Saturday, June 7, 2008

Well June had arrived but summer hasn't made it's appearance yet. Everyone tells us that it is coming but we aren't going to hold our breath until then. Someone said the other day it usually comes around July 4th and is gone by the end of August. Supposedly they have really heavy fog during the summer months also when we aren't supposed to be able to see across the street. That doesn't sound too good.

We had Zone conference today and it was the last one that President and Sister Lewis will have with us as they will be leaving the first of July. They are from Bountiful, Utah and will be returning there upon their release.

Grandma is cooking fired chicken to take to some less active members who haven't been feeling too well lately. They live on the hill above the Church building here. We can look our of our windows and see their house. We just wish that they would come to church with us on Sunday.

We are able to do a little more exploring now as the snow has melted in the lower elevations. We met a man this week who was here visiting from Florida. He was here during WW II when the Japanese bombed Dutch Harbor. He had some great pictures and was able to tell us a lot about how things were then. There were probably 10, 000 soldiers here at that time which is almost three times the number that live here now. There is lots of evidence of the troops having been here. There are numerous collapsed buildings and pill boxes all over the island. We hiked up one road for a couple of miles and wondered how they ever got across the canyons. He showed us a picture of a suspension bridge that they built over one of the canyons. It was two cables strung from one side to the other and then they placed wood planks between the cables and wired them to the cable. At first they were crossing without any hand rail of any kind. There is no way that I would have done that. It was way up over the canyon and the wind blew and would make the bridge swing according to him. Wow. In the winter time he said they would ski down and across the bridge. He was here for two years and one winter he camped on top of Ballyhoo in tents and they had over ten feet of snow.

The history of this place during the War is very interesting. sometimes it is referred to as the "Forgotten War". The native people were removed from the island for their protection but the camps they put them in were terrible and many of them died. When they were allowed to return to their native land many of their homes had been ruined by the troops. It was not a happy time for the Aleut people here and their families.

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