Sow and cub show

We've been lucky enough to have several sows with cubs cruise the shores of Pack Creek this summer. Mocha and her yearling cub, quite familiar bears, have been the most regular. Mocha has demonstrated a lot of dominant behavior all summer, chasing subadults and adult females from various clamming and fishing holes. We initially wondered if we'd see a lot of bears on the creek this season with the amount of dominance Mocha had been displaying. Despite her efforts, many bears have made their way to the creek. Junebug, a young little mother of one spring cub, has also been regular. Her cub is easily intimidated, and oftentimes she runs away when her mother catches a salmon in the creek. The cub must associate any violent movement as something to run from, thus the quick and powerful movements of snatching a fish hit the cub's panic button and send her sprinting for the trees. Hopefully she learns to understand that fights with fish are good fights, or else she might run right into the clutches of a more dangerous bear...

Junebug and her frightened little cub scanning the waters for fish.

Freshly caught pink salmon, with Junebug's cub hiding somewhere in the sedge...

Big ol' Mocha and her yearling cub obtaining some fresh vitamin D in a late July sucker hole.


Staying within arm's reach as other bears approach the creek.

Mocha taking a nap creekside, and her cub wrestling with one of her numerous phantom friends.

Congregating bears

This summer, the bears of Seymour Canal seem to be congregating in larger numbers compared to last year. The blueberry and salmon berry bushes have exploded with fruit, thus bringing in the bears in big numbers. The salmon runs have been relatively light, but there are still plenty of fish to be caught and munched streamside. With the abundance of berries and availability of fish, we've had to use all of our fingers and toes to count the bears we're seeing. In one day, we counted 18 different individuals utilizing the creek or adjacent berry bushes. At one given time, I was surrounded by 11 bears, all within sight up and down the creek. With the arrival of the heavy quantity of heavy hitters, we've seen some very interesting interaction between sows with cubs, subadults, and adult males. Some spooky situations for spring cubs, stressful situations for young subadults recently kicked out by their mother, and one hair raising scene in which I saw the largest boar of my life (I can't accurately estimate his weight, but he dwarfed a bear we know to be roughly 600 pounds; I'm thinking he's at least in the 800 pound range)...

Stripping the bushes for sugary salmon berries, this dark chocolate adult female feasted in the bushes near us for over an hour. She also retrieved a rotten salmon from the bushes- the discarded catch of a previously successful fishing bear.

Too many ideal captions for this photo. Do I go with "she's roaring her frustration over the lack of a suitable mate," or "she's serenading the creek with her favorite Rage Against the Machine tune?" Turns out, she was simply snatching all the salmon berries she could find, using her large omnivorous cuspids to intimidate the berries into falling into her mouth.

This tall drink would qualify as an aforementioned "heavy hitter." He wandered up and down the creek for a half an hour or more, without taking any fish from the water. A few other bears, mostly subadults and smaller females, immediately vacated the area as he approached. He certainly is a stout bear, but not the biggest we've seen this summer.


A downstream view from our observation tower.


The matriarch. This bear is believed to be 24 years old, having been born in 1986 (she's a very easy bear to recognize, given her frosted/blonde colored ears). She's seen some adversity in her day, as you can see her nose has taken a major hit or two over the years. She arrived to the estuary this spring with an obvious angulated fracture in her rear right leg. An injury like that could have happened any number of ways. It's possible she took a fall crossing an avalanche schute in the spring or fell from a slippery rock or log while trying to cross a stream or ravine. In any event, her leg has managed to heal enough to apply light pressure. Some days are better than others. Some days she walks with a slight limp, other days she tucks her leg up and walks with her remaining three legs. She scratches her head with her broken leg, and oftentimes stands on her hind legs to get a better view of the spawning fish. Commonly, an injury like a broken leg would mean the end. We'll have to wait and see. Since she is in her mid twenties, she's had years to perfect a fishing technique that wastes minimal energy and catches numerous fish. From our observations, this bear has caught the most fish this summer, despite her injury. And she's even starting to develop a good sized summer belly full of fish flesh...

The Yukon: Where the sun resides...

Somehow I selected one of the soggiest weekends in Juneau to escape to the relatively dry climate of Skagway and the sunny landscapes of the Yukon. As it came down in sheets in Juneau on a windy weekend, I slipped my shoes off and went for a summertime run in the Carcross sand dunes near Whitehorse. It's been many full moons since I last dipped my toes into some sun-warmed sand. It felt good to prance around like a beach-dweller.

Once in Whitehorse, I was informed by a girl that the Carcross sand dunes are Canada's fifth smallest desert. Seems a worthy acknowledgement, eh? After I chatted with her a bit, I found my way to a corner store and bought the most delicious oranges I've eaten all summer, took my book to the riverbanks of the mighty Yukon, and took a warm nap in the green grass. The Yukon has the medicine that I craved these past few rainy weeks: a double dose of vitamin D.

Windswept ripples receiving yet another gust of the good stuff: a hot summer breeze.

Living in the rainforest of the Tongass, you'd think I see my fair share of trees. Yet I was a happy-go-lucky soul when I saw these sizeable expanses of aspens leafed out in the Yukon sun.

