is the fact that nearly all the space outside the hospital building is either concrete, parking area or an extremely steep hillside. The only unpaved area was a forty by forty foot flat area surrounded on three sides by modern grey concrete or metal walls and windows. The walls keep a large part of the area in shade except in the early morning and the open side of the space spills directly onto a parking lot.
“The available space was downright bleak yet the objective was to turn this unappealing location into a welcoming, soothing and secluded sanctuary for people in distress,” Adams said.

Photo provided - A variety of colorful flowers surround the Serenity Garden at South Peninsula Hospital

Developing private areas immediately adjacent to a parking lot is a particular difficulty in Alaska because of the free-roaming moose that inhabit the area year-round. The moose thrive on trees and shrubbery unless they are tightly fenced – a very unattractive option – so Adams created an alternative.
“To create an inexpensive privacy screen, I designed a highly-mounded island garden planted with tall grasses and perennials. It shields the benches from approaching traffic and also gives someone sitting on a bench a delightful focal point for contemplation while leaving the distant view visible,” she said.
The distant view is of Homer’s Kachemak Bay overlooked by beautiful snow-covered mountains. The blue and purple hues in the distance bring majesty to the background of the garden island.
Among the perfect scores granted to the Serenity Garden by the judges were those for “Plant Selection” and “Bloom Succession.” Adams chose a subtle mix of perennials with rich textures and soothing colors. Blues, lavenders and burgundies combine with soft pinks, whites and greens to blend the garden with its surroundings and to invoke peaceful and calming feelings in the visitor.
In Alaska, bloom succession is of the greatest importance in designing a garden. This part of the world is dependably snow-free only five months of the year so it was important to select plants that would bloom from the minute the snow melts in May until it returns in early October. From the time the bulbs first peek through the snow through the end of the growing season, the Serenity Garden always abounds with colorful blooming plants, each succeeding the others through the summer. Then the tall grasses stand erect throughout the winter adding their beauty and motion to the winter tableau.
The resulting garden has exceeded its contemplated goals. Not only visitors, but staff, and even patients spend time in the garden — rain or shine. It’s truly wonderful to see a patient in hospital attire, tethered to a medication pole, enjoying the summer sunshine on one of the benches. A few moments of peaceful contemplation, or just a relaxing escape from the stress of being in or around a hospital, are gifts the Serenity Garden continues to give to the community.
The Perennial Plant Association awarded two Merit awards to Adams 2007 and 2009. She is a Master Gardener, and was president of the 150-member-strong Homer Garden Club for six years. She is a popular speaker at gardening conferences throughout Alaska, and is finishing a richly informative book on gardening in Alaska and the Far North.

Photo by George Matz - A Surfbird perches on a jetty off the Homer Spit.

