Thursday, July 5, 2007

So... a reporter in Homer, Alaska is running a story on my whole book thang! Yay for me! Now a little bit about beautiful Homer. When I traveled to Alaska in the summer of 2004, I only ventured as far as Seward, but after reading up on Homer, I'll be sure to go on my next trip! The phrase on their tourist site says "Welcome, to where the road ends, and the sea begins..." and this is a perfect way of describing this wonderful place. Kachemak Bay and lower Cook Inlet waters are world renown for halibut fishing. I had a Halibut sandwich in Anchorage, it was amazing! Some little known facts about Homer - Archaeologists have uncovered stone tools that date back more than 5,000 years and were left by the Ocean Bay people. Hey I'm Scottish and 5000 years is a long time even for me! - Maps of Kachemak Bay from the 1800s identify the rich coal deposits embedded in the bluffs on Kachemak Bay’s north shore. The abundance of the coal drew the North Pacific Mining and Transportation Co. and the Alaska Coal Co. to develop a coal mining industry. I had no idea Alaska was known for coal, oil seems to stand out more than anything else. As for many peoples belief that you can't go to Alaska in winter time - Snow can start falling in October. Serious snow comes in November, and in the higher elevations can last until May. Beluga Lake and other ponds can be safe and ready for skating by December. In town, snow rarely gets more than a couple of feet thick, while in the hills the snow pack can reach 10 feet or deeper by winter’s end. Sounds no worse than New York! Then there's the Homer Spit - a naturally occurring phenomenon extending four miles from the mainland into the depths of Kachemak Bay, which is a busy port and the center of Homer’s sport and commercial fishing industry. Overhead, bald eagles take to flight in the fresh air circling high above and bear, moose and wolves keep to the peninsula’s forested areas. Sounds like heaven on earth to me. I've been trying to persuade my husband that Alaska is as close to Scotland as we'll get without leaving the US, maybe Homer's the place for us. (All facts from various sources, please correct me if I'm wrong)

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