Monday July 14, 2008
Anchored at Anan Bay, Alaska (just north of Ketchikan). We had made reservations for a join the rangers at their remote Anan Bear Observatory. It should be noted that the rangers live in a cabin that is on floats off the shore. Their cabin is not in the forest with the bears! Two of them live in this remote forestry camp all summer recording bear behaviors. They have named each bear and keep records on their markings and activities.
There is a narrow spot where the salmon make their way upstream and the bears collect them like grocery shopping. The Alaska Forestry Service built their “bear blind” off this spot. They allow up to 6 people an hour to join them to watch the bears eat sushi. Their bear blind is a small room (like a tree house) covered in camouflage netting, right at creek level, but built on stilts and off a rock wall - kind of away from the bears. However; just before we got there one of the bears was under the room and reached his paw up to feel around the edges.
Visitors/Rangers sit quietly in this “tree house” and wait for the bear to arrive. The rest of the people can stay up top on a wooden deck (with the ranger who has the shotgun) and look down to the creek and watch for bear.
Since we had anchored in the Anan Bay the night before, we rowed the dinghy to shore and met the ranger at the entrance to the trailhead. He gave us a briefing, “You cannot have any food with you, no scented lip balms, no fruity beverages etc... If you encounter a bear DO NOT RUN. Make yourself look large. Stay in a group. Stay on the trail. Make noise. Do not get between a mother bear and her cub.”
About that time, a geriatric tour group of about 8 arrived by boat. We had seen the first group arrive an hour earlier by float plane. Each group of people had a guide. Each guide had a shotgun.
Rather than get stuck behind that group we zipped past them and up the trail. We were now in a bear infested forest without a shotgun.
This jaunt took about 30 minutes in dense forest but along a very well marked and maintained trail. We kept a running dialog with some clapping every now and then. We reached the platform where another ranger (rifle in hand) was waiting to let us in the gated area. The upper deck sits on a bend in the creek where the fish must jump up stream to continue their death march – a perfect place for a bear to lie in wait to scoop a few up. The stream was thick with fish. See photos. It was mesmerizing to watch the fish struggle with huge effort to move upstream. They were leaping and wiggling against rushing waters; thousands and thousands of them.
There are obviously two sides to the stream; one side with the observatory and the other side that is separated by the rushing, fish laden stream.
It did not take long before a large black bear mother and her cub briefly arrived on the far side. The cub stuck close to the mother bear. The mother dove in head first and pulled out a large salmon. She and her cub retreated to feast.
A few minutes later another large black bear (who shall be called “cave bear”) popped out of a cave down near the water (he was there the whole time) and quickly collected up a fish and retreated into his cave to eat. He was on the far side as well.
Another bear (her name is Virginia) appeared from behind us (on our side of the stream), walked across the path we had used to arrive. She walked under the platform and down to the creek to capture a fish.
She selected about five fish, tasting them and then letting them fall back into the stream mortally wounded. After about four/five tastings she found one that she liked (the ranger said that she was probably looking for one full of fish eggs – these are tastier). She carried her prize back up under the platform and directly behind us. She was so close to me that I could have put my hand out and touched her back. I noticed that the ranger had both hands on his shot gun ready in case she turned around and jumped onto the platform
A rudimentary outhouse was off the trail about 30’ from the observatory. A guide had her eye on a guest who was in the outhouse when a bear with a fish walked right past the outhouse (between the platform and the outhouse). She motioned to the person to stay put for a few minutes.
Later, a young bear tentatively climbed down (on the far side) toward the creek, stopping to sniff (I think he could smell “cave bear”) and found a secure route to the creek. His skills were less refined, he threw himself in the creek and thrashed about to get a fish. He got soaked in the process but got a fish.
“Cave Bear” ate one fish about every 10 minutes. He would appear from his rock cave, collect up a fish and retreat to eat it. After a couple of hours he took a fish with him and retreated to the forest.
