Beavers in action!

 

Where we were camping at Thumb Lake there was a HUGE beaver lodge about a 1/4 mile from camp. The beavers would routinely swim past our camp. At one point there were 5 beavers all swimming around in circles in front of our camp. If you walked along the beach they would slap their tails in alarm on the water. We even heard them doing the slap for bears walking along the beach.

Along the shore you could see the remains of willow trees that they had cut down. There were little trails through the grass down to the beach where they dragged the branches they harvested. In the evening we even watched them eating the bark and leaves off of the branches in the shallow waters of the lake. They also seemed to leave a lot in the water for later. In the winter I gather they go back under the ice and find the branches they left there in summer.

Busy little guys!

Patrick

beaver getting ready to SLAP!

beaver cut branches dragged into the shallow water for later consumption

beaver cut willows in the process of getting dragged to lake

Back from Thumb Lake

 

bears arriving below the site to fish for spawning salmon

It must be almost Fall because the Archaeology field season is over - for me at least. I just got back from a remote 2 week excavation on the banks of Thumb Creek - a tributary into Karluk Lake. We excavated a 4-5 thousand year old fish camp above the Creek. There was also a 1000-year old camp on top of the site. During the dig we learned a lot about past life on Thumb Creek, and this will be the subject of a future blog post. 

We camped up on Thumb Lake and walked a 1/2 mile back and forth from camp to the site every day. This year there were a lot of bears. Red salmon spawn in the creek below the site and there were almost always a few bears down below us in the creek trying to catch fish. You'd hear them splashing up and down the creek chasing the fish. The bears are there for the same reason people camped there in the past. In late summer it is an easy place to catch a lot of fish.

Anyway, I am now back! In the next week I'll post more details about our trip and on the archaeological results.

Patrick

cottonwood trees by the trail to our camp from the site

Thumb Lake reflections

fireweed - getting a late start this year!

Our camp on Thumb Lake

A 4-5K year old serrated, ground slate bayonet from the site

beaver paddling in Thumb Lake

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

More Lobsters and Another Shell Midden

 

When I picked up lobsters at the bait barge for my roommates, I talked to the lobsterman and they agreed to keep and hold some large crabs for me. We agreed that I'd drop by again in a few days and they would have the crabs. Amazingly enough in Maine it is incredibly difficult to purchase live crabs. Anyway, I showed up a few days later and none of the lobstermen had kept any crabs for me. So instead of crabs I grabbed some hard shells for Stuey, my mom and I. Stuey got 2 big lobsters just for himself. With my roommates we had purchased soft shell and it is amazing how different they are from Hard shells. Soft shells taste sweeter but Hard shells have much more meat and the body and legs are meaty enough to be worth eating.

On a gloomy afternoon Stuey and I went exploring up Perry's Creek by kayak. I had flashbacks to my archaeological surveys on Kodiak by kayak. And I even found a shell midden - Just like when I was back in Uyak Bay this past May (click here for post). I took pictures and recorded what I saw and will try and report them to an archaeologist in Maine. But I don't know the archaeological scene in Maine so it might be difficult to find anyone interested in I found.

Patrick

Kayak trip to the very head of Perrys Creek

Eroding shell midden

A couple of flakes I saw on surface

Another Picnic

 

Stuey and I went on 2 picnics with Stewart. On the second picnic Anne joined us and we went to Sloop Island. I had never been to this island before. The tide was high and the whole beach was practically under water. We nosed up to the steep beach and then pulled the boat back off shore with the anchor line.

We had our lunch and then I went around exploring.  Even on vacation I can't help but look for archaeological sites, and, just like on the first picnic, I found another eroding shell midden. This one had more bones in it and I wondered what people were doing on that island in the distant past - Hunting seals and birds? The bones did mostly look like bird bones - and so that would be my guess. Maybe they went out there in the spring to collect eggs and harvest the nesting birds?

Near the end of the picnic we saw thunderheads and approaching rain in the far distance. We left a bit early to try and beat the storm. And it looked like we were going to make before it caught us about 500 meters shy of the entrance to Pulpit Harbor. It was an insane squall and the wind was whipping water like smoke along the surface of the sea. Stewart had to turn the boat into the wind and we tried to shelter behind the steering tower.  We all got soaked with salt spray and rain.

In Pulpit Harbor we saw a collapsed shack that got blown over by the wind and even a flipped over row boat on a mooring. It was quite the little squall.

Patrick

another eroding shell midden