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Alaska Magazine
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Bjorn Dihle

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The lodge’s grounds overlook Hole-in-the-Wall Glacier
Authentic Alaska

Mary Joyce and the Taku Glacier Lodge

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One woman’s epic adventures in Southeast Alaska This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Taku Glacier Lodge. The lodge has had a number of owners, but none stand out as much as the pioneer and adventurer Mary Joyce. Her story is a local legend, but she’s mostly unknown outside of Juneau. In 1929, Joyce was in her early 20s and working as a nurse in a Los Angeles hospital when she began attending to a patient named Leigh Hackley “Hack” Smith. The charismatic, wealthy, self-destructive young man had been wounded in World War I and needed another surgery to remove shrapnel from his shoulder.  Hack had fired his previous eight nurses. Between physical and mental wounds, Hack had become addicted to morphine and booze. Joyce is remembered as being fearless and sharp, and Hack didn’t fire her. Instead, the two developed a deep bond. Hack’s mother, Erie, offered Joyce…

Meindl Wool Socks
Gear

Meindl Wool Socks

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Gear Review The Meindl family began making footwear more than 300 years ago in a small village in Germany. Since then, the business, passed down from each previous generation of the family, has become recognized worldwide for making quality boots designed for hikers and hunters. Meindl designed a collection of wool socks specifically for rough and blister-prone types of travel. I tested three of their wool socks, the MT6 Midweight, MT8 Heavyweight, and the MT Jagd Heavyweight, last late fall and winter. I used my Meindl socks for wet hikes in the mountains and valleys in my home in southeast Alaska. They were also my go-to for the numerous sledding expeditions I made with my two young boys. While designed for rough travel and lots of miles, they are extremely comfortable. I’m not used to wool socks fitting so well. Even after a long day, they didn’t slip a millimeter. I live in…

Gear

Mystery Ranch Catalyst Backpack

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Gear Review By Bjorn Dihle When it comes to backpacks, Mystery Ranch makes some of the toughest, most long-lasting on the market. The brand is known for hunting, climbing, firefighting, and military grade products, so I was surprised when I got my hands on their new Catalyst 22L backpack. It was more “urban” than I expected. Imagine a backpack you’d use for work or school, but that’s also a good day hiking pack, and you have the Catalyst. Mystery Ranch designed it for office work, coffee shop life, and whatever else the urban wilderness can throw at you. It has a padded sleeve for a laptop and organizing sleeves for a tablet or notebooks. However, it’s still built tough enough for a wet, nasty day-long bushwhack up a mountain in Alaska. The Catalyst comes in three different sizes: 18L, 22L, and 26L. It has Mystery Ranch’s well-regarded, handy three-zipper access…

White Duck 13’ Regatta Bell Tent
Gear

White Duck 13′ Regatta Bell Tent

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Gear Review I got the Regatta Bell Tent intending to use it for glamping on an island near Juneau. My plan was to set it up in the spring on a piece of property my family owns, so my kids and other family members would have a nice shelter for the summer. It was late in the warm season when I got the tent and, since work had me out of town, I wasn’t able to make good on that dream. Instead, just as the late summer rains and winds were coming to southeast Alaska, I pitched it in my backyard. It was quick, easy, one-man set up. My four-year-old promptly moved in and insisted that we sleep in it for the next three weeks. During the day, he, his younger brother, and their cousins spent hours playing in it. White Duck uses a tent fabric they call DYNADUCK. The…

The Gift of Salmon
Authentic Alaska

The Gift of Salmon

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Alaska’s Other Gold A decade ago in late July, my wife, MC, was picking salmonberries at the edge of the forest on Admiralty Island when she startled a brown bear. I spoke to the bear gently as MC backed away. As we left, we walked past the end of the berry patch, where we had stashed our kayak, to the edge of a meadow where the sea met a stream. Pink salmon leapt continuously into the air. Hundreds, maybe thousands, were schooled up at the mouth of the stream. That evening, we went to retrieve our kayak. Next to its hull lay a bright, silver-colored pink salmon with one large bite taken out of it. Nearly all the salmon we’d watched jumping had begun to mottle with their spawning colors. I knelt over the salmon, pondering why the bear had dropped it there until I sensed the bear was bedded…

