Valdez, AK
Today was one of those days that makes a trip like this seem all worthwhile. Just a few short drippy sessions during the night, then the day dawned with the promise of clearing skies. The first thing on our agenda was some bear watching, so we drove around the head of the bay to the road leading to the fish hatchery and oil pipeline terminal. The road is squeezed between the shoreline and steep cliffs covered in lush vegetation. Numerous small streams tumble down the mountainside and flow under the road through culverts. It was foggy on this side of the bay, which created a dark and misty atmosphere as we slowly felt our way along the road.
At one of these, a tiny rivulet barely four or five inches deep leading back into dark, overgrown hollow we found three black bears feeding on the hundreds of small chum salmon wriggling their way up through the shallow water. The rivulet passed under the road and directly out onto the mudflats exposed by the low tide. All around were hundreds and hundreds of fat gulls feeding on the carcasses of fish that were spent by their effort to cross the mud flats in only a couple of inches of running water. On the mountain side of the culvert the water was deeper, as I said, maybe four or five inches, and those fish lucky enough to make it this far were squeezed into a narrow channel, so close they were touching as they splashed and struggled up the stream, their bellies rubbing the stream bottom and their backs exposed above water. Just around the first bend, maybe 50 yards from where we were standing, they encountered the first bear, who was grabbing fish in his jaws left and right, tearing their undersides open to get to the rich roe they held in their bellies. The bear didn’t bother with the rest of the fish – it was tossed aside for the gulls to fight over. If the fish made it past the first bear, another two waited just a few yards upstream. After watching this for perhaps a half hour, and taking oodles of photos, we moved up the road toward the hatchery.
At the hatchery a much larger stream flows down the cliff, under a wide bridge, and out on to the mud flats. The streamside is lined with rocks on the mud flat side, and salmon by the thousands hug these rocks, battling their way against the swift current. I’m not sure what it’s for, but there is a small dam-like structure here which impedes the fishes’ way up the center of the stream and forces them through small weirs on either side of the stream. For whatever reason, the weirs are blocked by nets, and the salmon that make it up that far pile up in hordes on top of each other, trying to get through to no avail. A few fish are somehow able to leap over the low dam, but can’t seem to fight their way farther upstream. I’m not sure why the fish are halted at this point, but it’s mind-boggling to see thousands of fish struggling upstream, following their instinct to reach their spawning beds, simply stopped in their tracks. The odd thing is, just on the other side of the road is a waterfall and an outlet from a hydroelectric plant up the mountain, so they couldn’t go more than a few yards farther anyway. Perhaps these are hatchery fish and the scent of this short stream is imbedded in their memories. But the net result is that the mud flats below are strewn with thousands of dead fish just rotting away. And of course the whole scene is punctuated with thousands of gulls, wheeling overhead and wading in the flats, picking at the carcasses.
We watched this scene for a while, then returned to the earlier bear feeding location. The three bears we had seen earlier were gone, but were now replaced by a mother black bear and a cub. The mother would catch a fish and bring it to the cub, ripping open the belly with her powerful claws so the cub could get to the tender meat and, in the case of female fish, the nutritious roe. The cub was having a great time playing with the carcasses afterwards. This time I left the still camera in the camper and shot video.
After tiring of bear watching, we drove into Valdez and stopped at the public library to use their wi-fi to upload the previous two day’s blog posts and check e-mail. By then it was lunch time so we went to a burger and fish shack and had a delicious lunch of fresh halibut fish and chips. There’s nothing like fresh fish, straight off the boat.
One of the attractions in Valdez is, strangely enough, a couple of documentary films which are shown at a main street discount department and trinket store called Sugar ‘n Spice. The films, one about the building of the Alaska Pipeline and the other about the 1964 earthquake are quite well done. We thought the pipeline film might be boring, but it was not at all. In fact, we both commented about how interesting and informative it was. The other film about the earthquake was mainly made up of old black and white TV footage with dramatic narration. Those of us that can remember this event probably recall how the news we heard at the time seemed to all focus on the damage to Anchorage without mentioning the many small coastal towns in the region. Towns like Valdez and Seward were almost wiped out by the quake and resulting tsunami. Entire native villages on Kodiak Island were swept away. The descriptions related by survivors in the film were eerily like the recent earthquake in Japan.
After the film we climbed up a small hill by the convention center to a scenic overlook which allows excellent views of the entire town, the small boat harbor, and the ferry terminal. By now the sky was clearing and the traces of the morning fog had disappeared, leaving sweeping views of the mountains which completely surround the town of Valdez and its harbor. The jagged peaks are awe-inspiring. There are more glaciers and waterfalls than one can count, and high up on the side of one of the mountains right above town, we spotted a small band of Dall sheep. We had a great view of the pipeline terminal across the harbor, and took a couple of photos using a telephoto lens.
Realizing we needed some exercise, we then returned the few blocks down to the small boat harbor and took a short hike along a trail called the Harbor Point Trail. This trail, whose construction was made possible by the settlement funds from the Exxon Valdez oil spill, loops over and around a rocky point that separates the harbor area from a large marshy area called the Valdez Duck Flats. The rocky point is covered by a thick forest of hardwood and spruce trees. One of the interpretive signs along the train states that this is the northernmost example of temperate rain forest in the country. The vegetation is lush and wet, with an understory of berry bushes of all kinds, ferns, and mosses.
Finally, we returned to the hatchery road to see if more bears were out. They weren’t, but we got to talking with a couple from Bracketville, Texas, the next town to Jeanette’s home town of Del Rio. They told us they had just bought several pounds of fresh frozen sockeye salmon at the fish processing plant down on the dock, so of course we had to go back and pick up some for ourselves. That will make a couple of tasty meals along the way as we head home.
Tomorrow our goal is Tok; then we start back down the Alaska Highway. More adventure awaits.
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