In love in Homer, Alaska

Fields of wildfowers at Eveline State Recreation Site with Grewingk Glacier in the backgroundI fell in love with Homer as we drove down the uninspiring last slope of Route 1 into the town, but I have no idea why it happened then. I’d been driving along the Cook Inlet for the last hour, with one magnificent snow-capped volcano after another looming up across the water, so Kachemak Bay, though incredibly beautiful, wasn’t a surprise. At that point, I hadn’t yet seen our small, slightly wacky RV park, attached to an old inn, with its extremely friendly staff and beautiful view. I didn’t know that we’d find more charm, and art, along the main street than we had in the other towns we’d visited. Nor did I know that there was a pretty cafe in a quaint, old building across the street from the RV park, with enormous salads and delicious breakfasts.

Coast indian paintbrush (Castilleja unalaschensis) Wynn Nature Center, Homer, Alaska by Betsey Crawford
Coast indian paintbrush (Castilleja unalaschensis)

I didn’t foresee the moose browsing in the twilit marsh just down the block, or walking on the beach as two bald eagles flew by, just above eye level, fifteen feet in front of me, heading to a cluster of trees to roost for the night. I knew nothing about the Homer Spit, a 4.5 mile long, flat extrusion into the bay — home of beaches, marinas, RV parks, restaurants, tee-shirt shops, adventure guides, commercial fishing — that shares a lot of the rackety charms of Montauk, New York, a place I’ve loved most of my life, on the far side of the continent.

Enormous devil's club in the lush rainforest of Peterson Bay
Enormous devil’s club in the lush rainforest of Peterson Bay

I hadn’t eaten the halibut tacos at the farmers market, or the Thai curry down on the Spit, with chunks of just-caught salmon and halibut. I knew little about the temperate rainforest in the blue mountains, with their snowy crowns and icy glaciers, across the glistening water of the bay, with devil’s club so enormous it towered over us as we walked, starfish the size of my head, seals basking on the beach, fungus so large and strong we could have used it as a stepping stone to climb the tree hosting it, and puffins on the way home. I had no idea Homer would have the most wildflowers of any place I’d go in Alaska.

Grass of parnassus (Parnassia palustris) at Peterson Field Station, Homer, Alaska by Betsey Crawford
Grass of parnassus (Parnassia palustris)

Or what great flowers they would be. Lots of the luminous yellow paintbrush native to Alaska. Sharp-beaked, dark-veined, strangely beautiful monkshood, hiding a neurotoxin so poisonous the indigenous Alaskans tipped their spears with it to kill whales. Sunlit, lavender wild geranium. Windswept cotton grass. Sweeps of fireweed. Tiny, delicate grass of Parnassus, with its glass bead interior. Fierce, blue-black star gentian. The small bells of pink pyrola, nestled in knee-high forests of horsetail and fern, and the wide bells of the minute single delight.

Wild geranium (Geranium erianthum) Wynn Nature Center, Homer, Alaska
Wild geranium (Geranium erianthum)

Like a lot of love, there was no explaining its arrival. Even though none of the things that were to prove so endearing about Homer were evident on the ride in, I loved it on sight. We were planning to stay two nights. The next day, after lifting the shade on the back window to horizontal stripes of vivid magenta fireweed, pale blue bay, deep blue mountains, ice blue glaciers, luminous blue sky, I promptly went to the office and said we’d stay a week. If it hadn’t been for the fact that I wanted to see a lot more of Alaska before winter, and the fact that the RV park cost exactly twice our hoped-for budget, I’d still be there.

From left: star gentian (Swertia perennis), cotton grass (Eriophorum angustifolium), monkshood (Aconitum dephinifolium), pink pyrola (Pyrola asarifolia)
From left: star gentian (Swertia perennis), cotton grass (Eriophorum angustifolium), monkshood (Aconitum dephinifolium), pink pyrola (Pyrola asarifolia)

It took me no time at all to find the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies and their Carl E. Wynn Nature Center, with five miles of trails flanked by an abundance of wildflowers. They were also the group I went across Kachemak Bay with, for a day of hiking and tide-pooling in Peterson Bay. It took a little longer to find out about the Eveline State Recreation site, eighty acres donated by a man in memory of his wife. There the trails wound through 5’ high wildflowers and grasses, like walking through a prairie. One trail went through muskeg, a word that has always seemed to echo out of the wilds of Alaska, with its scraggly spruces and vast beds of moss that you can sink into to your shins. It has calm enough origins, however: it comes from the Cree word for low lying marsh, maskak.

Jacob's ladder (Polemonium acutiflorum) Wynn Nature Center, Homer, Alaska
Jacob’s ladder (Polemonium acutiflorum)
Single delight (Moneses uniflora) Wynn Nature Center, Homer, Alaska
Single delight (Moneses uniflora)

In Homer, I found another facet of the deep mystery of place. I’ve never, ever thought about living in Alaska. It’s expensive, too far away, and the last thing I’m looking for is a place with long, dark, cold winters. So it’s close to impossible that I will find myself here. But Homer is the second place, in all my travels, that I could see myself settling in. (The other was Port Townsend, in Washington.) Yet this isn’t the same as the heart recognizing that it already knows a place as Home, a place mysteriously full of ancient echoes, the way I described South Dakota and Utah in the Moving Hearts post. There are no calls from Spirit in Homer, no deep recognition that this is a place already held in my heart. But it’s a place full of things that matter to me — plants, wildlife, water, beauty, art, fresh food, easy-to-find adventures — and I tore myself away with deep reluctance, already wondering how and when I’ll get back.

Crossing Kachemak Bay from Peterson Bay toward Homer, Alaska by Betsey Crawford
Crossing Kachemak Bay from Peterson Bay toward Homer

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9 thoughts on “In love in Homer, Alaska”

  1. I’d never heard of Homer AK before – now I want to go. It’s funny about special places – we want to know about them, but don’t want too many of us to know about them. Joe was cursing one of the sports writers talking about Marin in the SF Chronicle this past weekend – for writing about something special to do recreationally in Marin. It brings out all the city folk who wreck it for him! And I’m sure with your reverence and appreciation – and love – Homer was just as happy to have you there as you were to be there!

    1. I had an amusing conversation with someone from Fairbanks who first told me that the permanent residents of Homer are snobs. And then proceeded to tell me that the people in Fairbanks feel that the ‘real Alaska’ starts north of Wasilla, which leaves Homer out entirely.

  2. You well know, my dear friend, that almost NOTHING renders me speechless, ever…

    But what you capture, and share, in these posts reminds me how, in the Presence of the Real and Exquisite “Presence,” my “comments” are just little tinklings of of awe, tiny bells stirring in the winds of Creation…

  3. I love your descriptions — they bring your travels to life right here in my living room. When are you going to write a book? xoxoxoxoxo

  4. I am so delighted every time you post, my heart expands to hear what you have to say. I love seeing through your eyes and I learn something every time .

  5. I just wanted your post to go on and on. Thank you for bringing me on your journey and sharing Homer’s exquisite beauty through your lover of nature artist’s eyes and heart.

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