Alaska's Kachemak Bay spans over 400,000 acres of glaciers, mountains and wilderness. And tucked along its coastline is the Kachemak Bay Wilderness Lodge, which travel writer David Hanson recently visited.
There's that old question: If you could have dinner with anyone in the world, who would it be? I don't like that question because it makes my head spin with all the possibilities. But recently the answer came to me in the form of a 66-year-old man sitting across the table. I was at the lodge he and his wife built almost forty years ago on the rugged southern shores of Alaska's Kachemak Bay. Michael and Diane McBride moved to this chunk of fir forest, basalt cliff and rocky beach in the mid '60s when no white person lived here permanently. Michael was a bush pilot and boat captain, and they both fished commercially until deciding to build a lodge and invite people to stay.
The problem with the "dinner with anyone in the world" question is that it leaves the parameters up to you, and that is limiting. Never would I have put together a person like Michael: bush pilot, sea captain, master hunting guide, fisherman, yoga instructor, carpenter, lodge owner, environmental warrior (his efforts defeated two resource extraction initiatives), father, grandfather, musician, and member of Explorer's Club, Royal Geographic Society, Smithsonian Board, and Nature Conservancy. Tonight, over dessert, he played an accordion he picked up in Austria decades ago.
There's that old question: If you could have dinner with anyone in the world, who would it be? I don't like that question because it makes my head spin with all the possibilities. But recently the answer came to me in the form of a 66-year-old man sitting across the table. I was at the lodge he and his wife built almost forty years ago on the rugged southern shores of Alaska's Kachemak Bay. Michael and Diane McBride moved to this chunk of fir forest, basalt cliff and rocky beach in the mid '60s when no white person lived here permanently. Michael was a bush pilot and boat captain, and they both fished commercially until deciding to build a lodge and invite people to stay. The problem with the "dinner with anyone in the world" question is that it leaves the parameters up to you, and that is limiting. Never would I have put together a person like Michael: bush pilot, sea captain, master hunting guide, fisherman, yoga instructor, carpenter, lodge owner, environmental warrior (his efforts defeated two resource extraction initiatives), father, grandfather, musician, and member of Explorer's Club, Royal Geographic Society, Smithsonian Board, and Nature Conservancy. Tonight, over dessert, he played an accordion he picked up in Austria decades ago.
Kachemak Bay Lodge rents a handful of cabins, some of which are
original to the area (Michael salvaged them and floated them over from
neighboring bays.) The lodge cooks delicious fresh food and the small
staff leads guests on fishing, kayaking, hiking, and boating trips
around the pristine, majestic inlets and coves and small fishing
communities accessed only by boat on this rugged Alaskan outpost.
When wild and refined stare at one another through a simple glass window, as they do in the Kachemak Bay Lodge and in the life of the McBrides, a positive tension energizes anyone in the vicinity. That's what I want from my dinner companion and my travels, I just couldn't have put it into words until it happened.
[Kachemak Bay Wilderness Lodge]
Photo: David Hanson
When wild and refined stare at one another through a simple glass window, as they do in the Kachemak Bay Lodge and in the life of the McBrides, a positive tension energizes anyone in the vicinity. That's what I want from my dinner companion and my travels, I just couldn't have put it into words until it happened.
[Kachemak Bay Wilderness Lodge]
Photo: David Hanson
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This place looks absolutely incredible! It's so true that one of the best parts of travel are the people you meet along the journey. Of course, being somewhere as beautiful as Alaska doesn't hurt either!