Heather Lende

HEATHER LENDE

Through bugs, wind and wrecks, just keep on pedalin'

It rained last night and is still raining and that is a fine thing, because here in Southeast -- even the drier northern tip -- we are cloud-loving people. We get a little anxious when the sun shines too much. Also this rain is a good reason to take one more day off after the bike race and my calves are thanking me.

HEATHER LENDE

Alaskans double as tourists

On the alpine trail through the spruce and hemlock forest, next to the full river rolling down in foamy waves before dropping over a ledge, it was dry.

HEATHER LENDE

Graduation is a good kind of craziness

I would like to report objectively on the Haines High class of 2009 graduation. But I can't, because my youngest daughter was one of the 21 students who eventually received diplomas and because, if you had asked me in December, I would have placed the odds of her wearing that white cap and gown at 50-50 -- and I am perpetually optimistic.

HEATHER LENDE

Last graduation leaves more time for the raspberries

Haines almost made the news again this week but happily dodged another disaster after a fire started by a road-building crew jumped into the brush and began to run up the hill below a neighborhood.

HEATHER LENDE

Tragedy interrupts pleasure of Southeast sun

I can't remember if the sun has been shining for 18 days or 28 days. Of course by sun shining I don't mean Arizona style, I mean southeast Alaska style, as in not raining. But even so, we have had so many bright days that I'm dizzy. It is hard to concentrate. As one high school honor student confessed, while explaining a suddenly slipping GPA, "I don't know how kids do any schoolwork in sunny places like California."

HEATHER LENDE

Courageous Klukwan elder passes into history

I learned of Mary King's death at the coffee hour after church when my friend, judge and attorney Linn Asper, asked if I was writing her obituary. I didn't know who Mary King was and he couldn't believe it. But that is how the history of Alaskan small towns works sometimes, we don't pay as much attention to our past as we should.

HEATHER LENDE

Spring makes bike ride a lot longer

On a rainy fall day I can ride my bike to town in a relatively miserable 10 minutes. But on a sunny, warm spring morning, after one of the longest winters in years, (there is still snow in shady and north facing yards) it took me about forty-five minutes to go two miles.

HEATHER LENDE

After 89 years, lively local history lesson is laid to rest

Before one of her last medevacs, my friend Isabell Katzeek was lying on the gurney as volunteers loaded her into the ambulance for the ride to the airport. She appeared frail and ill. She had suffered a heart attack. But then she suddenly sat up, looked around and said, "Now wait a damn minute, where the hell do you think we're going?"

HEATHER LENDE

Avoiding disaster while enjoying Easter fun, frolics

This year spring has been sneaking up on us like an afternoon nap. Every day, it seems, about mid-afternoon, winter lets go for an hour or two. The ice melts, the sun shines, the snowlines on roadsides, yards and beaches recede. My hens come out of their coop, fluff their feathers, scratch and cackle.

HEATHER LENDE

Fleet helps navigate life

A dozen of us had a ski race on Saturday at the snowmachine track at Mile 25 mile Haines Highway. It had snowed all night and was still snowing when we began. The storm didn't quit until a few hours before the Blessing of the Fleet after church on Palm Sunday.

HEATHER LENDE

Nongolfing Alaskans tee it up for fun and friendship

If you want to play spring golf on Willow Lake, it helps to know Jim Huston, since he has a loader and truck with a plow on the front and a railroad rail tied to the back, as well as a garbage can full of clubs and boxes of neon-painted balls.

HEATHER LENDE

Growing up is hard, even at 49

My daughter and I are skiing out on the golf course where volunteers have set a track all winter, when she asks what I'm thinking about. It is almost sunny and very bright, the way it gets in March when spring light returns.

HEATHER LENDE

Recitation contest wows poetry fans

Mayor Bruce Botelho is reason enough for the capital to stay in Juneau. He should be declared Mayor for Life. I'm half kidding, since I don't know a thing about the man's politics, except that he stays out of the headlines and the punch lines.

HEATHER LENDE

In Southeast, it's a big hoop family

I'm still hearing the drone of the crowd and an occasional whistle after four days and nights of high school basketball games.

HEATHER LENDE

Mysteries in the sky intrigue us

My friend Joanne called Saturday night to ask if I saw what she saw in the sky.

HEATHER LENDE

We can find Mardi Gras in our hearts

Tuesday morning we were working on the logistics of another school day that revolves around a senior in high school's schedule of school, basketball practice and homework, when my husband sighed, "We should be in New Orleans. We could be on Bourbon Street listening to jazz tonight."

HEATHER LENDE

Involvement makes Haines, and the world, go 'round

There is so much to do in Haines that it is hard to choose, especially when the sun comes out and a head cold moves in. I should have been in bed, but I took a gentle ski under the bright blue sky at the golf course.

HEATHER LENDE

A dog's love is a reflection of its owner

Winston Churchill preferred pigs to dogs because, he said, pigs look at humans as equals, whereas dogs look up to us. Having raised a pig, I can say with authority that I prefer dogs, especially in the house.

HEATHER LENDE

Lights don't show what truly matters

The other night when the power went out I thought of the Emily Dickinson poem, "We grow accustomed to the dark -- When light is put away," because that is exactly what happened.

Emily Dickinson's "We Grow Accustomed to the Dark"

HEATHER LENDE

Hug someone you love to ease pain of writing obituary

Writing obituaries is hard on the heart. We had what may be a record of four to do for this week's Chilkat Valley News. The subjects died in a plane crash, from the effects of too much alcohol and kidney failure. We knew them all pretty well.

HEATHER LENDE

After week in Mexico, coming home has new meaning

My daughters said I had to tan before I went to Mexico. They said if I played at the beach all day and didn't, that I'd burn and then shed my skin like a lizard. Instead of wearing a sleeveless dress at dinner, I'd be plastered with Noxzema and wrapped in gauze like a mummy. Then they said that I would look even worse in a bathing suit than I thought I was going to.