Ditale Sofia Adventure Pants
Gear

Ditale Sofia Adventure Pants

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Gear Review By Bjorn Dihle When Ditale, an outdoors women’s clothing company, reached out to me about testing their Sofia Adventure Pants, my wife, MC, happened to be looking over my shoulder. I felt weird at the idea of reviewing women’s clothing, so, luckily MC was happy to take the task on herself. She loves Sofia Adventure Pants. They’re clearly high quality, and are warm in cool conditions, breathable, and rain-resistant—all prized qualities in southeast Alaska’s cool, rainy, temperate rainforest. She’s worn them hiking, sledding, foraging, fishing, and kid-wrangling (which is a part of most her activities) and is planning to wear them hunting when Sitka blacktail season kicks off. They have several big pockets, including the typical hand-sized front pockets and big, snap-closed pockets at about mid-thigh that are handy for things you might want easy access to and have proven handy multiple times. She was initially afraid they…

Sagebrush Dry Hands-Free Berry Basket
30-Second Reads

Sagebrush Dry Hands-Free Berry Basket

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Gear Review by Bjorn Dihle All serious berry pickers have their preferred techniques. Some are aggressive; some are Zen-like. I’ve tried different methods and even dabbled with a Jonas Swedish Berry Picker. Presently, I use a method I’ve learned from ravenous yet meditative bears that involves stripping bushes of their berries. Instead of using my jaws, though, I use my paws. My wife takes berry picking seriously but does not like to pretend to be a bear, at least when she’s in the woods. (Home life is a different story.) Numerous times she’s mentioned wishing she had a berry picking bucket that would allow her the use of both hands. So, last year I gifted her a Sagebrush Dry Hands-Free Berry Basket for her birthday. I was already a fan of Sagebrush Dry, as they’re a small-town southeast Alaska company and make great waterproof backpacks and other gear. My wife…

MSR Dragonfly Stove
Gear

MSR Dragonfly Stove

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For most of my life I’ve believed there’s no better overall camp stove than the MSR XGK. However, I recently began using the MSR Dragonfly Stove and I’m not so sure anymore. I was surprised to learn the Dragonfly is capable of burning multiple types of fuel. While I have only burned white gas in mine, this option really increases the stove’s versatility for trips to places where white gas is not available. It’ll take about 130 minutes for the Dragonfly to get through a 20-ounce bottle of white gas in temperatures above freezing. Fuels like unleaded gas and diesel really gunk up a stove, but the Dragonfly is easy to clean. It burns almost as hot as the XGK, but it offers more cooking opportunities with its extra wide support and, most importantly, with a flame you can lower to a simmer for cooking foods like pancakes or a…

Cascade Mountain Tech Camping lantern
Gear

Cascade Mountain Tech – Large LED Camping Lantern

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I love my gas lanterns, but I don’t love that they can be a fire danger especially as a dad of a couple of rowdy little boys who have an appetite for destruction. For a lot of camping trips, I switched to using a battery-operated lantern, partly for safety and partly because they are easier to use. I’ll never say goodbye to my Coleman lanterns, but there are some real perks to not playing with gasoline and fire. This fall I tried out Cascade Mountain Tech’s LED Camping Lantern. This thing is a beast of light—you don’t want to stare directly at it. Powered by eight D batteries, it is the brightest lantern I’ve used. At its lowest setting it shines for up to 250 hours, which is much longer than lanterns of a similar make. It does weigh nearly five pounds, which isn’t surprising considering the light and hours…

Taku Harbor, Tiger Olson
Authentic Alaska

A Tiger Olson Story

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Taku Harbor’s Legendary Man and Myth I stepped into the low light of a derelict cabin and studied moldering walls, broken glass, and filth. My three-year-old son clung to me, scanning the shadows. “Daddy, there could be ghosts! We need to get out of here!” he said. The cabin once belonged to Henry “Tiger” Olson—a hermit, philosopher, and mystic who lived most of his life in Taku Harbor, 20-some miles south of Juneau. By the time we got there, it had been more than 40 years since he had occupied the cabin. To be honest, the place creeped me out a little as well. It wasn’t just Tiger’s cabin that felt haunted, though—Taku Harbor is filled with ruins and stories. The harbor is part of the Tlingit T’aaku Kwáan’s territory. The Hudson’s Bay Company established their Fort Durham Trading Post there in 1840, only to abandon it three years later.…

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