Locomotoring

You probably knew all along that bears make trails. I didn’t know. So, when the expedition leader mentioned the opportunity to walk a bear trail at William’s Cove, I took notice. The trails in Sitka are beautifully maintained by forest services. A bear trail is not that, there are no convenient wooden planks over streams and bogs. It is created by repeated comings and goings of bears over the years. It is a rough trail, overgrown in some places, perhaps there a little more bear scat than normal. Otherwise, imagine the rainforest, the forest floor is bouncy due to years of fine leaf deposition, from the spruces and hemlocks, then the perpetual rain allows mosses of various kinds to flourish. The undergrowth still has occasional fruit on the bunchberries, watermelon berries, red -berried elders and devil’s clubs.

Lulu is daughter of Speedy and was born in 2015. We were in the middle of Chilkat river, where the river is barely waist high. The cubs are too young to get in the river, so Lulu is fishing for them. The river is turquoise green, colored by the glacier melt, making it harder to see the salmon. Salmon, mostly pink salmon, are trying to spawn and we are trying to flyfish. Our flyfishing guides were experienced and cautious, making sure we were out of harm’s way. But once I realized that Lulu won’t go too far from her cubs, I relaxed. During the 90 minutes of fishing, we saw Lulu and her cubs on both sides of the river. They crossed over the Weir. It was a few hundred feet behind us. We eventually saw her catch a salmon and take it back to her cubs. In the same time, we caught a salmon each as well.

If I were to say we went bushwhacking on Battery Point trail, the Haines Borough folks would roll their eyes. But we got off the trail with our naturalist, storyteller and photographer, Jim. Now, Jim is the kind of person who gets caught up in the little plants and flowers, and doesn’t mind poking around in scat and loses track of time. Of course, who needs to track time when one is on vacation. This trail was new to him as well and he is decidedly one of those who likes going off-trail. After the morning flyfishing in Chilkat river and a hearty lunch, the zodiac dropped us somewhere from where we could hop on the Battery Point trail.

The reason we were in Sitka is because it was start of a 500 mile expedition. One with National Geographic and Lindblad, one of their smaller ships, Sea Lion, that is able to navigate south east Alaska’s inside passage. We started from Sitka and then made our way to Hanus Bay via Sergius Narrows and Peril Strait. From there, we moved to the northernmost entrance to the inside passage by Cross Sounds. We explored George Island and the Inian islands. Then we made our way to Haines and explored further. From Haines, we cruised south via Stephen’s passage into Holkham Bay, the entrance to Tracy Arm-Fords Terror Wilderness. We visited Williams Cove and South Sawyer Glacier. And finally landed in Juneau for our flight back. The forest that tied that 500 mile journey was Tongass.

We had the sun, not rain, beam down on the rainforest everyday. We were fortunate to see a dozen humpbacks feeding, a hundred sea lions frolicking and a thousand harbor seals napping. Being surrounded by the sound of whales as they gracefully breach and breathe was watching a dance of a lifetime. And then there is a big blue glacier that is perpetually calving, creating growlers, bergy bits and icebergs. The sound of a ten thousand year old glacier cracking is like a deep belly grumble. I wanted to give the ice a big hug, apologize for global warming and ask it to stay safe. And finally, there is fly fishing. Did someone say fly fishing takes skill? If it does, it is not in these parts. The water is turquoise blue from the glacier melt, the river is full of salmon, the salmon are weary and simply want to spawn and die. We see a mother bear with two cubs while we fish. We catch a salmon and we watch the mother bear catch a salmon. We would learn later that while there is a bear every square mile, they are not commonly observed on these short visits. Did I know that bears make trails? You bet, I didn’t.

In a trip like this, there are always a few regrets. Like sleeping through an aurora borealis. Or, not hiking the rainforest in rain. But here, I had a lot more regrets. I wanted to soar like a bald eagle and survey my land, breach the ocean like a whale, frolic around in arctic waters like a baby sea lion, snooze on blue ice like a harbor seal, be a salmon in search of my river, sit immobile on a rock like starfish. But most of all, I wanted to be a bear and walk the trail my mother and her mother made through the mossy rainforest floor that is bouncy as a silicone mat, protected by fifteen foot tall devil’s club and covered by snakeberries as far as eyes could see.

(Clearly, Octavia Butler’s patternist book, Wild Seed, has left a lot of wants in my mind!)