"I can't believe I ate the WHOLE thing!"

Friday, August 27, 2010

We now have "THE BEAR"

August 24, 2010
Awe and wonderment have returned to Skagway. . . . .

Not just for us, but for all the jaded seasonal workers who are READY for the season to end. Median day was six weeks ago. We have had termination dust (the first snow). The salmon run is over. The fireweed is turning to cotton. The topic of conversation is about plans for leaving, plans for the off season, plans for next year.

But now we have. . .THE BEAR.

THE BEAR EATING THE GOAT BY THE SNOWPLOW SHEDS

Tuesday morning he was spotted in the depression across the highway from the snowplow sheds. I first saw him that afternoon as I returned from Carcross. A medium sized cinnamon bear (that's a black species, that is brown in color) busily chomping on a full grown goat 30-40 feet off the road in some boulders. Since I was driving, I asked a 9 year old passenger to snap some pictures with my camera. Later, she asked me to email them to her so she could use them in a 4H vacation project. She should win a prize of some kind.

After work I loaded GaT into the jeep (it was Peggie's sick day) to go look. Other gawkers were there. By Wed morning "Have you seen the bear eating the goat?" was on everyone's lips. By now, it is simply, THE BEAR. "Have you seen the bear?" "Is the bear still there?"

Nobody can remember ever even hearing of such an event before. For four days, so far, this is a sure-fire excitement builder on a tour. Earlier we had the photos of the bear snatching the baby goat, but that event was actually seen by just one tour and the photos excited the drivers, but we didn't show them to people.

This will be a good story for years to come.

Greg joined my club

Peggie put GaT on the ferry this morning. They will spend the day in Juneau, then catch a flight tomorrow. We loved having them here. Ariana is changing so fast now. The only down side was that Peggie and I both spent several (different) days sick in bed. We are both still coughing a bit.
On his last day, Greg decided to go horseback riding. And, he fell off. So now he is an official member of the "He who falls from horses" club.

Look Grandma, I have a flower!

We took the ferry to Haines yesterday. On one of our stops, Ariana picked some flowers and Grandma experimented with her camera.

You gotta (get to?) live with your choices.

I spend a lot of time in the office this year helping Dave with a variety of stuff. That means I know more about what is going on and what is coming up. When choices have to be made about who will do what tour, I usually get my choice. That's why most days I take the Carcross tour. But when Dave overrules me (RHIP) and he takes the Carcross tour, I still choose which group I want to take.
Today I chose a family group of 21 over a varied group of 24. Good choice. As they got on the bus, I pinched my thumb in the door opener handle. As I was doing my intro speech, one woman, a mom of course, handed me a kleenix for the bleeding, which I hadn't noticed yet. At the same time, a second woman, another mom of course, held up her neosporine and squeezed some on my thumb. It was, still is, a cloudy rainy day so when we got to the summit and couldn't see beyond the billions of water droplets, I suggested we drive a few extra miles for some scenery, and they agreed. Good choice, because we saw a bear.
Not only that, but I saw the other bus at one of the stops. He had had a screaming four year old that he had to return to town before continuing his tour. Yuck!
Many years ago, we chose to have children. So now we are babysitting our granddaughter.
So I made the right choices.

Happy Birthday, Bill!

Yes, today is the day Bill has a very special birthday. I know he's going to have cheesecake and presents. Let's see, something else is happening too. What is it?

Oh yeah, his wonderful granddaughter is bringing her parents and staying for a visit!!! We all get to enjoy this present.

He doesn't seem much older than the 20-year-old I met but since he now has a granddaughter he must be older. Oh my, how the time does fly!

Take That Road to the Top of the World!

With such spectacular weather we were happy to have the day off. Saturday was the day to take the jeep and go on "That Road". You know, the one Bill, Don and I went on last year when it was wet and foggy and we said we'd like to see it when you could really see. Well, let me tell you, we could really see and it was as beautiful as we hoped. We opened the windows and removed the top and the first thing I noticed was the smell of pine trees, the smell of pine you get when it's hot and dry outside. We just kept climbing and climbing. No bears or caribou but we did see a Dall sheep--she was below us so that tells you how high we were. Bill had heard that if you follow "That Road" you can see Bennett Lake so we did and we did. Distances are so deceiving. What looks like a short hike to the edge is really farther than it seems. The same is true when looking down at the lake. It all looks so close until you realize that those little specks down there are full-sized pine trees and a whole bunch of them at that. Coming back, yes, we did have to return on the same road (unusual for us), we saw five more Dall sheep and three pheasants. And a bunch of arctic squirrels.

