Seldovia

Seldovia is not reachable by road.  Seldovia is for relaxing. You'll find that out if you spend more than one afternoon there. Daily ferry service from Homer offers transport for pedestrians. They show up for about 3 hours and leave on the same ferry. If you don't like to be away from your car, you're going to have to spend some time in the area. The ferry for cars only comes by every 3 or 4 days, depending on how you hit it.  In my case it was 4 days. That ferry continues on to Kodiak.

These first two pictures of of Inner Beach during slack tide, which happened to coincide with the only good sunset during the 4 days i was looking. The far end of Inner Beach has a remarkable yellow and red cliff wall.

One weekend i got up at 4 am so i could drive down to Homer and catch the ferry just before noon. I brought along my ATV, because i planned on going to this place called Red Mountain, and trying to get to an awesomely named ghostown known as "Chrome". The drive was uneventful, except for a grizzly bear at 5am just outside of Anchorage. It was running down the center of the highway at an impressive speed. There was a moose and calf several hundred yards down the road pinned against a bluff, so maybe that had something to do with it. Also exquisite fog and sun effects in 20 Mile Valley screamed at me to stop for pictures but i really didn't have time.

If  you take some time to look around you will see many fine things in Seldovia.

When i first arrived in Seldovia i felt a momentary tinge of panic on realizing just how small the town was, and how long i was "stuck" there. I drove off the ferry and then less than half a mile to check in at my room. From there i continued on foot to find the town ended only two blocks later. Wow, i was going to be here for 4 days and had already seen everything! After a half day of traveling in a typical hurried fashion, Seldovia demands that you relax, slow down to a leisurely pace and divert more attention towards the present. Oh yeah, there's no cell phone service either (at least not with AT&T).

  There are many fine properties in Seldovia, and many more for sale. Some, like the one above, are available as rentals for visitors.

 I found out this house is where Santa Claus lives during the summer months. He sits on the porch enjoying the sun.

 The quaint town of less than 300 people is too crowded for some residents, who choose instead to live in secluded spots only reachable by boat. This home lies on an amazing spit forming the far side of the bay.

The town occupies about a 1/2 square mile and the boat docks take up one whole side of it. Another way to describe it's size is to point out that the town is the same length as the airport runway (which is for small planes only). Much of what you will come in contact with as a visitor is run by people who only live there in the summer, and return to outside homes in Oregon or California after September. There are two restaurants in town, and one of them doesn't serve breakfast, so you might want to bring some food. There is a "general" store but i don't think i ever managed to hit it when it was open. It closes at 3pm. There is one small bar which has live music at night.

Ten thousand foot Mt. Iliamna dominates the view to the west at dawn. Mt. Iliamna is an active stratovolcano and marks the southeastern corner of Lake Clark National Park. It last erupted in 1953 but currently has active fumaroles coming off the flanks.

 I'm a sucker for inverted mountain tops and distant mesas.

The streets of Seldovia are mostly gravel and are roamed only by grizzled fishermen, packs of dogs and ATV's. There's a sad lack of vegetation between much of the gravel and the water. It may have to do with the towns former waterfront being destroyed in 1964.

I have to admit, riding around town on an ATV is pretty darned fun. The dogs, though, were always amusing, and were what really won me over with Seldovia. I haven't been anywhere where there were so many loose, unsupervised dogs, and i was able to witness a lot of social behavior that i haven't seen before. They were never a nuisance. Some dogs hung outside of restaurants hoping for handouts, some lay in the middle of the street, some would bring a ball up to you looking for some fun.  Others would make regular rounds in town, checking up on old friends both human and animal. I saw a stinky black lab that would walk down to the ocean and go for a swim, then lay out in the sun above the public docks. And then there were the dogs who knew it was time for their master to come home from a long day of fishing. Several of them made a daily trip to docks at the appointed time to wait on the hill, staring patiently out to sea.

From the school you can walk the one mile "Otterbahn" trail, built by students, through the forest out to a marble beach. 

Branches look like were shot into the tree like arrows.

Across a slough from the marble beach is Outer Beach, which can be reached by car/bike. It's much larger than Inner Beach and it looked like you could camp there.

There are a number of places to stay and camp in Seldovia. They run the gamut from high priced all inclusive fisherman resorts to patches of bare dirt. I happened to stay at a place called the Sea Parrot Inn. The webpage looked suspicious, with no real photos, but it turned out to be a very nice B&B with private bathrooms. I seemed to be the only person there so i used a bit of my time to trade my stay in exchange for some better pictures of the place. They have bunch of nice pictures now so i don't understand why the website hasn't really changed. It was a good place though.

 It's common practice with stock Alaska photos to add a pink gradient to the sky.

When i was taking pictures here by the boardwalk one night two young girls came from the nearby bar and had a conversation on the pier, while one smoked. Their voices carried far and clear. It was a fairly familiar small town conversation. One girl wanted to leave and go to the big city (Anchorage or Seattle), the other valued the deep sense of place and relationships she had developed over her lifetime in the town. Both had a hard time listing more than two or three acceptable men available for marriage. In the background traditional songs of the sea could be heard emanating from the bar.

Seldovia is pretty at night too, and if i'd had the energy i'd have liked to have walked out to that marble beach during the full moon.

I don't know at what point in time i made the transition from busy to relaxed. It may have been that first evening, when looking to do something that required some legwork i hiked through the woods along the "Otterbahn" trail to Outside Beach. The west end of the beach, where the trail leads is made up of white marble benches and boulderfields polished by waves. The first time i've seen marble by the ocean, i found myself just wandering around looking at things. Before long it was  sunset (think late at night). After that i had a rather enjoyable time and the days went by with ease.

Some buildings, like this one, look abandoned but have squatters living inside them.

On the way out of town (within easy walking distance) there is an old Russian Orthodox cemetery that doubles as a wildflower garden.

The sun briefly shines through a gap in the clouds as it sets behind Lake Clark National Park.

This is the first part in my series of posts on the Kachemak Bay area. You can read about the other interesting places in the area by clicking the links below:

Halibut Cove: A beautiful artists community across the bay.

Red Mountain: A hiking area near Seldovia that looks like SW Colorado

Homer: The traditional End of the Road

Or see what's beyond Homer: Around Kachemak Bay, Thereabouts