Possum wool?

I was just checking out Rivendell's website and came across this rad hat that they are selling made from 40% New Zealand Possum Wool, 50% Merino and 10% Nylon. Check out the link and read about it. The New Zealand Possum is different from our native opossum and was introduced there years ago. Unfortunately it causes a lot of damage to the native flora and fauna of NZ so people are trying to wipe them out. This is much like the nutria (Myocastor coypus) here in the US which causes much damage by eating up massive amounts of wetland vegitation and pushing the native muskrats out of their territory.

It just so happens that I will be leading a workshop through Trackers NW of Portland this Tues. and Wed. where we will cycle out to a farm in the Portland area where the nutria devour many of the farms crops. Here we will speak with the farmers, do some tracking for the little buggers and then set traps. The following day we will pedal back out early in the morn and check our traps. If we catch some of these big rodents we will ride back with them on our racks and skin and process them at TrackersNW. Participants will learn about the ethics of trapping animals and how to do it responsibly and how to skin, butcher, and tan the hide of a small critter.
I often think about this idea of native and non-native or invasive species. The reality is that the nutria or the NZ possum is not evil, it is just doing what it does best and it is a master of survival because it can prosper and multiply in many environments. However, it brings sadness to me to see the native species be killed off and lose them potentially forever. The reality is that nature has a way of balancing itself out and what I am witnessing is this process. Someday, the nutria may take the place of the muskrat over much of North America and it is silly for us to fight this change. I say we need to embrace these species and realize that they are capable of providing much for us and for others. For example: abundant sources of fur, meat, fat for humans and predatory animals. (Last year while trapping nutria, I came upon a bald eagle feasting on one of the nutria in my traps.) Which brings me back to my excitement about this NZ possum fur hat that Riv is selling. The makers of these hats are making use of an abundant renewable resource, unlike polyester and other plastic fibers made from oil. If life gives you lemons make some fuckin' lemonade my friends!

Winter Hats

I do have some Alpine hats in stock in black and grey. These are $40 plus $5 ship/handle. I will also be posting some of my Wheely, 3 panel and 8 panel hats with earflaps. These will come in 2 sizes, unlike the Alpine, because the body of the hat is made from woven wool and not stretchy like the Alpine caps are. I'm in the process of getting my hat studio in order after moving it all from a basement into an 8'x 12' camper. It was previously owned by someone else who had a sewing business of sorts in it. It looks like a piece of junk but I love it so far. I have been working out of basements for the past 5 years and god damn, it feels good to finally be working in an above-ground space with natural light shinin' in. Here's a photo of the space so far.

Raising the Yurt

Building a Home

Insulating the floor before we lay the deck. I had no idea how expensive insulation is! Damn. Unfortunately we have been told that the mice will eventually steal all of it from us to build there nests. Damn.

The yurt we purchased came with all of the pre-cut car decking. Trying to lay this out and hope that it matched the shape of our beams was a little frustrating.

But it all came together nicely in the end. A cup of coffee as I contemplate laying the final deck boards.

Finally! All 183 boards in place. My back hurts!

The old camper that will become my new mobile sewing studio. Ideally I'd like to outfit it with some human powered sewing machines and a small woodstove. Thats the next project.

Moving to the Country

I've been wanting to move out of the city for a few years now and it finally feels like the time is right. All of the other attempts I made fell through. We discussed it a lot this summer while traveling and when we returned, Kirsten and I decided to move to a small farm, run by a few friends about 45 miles from Portland. We bought a yurt used on Craigslist from the Seattle area and picked it up in the U-haul pictured. It's a 30' diameter yurt and all of the parts were a lot bigger than we expected. The brand is Pacific Yurts out of Cottage Grove, OR. We hope to move into it by Oct. 1st. Below is the post and beam structure for the deck that the yurt will sit on. Our plan is to live here and help to run the small CSA (community supported agriculture)farm started by our friends. If all works out, I will move my hat sewing studio with me in a small camper. I'll post more photos as the yurt goes up.

Back to Portland

It was a five day drive from Skagway, AK to Portland and we are home again! The sunshine feels good on my face after our last rainy week in Juneau. I had the realization when we hit B.C. and the skies cleared, that I haven't really seen any stars since the bike tour through Washington. Though I live in the city, I have become accustom to looking up at the stars each season to see a few familiar constellations. While in SE Alaska though, most nights were cloudy and I sort of forgot about looking skyward. My overall impression of SE Alaska? I like it there. It feels big in comparison to the lower 48, not just because of land size but because of big creatures, moose, bear, whales, caribou, salmon and halibut. People were really generous and everyone that I met seemed to have an intimate relationship with the place, either as fishermen, hunters, backpackers or kayakers. Even if they didn't fish, they could tell you about all the different types of salmon and when and where they run. I like the fact that it is expensive to ship goods such as, beef, dairy, tomatoes and oranges, so instead, or rather because they prefer to, folks stock their freezers with halibut, salmon and moose that their family or friends harvested. All of this makes me want to move there. But the one thing that I seemed to have trouble with was the rain. I was told that it rains all year long and most of the time we were there, it did. The few days of clear 85 degree weather in July were very unusual, even alarming to locals. As much as I don't mind the wet Portland winters, I feel some amount of depression by the end of it and look forward to the guaranteed 3-4 months of sunshine in summer. Anyway, I'm happy to be home and don't intend to leave Oregon anytime soon. Below are more photos.

