So there’s this amazing nationwide program called, “Becoming an Outdoors Woman” (BOW). Every spring, for three days, Alaska Department of Fish & Game (in conjunction with the Outdoor Heritage Foundation of Alaska) hosts a crew of adventurous women at Juneau’s Echo Ranch. I’ve had my eye on BOW ever since we moved to Juneau, 3 ½ years ago, and finally had a shot at attending this year. Let me share my experiences with you.
FRIDAY:
It is 10:30 pm and I’m up writing while the other nine ladies in my warm and cozy cabin snooze peacefully, save for one other night owl who is still up reading. Such a long and rainy day behind me now, but such a rewarding one. Tomorrow promises to be even better!
The day began at Juneau’s Western Auto parking lot, where we aspiring outdoor women boarded a bus to Echo Cove. The bus driver, though I didn’t catch his name, was hilarious! He talked nearly the entire ride and had us laughing all the way. He dropped us off at the Echo Cove parking lot, nearly the last sign of civilization in north Juneau, to begin a 2.5 mile trek through sand, rock, rain and drippy trees to reach the camp at Echo Ranch. For those of you who do not live in the rainforest or sport gills, a little (or a lot) of rain does not deter Juneauites…we simply slip on our rain suits and get on with it. Not necessarily because we want to, but because that is life in Juneau and there is no other option.
After the long slog to camp, we checked in, grabbed our luggage and headed to our cabins. Thank God, we didn’t have to carry out bags all the way to camp! The camp staff took care of that for us.
Expeditiously reaching your assigned cabin is a must, if you want to claim a good bunk. Pity the poor souls, staggering around in a sea of cabins like extras from The Walking Dead, bent over under 800 pound packs, desperately searching for their assigned shelter.
Rule One: take a minute to reach into the goodie bag issued by staff and consult the cabin map.
With wonderful luck, I claimed a top bunk and a good friend I badgered into coming along with me got the next top bunk over. Score!
Once we were settled, it was time for lunch, and let me tell you, it was phenomenal. Maybe I was just starving from the hike or maybe the food at Echo Ranch is just that good. I’m betting on both. Burritos/tacos/nachos with no fixing left behind. DELISH! And snikerdoodle cookies to boot! Seriously, I’m salivating on my keyboard at the thought of going back and eating it all over again.
With our bellies stuffed, it was time for our first class.
Canning Class
One of the main reasons I wanted to attend BOW was to attend the canning class I’d heard such amazing things about. I’m no stranger to canning jellies and syrups but I never quite understood the logistics of canning salmon, a practical and much prized skill in this part of the world.
Our fearless instructor, Sarah Lewis, is on the right in the above photo. She gave us brief instructions on how to filet our fish for canning and then handed it to us to do ourselves. Some of us, like Kristie (above), were really good at this! Others, such as myself, were not. But to be fair, Kristie owns Alaska Glacier Seafoods so she’s had a experience filleting salmon. Honestly I don’t even know why she was there because I feel like Kristie is already a bad-to-the-bone Alaskan Outdoors Woman…. teach me your ways please, Kristie!
As a side note, I ate the caribou we had canned only days later in a stew and it was really stinking delicious.
Check out how we were dressed for this mid May class. Yes, it was every bit as cold as it looked.
Canning class ultimately lived up to its hype…. and getting to take home the jars we put together was just icing on the cake!
Dutch Oven Class
One class I wasn’t able to take covered the art of Dutch Oven cooking and holy-freaking-wow was it phenomenal! How do I know this? Because of the first day’s “Dutch Oven Social,” where everyone got the luxury of sampling the endless pots of deliciousness that were concocted by the people lucky enough to take the class.
Rule Two: Get your hands on a Dutch oven recipe book. BTW, does anyone from Juneau know of any copies floating around? Because I’d kill for one.
By some unfortunate glitch, the Dutch Oven Social came only 30 minutes before dinner, so there were big decisions to make at that point: stuff ourselves on Dutch oven deliciousness or save room for what was sure to be a scrumptious dinner made by the camp cooks?! The quandary was too much for me, so I compromised by doing both. Dinner that first evening consisted of chicken breasts, potatoes, broccoli, rolls, and a huge salad bar. And cake of course. I left dinner as full as a tick. Don’t hate me.
Laser Tag
Laser tag. You guys! So much fun, except I do not recommend the submerged-in-rain version if you wear glasses like me, and especially if you’re wearing a hot pink rain coat that screams, “Shoot me!” It won’t work out any better for you than it did for me. I’m just sayin’…Don’t be like me. Be like my friend, Mary Anne. She’s short and spunky and she kicked some laser tag butt!
There were other things to do that evening and I couldn’t do them all. Beach volleyball (in the rain) and a bonfire with s’mores (in the rain), either of which may have been better choices than laser tag (in the rain) but I digress. It was all good fun!
Sleeping Arrangements
Let’s talk for a moment about cabin camping. There is no electricity in the Echo Ranch cabins. When it gets dark, you need a flashlight, maybe a small electric lantern (which I had and loved) and/or a headlamp. The bunk beds have mattress pads, so just a simple sleeping bag and possibly a pillow make for cozy slumber. There is a wood stove in every cabin, and you’ll want to use it because Alaskan summers are sort of….Alaskan, especially once the sun goes down at, say, eleventeen thirty pm. There is room to hang a clothes line, which is an awesome feature when your clothes get soaked, except the cold humidity up here assures that they will never dry (It’s the rain forest, people, so expect this). A bonus would be a small electric fan for white noise sleeping…just be sure it isn’t the cheap $20 version from Sp*#@>man’s Warehouse that runs out of power three hours into the night and leaves you with deafening silence…not that I have any experience with this sort of thing…..
SATURDAY:
Let’s move on to Breakfast. Our first breakfast consisted of French toast, ham, rhubarb syrup drained straight outta somewhere in Heaven, cold cereal varieties, oatmeal and grape juice. Just wow. Seriously, my stomach has never felt so full (except for maybe after last night’s dinner).
Coffee
The first morning in camp is largely defined by how well you manage to sleep in a quiet cabin, surrounded by the strangers who will soon be your friends. You should have seen the coffee line! But for those cursed souls like me, who cannot indulge in caffeine unless chasing it with a tranquilizing dart, the decaf line consisted of just one person….me. Yay! By the second morning, the coffee line was much smaller, probably because the staff wised up and started filling coffee carafes a good two hours before they were needed. Good for them! Who would guess that a group of women would need so much caffeine? Not me. And not the nice coffee lady, but she learned so quickly! Bless her heart.
Smoking/Pickling/Gravlax class
This was the second course I was able to score. Interestingly, many of the same women from the previous day’s canning class were enrolled as well. Our instructor was Charles Swanton, Deputy Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. He was awesome, and so stinking funny, I hope he is able to come back next year to teach you, too.
If you don’t know what gravlax is, you’re not alone. It’s a dish consisting of raw salmon that has been cured in salt and sugar (and dill?). It’s served sliced very thinly and is so crazy delicious. It’s not to be confused with lox, which is smoked before being cured.
Smoking the salmon is such a time consuming process, but so worth it in the end. We didn’t get to finish it all in our class, so we each took turns coming back to the class location at various times during the day to turn the salmon and then package it when it was completed.
Part 1 Conclusion
And finally, that concludes our first day and a half. Tune back in for Part Two of this two part series on Becoming an Outdoors Woman, as it promises to be even more exciting than the first!