Basket Making, Bears and Salmon

 Friday, I went to a Basket Making class at the Pratt Museum in Homer. My sisters were suppose to be there but one was ill and the other went back to California early.

The funny thing is I met a women a couple of days before at the Two Sister’s Bakery, then she came into the toy store and showed up at the basket class. 

The class, as the teacher stated, was not going to involve a lot of technic, but rather our primal memories to build our own unique basket. She had collected grasses, willow and spruce branches, shells, rocks, feathers and many other natural items. She started us with the spruce and sea grass to start our baskets and gave us hints and ideas as we build them.

Mavis Muller led the class, you can see her work here.

Also google her name to see her work.

https://www.facebook.com/BurningBasketProject/

Starting to work on our baskets.

We each randomly, like pickings card from a deck, choose a base to start our project.
I picked the Swan.

The baskets created by all of us.

My basket.

Me with my basket.

On Saturday, my sister and I drave up to Copper Landing to watch the salmon run and bears. Although, we saw fresh tracks and scat, we did not see the bears, a mom and her cub by the size of the tracks.

Bear Track with sister’s shoe

We ran into a Park Ranger, Tom, at the Falls, said hello and chatted for a few minutes. He thought my sister was someone he knew. As we were walking back he was standing at path that went off into the woods. He asked if we had some time, he would take us to the salmon weir, where he counts the salmon coming upstream. We trusted he wasn’t a serial killer and off we went. The bear tracks, pictured above, were on the path he guided us on. We walked for about a mile stoppping at a few scenic places to take pictures. He explained what he did when we got to the weir. His cabin that he been calling home for 18 summers was across the river. We continues up to the Lower Russian Lake, then into the bushes to gather a few blueberries the bears had missed. We didn’t stay long as we knew the bears were nearby. It was a great side trip that we won’t forget, hopefully we will see him again.

Me, Tom and Lisa at Lower Russian Lake