Welcome to Life on the Tundra. This is where I’ll share slices of our days: the little triumphs, the odd rhythms, and the magic of living where tides, weather, and supply planes set the pace of life.
We’ve been in Alaska for five months now, slowly finding our footing. The house feels more like home, the pantry is finally stocked, and I’m starting to return to some of the projects I lugged out here with me. But today wasn’t just about projects. Today was about a small victory: we got mail.
The morning began with a hike, first along the stretch of Lukanin Beach that’s currently open, then up to the top of Tolstoi. I’m on a bit of a mission these days, gathering wildflowers before the last blooms vanish for the year. The air was unexpectedly warm, so I lingered longer than usual, taking a moment to watch the northern fur seals from a distance. Watching them tumble and bark along the shore feels like seeing a bit of wild magic up close.
After filling my basket with petals and stems, I stopped at the post office, hoping for good news, and for the first time in weeks, we had a delivery. Mail might feel routine elsewhere, but here, it’s an event. Across the region, islanders have been facing long delays, sometimes waiting months for things to arrive. But when it does finally make it, it feels like Christmas to me. Today’s “gifts” included a weighted blanket jacket I’d been impatiently tracking, and a new packet of yogurt starter, this time with probiotics.
From there, I swung by the store for a few odds and ends we needed for dinner (Carlos took the lead on cooking tonight), and finally made my way home to sort through the flowers I’d collected. That’s when I realized I may have been a little too enthusiastic because the scent of some of them reminded me just how close I’d been to the seals. Lesson learned: not all wildflowers are meant to be pressed. I separated out the questionable ones to return to the land and set the rest aside to dry.
To keep their colors bright, I use a Catcan Microwave Flower Press Kit: a huge improvement over my old method, which involved sandwiching flowers between two Corelle plates with bits of felt and muslin. It worked, but only for a handful of flowers at a time, and the plates were always sliding around. The new press keeps everything neat and lets me dry a large batch quickly, which is perfect when you come home with more blooms than you expected.
I’m still not sure what I’ll do with this season’s pressed flowers. I may make collages or something for Moss & Moonflower. But for now, it feels good just to preserve these fleeting bits of color before the tundra fades back to brown and gray.
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