On the Schedule for Today:

• Visit the Kilcher homestead
• Free time on the Homer Spit and beach

Report from the Science Committee:

Temperature (High/Low): 84.8 / 54

Altitude (High/Low): 1167 ft. / 14 ft.

Weather Conditions: Cloudy and breezy with mild temperatures

Daily Report from the Journalism Committee:

An Experience Like No Other
Rachel Lord
1 July 2007

Have you ever gone clamming? I know I sure haven’t. About 25 AGLP participants, junior leaders, and adults—led by Wayne Campau—got up early on our sleep-in day to go. We got all bundled up and got our boots on and headed to the beach. When we got there we were ready with our shovels. We broke up and whenever we saw others with shovels and we needed one we would yell for it and they would come running over and we would start digging, searching for whatever might be under the deep wet sand. The way we knew we had found a clam was there were small holes marking where they were underneath the sand. Not everyone caught one but everyone did get to help catch one, which is great.
Altogether we kept about seven clams total. We caught many more, but some got cut in half and some were too small. We took the ones that weren’t cut and brought them back to the campsite. When we returned we noticed that we looked a little different than others. The people that stayed at the campsite got to take showers and we didn’t so we were looking really dirty. The sand had left our pants sopping wet and very muddy and our boots had been water logged since we first stepped into the water.
We left all of our stuff out in the sun to dry. Our pants dried and smelled a little but our boots didn’t dry as well. They were still a little wet by the time we left Homer and we still had to put them back into the car.
I asked everyone if the clamming expedition was worth it. Of course everyone said that it was totally worth it. They were able to dig through mud and get completely wet and dirty. Why wouldn’t someone have a great time? Even the adults and junior leaders had a great time. They absolutely loved it. The adults said it brought back many memories as a child.
Unfortunately after we had already left Homer we had realized that we had left the clams behind. We let Mossy, the woman who owns the campground, know and told her that she could either eat them or set them back into the ocean for us.

Kilcher Homestead
Markus Sievertsen
1 July 2007

Today we went to visit the Kilcher Homestead, where the owner of Seaside Farms, Mossy, lives. We set out in the early afternoon, up the road and down the rocky driveway, to a sod-roofed log cabin. We all sat on the broad porch, where we listened to Mossy tell of her childhood in Alaska.

She spoke of how her father journeyed from Switzerland to start a new life in Alaska after World War II. He built the log cabin himself, just for his family. Mossy was the first of eight children. Her life in Alaska was not easy.

Her house didn’t get electricity until she was ten. The winters were long and cold. Most of the summer was spent haying. Alaska was still very much a wilderness.

She found solace in nature. She enjoyed the feeling of being amongst the trees and animals. She once planned to run away from home and become wild!

After she was finished, we got to take a look inside the house. It was dark, yet homely. I found the reason for the sod roof was so they could grow vegetables. It started to rain for the first time as we left.

The rest of the day was spent meandering around Homer and the campsite. In the evening we all assembled in the pavilion for a delicious dinner of hobo packets. A fitting end for our last day in Homer.

Menu for Today:

Tin Foil Dinners