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Themes • Lumix Years
A couple of decades ago I performed for two months in Valdez and Glenallen, Alaska, two months that left a very vivid impression on me. So when a friend offered me a trip to the Kenai River, I leapt at the chance.
Fall comes early in Alaska, needless to say. Snow was already dusting the tops of the peaks by mid-September and the cottonwoods and shrubbery were displaying their yellows and browns. Up on the slopes, the small berry shrubs and willows turn red as though chapped by the cold, and the big bears, tired of eating nothing but salmon, spend the waning daylight fattening up on the berries before searching out a cave or hollow in which to hibernate for the winter.