Sitka National Historic Park in Alaska

Click photo for much larger view. ©2016, David A. Porter

This was our second visit to Sitka, Alaska, and my love affair for this region grows and grows.  In fact, during this visit, I suggested to Carol that we rent a house in Sitka for a month sometime.  We can run our business from anywhere in the world, and this looks like a wonderful spot to me.  Well, she didn’t bite, but I’m going to keep working on her.

I captured this photograph as we walked to the Sitka National Historical Park.  The park is maybe a 15-minute walk from the center of town. But trust me, it’s going to take you 45-minutes to get there because you’re going to be gawking at scenes like this and shooting photographs of the bald eagles that are seemingly in the top of every tree.

Our last visit to Sitka was in May and during that visit we enjoyed sunny skies.  This visit, as you can see, brought us clouds and drizzle.  But we enjoyed the different perspective as this region gets over 130″ of rain each year.

When we were strolling through the park on this visit, we met a local lady who was busily picking these red berries.  When we inquired as to what type of berries these were, she told us that they were red huckleberries.  We had noticed that the forest was full of these red berries, but had no idea that they were huckleberries.  With this new found knowledge, I probably picked and ate around 50 of ’em.  They were tasty, tart, and certain to make a good jam, me thinks.  Because of the tartness, Carol wasn’t as big a fan.

Oh, by the way, the bears love huckleberries too.  So, be certain to be alert when walking through the park.

As I was writing this article, I found myself lamenting the fact that we didn’t buy some huckleberry jam when we were in town.  Thanks to the wonder of the Internet, I went online and found this wonderful Sitka family that makes huckleberry jam and sells it on the Internet.  I just ordered two jars.  If you’d like to try it yourself, click here to visit their website.  If you prefer Amazon, I noticed that they sell their jams there as well.

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