Forest Fires, king salmon, seals, and stupid governments...

We launched the boat at 2 PM today and ran it up and down the river for an hour to put time on the new engine. We use the 42-foot Brisk to traspor salmon tom markets. There are hundreds of seal in the river attacking the king salmon as they come in.

Earlier today Mary and I were evicted out of our house one AM by police. A big forest fire was within a mile of us. The air was very smokey and it was scarry. You could see flames from our porch. We packed our guns and computers and drove to the boat in Kenai. The highway was packed with people leaving their homes. We slept on the Brisk until 8 AM after which we her the fire had died down by itself when it hit the swamp below us. Nine AM we took our two dogs and drove back home where I slept another two hours.

The fire is still raging and has consumed over 90,000 acres or bout 90 square miles. It jumped the funny river road and is heading north. The wind picked up from the southwest at 30 MPH. Six Canadian fire tanker aircraft are fighting the fire along with 400 fire fighters from all over and many Air Force Blackhawk helocopters. Hundreds of local people donated their time nd pickup trucks to transport fire fighters. This fire will consume more than 100 sqare miles of forest.

It makes me angry that our government Forest Service will sit on their buts for fifty years watching the tress grow without putting in section lines and fire breaks. I am going to write our Congressmen and tell them if the Statem Federal and Borough governments want to own land they should take care of it. If not then at least let people homestead it. The waste hundreds of millions fighting fires when they should be allowing poeple to hunt moose and spruck hens, harvest house logs, pick mushrooms and cut firewood on public lands. Instead they guard it with uniformed officers to keep people off it and then watch it all go up in smoke.

At the very least they should pay people to put in roads and section lines (fire breaks). If the government can't take care of the land then they should not own the land. Let the people have it. 
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I have two new books out. One about my father and one about my mother, the Nurse who delivered more than 200 babies including me.