I spent the last 2 days at Karluk Lake checking on the archaeological sites I surveyed between 2009 and 2012. It was pretty cool to go back to sites I last visited 10 years ago, and I even carried the original field note book so I could compare how they looked then versus today.
I also saw a lot of wildlife. One of the highlights was a sow and 2 cubs who showed up on the lawn of the lodge where I was staying and proceeded to play in front of us for an hour. The fox would chase the bears and the bears would chase the fox.
Another cool phenomena was the arrival of the salmon. There were only a few in the lake when we arrived, but by the time we left they had arrived en masse. As we flew out we could see big black balls of fish off of the mouths of all the tributaries into the lake. The early run red salmon spawn in the tributaries. The fish that arrive later in the fall spawn along the lake shore.
What's cool is that most of the archaeological sites are situated near where the late run fish spawn. This is a good indication that the Alutiiq did most of their lake fishing in the fall. Patrick
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| This fawn is safe from me when it hides in a pushki plant |
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| The salmon literally arrived en masse in the 2 days I was there |
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| The fox played with the bears for a 1/2 hour or so |
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| Nora and Stuey? |
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