We stayed for about four or five hours hoping a Grizzly Bear would show up. These were all black bears. We got two turns in the bear blind section of the observatory because groups were late. The ranger reported that a couple of grizzly bears show up each day, more often in the evenings. The black bear scatter when the grizzlies show up. They call them “brownies”.
This was a lot of fun to watch. We wished that we could have used a net to collect a couple of the salmon too. It was a tad unnerving to make our way back to the bay where our dinghy was located. We did not have a guide nor did we join a group to make the 30 minute hike back to the bay.
However; we were encouraged by the rangers who said that no rifles have been used this year.
GOOFY BOAT NAME: Kermode (I wonder what type of seats he has on his boat?)
Sunday, July 13, 2008
We continued to see whales all around us as we passed through Frederick Sound. This is the same place that we had our previous whale encounters that lasted for hours.
We are surrounded by snow covered mountains. We are wearing coats, hats, gloves and a scarf. It is a damp cold.
Portage Bay, Kupreanof Island (Frederick Sound) is where we anchored last night (7/12). It was a beautiful and peaceful anchorage.
The anchoring ritual goes like this:
Jim slows the boat down and takes a spin around the anchorage looking for “the best spot”. He is looking at his electronic maps for depths and looking at the Charlie’s Charts guide for comments about mud or sunken debris to be avoided.
Lara is standing out by the anchor as Jim slows the boat and looks around for a good spot.
Eventually, Jim motions that we are ready and he drops the anchor about 6 feet – just so it is dragging in the water. He slows and tells Lara when to drop the anchor. She manually releases the anchor and it flies out of the locker and off the boat. Lara attempts to count the markers to get an idea when we hit the target amount of line out (like 150’, 250’ etc...). Once the desired amount of line is out, Lara tightens up the anchor release.
Jim begins to back up the boat until the line becomes tight and we believe that the anchor is dug in. Jim uses his laser range finder to determine distances between the boat and various obstacles (like the shore, other boats etc...).
Lara locks the anchor line in place and puts on the anchor bridle. Jim lets out another 6’ of line so that the stress is now on the bridle and not on the anchor line.
This perpetual sunlight continues to be very interesting. We went to bed last night around 11pm (and it was still light – dusky but light) and it is hard to stay asleep at 4am when the sun is up already. However, it is not too hard to catch a nap later in the day. Yesterday I finally had the bright idea to stuff pillows in the port lights (windows) in the master suite. Nice and dark.
Today on the radio someone announced a bear on the shore – but we didn’t see it. Darn.
I (Lara) am really enjoying the challenge of cooking on board. Portions need to be sized for about four. Every leftover gets recycled. A pasta dinner becomes the bulk of a hearty beef soup. Taco meat becomes a breakfast egg/meat burrito. A plain rice side dish was reincarnated as a traditional rice pudding. I have five cook books along so it is not too hard to find a matching recipe.
The pressure cooker has been a lot of fun as well. It is a perfect enclosed system for a boat that can be attached to stove top (with the fiddles that screw on top of the burners). We are cooking stuffed flank steaks – in just 18 minutes.
To pass the time:
Lara has been knitting, doing some water color painting, keeping up with this blog, reading about the sights, some work related writing, reading novels, watching movies, downloading and editing photos, augmenting Jim’s understanding of the anchorages/routes by researching and highlighting and related cooking efforts.
Jim has been doing engine checks, heater maintenance, power balancing, navigation, fuel movement, tank maintenance, radio communications, driving the boat, occasional laundry and a few hours per day on his work related tasks.
Today we passed back through Wrangell Narrows where there are 66 navigational markers. One of the markers had five bald eagles (and three bald eagle youth) sitting on it. I (Lara) was too lazy to photograph them as the navigational marker was unattractive.
Now that we have achieved the iceberg phase of our adventure and we have had several whale encounters, we are now on a quest for bear! This will require that we get off the boat.
