Augustine Volcano has been continuously erupting for many days now, tossing ash towards Anchorage, Kenai and Kodiak. These things happen in Alaska. As I was on my way out of Kodiak a little over a year ago, the island was being similarly menaced by an ash plume from Mt. Veniaminof (named after St. Innocent Veniaminov, horologist, inventor of native alphabets, bishop of Alaska and Kamchatka, circumnavigator of the globe, sea kayaker extraordinaire, and of course saint) on the Alaska Peninsula.

To the uninformed, an ash fall may sound like an annoyance at worst. But consider this eyewitness account of the 1912 event in Kodiak:

About three o'clock in the afternoon, as we emerged from the forest, we saw, for the first time, a huge, fan-shaped cloud directly west of the village. It was the blackest and densest cloud that I have ever seen. Lightning frequently flashed through. This lightning did alarm us, for electrical storms just do not happen in Alaska...

It grew dark. This was very strange, for in June in Kodiak, the daylight is almost continuous... By eight o'clock that night it was pitch dark. The ash was failing so heavily that our greatest anxiety was whether we should be able to get another breath. The gases were nauseating and to add to our terror, earthquake shocks became almost continuous. The terrible bombardment grew louder and louder; the ash sifted through cracks around the windows and doors causing such a haze in the room that, had we not known who the other occupants were, we should not have been able to recognize them...

[After receiving word to make for a ship at anchor in the harbour:] I can't describe the walk of about three blocks down to the dock, but one may have some idea of the ordeal when I say I think that was the longest walk I ever took. We tied dampened cheesecloth over our faces, but the ash penetrated several thicknesses of the material. We followed fences and ditches and somehow reached our destination. The officers of the "Manning" turned on the searchlight, but the ash was so dense that even its powerful light gave no aid. The ship's crew were more than busy, shoveling ash from the decks to keep the ship from sinking at the dock...

We didn't know which volcano it was until the following Wednesday when we learned that it was doubtless Mount Katmai, on the mainland. One woman who had been particularly brave, said, "Well, if I've got to go, I'd like to know what dirty old volcano killed me!" ...

The men who had shoveled ash from the decks were worn out and their eyes were in a pitiful condition; the ash had penetrated the bandages they wore over their eyes and had painfully cut their eyeballs...

After forty-eight hours of that awful blackness, that desolate town certainly did look good to us, ash-covered though it was. The ash was eighteen inches deep on the level, but the numerous slides that came down the cliffs were many, many feet deep... One house at the base of a hill was completely wrecked by the ash. Many roofs collapsed from the great weight and the water mains were so choked that new mains had to be laid... During the fall of ash, a log building of twenty rooms burned to the ground and people two hundred feet away were unaware of the blaze. That will probably explain to some extent the terrible density of the ash...

One of the most disastrous results was the fact that when the ash filled the streams, it made it impossible to tell where the streams had been and the dampened ash became quicksand. One man sank in the sand to his armpits before rescuers found him. It took only half an hour for him to sink so deep, but it took two and one-half hours to dig him out. His body was blue from the pressure and he later died from the effects of the ordeal...

All over Kodiak you can still see the sandy gray and yellow layer of ash wherever there's a break in the moss. I therefore found Mt. Veniminof's rumblings more than a little unnerving, particularly as the eruptions also bring the risk of tsunami.

Alaska's quite a place.