Airplanes next door

Within easy walking distance from home is Vera Lake. It is a curious lake, because it has a more or less circular bottom and a more or less elliptical top, connected by a narrow channel. Two floatplanes seem to live in the bottom of the lake. The other day I walked by and heard the familiar sound of an engine starting. I dashed to the end of the lake, and sure enough, a floatplane.
The plane cruised the lake at idle; the pilot is warming up the engine. The channel connecting the lake bottom and top is right by the plane's tail. Mr plane passed close by.
Eventually, he warmed up, so he did a circular turn, pointed to the channel, and off we go into the wild blue yonder.
Sorry about the blur, the light (bad) was too much for autofocus/autoprogram. I find it hard to believe that something that big and clumsy can fly, but fly it did. It gets up on the step in the floats, friction is cut way down, and it takes off.

Airplanes on the lake are usually a summer phenomenon, but it hasn't been that cold, so Mr Plane took advantage. Half an hour to Anchorage at most, it's only 35 Km away as the plane flies. This is very Alaska; floatplanes in the backyard.

Alaska Transportation II

In my visit to Talkeetna I posted about trains and planes. This is a follow-up. I drove into Anchorage the other day -- a 130+ Km drive that I don't like to do at all; on my way back bingo! I saw a train stopped in Wasilla. Instant pull off and unlimber the camera. Push to extreme tele:
And there she is, 4325. Double headed, in fact, pulling a longish train up to Denali Park, Talkeetna, and maybe even Fairbanks (although I doubt it). The consist, as we rail freaks (actually, the railroads themselves call) the list of cars being pulled, was all passenger stuff.
No doubt full of tourists. "Tourist" may be a bad word; but it is extremely important to summer survival in Alaska. Everyone depends on it. I'm glad the consist is so long; means lots of people are headed to lodges, campsites, "and etc." up near Denali.

So now, you are thinking, he's going to put some airplanes into the post! You know me quite well, I see. Of course. I happened to walk by the Willow floatplane dock, and stopped to take some pictures. The occupants of the dock were these guys:
In the center is the iconic De Havilland Beaver, built in Canada in the 1950s by De Havilland (Canada). A magnificent airplane, with a huge payload capacity and a big radial engine with a mellow, basso sound. I can tell it's a Beaver (or maybe an Otter, slightly larger) from the sound of the engine alone. To its right, a smaller floatplane I can't identify offhand -- maybe a Cessna; and a Strange Plane to the Beaver's left. More on that. As I stood and wondered, as if by magic a party of fishermen appeared and loaded their paraphernalia onto Strange Plane.
When they were all buttoned up and ready to go, they got a push away from the dock...
Engine started, we taxied out towards the "runway" -- don't think this is correct on a lake, but anyway...
And off we go!
Destination: unknown. Some Remote Lake, AK.

Some work with binoculars and Google reveals the identity of Strange Plane. It is a Found Aircraft Ltd (Canada) Bush Hawk. If you Google these terms, you, too, can find out all about the Bush Hawk. Glad to see the Canadians are still making bush planes. De Havilland, of course; but also the Noordyun Bushmaster (a classic) and now the Found Bush Hawk. Bravo Canada!