Bria and her pantaloons blowin' in the wind.


Pleasantness personified: late evening in the Yukon with blue skies, wild peaks, no mosquitoes and one black bear picking his way through the lakeside berry bushes.

Perhaps the best cover for a book I've ever seen. I can't remember the title, as I was mostly focused on this perfectly creepy individual collecting edible fungus in what appears to be the middle of his in-the-woods-trombone-playing mission. My friend Pete, with whom I worked for a few years back in Yellowrock, now lives in Skagway. He uses this mushroom field guide to harvest tasty edible mushrooms in the forests surrounding Skagway. With his harvested mushrooms, combined with the fresh crab caught outside Skagway and the deliciously fresh kale and chard grown in his garden plot in town, we had some extraordinarly finger lickin' good local cuisine. Thanks Pete and friends!

Los parajos del bosque lluvioso

The avian diversity of coastal Southeast Alaska isn't exactly robust, but there are some fancy looking feathers swooping through the old hemlocks now and then. The most common birds we see in Windfall Harbor are, of course, eagles, ravens, crows, and thrushes. We do, however, see quite a few marbled murrelets (fairly rare), mergansers, a few loons, and scoters. Here are a few others that managed to stay still long enough for my lens to snap off a shot or two..

The regal pose of lady libery, focusing ponderously on some minute movement 800 yards away (perhaps).

Bird bathing in the cool waters of Pack Creek on a soggy Southeast afternoon. Despite its rather golden eagle appearance, this is indeed a juvenile bald eagle.

The lesser yellowlegs tiptoeing around the rocky shoreline like a Romanian gymnast in search of a gold medal buried amongst the seaweed.


One of my favorites, the belted kingfisher, complete with her fancy feathered headdress. We've had many more kingfishers scooping up salmon fry along the estuaries and coves this year than last year.

A solitary Wilson's warbler feasting in the salmon berry bushes near the creek. The salmon berries have exploded this year, resulting in a few more birds, and a lot more bears...

Windfall Harbor in late June

Life in Windfall Harbor, and on the majority of Admiralty Island for that matter, isn't only about bears. Particuarly in late June and early July, when you're near a creek that doesn't spawn sockeye, and the chum haven't yet begun their spawn. At that time, most bears follow the receding snowline and the subsequent fresh greens that follow the snowmelt. A few bears remain in the lower elevations in late June before the salmon arrive, most of which are subadults or sows with cubs. The ones that want to be where the adult males aren't. However, we occasionally see a straggling adult male or solo adult female in the lower elevations in June, rooting around on the tideflats for some choice horse clams or grazing the sedge meadows for remnants of protein-rich plants. Otherwise, late June and early July are good weeks to hang out with organisms other than ursus arctos on Admiralty Island.

The steadfast peaks of Windfall Harbor. The place where I rest my head. For four months a year, at least.

Attempting to scale a camp-dwelling Sitka spruce. And when I say attemping to scale, I simply mean posing-in-front-of-with-arm-stretched-upward, as though I were half-assedly attempting to scale. This Sitka spruce seems large enough, but it's actually relatively small compared to the big dogs that were cut decades ago in Alaska and BC.

Another relatively small specimen. An adult male who has a large frame, but has yet to pack on the pounds to fill out his large stature. A few more years of consuming thousands of calories, and this fellow will be an intimidating soul, indeed.


Caught with its little tonge out of its beak, this intercontinental migrator and his buddies tend to frequent our camp. Rufous Hummingbirds make the big trip from Colombia and Venezuela to Alaska and back again every year. Not bad for a bird the size of your thumb...


For those interested in American voices, the hermit thrush has been described by the likes of Walt Whitman as encompassing the American voice. The hermit thrush song is about as soothing as it gets, particularly as you're waking up at 6 am on a summer's day in Windfall Harbor. This gray little guy seems to favor the blueberry bushes directly in front of our tent, as he, or others that look identical to him, cherry pick the bush's best blueberries on a regular basis.

Decent Views

If you're into the whole enormous views, endless ridges, napping in the sunshine, and no crowds scene, then this neighborhood ridge might be up your alley. Which ridge is it, though? 'Fraid I can't say.

Mount McGinnis and Stroller White, a couple of sizeable stones loitering next to a cold sheet of ice.

Supplementing the scene with a sprinkle of scale, Jackie and Shylah contemplate the big icy to the north and the lupine and buttercups to the south.

Casually meandering amongst a few flowers, investigating a good spot for a potential afternoon nap in the sun. The Skagway-Haines-Juneau ferry can be seen approaching via the Lynn Canal in the distance.


I've read about various species of alpine goats and sheep getting harrassed by eagles, but this is the first time I've actually seen it. This eagle pressured these mountain goat kids for a few minutes, forcing them to retreat to a safer zone. If successful, the eagle would have managed to get a mountain goat kid to slip and plunge to its death, upon which the eagle would certainly have had a carrion feast. In the photo, you can see the eagle swooping upward from two mountain goat kids, near the center of the image..