Poor man's puffins and lucky man's landscapes

More snapshots from an April week in Haines. I'd been told that hitch hiking wasn't easy in Haines, but if I may, I beg to differ. Not only were the rides relatively easy, but we also met a great lady who after driving us one direction offered to take us on a hike and then give us a lift back to town. If that wasn't enough, she offered to let us use her bicycles for the weekend, which was rather fortunate, since the Chilkat Valley happens to be among the finer locations for weekend bike rides I've ever known. If you'd like to talk about warmth, trust, and authentic generosity, you'd better include her in your description.

Sitting on the beach on a Thursday afternoon with a few hundred surf scoters. Scoters have "whistling wings," and on a calm day you can hear their wings whistle from huge distances. Surf scoters are fairly spooky sea ducks and will flee at the approach of anything on the water or on the beach. A river otter approached this group from somewhat of a discreet location, but before it was within 100 yards, the several hundred poor man's puffins packed their bags and headed toward another location a quarter mile down the bay.

Alaska's clean waters and healthy wildlife are up against enormous threats (and given the mentality, philosophy, and politics of the vast majority of Alaskans and their corresponding lawmakers, the current outlook for clean water and stable ecosystem dynamics is pretty scary). Surf scoters' numbers have declined an estimated 50 - 75% in the last 50 years, which should be sufficiently alarming to anybody who understands that losing 3/4 of the population of a species in a half century is not a healthy trend for the region's ecological stability. However, it is still possible to head to the beach and see hundreds of these birds diving in the shallows for tasty crustaceans.


Ripple remnants on the Mud Bay mudflats at low tide.


Looking south into Mud Bay and at the approach of a wintery mixed bag of precipitation..

April feast up the Chilkat and Chilkoot

If you're trying to find a recipe for unpleasantness, I don't think the following would fall into the equation: Sunny skies in the Chilkat Valley, temperatures loitering around the 60 degree mark, a cozy cabin, good company, free bicycles, Haines Brewery beverages, and the annual caloric bonanza that is the hooligan spawn.

Gulls gathering for an instinctual meeting on the mudflats of the Chilkat Valley. In late April, it'd be hard to find a hungry gull in northern Southeast, given the abundance of slimy little snacks spawning their way up familiar watersheds.

Eulachon, or hooligan, or candlefish. Whichever you prefer. They are, regardless, the culprit responsible for the massive April feast in choice estuaries throughout northern Southeast Alaska. The fish run in the millions, providing a nutritious free-for-all amongst humpbacks, sea lions, gulls, eagles, and other feathered friends with an appetite for the stuff. Hooligan are oily enough to burn like a candle, but I've recently passed a personal resolution to burn candles that smell pleasant, not ones that smell like oily fish carcass...

Thousands of gulls speed-dating on the mudflats in front of the unphotogenic Chilkats.

A couple good-lookin' peaks looming largely.

Not punctual, but not forgotten

A few Southeast snapshots from the winter/spring...

Looking northwest sometime near the spring equinox. After a dreary March, a broken sky with slivers of sunset was enough to make this boy smile.

Pals palling around at an undisclosed lunching location in Berner's Bay.

A few friends motoring through Berner's Bay. Joining us for our paddle were a handful of humpbacks, a dozen sea lions, and two stark naked crab fishermen. True story.

A rather young nursery log building bridges over an undisclosed creek east of Berner's Bay.

Tenakee Springs doing its best to shake off the midmorning fog. Tenakee, with a year round population of 100 give or take, has more beautifully crafted off-the-grid homes than you could wave a stick at. And a community bathhouse/hot spring in which one of the clear regulations is something along the lines of: "Clothing may not be worn at any time."