Check out the photo album on the side.

Next, granddaughter Ariana is bringing her parents to Skagway for a visit. They're enjoying great weather in Juneau today and take the ferry up here tomorrow.

Grizzly nature at work

This is the same little grizzly from the previous video last week. He has distinctive two-tone coloring that makes him easy to recognize. I was speaking to one of the park rangers who agreed with me that this is most likely one of the pair we watched last summer acting so comicallly trying to catch salmon. So he would be in his third summer and be two and a half years old. Maybe he will be a good playmate for Ariana when she comes next week. Not.
When I took this video, he had just come down stream and crossed over the bridge like he did last week. He is in the crossing about 30 feet downstream from the bridge. I was standing in the open door of my jeep, ready to jump in, but, of course, he was too busy with fish to worry about me.
If you don't like blood, or think fish are just for decorating a stream, you may not want to watch this grizzly going about the grizzly business of surviving.
But, for me, this is really cool.

The crackling sound is the wind on the camera mike.

Good citizen vs complete idiots

Half a day trying to drum up a tour to no avail.
So what to do?
Bear hunting!
When I got home, Peggie was quilting, so bear hunting definitely was my best option. When she quilts she uses up the whole tiny apartment.
On my way to Dyea I encountered some really quick little weasel-type animals. So quick and secretive, I could not get pictures as they ducked in and out of rocks and weeds. I don't know what they are, but there were four of them. After I gave up on them, I came around a curve and there was a burning campfire beside the road, and nobody around! The river was right across the road, but I didn't have a bucket. So I called 911. They sent the fire department. But first another vehicle came along. He had seen it also and went to get a bucket. We put water on it and stirred it with my shovel, then two firemen came and we let them take over. The first guy said he had seen people camped there earlier. What kind of idiot just leaves a campfire burning in a forest? A complete idiot.
No bears. But the eagles are still entertaining.

Not so much

The aurora borealis was a bust. We got up at 1 am and went outside. After ten minutes of nothing we went back to bed. Perhaps more patience was required, but we have to work today, so losing lots of sleep seemed unattractive.
Anyway, I had used up my patience looking for bears. I spent the late afternoon and early evening at Dyea. The salmon are shoving each other around vying for fertilization rights. The eagles are playing a game called "Juveniles Rule." The way it works is, a mature bald eagle catches a salmon and starts to eat it. Then a juvenile flies in, knocking the adult away, then takes the fish to a new place, where another juvie knocks him away, repeating the process, sometimes involving up to four juvies. Unfortunately, this all happens too far away to get video. The adults take all this activity tolerantly, following along as if to say, "You kids play nice, there is enough for everyone."

Aurora Borealis??

We're hopeful.

Greg sent us some news about solar activity and since then we've been getting more information so the plan is to go to bed, get up at 1:00 a.m. and drive up the road where we have some open sky. There are lots of Tweets on the internet that I've been following. It looks like the viewing will be good. Today was spectacular weather--clear skies, sunshine and high 70's, maybe low 80's.

Clear skies--hurray!!!

It's too exciting!

http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/08/02/2028228/The-Sun-Unleashes-Coronal-Mass-Ejection-At-Earth?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

I noticed the news story has a heading "News for Nerds. Stuff That Matters".

Our whole family is kind of nerdy and if you're reading about our adventures you're probably kind of nerdy too.

Nerds are great!

Bill says...

Today (Sunday) was devoted to bear hunting. I went out in the late morning. No bears, but found out later one had disappeared minutes before I arrived. I went out again after lunch and Peggie went with me. We stayed until supper time. No bears. After supper I decided to give it one more try. Success! A bear was fishing in the familiar waters just upstream from the foot bridge. About fifteen people were on or near the bridge taking pictures, including the town's night patrolman. That is his voice you hear telling someone to get back. I had been standing right at the railing off the far end of the bridge. This bear started downstream and it was clear he was not stopping, so we all exited stage right. As you can see on the video, he crossed over the exact spot where I had been. I was a lot closer to him while I shot this video than I ever wanted to be, or ever want to be again, without at least some vehicular steel between us.