A Room With a View

On an archaeological survey, as opposed to an excavation, you camp at a different spot every evening.  This means that every afternoon you need to find a decent camping spot, and set up camp when you are done for the day.  To some extent what you find during the day's survey determines where you camp.  Some days there are no sites to be recorded and you end up far further down the coastline than you expected.  On other days you find an area with a bunch of sites that need to be recorded and it is 4 PM - time to camp!  Generally from around 3:30 on in the afternoon we are thinking about camp - we check out the map and start thinking about the options.

There are a lot of options to consider when choosing a place to camp.  First and foremost there needs to a flat and dry spot to set up the teepee.  On of the best things about the spruce forest on North Kodiak is that the moss makes for a soft and dry sleeping spot!  Other things to consider - who owns the land?  I respect private property and chose to only camp on ANC land (whose land we were surveying).  Is there good fresh water nearby? Is there a spot to land the kayaks? Is there shelter from the wind?  Good driftwood for the stove? What happens if the wind picks up during the night - will you be able to get off the beach?

By the end of the day I am going on shore from the kayak a lot - both to check for archaeological sites and to look for decent spots to camp.  Sometimes it can be very difficult to find a place to stop for the night.  Along the coast south of Port Lions much of the land was privately owned. And nothing on ANC land that we checked out was suitable - too brushy, too wet, no flat spot.  And then the coastline got very steep - uh oh, would we ever find a campsite?  But somehow we managed to find a little pocket beach and found a trail up to the top of the cliff where, low and behold, we found a protected flat spot with an AWESOME view. It turned out to be one of our favorite campsites.

One interesting aspect of the trip was watching the landscape change as we moved from the spruce forests of North Kodiak to the cottonwoods, alder and willow of Kizhuyak Bay.  For the first 3 nights we camped in the woods and could only see trees out the teepee door.  In Kizhuyak we started to camp on the tops of terraces and had some great views of the snow capped peaks in Kodiak's interior. Patrick

Camp 1 in the spruce forest - it turned out to be a blow hole

Camp 2 - perfect spot in the trees, but fresh water was an issue (but it rained so hard we were able to fill up our pots and pans from water dripping off of the teepee)

Hard to beat this spot in the trees and the beach was RIGHT there

This was the camp on the cliff - what a view and a stream for water right behind camp

Another perched campsite near the head of Kizhuyak Bay where it got difficult to find spots that were not too brushy

Camp in the cottonwoods - hard to beat! I put the food barrels next to the tent guys so we don't trip over the lines