Photo: the dock at Meyers Chuck
Meyers Chuck is one of those Alaskan villages, like Wooden Wheel Cove, where nothing ever happens - and that's the point.
But when we arrived in Meyers Chuck this year, we discovered that things had been happening there, they just weren't big things.
The first thing we noticed was that the old telephone booth with its red phone topped by a bird's nest was gone. The phone hadn't worked for years, so it was hardly a big deal, but it felt like a passing of an era.
Steve got out his cell phone and looked at it: one bar. At Meyers Chuck that's good service and we weren't even on the helicopter pad where we'd had to go before to get it. He dialed the number for Cassy and ordered Cinnamon buns for our breakfast. That hadn't changed.
The second thing I noticed was that the blue mailbox was gone; replaced by a new mailbox built into a new community bulletin board. The small wooden post office with its prominently displayed zip code was still across the bay; that hadn't changed.
Photo: Meyer's Chuck post office on the left.
We walked up a trail so neatly lined with moss, marsh violets and ferns it looked deliberately landscaped. A wooden heron holding a tinfoil fish in its mouth stood guard in the woods: new art. Meyers Chuck's quirky nature still reigned. At the gallery we peered through the windows at handmade quilts and carved wooden bowls. Meyers Chuck residents had been busy over the winter. We weren't in the market for quilts or bowls so didn't need the directions on how to find someone to open the gallery.
Photo: A wooden heron on the trail
Returning to the waterfront we took another trail leading by the small sawmill flanked by piles of new sawn lumber. Someone was getting a new house. We stopped to chuckle at the sign on the door of the small workshop, "Meyers Chuck Angler Club and Lumber Company. We're never board."
From the Lumber Company, we walked along the shore, past a field of thimbleberry bushes in bloom. A loud hum of bees told us it would be a good year for thimbleberries. Beyond the thimbleberries we found a brand new sturdy staircase, replacing the rough trail we'd scrambled up before. We walked up it to a clearing - a new house site.
We returned to the dock to chat with fellow boaters. Meyers Chuck was still a casual friendly place for boaters to stop. That hadn't changed.