It’s always interesting to Kachemak Bay Shorebird Coordinator Christina Whiting to hear what a person’s lifetime bird is.
“A woman told me the other day what she really wants to see is a Yellow-billed loon, and I was able to tell her, well, there’s one in the Barge Basin right now,” Whiting said. “For others it’s the warbler or eider or a Sandhill crane.”
Which fits in perfectly with one of the big name attractions to the festival: Mark Obmascik, the author of “The Big Year” a bestselling novel whose book was made into a hilarious, richly layered movie starring Jack Black, Steve Martin and Owen Wilson.
It tells the story of three men who abandon their normal duties to spend a year viewing birds in one of the world’s quirkiest sporting contests. With few rules and no referees, there is one goal: to see and identify the most species of birds in a single year. The three main characters will spend a grueling, exhaustive year traveling hundreds of thousands of miles and spending thousands of dollars.
Obmascik was part of a Denver Post team of journalists who won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for a series on the Columbine High School shooting massacre.
In an interview with the Homer Tribune, Obmascik said during his 17-18 years with the Denver Post, he alternated during election years covering politics and in the off-years, focused on the environment.
“Our place is like your state – issues aren’t settled yet. There are strong opinions on both sides. I went back and forth between senate, governor, presidential campaigns and the great public land fights,” Obmascik said. “We have the Rocky Mountain arsenal here, the U.S. army chemical weapons for World War II and (environmental catastrophes) such as the guy who built a gold mine in one of the most inhospitable environments on earth 10,000 feet up a mountain – and sure enough, he screwed up.”
That resulted in a cyanide spill that killed 30 miles of river inhabitants.
Then one year, a different kind of assignment landed on his desk.
“I had finished covering a campaign, another Senate campaign that I knew was going to be ugly. I picked up the phone and it was a call from the American Birding Association – who knew? They were in Colorado Springs,” he said. A New Jersey industrialist had spent a “Big Year” chasing across the continent after fragile, delicate little birds.
“And I thought, a competitive bird watch? Who could make up such a thing. In one year, three guys had spent a year of their lives covering 270,000 miles and spending over $200,000 – including getting to the island of Attu where they awaited these Asiatic birds taking flight into air space,” he said.
Obmascik got to know the three men: the New Jersey industrialist and a CEO of big companies who had a dream home near Aspen who suffered 40 years with his repressed bird obsession. He was married to a marriage counsellor and the first year of their long-awaited retirement, he announces it is going to be his “Big Year.”
The third man was a software technician hunting down Y2K bugs at a nuke plant in Maryland. His divorce had just finalized, and he was teaching himself to live again.
“I had spent a career writing about murders, politicians and rapists. I felt like the luckiest guy around to get to write about these three men, whom I actually liked,” he said.
The movie is more “inspired” by Obmascik book. The names are different, the places have changed. Characters’ problems and flaws are altered. “But the movie is beautiful. The cinematography was great – they actually went to the Yukon and built a replica of Attu where they did the filming.”
Obmascik’s next book, “Halfway to Heaven (2009) was about 54 mountains – all over 14,000 feet – that he climbed.
“I climbed all of them. The premise was that my body’s best days are over and this could be the crowning achievement of that. I was fat, 44, and in the market for a vasectomy,” he said.
To get ready, he joins a exercise class of mostly peri-menopausal women. When he begins to slack off, the women prod him into keeping at it. He reciprocates by adjusting the wall fans for them when hot flashes hit. Then summer comes, and off he goes, chasing his dream to climb all 54 summits.
Two discussions and the movie feature Obmascik. The panel discussion “The Role of Environmental Journalism in Today’s World,” is 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Friday moderated by History Professor Mike Hawfield, with panelists Nancy Lord and Tom Kizzia.
On Saturday, at the Mariner Theatre, Obmascik gives a brief talk introducing “The Big Year” movie at 2:30-3 p.m. followed by a book signing.

