August: Back Home and Reminiscing

August 2010: A look back on our EPIC month: The Yukon Territory’s slogan is “Larger than life.” That’s how I think of Alaska too. After a month, it was time to come home but I still think about where I’d like to go next, in Alaska. I’d love to do some fishing. And visit some remote islands, maybe even the Aleutian chain. But mostly, I’d like to pick a few places and just sit still and enjoy. Alaska is fascinating for its many facets. For its vastness and its endless temperate rainforests and arctic tundra. For the glaciated mountains and beautiful coast. For the rich fisheries and the over the top wildlife. For it’s native Alaskan cultures and its Russian heritage, and even for its modern day culture that seems 50 years behind the rest of us. I’m so glad we went!

Portland Canal, Hyder AK

Ubiquitous Fireweed - This ought to be the state flower

7/30 - 8/8: 4000 miles to go!

Friday July 30 to Sunday August 8, 4000 miles in 10 days: John and I made a rule for ourselves: 400 miles a day, every day! It was long and hard, but it worked and we got home just in time for work and marching band practice on Monday morning. We travelled through so much territory, all of it so tempting to explore. But mostly, we didn’t stop and now I’ve got to go back and spend some time in the Yukon and British Columbia - and more Alaska, of course!

We were escorted through a British Columbia forest fire...

We did make time for one more foray into Alaska. Hyder is a southeastern Alaskan town that’s surrounded by British Columbia. The road into town is spectacular in the usual Alaska way. We passed below glacier after glacier and breathtaking water falls tumbling out of the glaciers to the lakes along the road. At the road’s end is Stewart, BC and Hyder, side by side, facing the end of a very narrow fjord called the Portland Canal. Chum salmon swim up fish creek from there, and we drove up to the viewing platform along the creek, hoping to watch bears catch salmon. The salmon were all over and beautiful to study from above. A few dead and partially eaten ones were along the creek’s edge. But the bears we saw were on the road rather than in the water. Maybe it gets to be too much of a good thing!

Border crossing from Stewart BC to Hyder AK is not a big deal.

Chum Salmon in spawning colors

Chum, after the bears dine

That morning as we drove towards Hyder, we had 2 very exciting bear crossings on the highway and I thought to myself, what are these cubs doing without their mothers? That evening, on the way up the gravel road beside Fish Creek, another bear ambled out onto the road in front of us, followed by her 2 cubs. They took their sweet time, and one cub sat down and scratched. It suddenly dawned on me. The bears I’d seen earlier were adult black bears! They’re about ½ the size of browns (or grizzlies) and by comparison they look pretty cute and cuddly.

7/29: The Kenai's West Coast

Thursday July 29, Kenai City or bust: John and I reluctantly agreed that we would have to begin the long drive home on Friday in order to be back in Fort Collins by August 8. So, we all decided that one more beach town destination was in order before our 2 families parted ways. Our friends had another week of fun planned, including a pontoon plane trip to stay at a bear camp in Katmai National Park. We drove back north, up the Sterling Highway along the Kenai’s west coast. It seems that almost all the roads in Alaska are called highways, and most are named after someone. Maybe this makes sense in a state that has only a half dozen or so major thoroughfares. Each one is a big deal – why not name them?

We took a short break at the Russian Orthodox Church on the ocean bluff outside of Ninilchik. The Father was gone fishing, so the door was locked but I chatted with a local guy who was working in the church’s cemetery, repairing his uncle’s grave site. He’d grown up in Ninilchik, but lived in Homer now. Russian surnames are still everywhere in this part of Alaska.

For lunch, we stopped at Clam Gulch and after a quick bite, we (you guessed it) tried some clam digging. The tide was unusually far out and we walked along the water line looking for the air holes of razor clams, shovels in hand. After absolutely no luck at all, Fei spotted some clammers up ahead of us and waded through a creek to get some advice. They had a bucket full of the elusive creatures and told her to dig very fast, then reach down and pinch with your fingers. Razors apparently can move away quickly. Soon thereafter, Fei caught a clam! The rest of us didn’t seem to have the knack. The returning tide and more rain sent us back to our vehicles.

Our final night together was north of Kenai City at a tranquil and beautiful campground right above the beach. As we circled the campground, looking for 2 good spots next to each other, a little quail-like bird crossed the road and stepped into the bushes. I grabbed my bird identification pamphlet. Cool! I’d spotted a Ptarmigan – Alaska’s state bird. We had a great night. After feasting on king crab legs, smoked salmon and steak, the boys built a bonfire on the beach and we all gathered round. A fitting way to celebrate the end of a remarkable 3 weeks.

7/28: To Seldovia

Wednesday July 28, What the heck - why not one more boat ride: Across Kachemak Bay from Homer, there’s a quiet little fishing town called Seldovia. So this morning, we all boarded a tour boat to go explore a town that can’t be reached by car, as well as grab another chance to spot wildlife on the water. After seeing the usual hordes of beautiful seabirds, a dozen sea otters and one not so shy harbor seal, we were dropped off at Seldovia’s harbor, with 4 hours to spend as we wished.

