St. John Orthadox Cathedral, Eagle River, Alaska
We were slightly embarrassed to find that we had interrupted the going away party for Colleen and Father Robert’s son Ben, who is leaving to go to Washington, DC. He had been working on the North Shore (the “slope”) oil fields for three years, and is now trying to make it as a musician with his band. There were several of their friends there in the back yard when we arrived, and we enjoyed the brief conversation we had with them, and then more in depth talk to Colleen and Father Robert, Ben and Miriam (their daughter). They were incredibly gracious in putting us up in their own bed, which was far more than we expected – we thought we could well sleep on the floor, as it would be no harder, and a lot drier than what we’ve been on for the last six weeks.
In any case we had a really pleasant evening, and this morning Colleen took us to see the Antiochan Orthodox church, St. John Cathedral, where Father Robert is the assistant priest (his full time occupation is as a hospice nurse). The icons are very strikingly done by a local woman painter. There is also a tiny little chapel they have built on the site, St. Sergius chapel, which incorporates some elements of each of the different branches of the Orthodox Church. There are four different kinds of windows, and four different kinds of crosses on the walls, plus other elements that we wouldn’t notice, not being familiar with their faith. They hold a few services a year in this building which is about a ten minute walk through the forest from the main cathedral.
We managed to get out of REI in downtown Anchorage without exceeding our limit on the credit card. The store is large, and they have a lot of gear. Most of the hardware is very similar in price to that at MEC, but the clothing seems to be cheaper, and in greater variety. We did make some interesting purchases.
It was very overcast today, and rained some, most heavily while we were driving down to this spot from Anchorage. That’s unfortunate, as there appears to be some spectacular scenery, but we didn’t get a really good view of much of it in the cloud shrouded mountains. Tomorrow we’ll be going into Seward, which is just over fifteen miles south from here.