Author and photographer Jim Lavrakas

Kickstarter.com came to photographer Jim Lavrakas’ attention when a friend notified him on Facebook of an original film by Inupiat filmmaker Andrew MacLean.
“His film was made, and now he needed money to distribute it. I pledged $30 and got a DVD of the movie,” Lavrakas said. “I felt really good when I saw the premier in Anchorage. I felt like I owned a piece of the movie. How cool is that?”
Now, faced with the completion of his own creative project, a memoir called “Snap Decisions: My 30 Years as an Alaska News Photographer,” Lavrakas signed up for the same kind of partnership with patrons. In the next four weeks, he hopes to raise as much as possible toward the $12,000 needed for publication. For $25, each patron can own their own book and a piece of Lavrakas’ success getting it to the bookstores.
As for the book, a daily news photographer’s task of capturing events can trip over the edge of human encounters – such as snapping a photo of serial killer Robert Hansen as he leaves the court house, or witnessing a police standoff where the perpetrator emerges in a bloody shirt.
Living with a police scanner and chasing emergency lights is just a part of the history forming Lavrakas’ 30 years with the Anchorage Daily News.
At first glance, the book’s glossy cover might be mistaken for a coffee table browser. But a plane wreck in the inlet isn’t exactly your average tourist picture, along with moose mania photos and a selection of racers in the Last Great Race – the Iditarod.
The photographic journey that took him from a raw, but talented, shooter to an award-winning photographer who shared in a Pulitzer Prize, began as an ambulance chaser. The book is divided into decades of topics by news, features, personalities, traveling the Great Land and Iditarod. Looking for a chance on the Daily News’ staff in 1981, he accepted the most onerous of assignments just to get a foot in the door. He was to keep a police scanner with him at all times and when police or firemen were called to a scene, he would go photograph the house fires, the car crashes, the crime victims. In the text accompanying photos, Lavrakas tells the stories of what he was thinking at the time, how that event fit into news or historical context and technical details of the scene shot.
In the beginning of the black and white photo segment, Lavrakas tells of a hard-learned lesson with a photo titled “Fire and Enlightenment.” The photo captures the man’s grief after losing everything in a house fire.
“I lied to this man to get his name, telling him this photo wouldn’t be in the newspaper. He called my boss the next day after it appeared in the paper, and the managing editor called me into his office,” Lavrakas said in an interview. “He told me he wasn’t going to fire me, but that I can’t lie to people to take their photos. ‘All you have is their trust, and if you lose that, you can’t do your job. And, if you can’t do your job, it hurts the newspaper,’” he said.
Lavrakas took the lesson to heart.
Though he had taken photos for his town paper when he was 14, and set his end goal as being a photojournalist, he didn’t come to the profession with hard-news experience. He had earned a bachelor of arts in English from the University of Massachusetts in 1974, and came to Alaska soon after where he worked at Alyeska and for the Alaska Railroad. In 1979, he got his chance with a part-time job, on a trial basis. But soon, his hard work proving himself on the ambulance beat paid off. Hired full-time in 1981, he went on to take stunning feature and outdoor photos, even what is considered “an original image.”
“That is a photo of an image that isn’t seen anywhere else, that is the only one of its kind,” he explained. “I had never taken one until this one.”
Lavrakas’ original image is of a pike swallowing a rainbow trout. It happened when outdoor writer Doug O’Hara was called by the Alaska Fish and Game to come witness a problem the general public just didn’t seem to get. Pike stocked in streams were killing off native trout. The biologist wanted to show O’Hara and photographer Lavrakas how it was done.
“They kept an aquarian at Fish and Game with pike, and he fed this pike a rainbow,” he said. Lavrakas was able to capture the exact scene only heard or talked about: a big fish with a smaller fish inside, both sets of eyes in the moment of realization caught by the camera.
The photo went on to win national and international awards, netting the Daily News and Lavrakas serious money. Such is the power of an original image.

George Archibald

International Crane expert George Archibald pioneered unorthodox methods to save cranes from the brink of extinction, including having human handlers wear crane costumes to avoid human imprinting.
He used ultralight aircraft to help teach migration routes to cranes. He spent three years with a highly endangered whooping crane named Tex, dressed as and acting as a male crane – walking, calling, dancing – to shift her into reproductive condition. Through his dedication and the use of artificial insemination, Tex eventually laid a fertile egg.
As Archibald later recounted the tale on The Tonight Show he reportedly stunned the audience and host Johnny Carson with the sad end of the story – the accidental death of Tex shortly after the hatching of her one and only chick.
In 1973, when cranes were in a perilous situation and many of the 15 remaining species were on the brink of extinction, George Archibald founded the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, Wis. He was director from 1973 to 2000. Currently he heads a World Conservation Union commission on crane survival.
In 1984, Archibald was awarded a MacArthur Fellows Program grant for his work with cranes. In 1987, he was added to the UN’s Global 500 Roll of Honour.
In order to protect the watersheds and grasslands where cranes live and to help increase migratory flight paths, Archibald has visited remote areas, including some of the world’s most hostile territories, including parts of Afghanistan, Cuba, India, Russia and the Korean Demilitarized Zone.
Through the International Crane Foundation, Archibald continued to research and collaborate with colleagues around the world. Because of his efforts, Archibald not only discovered white-naped cranes on their wintering grounds, but he also led a successful campaign to save the Han River estuary, a critical wintering and migratory area located in the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas. In fact, his efforts have led to the conservation of more than 5 million hectares of wetlands in Asia, mostly in China and Russia. Archibald also helped to implement conservation-education programs among local people in remote regions of Africa, Australia and Eurasia. During his career, Archibald has studied the ecology of eight species of cranes in Australia, Bhutan, China, Iran, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States, and has organized more than 900 researchers working with cranes in more than 60 nations.

HOMER TRIBUNE/Naomi Klouda - Mark Tanski conducts orientation training for people interested in the Time Bank.