Seldovia was founded by the Russians in the late 1700’s, and a Russian Orthodox church still stands on a hill above the harbor. We found a cramped little bookshop/café and had a break on the deck overlooking the Seldovia Slough. Looking down on the water, we watched a lone salmon making its way upstream at low tide. It was a big fish in very shallow water and its dorsal fin stuck out above, making him easy to follow. We found a hiking trail just behind the town’s school called the “Otterbahn”, originally constructed by high school students. It took us through a high canopy of very tall Sitka Spruce and at eye level, berry bushes were everywhere along the trail. Salmonberries and blueberries and strawberries. And the occasional pile of bear poo. We all like berries! The trail ended at a gorgeous beach cove, and we stayed to enjoy the water, sand and tide pools.

7/27: Biking Homer

Tuesday July 27, Biking around town: We camped in a city campground abut ½ mile uphill from the main street and it was easy to get everywhere by bike. First stop was the Pratt Museum just down the hill. It’s a beautiful medium sized collection of fishing history, wildlife exhibits and the works of local artists. For most of the 20th century, Homer was a salmon fishing and canning town. Now, tourism is the main draw, including many tourists who come for the salmon and halibut fishing. The halibut are huge, often 70 or 80 pounds each! Mark and I spent the better part of a day pedaling around and shopping. The Homer bookstore has a really good selection and I picked up a history of the Russian exploration of Alaska. Then we rode out along the Homer Spit – a narrow sandy bar of land that extends more than 3 miles out into the bay. The boat harbor and most tourist activity is along the spit, and it’s very entertaining. It reminded Mark and me a little of Santa Monica and Venice beaches in Southern California, Alaska style. Bald eagles hang out on the driftwood and in dead trees, I suppose on the lookout for not so giant fish. There’s a constant stream of single engine pontoon planes landing and taking off from the airport next to the spit. It’s a happening place! After finding some souvenirs and ice cream, we headed back to camp and it seemed a lot farther pedaling back than going out. We had a beautiful moonrise over the glaciers and Kachemak Bay that night.

7/26: Exit Glacier and a few hours' drive to Homer

Monday July 26 Over to Homer: Leaving Seward, we made a stop at Exit Glacier, the only one in Kenai Fjords National Park that's accessible by car. Yes, it's called Exit, because it's often used as a path to leave the gigantic Harding Ice Field that feeds all of the glaciers in the park. At first, I didn't understand the highway signage announcing an Exit! Trail construction up to the glacier is constant, as the ice melts back 20 or 30 feet per year.

The town of Homer is on the southwest side of the Kenai and gets about ½ the rain of Seward, and so we drove with hope through the rain across the deeply wooded peninsula, along the Kenai river. This river is world famous for the fishing, especially for the world’s largest king salmon. We drove down into Homer just as the rain stopped and the clouds lifted enough to see the glaciated valleys and snowy mountaintops across the Kachemak Bay – a spectacular view of the western extent of Kenai Fjords. Homer is a neat little city and we stayed put for 3 days!

Photos of Northwest Glacier

Waterfall into the Ocean

Top of Northwestern Fjord, with tidewater glacier

Seals, Hauled up on the Ice

Northwestern Glacier, calving

7/25: To Kenai Fjords by Boat

Sunday July 25, Nine Hours on a Boat: We got going early for a 9 hour boat trip to Northwestern Lagoon. Northwestern Lagoon and the tidewater glacier at its end are part of Kenai Fjords National Park and only accessible by boat. This day ranked up there with our day on the bus in Denali for an unforgettable experience! Perhaps, like our boat’s captain said, marine life likes cloudy, rainy days when the big hot ball in the sky isn’t out. We saw stuff I never dreamed I’d see in person. There were Stellar sea lions lazing on the rocks of small islands and there were groups of orca swimming and diving close to shore. Puffins were all over. They seem to prefer swimming to flying and reluctantly took to partial flight to move away from us by beating their wings quickly along the water rather than the air. It seemed like an inefficient way to travel, but they moved fast!

I was standing out close to the bow, all bundled up against the freezing drizzle when I saw the familiar water spout of a humpback surfacing close to shore. I stood waiting for him to resurface, but the captain had seen him too, and brought the boat around much closer. The young male breached, and breached again, much to our thrill! He came up and ½ way out of the water over and over, coming back down sideways and hitting the surface so hard, he made huge splashes. Wow! I couldn’t believe it!

