What's it like to fly with eagles?

Flying over a glacier on my way from Anchorage to Cordova to Yakutat

Bear track on the beach

So my first hike in Alaska was on a trail that hasn’t been completed yet but is in a gorgeous location. I went with my supervisor Susan and her boyfriend and their sweet dog, Lexie. The trail follows the beach with a breathtaking view of Mt. Saint Elias and many other snow-capped peaks and a view of Yakutat Bay.  We hiked past a tree almost chewed entirely through by a beavers, watched numerous bald eagles fly overhead, and enjoyed the rare 100% sunshine.  Part of the trail loops down onto the beach where I saw my first bear tracks….. and they.were. HUGE.  They were large not only just for my standards (my standards being ANY bear is a big bear), but for the others whom actually have bear experience.  We hiked out to the Ankau bridge and then looped back on the road- about a 3 hour hike altogether, but no elevation changes here- too flat!

That night a group of coworkers and friends and many dogs had a barbeque at one of the campsites on Cannon Beach overlooking the vast Gulf of Alaska. I tried some wonderful cooked salmon and even some moose! We eventually moved down to the beach and built a fire and cooked some smores while watching the sunset. The dogs started going crazy and everyone reassured eachother that the dogs always do that, but sure enough they started to run up to the trees and there was a bear poking its head out of the woods! A big one! Brown bear, which I learned is the same as a grizzly, only bigger because of its rich diet of fish from living on the coast. So while browns are not quite as big as Kodiak bears (which are also another type of grizzly), they are big enough.  People started packing up all the food to get ready to leave, and the bear circled back and took another run at the campsite, so we got out pretty quickly.

Sunset on Cannon Beach

On the short drive home from the beach we caught a glimpse of the Northern Lights, though they were faint.  During all of these moments I couldn’t help but think how wild and amazing this country is- this whole world is! Even more than the sense of awe and wonder about nature that I get while canoeing the Westbranch of the Penobscot I get here. In my journal from that night I wrote, “I now get what Grandpa lived for, and now I know more than ever that it’s in my blood”. Maybe that's cheesey, but it was how I was feeling at the time.

The day after I went on another 3 hour hike with another coworker (Teresa) and her husband, Brad, and two dogs.  We hiked along Tawak Creek and once again saw too many eagles to count, a sea lion out off the beach, some tracks from bear and moose, and the remains of ancient Tlinget villages.  I believe Teresa said it was the oldest known village in the SE Alaska region.  So humbling to think about the lives of people before and their history, and consider what the landscape looked like when they lived. Cool to be walking the same land that they once did so long ago!

I learned about Devil’sClub- a terrible annoying plant that has thorns that stick into your skin and give you little painful red bumps for a while- as well as Skunk Cabbage, a pretty yellow flower.

On Wednesday I went out with Nate (my other supervisor) and a man from Alaska Fish & Game to do an aerial survey of hooligan (smelt) and stellar sea lions. That meant we went up in this little 5 person float plane and gained a spectacular view of the glaciers, mountains, rivers & estuaries, and ocean. We saw lots of sea lions but apparently there are usually even more than that in certain spots. 

Our float plane

The guys spotted a bear which just looked like a little black dot but they told me it was definitely a big one.  I told them that I’m noticing a pattern here… it seems that every time we see bear tracks or a bear… someone claims that it’s a big bear. Didn’t see any hooligan, (except for the ones in the plane! Haha).  One of the best parts of that excursion was watching the eagles soaring below and right next to our plane.  We were flying WITH the eagles! So majestic. I keep telling people here that I know I make a big deal of seeing the eagles and they aren't a big deal here, but I certainly won't be getting sick of seeing them any time soon.

 

One view of the mountains from the float plane

Later that night a girl I met who is an Americorps volunteer working in the school and I helped a fish and game biologist who flew in to do some bat monitoring. We counted 255 bats flying out of this abandoned building in town between 930-11pm! Very cool device called an Arabat that detects them, but once they started coming out we just counted/estimated the best we could.

Thursday was one of the most jaw-dropping days EVERRRR and that will be next to write about!

Sea lions from plane