Opening an account with the Homer Time Bank doesn’t involve exchanging money – it’s all a matter of time.
You make a deposit every time you lend an hour of help to someone’s project.
You deduct from your bank account every time you let someone else perform a service for you.
The idea is based on a precept as old as time: People can accomplish needs in a bartering system just as well as they can with money, said Mark Tanski, one of the local organizers. And, it helps with community building.
It was a reaction to an ailing economy that saw hundreds of thousands suddenly unemployed. It offered a way, for example, for someone who can’t afford to hire a plumber to get a plumbing job done.
“This is an hour for hour trade. It’s not based on monetary value, it’s based on self worth,” Tanski told a group Thursday night assembled at the Kachemak Bay Campus. “It’s a website-based accounting system that isn’t based on a monetary system, which is important both philosophically and for legality – no IRS. The IRS is aware of us, and we’re within the law.”
Along with Laura Brooks and Adam Bauer, Tanski has launched the local network whereby people can sign up and exchange information about needs and abilities. Under the title of “Alaskans Helping Alaskans,” the Homer Time Bank is one of three in the state along with Anchorage and Willow. Homer’s began six months ago, but already has more members than either of the two other Alaska towns and it hasn’t officially “launched” yet, Tanski said. The official launch is a potluck at the Homer Chamber of Commerce on May 19.
“We have 99 members – we started later than the other time banks and we gathered more members in that time,” he said. (Since then, the number has grown.)
The possibilities are seemingly endless. Tanski used his own account as an example. He has accumulated 54.75 points by teaching the Time Bank class, volunteering at the Alaska Center for Coastal Studies and for the Homer Council on the Arts. Then, when he had a rip in his jeans and needed a shirt mended, he cashed in for an hour’s mending work. He used some credit to get bicycle parts. And, he is going to put up a yurt this summer, and will need help and expertise for that. That’s when he can trade credits for others’ labor. On his list of needs, he is asking for mandolin lessons.
“I’ve owned a mandolin for years, but I don’t know how to play it,” he explains. As luck would have it, a guy in his Time Bank class Thursday gives mandolin lessons – now they will exchange phone numbers.
Bryan Zak, who owns vacation cabins, has a notice that for a certain number of credits, a family of four can spend the night at his rental cabin. He will gain the credits from the exchange, which he can then use for getting landscaping done or repair work on the cabins. The other day, he “bought” an hour’s advice from a greenhouse expert.
It’s not easy to think of a night’s stay at a cabin in the same vein as help painting a building, but that’s how it works. Seldovia and Ninilchik residents are signed up with the Homer Time Bank as well, creating opportunities for trade between communities. Laura Brooks is helping Anchorage get its Time Bank up and running – there will be opportunities for trading between here and there, as well.
There will be more than 20 People’s Garden projects getting started this spring and a big need for volunteers. High tunnel greenhouse owners are also in need of helping hands. Time Bank is helping groups get the help they need in some surprising arrangements. People can help out in exchange for fresh vegetables.
Exchanging services and hours-for-hours, takes an adjustment in the traditional way of thinking, Tanski said. “Think of something you enjoy doing, and offer that as a service. What are you good at?”
The website at www.aha.com gives guidance for getting started. Designed by Adam Bauer, the website allows members to register, and then keep track of credits. If you give an hour to Homer Council on the Arts, for example, that will show up under your “account” and notifies the arts council of a one-hour deduction.
There have been cases of selfish people getting all the services and paying none out, Tanski said, but that is relatively rare. If account monitors notice someone is 50 credits in the red, for example, they may ask what’s going on. Also, there’s relatively few cases of fraud (Tanski said one case) out of the 250,000 operating time banks in the country.
The next Time Bank class is 5:30-6:30 p.m. Thursday at the college. For more information, go to aha.com.

Photo provided - Children perform a dance number at the 2011 Jubilee.