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, it did. After 4 hours under way, we slowly approached the Northwestern Glacier. The water was filled with small icebergs, the result of the constant calving (breaking off) of the glacier that towered above us. And a hundred seals were resting on them, their own personal icy rafts. The glacier was so beautiful – an awe inspiring mountain of white and turquoise blue, ringing the shore. Coming back to Seward, most of us dozed and warmed up in the cabin. A group of Dall’s Porpoises swam along the ship’s bow for a few minutes, looking very much like miniature orcas, so muscular and fast in the water. (Photos are in the next posting)

July 24: Next Stop, Seward

Saturday July 24, Next Stop, Seward: This morning we motored on down the Seward Highway with lots of other traffic, to the salmon and halibut fishing Mecca of Seward. On the east side of the Kenai, Seward is the jumping off spot for nearby Kenai Fjords National Park. It’s a cruise ship destination, and it has a superb Alaska Sealife Center that looks out over Resurrection Bay. There’s a city owned campground along the waterfront, created after the destruction of the city in the 1964 Good Friday earthquake. The magnitude 9.2 quake flattened most the city and then tsunamis and fires took care of the rest. Town is now a couple of blocks up and away from the shoreline. Campers are more expendible…

Nowadays, you’d never know there was a huge earthquake. Seward’s a thriving small town full of summer tourists, and we loved being able to camp right next to the bay. Bald eagles flew low over the water looking for fish, and sea otters dove for shellfish and floated in the waves just off shore. For dinner, we went to an ocean front restaurant and took full-on advantage of all the fresh fish! Too bad it rained non-stop for the 2 days we were there – what the locals call the “Seward drip”.

7/23: At the end of the road, there's Hope

Friday July 23, “At the end of the road, there’s Hope”: We woke up to sunny blue skies for the first time! Up a short dead end road was the town of Hope where we spent a splendidly relaxed morning poking around and chatting with locals. Hope was a briefly booming gold mining town a hundred years ago, and now is a collection of dilapidated wood buildings and a few cabins. It sits on the shore of the Turnagain Arm, looking across to the opposite shore and the highway we drove down the afternoon before. There are a few cafes, a painter’s gallery located next to his home, and a friendly museum of mining memorabilia along with some partly restored old buildings. Fei checked out an old cast iron waffle maker sitting on atop a wood-burning stove. All the conveniences of home! A few other tourists parked along main-street, but town was refreshingly low key.

With the advice of a retired forest service guy named Ron, we headed down the road just a little bit in search of gold!!! We thought we might find a campsite at Coeur d’Alene before doing some panning. Instead we found ourselves on a rough and narrow dirt road that became rougher and narrower with every mile. We finally stopped and worried a little about how we would turn around. But it was lunchtime, so we parked at a wide spot and had a nice lunch. Standing outside with binoculars, we scanned the arctic landscape around us. Jenny spotted a brown bear on the mountainside above us! The bear moved slowly, stopping to dig for roots or pick berries, and came in and out of view among the short willows. Sure enough, she had 2 cubs along, and they were little ones - this year’s models.

We got ourselves turned around with some difficulty in the narrow valley, and backtracked down to the Resurrection Pass Trailhead. There, we found a campsite along the river, where the forest service sets aside the riverbanks for tourist panning. Elsewhere in the area, most of the creeks have mining claims and aren’t available for us amateurs. I pulled out a bucket filled with pans, picks, trowels, magnifying glasses and tweezers that I’d put together at home and sat down to review the instructions. Hmm, dig up some stream gravel, put it in the shallow pan, dunk it in the water and slosh everything back and forth. Fei and I worked at it for some time, but looking through the black sand at the bottom of the pan was disappointing. This creek was much too picked over for finding even a tiny piece of gold, I think.

7/22: An Anchorage Morning and Kenai Afternoon

Thursday July 22, on to the Kenai: We walked around downtown Anchorage in the morning, looking for the usual tourist souvenirs. It’s a pleasant place to wander and poke around in stores. The ocean is close, as are the snow capped mountains.

South and west of Anchorage is the Kenai Peninsula, famous for its glaciers, fishing and wildlife. We drove just a couple of hours along the Turnagain Arm. This is a long finger of ocean, or fjord, off of the huge Cook Inlet. The tide was way out, and mud flats stretched as far as we could see. Inland and up in altitude a bit, we camped at a pretty spot called Bertha Creek, selecting a site with a tumbling water fall in view and towering mountain slopes all around.

After visiting the outhouse, I came out to the sound of a violin playing a Bach minuet from the Suzuki violin book #1. It’s a very familiar tune around our house and I figured that Jenny and Fei had gotten out the violins. Instead, next to the Kaser’s campsite, a woman was sitting on her picnic table, playing the tune from heart. Cool! She came over to chat after she heard the girls start to play. Turns out, she was en route from Homer to Wasilla, for a weekend with friends and had just stopped for a break. She had felt self-conscious about playing her violin, but she was in the right neighborhood! Jenny, Fei, Barb and I all played a bunch that evening. It was so fun!