Anchored at Anan Bay, Alaska (just north of Ketchikan). We had made reservations for a join the rangers at their remote Anan Bear Observatory. It should be noted that the rangers live in a cabin that is on floats off the shore. Their cabin is not in the forest with the bears! Two of them live in this remote forestry camp all summer recording bear behaviors. They have named each bear and keep records on their markings and activities.
There is a narrow spot where the salmon make their way upstream and the bears collect them like grocery shopping. The Alaska Forestry Service built their “bear blind” off this spot. They allow up to 6 people an hour to join them to watch the bears eat sushi. Their bear blind is a small room (like a tree house) covered in camouflage netting, right at creek level, but built on stilts and off a rock wall - kind of away from the bears. However; just before we got there one of the bears was under the room and reached his paw up to feel around the edges.
Visitors/Rangers sit quietly in this “tree house” and wait for the bear to arrive. The rest of the people can stay up top on a wooden deck (with the ranger who has the shotgun) and look down to the creek and watch for bear.
Since we had anchored in the Anan Bay the night before, we rowed the dinghy to shore and met the ranger at the entrance to the trailhead. He gave us a briefing, “You cannot have any food with you, no scented lip balms, no fruity beverages etc... If you encounter a bear DO NOT RUN. Make yourself look large. Stay in a group. Stay on the trail. Make noise. Do not get between a mother bear and her cub.”About that time, a geriatric tour group of about 8 arrived by boat. We had seen the first group arrive an hour earlier by float plane. Each group of people had a guide. Each guide had a shotgun.
Rather than get stuck behind that group we zipped past them and up the trail. We were now in a bear infested forest without a shotgun.
This jaunt took about 30 minutes in dense forest but along a very well marked and maintained trail. We kept a running dialog with some clapping every now and then. We reached the platform where another ranger (rifle in hand) was waiting to let us in the gated area. The upper deck sits on a bend in the creek where the fish must jump up stream to continue their death march – a perfect place for a bear to lie in wait to scoop a few up. The stream was thick with fish. See photos. It was mesmerizing to watch the fish struggle with huge effort to move upstream. They were leaping and wiggling against rushing waters; thousands and thousands of them.There are obviously two sides to the stream; one side with the observatory and the other side that is separated by the rushing, fish laden stream.
It did not take long before a large black bear mother and her cub briefly arrived on the far side. The cub stuck close to the mother bear. The mother dove in head first and pulled out a large salmon. She and her cub retreated to feast.
A few minutes later another large black bear (who shall be called “cave bear”) popped out of a cave down near the water (he was there the whole time) and quickly collected up a fish and retreated into his cave to eat. He was on the far side as well.
Another bear (her name is Virginia) appeared from behind us (on our side of the stream), walked across the path we had used to arrive. She walked under the platform and down to the creek to capture a fish.
She selected about five fish, tasting them and then letting them fall back into the stream mortally wounded. After about four/five tastings she found one that she liked (the ranger said that she was probably looking for one full of fish eggs – these are tastier). She carried her prize back up under the platform and directly behind us. She was so close to me that I could have put my hand out and touched her back. I noticed that the ranger had both hands on his shot gun ready in case she turned around and jumped onto the platform
A rudimentary outhouse was off the trail about 30’ from the observatory. A guide had her eye on a guest who was in the outhouse when a bear with a fish walked right past the outhouse (between the platform and the outhouse). She motioned to the person to stay put for a few minutes.
Later, a young bear tentatively climbed down (on the far side) toward the creek, stopping to sniff (I think he could smell “cave bear”) and found a secure route to the creek. His skills were less refined, he threw himself in the creek and thrashed about to get a fish. He got soaked in the process but got a fish.
“Cave Bear” ate one fish about every 10 minutes. He would appear from his rock cave, collect up a fish and retreat to eat it. After a couple of hours he took a fish with him and retreated to the forest.