The Homer Council on the Arts’ 25th anniversary of the Jubilee Youth Variety Show has seen a lot of changes since the first year a group assembled in the Homer High School commons.
Diane Borgman, one of the key organizers, recalls it started humbly as a chance to let children show off their talents for live audiences. They sat on folding chairs in the smaller area, using very little technology and a small stage.
“I was principal at McNeil Canyon Elementary at the time. I’ve been a big supporter of the arts since I came to Alaska in 1970, working in rural schools throughout Alaska. At that time, there was little opportunity for young children to perform,” Borgman said. “Some teachers did recitals. It was before many other activities and opportunities.”
Borgman serves as president of HCOA and also on the Alaska State Council on the Arts board. Given her strong educational background, she felt that art needs to be an integral part of every child’s education.
The visual show by children to teens was begun two years earlier. This is a juried show that was on exhibit at the Pratt Museum, and at various businesses all over town. That portion of Jubilee is celebrating its 27th year anniversary.
“Then we decided, let’s come up with something for the performing arts. So, that’s when we started. We came up with “Jubilee” because we wanted it to be a celebration of youth talent, not a competition. We sat around talking, and looked up ‘celebration’ in the Thesaurus and came up with ‘Jubilant’ and then Jubilee.”
Given the anniversary, the Jubilee takes on added significance this year, yet promises to be in keeping with its traditional array of youthful surprises. In all, 23 performances begin when the curtains rise at 7 p.m. Friday at the Mariner Theatre.
“There will be dance numbers and vocals. There will be instrumentals, mandolin, guitar and piano. A tumbling act, skits – every year is a little different and every year there are special surprises in there,” Borgman said. “We have some young children who are doing special things for their age – first and second graders. There’s a special father-daughter duet that brought tears to my eyes. I was just blown away.”
The students come from a variety of educational backgrounds, from public to homeschool. Just as when they began the annual event, the main goal is still to keep the stress level down and the number of rehearsals at a minimum.
“It was just a very small beginning in 1987, and it got bigger, bigger and bigger. The main thing is we still want to keep the stress level down and the number of rehearsals minimal. We’ve asked them to be performance ready, though what that means will vary. A first grader will be different from an 8th, 9th or 12th grader,” she said.
Each student auditions to be in the program. They are judged on the quality of performance, stage presence, the age-appropriateness of the piece, the length and appropriateness for a family audience.
This also coincides with the HCOA Youth Summer Scholarships program. Students will be awarded money for youth camps – Sitka and Fairbanks each have art camp programs. Some are prestigious art programs out of state.
On the night of the Jubilee performance, the scholarship winners will be announced. Money from the Jubilee goes toward the scholarships.

Jeff Williams

Homer-based Jeff Williams of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge was recognized in a ceremony last week in Atlanta by receiving the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s highest award for Science Leadership.  
Williams  was recognized from over 500 National Wildlife Refuges throughout the country as well as numerous other USFWS research offices for his exceptional scientific accomplishments that have a lasting influence on the management of fish and wildlife resources.
In addition to the honor of the award, Williams will  bring back to the refuge $50,000 that will be used to maintain a field study for the summer and other biological work.
Williams, the unit biologist for refuge lands on the 1,000 mile long Aleutian Island Archipelago, was noted for his work as chief scientist aboard the largest research vessel for the USFWS, the  M/V Tiglax. He also was recognized for  spearheading the development of scientific study of the recovery of Kasatochi Island after its near annihilation in a 2008 volcanic eruption.
As chief scientist aboard the M/V Tiglax, Williams is responsible for coordinating a program of international research supported by the ship involving a  diverse group of agencies, universities and USFWS scientists. In any given summer the M/V Tiglax travels 15,000 nautical miles and hosts 160 scientists.  
When long dormant Kasatochi erupted violently in 2008, burying the entire island and all life on it with thick ash, Williams recognized the rare opportunity the eruption presented to study how life returns to a seemingly sterile volcanic landscape.
Williams had more than a decade of pre-eruption data on plant, insect and animal life as Kasatochi had been a refuge biological monitoring site for more than a dozen years.
Every summer refuge biologists, working for Williams, lived on the island in an old fox farmer’s cabin studying the hundreds of thousands of seabirds that nested on the island. This pre-eruption data would allow scientists to compare life after the eruption with life before and be able to judge recovery rates to “normal.”
Post eruption, Williams and partners pulled together a diverse  team of researchers to study the island’s recovery, documenting the return of plants, arthropods, marine mammals and breeding birds.
This initial phase of science culminated in publication of 10 papers about the Kasatochi eruption in a special edition of the journal, Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine Research.
After graduating from Colorado State, Williams bought a one-way ticket to Alaska, landing a seasonal biological job which took him to remote, uninhabited Aggatu Island in the far western Aleutians.
Williams lived on Adak for more than a dozen years before moving into the Alaska Maritime Refuge headquarters at Islands and Ocean Visitor Center in Homer. He credits his 22 years of work in  the Aleutians with providing him with a career, endless challenge and adventure and even a wife, refuge biologist Brie Drummond.  
The $50,000 Williams won for the refuge comes at a time of dire budget cuts that threatened to close two field camps where scientific research had gone on for decades.
The extra funds will keep one of those camps open this year and allow for additional special studies on Kasatochi Island, as well as St. Matthew Island, which is considered the most remote place in America.
Alaska scientists swept the other two science awards presented March 15 with the Kenai Refuge Biological Team receiving the Rachel Carson Group Award and Jeffrey Olsen of the USFWS genetics lab in Anchorage winning the Rachel Carson Individual Award.
The Kenai Refuge biologists were recognized for consistently leading from the field in developing a scientific approach to climate change.  They have inventoried over a 1,000 species on the Kenai Refuge which serves as a baseline for monitoring impacts of a changing climate.  
They have also authored or co-authored 30 scientific articles on climate related topics such as treeline rise, drying wetlands and shrub take-over of peatlands.
The awards are part of an ongoing U.S fish and Wildlife Service effort to strengthen the agency’s use of science-driven fish and wildlife conservation.  

