As is usual on these spring surveys I went with my friend Philip and we travelled by kayak - camping as we went. It was a successful survey - we found 30 new sites and checked on an additional 9 sites that were already known prior to our survey. We had spectacular sunny weather for only the first day of the trip. The rest of the trip was under grey clouds and spitting rain. But, most importantly, it was never very windy.
We found only one big village in the bay. Most of the sites that we did find lacked structure depressions and consisted of eroding fire-cracked rock and charcoal. These are sites were Alutiiq people visited to process food or camp. We also found a number of small sites with just a few or one house depression on top.
The bay is experiencing very little erosion. In fact, there was so little erosion that I had a hard time finding soil exposures. Usually, on Kodiak, I find sites by checking soil exposures for site indicators like fire-cracked rock and charcoal. And in most areas of the Archipelago such exposures are very easy to find. But not so in Uganik, and I had to use my soil probe a lot more than usual to find the well-hidden sites.
Patrick
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| Black Oystercatcher |
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| Nesting Black-legged Kittiwakes |
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