No salmonberries

 

My potatoes are blooming!

I still have not found a ripe salmonberry to eat. I fear it is an awful year for berries and the bears are going to be hungry. I did find one semi ripe blueberry in the park to eat but that's it. There are just very few berries around. I spent the last week on my hikes looking for a ripe salmonberry to eat and did not see a single one. Wow!

That said the fireweed is in full blossom and seems to be doing fine. The fireweed might actually be blooming a little early.

Patrick

Fogged Out

 

Over the weekend Stuey and I went hunting on Afognak with our friend Ryan. Right off the bat at dawn on the first day we found a herd of bucks and Stuey wanted to shoot the first one we saw. And we probably should have done so. But the buck was not very big and was at a bad shooting angle at the bottom of a steep slope. The next guys were not very big either. With so many deer around I wanted to get something big.

And then just as we were off after some big boys the fog came in and covered up everything below in a mantle of white. Only the very tops of the mountains stuck up above the clouds. And that was that - you can't hunt when you can't see the deer. And so we waited and waited, and took naps and hoped the fog would burn off. 

The fog did not burn off until late in the afternoon. And by then it was very hot and all the deer had bedded down for the day. We looked and looked and just saw one doe. And then the next day we had more fog and the wind was blowing in the wrong direction. Despite getting up at dawn again we only saw one doe.  Lesson learned - 'a buck in hand is worth a big one in the bush'. I actually should have learned this last year!

But the trip was not a bust. We got to camp and hike in some beautiful country. We did some exploring where I have never hiked before. If we had harvested the first deer we saw I would never have had the glorious nap in the sunshine, nor would we have done so much hiking.

Patrick

Nap time waiting for the fog to burn off

Nap back at the beach - waiting for the ride home

Karluk Lagoon

 

Karluk Village and Lagoon with old Karluk on the other side of the lagoon (to left)

Last week I went to the village of Karluk for a work related trip. For the last 15 years or so I have done a lot of archaeology up on Karluk Lake and along the river.  But I had not visited the village in over 20 years - maybe 25!

The village of Karluk is on the lagoon at the mouth of the river and it is where I spent my first summer in Alaska way back in 1985. I was a part of the Bryn Mawr College excavation at the Karluk One site. This is the excavation that basically created the Alutiiq Museum where I now work. The site was a 'wet' site and had amazing organic preservation - grass and spruce root baskets, wood masks, painted box panels, ulus with the handles attached - All sorts of amazing stuff  Today most of the artifacts on display in the gallery are from that excavation.

Since then the entire site has been destroyed by erosion. The river draining the lagoon has been slowly migrating to the southwest and it completely destroyed the site by the early 2000's. Now it is cutting into the hillside and threatening the old Russian Orthodox Church on the hill that was once behind the site (see bottom photo).

Spending a day back on the lagoon brought back many memories. I walked the same road that I had once walked every day from the village to the site. I saw the old Russian Orthodox church. But one thing I did not see was Karluk One the archaeological site I helped excavate. Where the site once was is now under water or beach gravel. The erosion since I last visited is utterly amazing. 

Patrick

River erosion threatening the Karluk Church

It was a tad buggy

Ugak Bay from the plane home

'CC 1,2,3' - the old ski route from Crown to Center

The church in 1995

me on the slope below church above river in 1985

Aerial view of Karluk from 1983 - it's eroded a lot since then