Photo provided - Katherine Dolma shows a tote designed by Nomar's Kate Mitchell. Kate and her daughter, Jen, made three for Dolma's recycling work with nonprofits such as the Alaska Center for Coastal Studies.

Katherine Dolma achieved her Girl Scout Gold Award, scouting’s highest recognition, for her community work on reusing and recycling.
In working toward the award, Dolma completed 80 hours of service work based on the education and implementation of recycling for schools and businesses. This involved making presentations to school children, helping to change habits at her own school and helping with the Ecological girls’ annual fashion show that features clothing from recycled products.
“It’s a fun way to get people to think about recycling,” Dolma said, speaking of the fashion show.
Along the way, she came up with a recycling receptacle designed and sewn by Kate Mitchell, owner of Nomar’s Manufacturing. It was needed for use by the Alaska Center for Coastal Studies in its Yurt on the Homer Spit.
“She wanted to convince grownups ‘here’s how to recycle,’ and here’s how you can do it – and she needed something with separations,” Mitchell said. “I kept it simple.”
The brailer bag tote is a stretch from the famed brailer bags Nomar manufactures to hold a thousand of pounds of fish. But the result was a bag that can hold more weight, with compartments for glass, plastic and paper.
“It could become a shelf item, if there are people who want them. This happened to be me helping a young lady with an idea,” Mitchell said. “Every product in our store was a problem someone brought in and we found a solution. Most often they are fishermen – that’s what Nomar is – we create solutions to problems.”
Dolma brought problems to other people’s attention as well. Along with other team members of EcoLogical, a group formed to educate others on the need to dispose of trash in a healthier environmental manner, she convinced the Homer Middle School to give up styrofoam plates for school lunches on some days of the week. New habits take time to incorporate, however, and Dolma found she needed a lot of community help to get anything accomplished.
Another of her projects resulted in more recycling receptacles placed on the Homer Spit.
At the ceremony Dec. 27 at Homer Council on the Arts, where Dolma’s Gold Award was celebrated, Dolma credited the community with helping her make recycling more and more of a habit.
“Thank you to the community of Homer for being so receptive and incorporating recycling into their lives,” she said. In addition to Kate and Jen Mitchell at Nomar, she thanked many others who helped her.
“I feel like the community has been really receptive to recycling. There’s a higher number of bins at the dump and more sites on the Homer Spit,” Dolma said.

Photo by Brenda Dolma - Katherine Dolma, third from left, stands with fellow Girl Scouts after achieving her Girl Scout's Gold Award. The milestone was celebrated by her Girl Scout Troup on Dec. 27 at Homer Council on the Arts.