Porcupine chillin' in a tree overlooking the Mendenhall Glacier.


Mendenhall Glacier from West Glacier Trail as we started our hike up to some mountain I can't remember the name of.


Mountain goat relaxing in the meadow.

More of the glacier as we ascend.


Wild buffalo herds along the ALCAN highway


We made a visit to Liard Hot Springs in Northern B.C. It was $10 per vehicle to get in and the hot springs were really nice. Unlike some popular hotsprings, the park service kept these pretty natural, rather than turning it into a big concrete pool.

We met this awesome woman through craig's list who was moving from Anchorage to Portland and hitched a ride home with her. Kirsten and I drove her truck some of the way as she cruised down the ALCAN on her motorcycle. This made our return trip a lot more fun and inexpensive than flying or ferrying.

A young caribou

I wished I was bike touring through this. I kept thinking that maybe I should hop on my bike and ride the rest of the way back to Portland so that I could travel some of the route we had originally intended to ride through B.C., but the further south we got the less interesting and busier the roads became. The drive from Prince George, B.C. to Bellingham, WA didn't look to appealing to bike with all of it's big truck traffic and construction zones. In the end, I felt happy about the decision we made to stop the bike tour in Bellingham and ferry it up to Juneau rather than bike up to Prince Rupert. It is good to be back in Portland and I'm looking forward to harvesting and preserving some fruit, nuts and wild mushrooms as summer turns to fall.

Fishing and a Visit to Gustavus, AK

We made a visit to Gustavus last week, a tiny little town with no police, no hospital, lots of bears, moose, wolves, porcupines and nice people who wave at you when they drive past. Before we left, I tried my hand at fishing for salmon and bought a one day license. We drove around trying to find a few hot spots where I could fish from the bank. In the end, I snagged two dog salmon that broke free before I could land them and caught two flounder, one of which I kept and cooked up. Below are the pictures.

Starry Flounder. Didn't expect to land a flounder while fishing for salmon. Probably because I'm a sucky fisherman and wasn't using the proper tackle for the job. I had to borrow a rod from someone that was suited only for trout fishing, not salmon. So it's probably best that I didn't catch one.


My homemade fish cooker. The flounder was really mushy. After much cooking, it never really felt like it was cooked. I probably could have drank it with a straw.

Black bear tracks! Awesomeness. These were right across the street from a suburban neighborhood along a creek.

Dog salmon aka. chum salmon line the waterways everywhere around here and they are starting to stink in the hot sun. An amazing source of food for all life. I have read about this happening but never witnessed it in Oregon. Supposedly dog salmon are only fit for the dogs but a friend told me that they serve it down at the homeless shelter so I fileted one and cooked it up along with my flounder. It was actually pretty damn tasty. Ok not as pink and tasty as other salmon but way better than flounder, catfish, or carp. People have the privledge to be picky when the king and coho are so plentiful.



The Chilkat range at sunset from the catamaran that we took to Gustavus. The exceptionally hot weather up here has caused a huge forest fire in the Yukon, hence the smoke haze making the sun look like a firey red orb in this picture.

More black bear tracks on the beach. We found all sorts of amazing tracks on a hike we did from the Gustavus dock to Bartlett Cove. The sand and clay made for really clear tracks and clear depictions of the animals' gates.

Wolf tracks! My mind kept telling me that they were big domestic dog tracks, but the perfect gait that went from a direct registering diagonal walk to occasional gallops made me second guess that, not to mention the very few human tracks along this completely unpopulated beach. After reading "Of Wolves and Men" by Barry Lopez, I have a hard time believeing that wolves even exist anywhere anymore. It is astounding and horrific how many millions of them were (and still are) eradicated by ranchers and hunters using poisons, traps, intentional scarcoptic mange infestations, guns and airplanes to shoot from. Seeing these made my heart sing knowing that there are still places where wolves roam. Later in the week, I bought some plaster from the hardware store and made plaster casts of some wolf tracks.

Porcupine. These little guys seemed to roam all along the edge of the forest and the beach leaving their distinct prints with long claws and occasional tail drag marks.


Wild strawberries were in season and very plentiful. We picked many bags of them and made a strawberry rhubarb crisp one evening with friends. These were big compared to other wild strawberries I've had and super yummy!

Kirsten's friend works as a kayak guide and took us out on a kayak overnight trip in the Beardsley Islands of Glacier Bay National Park. On the paddle out we saw a black bear swim from one island to the next.

The bear exiting the water and heading off into the woods.

View from some island we camped on looking Northwest out toward the Fairweather Mtn. Range at sunset. We fell asleep or tried to listening to sea otters flopping about in the water and what seemed to be large animals walking around the woods behind us. It can be hard to sleep soundly knowing that their are bears roaming about you at all times! The sky became light at about 3:30 am and I couldn't get back to sleep again. We had to pack up and paddle out by 6:00 am so we could beat the receding tide through the passage back to the dock and make sure our friend made it to work that morning. Our timing was a little off and we ended up having to carry and drag the kayaks for 100 yards or so through the 5" deep water. That evening we caught the catamaran back to Juneau. Here we plan to stay until Aug 20th when we will catch a craigslist rideshare through B.C. back to Portland. Until then, we are off to do more hiking, tracking and berry picking!