We stayed for about four or five hours hoping a Grizzly Bear would show up. These were all black bears. We got two turns in the bear blind section of the observatory because groups were late. The ranger reported that a couple of grizzly bears show up each day, more often in the evenings. The black bear scatter when the grizzlies show up. They call them “brownies”.
This was a lot of fun to watch. We wished that we could have used a net to collect a couple of the salmon too. It was a tad unnerving to make our way back to the bay where our dinghy was located. We did not have a guide nor did we join a group to make the 30 minute hike back to the bay.
However; we were encouraged by the rangers who said that no rifles have been used this year.GOOFY BOAT NAME: Kermode (I wonder what type of seats he has on his boat?)
Sunday, July 13, 2008
We continued to see whales all around us as we passed through Frederick Sound. This is the same place that we had our previous whale encounters that lasted for hours.
We are surrounded by snow covered mountains. We are wearing coats, hats, gloves and a scarf. It is a damp cold.
Portage Bay, Kupreanof Island (Frederick Sound) is where we anchored last night (7/12). It was a beautiful and peaceful anchorage.
The anchoring ritual goes like this:
Jim slows the boat down and takes a spin around the anchorage looking for “the best spot”. He is looking at his electronic maps for depths and looking at the Charlie’s Charts guide for comments about mud or sunken debris to be avoided.
Lara is standing out by the anchor as Jim slows the boat and looks around for a good spot.
Eventually, Jim motions that we are ready and he drops the anchor about 6 feet – just so it is dragging in the water. He slows and tells Lara when to drop the anchor. She manually releases the anchor and it flies out of the locker and off the boat. Lara attempts to count the markers to get an idea when we hit the target amount of line out (like 150’, 250’ etc...). Once the desired amount of line is out, Lara tightens up the anchor release.
Jim begins to back up the boat until the line becomes tight and we believe that the anchor is dug in. Jim uses his laser range finder to determine distances between the boat and various obstacles (like the shore, other boats etc...).
Lara locks the anchor line in place and puts on the anchor bridle. Jim lets out another 6’ of line so that the stress is now on the bridle and not on the anchor line.
This perpetual sunlight continues to be very interesting. We went to bed last night around 11pm (and it was still light – dusky but light) and it is hard to stay asleep at 4am when the sun is up already. However, it is not too hard to catch a nap later in the day. Yesterday I finally had the bright idea to stuff pillows in the port lights (windows) in the master suite. Nice and dark.
Today on the radio someone announced a bear on the shore – but we didn’t see it. Darn.
I (Lara) am really enjoying the challenge of cooking on board. Portions need to be sized for about four. Every leftover gets recycled. A pasta dinner becomes the bulk of a hearty beef soup. Taco meat becomes a breakfast egg/meat burrito. A plain rice side dish was reincarnated as a traditional rice pudding. I have five cook books along so it is not too hard to find a matching recipe.
The pressure cooker has been a lot of fun as well. It is a perfect enclosed system for a boat that can be attached to stove top (with the fiddles that screw on top of the burners). We are cooking stuffed flank steaks – in just 18 minutes.
To pass the time:
Lara has been knitting, doing some water color painting, keeping up with this blog, reading about the sights, some work related writing, reading novels, watching movies, downloading and editing photos, augmenting Jim’s understanding of the anchorages/routes by researching and highlighting and related cooking efforts.
Jim has been doing engine checks, heater maintenance, power balancing, navigation, fuel movement, tank maintenance, radio communications, driving the boat, occasional laundry and a few hours per day on his work related tasks.
Today we passed back through Wrangell Narrows where there are 66 navigational markers. One of the markers had five bald eagles (and three bald eagle youth) sitting on it. I (Lara) was too lazy to photograph them as the navigational marker was unattractive.
Now that we have achieved the iceberg phase of our adventure and we have had several whale encounters, we are now on a quest for bear! This will require that we get off the boat.
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