Floating

Our south end hunt was a float trip.  And we each had our own canoe.  We all agreed that having your own canoe gave you some independence.  You could canoe alone with your thoughts or you could canoe in tandem.  Whatever you wanted.  It was also fun just to master the paddle stroke and get the canoe to take the river curves at a rapid pace.

Floating in a boat in the sunshine is pretty awesome.  Food and water at hand.  Binoculars and camera at the ready for anything interesting that showed up.  Floating the river never got old.

Some of my highlights included:  An eagle watching me from a perch on high and then dropping into the air to come down and circle me.  I swear he looked me right in the eye and almost talked to me.  Another highlight was coming around a bend and surprising 2 HUGE swans who batted the water rapidly and took off with a great deal of honking and splashing.    Then there were the beavers slapping their tails. And all the time the vibrant fall colors.  Patrick

Pretty Pictures

After the recent trip I REALLY love my new camera.  Since it is waterproof and shockproof - basically indestructible -  I carried it around my neck the entire trip.  This meant it was always there to take pictures, and I took over 500 pictures!  Ironically with the smaller 'point-and-shoot' waterproof cameras that I've used in the past I have generally put them in a pocket.  And in a pocket they are actually tougher to access than the new one around my neck.

And unlike my old point-and-shoot cameras, my new camera has a full sized sensor.  It takes high quality pictures.  None of the drab, pixelated pictures of the past.  I do own other high quality cameras but never seem to take them in the field because I am scared of breaking them.  Now I have an indestructible camera that takes high quality pictures - whooooo hoooooo!  Patrick

Bringing home the bacon

One of the main purposes of the trip was to bring back deer and reindeer meat.  Reindeer was the ultimate goal.  But this year reindeer was not to be - despite hours of glassing open plains and really looking everywhere, we did not see a single reindeer.  Also we did not want to load up the rafts with too much deer in the hope that we would eventually run into the reindeer and would need the space.  So for this reason we came home a little light on the meat side of things with just 3 deer.  But at least they were BIG deer.

And there were BIG deer everywhere.  We saw some serious bruisers, but on this trip it seemed the size did not matter so much as the timing.  If we saw a deer when we were returning to camp and it was not raining - then down he went.  But if we were floating and it would be inconvenient to stop - then we'd float on past.  We actually floated past one of the biggest deer I have ever seen - he was on a bluff looking down on us a scant 200 yards away and had antlers way out past his ears.  A most majestic site.

On our return Ray and I cut up the deer until midnight and then finished the next day.  3 deer is a lot of meat.  Patrick

Life Under the Luci Lights

It did rain a lot on our trip.  We had sunny days at either end of the trip, but the middle 3 days was a little grim.  This meant a lot of teepee time.  Or rather, life under the Luci lights.  Luci lights are solar powered lamps that you blow up like balloons.  When deflated they are super compact.  I gather they were developed for third world countries where obtaining electricity can be a problem.

I do know that they are awesome for camping!  At night we'd hang them from the ceiling of the teepee, and they'd impart a party like atmosphere.  Sort of like those Japanese lanterns you see at outdoor parties on summer evenings in places that aren't Kodiak.

With basically three days in the teepee another thing that had to happen was a lot of wood gathering, sawing and splitting.  We had to feed the stove to keep the teepee warm and our gear dry.  On the rainy days we would go out for a bit and return soaked.  It would take a couple of hours to dry everything back out.

We'd read and nap by the wood stove.  Rainy day hibernation.  Patrick

Landscapes

The landscape down in the Refugium is dramatic, and especially so in Fall.  The colors are bright and the light rakes the landscape at a low angle. The old glacial lakebeds are now flat swampy plains and the hills rise sharply up from the edges.  And there is no one else in sight.

While we were there flocks of geese and ducks were constantly flying over - the fall migration south must be in full swing.  Out on the plains you could see paired up swans still at their nests.  I guess they don't leave until later.  Patrick

Camp Cooking and Sunsets on the 'Deck'

SPAM later added to the cooked nettles(appetizer), and the beginnings of dinner (right) - later I'll add pasta or rice (and morels)

We ate pretty well on our trip.  Lots of pasta and rice meals.  I brought along a huge packet of dried morels collected by Ray on the Kenai Peninsula, and lots of fresh garlic from the garden to liven things up.  The morels in particular made the meals seem tres gourmet.  But one of the hit meals was the lowly SPAM cooked with nettles.  I think Ray and Mike were a little skeptical of SPAM, but on the deck in the sunshine as a pre dinner appetizer it was a HUGE hit.

On this trip, for the first time, we brought camp chairs.  I think the biggest plus from this addition is that We could sit outside and watch the sun set.  The chairs only weigh a pound and so were well worth the weight.  Nothing like wicky in the sunshine by a gurgling river.  Patrick

Garlic from the garden

Nettles found near camp

Nettles and SPAM on the deck

Enjoying the sunset - wicky hour

Going

Gone

Fall Colors on the Flats

Yesterday Mike S Ray R and I got back from a week long sojourn to the south end of Kodiak.  The purpose of the trip was to bring back a reindeer and in that regard we failed.  But the scenery was spectacular, there were plenty of normal deer to harvest, and the company excellent.  It was a GREAT trip.  Even the rainy days were bearable by the roaring wood stove (I'll admit that I secretly enjoyed the down days).

However, the real show stopper was the fall colors.  I could not stop looking at them, and I took tons and tons of photos.  I'm betting that I will even probably find a few more that I like enough to post.  But here are a few for now.  More to come on the trip in later posts!  Patrick