Gold Rush Days

A timed event - whomever gets through the log fastest wins - winner was about 33 seconds!

There's an annual outdoor celebration of Juneau's historic traditions - logging and mining - called Gold Rush Days.  It's held at a park on Douglas Island, and there's logging and mining contests to watch and of course food stalls and fun bouncy houses for the kids.  It's free, so we went on late Sunday morning to watch the logging activities (apparently mining was Saturday).

There were pole climbing events, chainsawing, hand sawing, and vertical chopping (with an axe)...all timed events.  

 

 

The winner took only 16 seconds!

Fastest time up wins - winner was ~30 seconds.  He practically ran up it!  Note - no safety line.

There's a lot less logging happening in SE Alaska these days, but it's traditionally been a big industry up here.  This t-shirt made me laugh:

Earlier in the day, we took Seca out to Auke Recreation Area for a walk.  There was a really low tide this morning, so we poked around in the tide pools a bit, and Seca found a nice, stinky and cushy spot for a rest...in the wet kelp!

There must be a salmon fishing opener today because there's dozens of small gillnet boats heading out of the harbor this morning.  We watched a steady stream pass by for at least 25 minutes. 

Steve, relaxing.

 At really low tides you can see rings of color from the different vegetation that's exposed.  The orange stuff is kelp, I don't know what the inner light green ring is - some sort of algae maybe?