Even though Dolma has achieved Girl Scout’s highest award, the Homer High School sophomore said she is going to continue on with Girl Scouts and do more work on recycling.
There’s always more work to do on education about the environment and the benefits of seeing trash in new ways, she reasons.
“I’m going to keep doing the recycling work because there’s more to do,” she said. Homer High School, for example, doesn’t use plastic trays. A lot of styrofoam and paper fills the trash bins each day at lunch.
Dolma, along with EcoLogical’s Adi Davis and Taylor Ellison, were also recognized with the 2010 Spirit of Youth Award, and the 2010 and 2011 President’s Environmental Youth Award. She was individually awarded the 2009 Prudential Spirit Award (for beach cleanup).

HOMER TRIBUNE/Naomi Klouda - Mike and Dorothy Cline with Dorothy’s new book, “Ravens Paints the Birds.”

A long time ago, birds were colorless, a dull gray that displeased Raven and his friend Jay. Ever industrious from his lofty perch, Raven finds a colorful river bank, plucks a feather from Jay and sets to solving the problem.
The result, based on an ancient Athabascan story, is retold by retired Paul Banks Elementary teacher Dorothy Cline, who many will know as Dotty. The seeds of the story published in “Raven Paints the Birds” came to her four decades ago while working in the village of Tanana. 
“I played with the story for 40 years. It’s a little tale that was told to me in Tanana about why ravens are black. It was the kind of story you could think about and stretch it in your mind,” Cline recalled. “I would tell the story over and over through the years, to students, to my children and now my grandchildren. I’m still telling the story and finally, I decided to just write it.”
The story of raven’s ultimate cleverness isn’t without trickery. We find out why the grebe lacks a tail, how come the loon looks splattered and why the tanager twins come in separate coloring. The legendary bird’s behavior in the story documents an ancient knowledge of raven’s  arrogance, his inventiveness and his generosity. 
The indigenous tale, told to Cline by the late Lee Edwin, Sr. of Tanana, held these concepts even in its briefness. Cline “stretched and embellished” it, mindful of showing respect for the original story.
“Lee told me the story about ‘Crow’ who discovered a special place on the river where the clay was many colors.  He used the clay to paint the birds, but when it was time to paint Grebe, Swan and Loon he was tired, so he painted them any old way and that made them mad,” Cline recalled. “The three birds threw Crow in the dark mud, making him black.  In retaliation he kicked Grebe so it didn’t have any tail, he put ashes on the swan, which made it white and he splattered the loon.”
Cline adds in other bird species for a colorfully illustrated story book both children and adults can love. The town’s fondness for the Sandhill crane, for example, isn’t overlooked. Cline will tell  you how he received a red crested head. 
Colorful as the book is, the illustrations posed the biggest challenge for the author. To get Raven’s postures right, Dotty and her husband, Mike Cline, sat at the McNeil Canyon dumpster for hours observing them in action. In her worry about how to give his eyes correct expressions, she consulted Alaska artist Gary Lyon. 
“He said, ‘here’s what you do.’ He showed me how to make bird’s eyes more expressive. And he encouraged me. That kind of encouragement really helps you.”
Cline began with finger paintings by three of her five grandchildren. Then she cut shapes out and pasted them to a scenic background also made of the cutouts. The result gives the illustrations the look of playful but accurate shapes.
Both Mike and Dotty Cline were longtime teachers. She came to Tanana in the early 1970s as young teacher who acted as an intermediary for village people enrolled in a teacher education program and the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The idea was to help the college students remain in their own villages while completing their teaching certification. Cline was the “bridge” between villagers and the UAF. (One of her students was the daughter of Lee Edwin Sr., who had told her the story.) She met Mike when he also began working with this program. The two taught in Noorvik and Deering before their move to Homer where they wanted to raise their two children around their own culture. Dotty taught music 19 years at Paul Banks Elementary and served four years as the school librarian. 
In retirement, Mike has written and published “Bear Hunter: Adventures of a Koyukon Boy.” The Clines help and encourage one another on their projects. During the work of “Raven Paints the Birds,” Mike urged his wife on through encouragement. 
A seemingly simple children’s book can become complicated when it deals with an indigenous Alaskan tale. 
“I went through a lot of stories searching to see if it was written down by others, and I found only one reference to it in a collection,” Cline said. “I wanted to honor my responsibilities to the owners of the story. I struggled with that for a while. But it’s wonderful when we can share one another’s stories. We’re honoring that connection.”
Already at work on a new project, Cline is collecting photos and stories for a children’s biography on Paul Banks. He was a Homer homesteader, the school’s janitor and a musician whose songs she also compiled in a book. This will give new generations a knowledge of his many contributions. 

