Sunday we had a good long talk with Aly, who’s attending an archaeological field school in the Yukon. She’s halfway through the course and still going strong.
One bit of news she offered pleased me mightily.
She said that she and some teammates decided one evening as they gathered around the campfire that they needed ghost stories. They ended up reading The Cry of a Loon, the shortest story in my collection, Shy Ghosts Dancing: Dark Tales from Southeast Alaska!
What makes this funny is that Aly didn’t relate her version of my story to an audience. Instead they read the actual text from Aly’s Kindle electronic reader (paid link). A communal activity, as ancient as human speech, carries on with the help of 21st century technology!
When Aly bought the Kindle in preparation for college (and to conveniently carry the texts and papers required for the current dig) I loaded the eBook version of my book on there along with the small collection of eBooks I’ve accumulated. I’d forgotten all about it, but, gratifyingly, my daughter hadn’t. She said everyone really liked the story, which I also find hugely gratifying.
In other news, they’re still talking about a group blog, but I’m not holding my breath. They had intended to cross the border into Alaska for Independence Day, but the crew of the dig they plan to visit at Calico Bluff is anxious to spend the holiday in Tok or some other town, so they’ll go over on July 5th. She says that the food’s good, but they eat “more meat and snack food” than she’s used to. They participated in Beaver Creek’s annual horseshoe tournament. She says the team played poorly, but had a really good time.
And, she’s finding artifacts. Her section is at a historical level, so she’s finding things like old Coke bottle tops and a metal crucifix.
Hopefully, we’ll see some of this first hand. We working on a plan to visit the site next weekend.