Fure's Cabin

     One of the best parts about being friends with the LEs is that you can force them to take you on adventures. You've already read about one "patrol" that I tagged along with, well, here's another. 

    Cheryl and I (one on-duty, one off. You know your job is good when you're doing the same things on your days off that you are when you're working) stowed away on one of Mike's patrols, this time out to Fure's Cabin. Roy Fure was a Lithuanian trapper and miner who settled up here and built a cabin in the Bay of Islands in 1926. In 1931 the area was incorporated into Katmai National Park, and in 1940 he was --long story short-- kicked out. Now it's kept up as a historical building, and people can stay there.

    There is a permitting system though, so the LEs have to check and make sure anyone staying there has the proper permit. It's in the middle of nowhere, and is absolutely spectacular. Probably haunted though, let's be real. By ghost bears. Ghost bears in 1920's outfits. 

Sorry, my imagination is running away with me a little.

    

It's gorgeous, but come on: this is definitely the scene of a spectacular horror film.

    So Mike, Cheryl and I checked out Fure's cabin (no unauthorized people, and also no horrifying crime scene, so that's a plus), and tromped around for a bit, making grand plans to come back and camp there. Of course, that was rather unlikely since we have never had the same two days off all together, but maybe someday. 

    Back into the boat we went, and explored the Bay of Islands, which is exactly what it sounds like. We saw no bears, much to Cheryl's disappointment, but we found tundra swans, which I was entirely too excited about. As in, standing-precariously-on-the-bow-of-the-boat excited. I needed better pictures. This was the best I could do, because it turns out tundra swans are noisy but camera shy. 

Not pictured: the incredible noise they were making as they told me exactly what they thought of my photography skills. Rude.

       Of course, no outing would be complete without ominous weather. As soon as we started heading towards home, the clouds rolled in. 

    We got drenched. Worse than that, the rain came in horizontally, and at boating speed, it felt like needles directly to the eyeballs. The waves rolled in too, tossing our little boat around like a cork. Mike, in charge of getting us home safely, was a bit nervous. He even told us that if we got scared by the storm, we could wait it out on shore, and head for home when the lake was calmer. Cheryl and I responded by gleefully shrieking every time we went airborne. Turns out we're not as safety-conscious as Law Enforcement Rangers.  

    We did make it home, but drenched and freezing. I could not stop shivering, and my hands were absolutely numb. Of course, just yards from shore, we were prevented from landing by this bear, who amused himself by swimming back and forth right where we needed to be. Where's a bear tech when you need one? I thought we told them not to leave their bears out. 

    Don't get me wrong, I'm always excited to see bears, but I was really cold.