Photos courtesy of Shelia Best - Lynn and Freddie Pollard bought and re-opened Rocky’s Straight-Inn Lodge off Oil Well Road in the Caribou Hills in Ninilchik, and named it Freddie’s Roadhouse.

From four-wheeler riders mudding in spring and summer, to hunters in fall, and to snowmachiners and dog mushers in winter, the Caribou Hills beckons temptingly to many who enjoy the outdoors.
Not everyone is fortunate enough to have a cabin there, though. For those who don’t, new ownership of a well-known establishment at Mile 16 of Oil Well Road will offer weary travelers some respite.
“People in the Caribou Hills needed a place and we wanted to give it to them,” said Lynn Pollard.
She and her husband, Freddie, have been working hard for the past year to renovate the structures and property of the old Rocky’s Straight-In Lodge, now called Freddie’s Roadhouse.
“My husband always liked the place when it was Rocky’s, and was sad when it closed,” Pollard said.
The establishment went on the real-estate market, and the Pollards made their move.
“The price was right,” she said. “I don’t think we’ll ever make money on it, but that wasn’t the goal. The goal was to give people a place to come and have fun, and that it’s more of a family establishment than a bar atmosphere.”
The Pollards have renovated the six cabins and two rooms for rent within the roadhouse, all of which have heat and electricity. They have also created a website and Facebook page. On the latter, they make regular updates about snow conditions in the hills and trails, some of which they are maintaining with grooming equipment until there is enough snow for the Caribou Hills Cabin Hoppers to break out its much-larger trail groomers.

“My husband is hoping to get snowmachine races going again up there, so he bought a groomer to work on a race strip and he has been putting in the Straight-In Trail,” Lynn said.
As fall turned to winter, Freddie’s has been staying open seven days a week, rather than five. Tawny Osmar manages the roadhouse during the week and said the place has been staying busy.
“We’ve got it going on,” she said. “In addition to the cabin and room rentals, we’ve got a restaurant where we serve burgers, Phillies, chicken strips and things like that. We serve beer and wine. We sell gas. We have Wi-Fi, and a big TV, and lots of games for families tired of sitting around their cabins — pinball, foosball, air hockey and pool.”

Photos courtesy of Shelia Best - The roadhouse’s main building includes a kitchen, bar, pool and other activities for visitors. The roadhouse has been a hub of activity for visitors to the Caribou Hills since the snow has arrived.

Osmar said that, in summer, most of the clientele were locals from Kenai, Soldotna or Ninilchik, but as snow has flown travelers from farther away are starting to stop in.
“We have a lot of people on day trips come up and stop in for lunch or a drink and then head back down, but we’re also starting to get cabin rentals from people coming down for the weekend from Anchorage, Eagle River and all over.”
With few other lodges open to the public in the Caribou Hills, and the Clam Shell Lodge no longer open to host races, fundraisers and other events, Steve Attleson, a board member with the Caribou Hills Cabin Hoppers, said that having a roadhouse on the road system is a boom for snowmachiners and others.
“It is, for sure, nice to have the place open again,” he said. “In addition to the food, drinks and lodging, there is plenty of room for parking. You could easily park 100 snowmachines or better there. So, for what we’re trying to do with our Napa Fun Run, the (Way Out Women) Ride, and helping with the (Tustumena 200 Sled Dog Race), this should make a great place to stop, start or gather.”
Even when not taking part in an organized event, Attleson said that the roadhouse is a tempting treat after spending a day in the cold and wind.
“When getting together to go for a ride, it’s nice to have a place to go in, warm up, dry off and get some lunch before turning around and heading home,” he said.