Quick Kiliuda Survey

 

I recently got back from a very quick survey of the South shore of Kiliuda Bay.  Last year Philip and I surveyed the the mostly State Land on the North shore using kayaks for transportation.  This year we surveyed the USFWS land on the South shore and we hiked the whole way. We were supposed to do the survey this week but the weather forecast was so bad we decided to go early - and it's a good thing we did because it is NASTY outside right now!  We had planned for a 3 day survey, but to get it in before the weather turned bad (and we potentially got stuck) we actually did it in 2 days.  

The low tides coincided with late morning and it looked like it was mostly beach and not cliffs down to the water - so we decided to hike the coastline rather than use kayaks.  It is much less complicated to just hike, and far less gear than if we had been using kayaks. But the downside is carrying a heavy pack all day.  I carried a lot of extra food in case we did get stuck in the bay due to weather and my pack weighed 49 pounds.

We moved fast, found 14 new sites, and documented the condition of another 3 sites that we already knew about before the trip started.  I'm exhausted!  

What's interesting is that most of the sites we found are pretty old.  I also noticed that most of the coves have beach ridge complexes - so the older sites are not on the coastline.  I think if we went back and dug test pits on the ridges furthest from the water we could potentially find some really old sites.  And ironically it is the younger sites on the current coastline that are eroding.  Recent rising sea levels are causing the sites to erode, but in the past I think the land was rising faster than the sea - hence the older sites are further inland.

There were a few 'choke points' where the cliffs did go right down to the water and we had to make sure we passed those places at low tide.  At one of those 'choke point' we ran into a sow and cubs coming the other way, and it made for an interesting couple of minutes.  We saw lots of bears - far more than usual and if you watch Philip's video (linked below) you can see the bears and get a feel for what it was like on survey.

Philip made a video of the hike and you can watch it here (Click here for video) on his Vimeo account.  We saw lots of bears and Philip did a good job showing them and all the other wildlife in his video.

Patrick

Purple Mountain Saxifrage - blooming on the cliffs right by the water

Red Sea Urchin Shell

Kachemak Lamp Preform

Dismal weather

Red Sea Urchin - these things are HUGE and can supposedly live up to 200 years

Tugidak Landscape

 

Tugidak Island is pretty flat.  The south half of the island is a high plateau but even that is not very high and it is flat on top.  Most of the north end of the island is old beach ridges and newly created beach.  There is also a HUGE lagoon on the north end that seems to be mostly a mudflat at all tides. It is a pretty wide open place and very expansive.  Surveying in this landscape made me feel small.

It is a pretty place and so different than what I am used to near town on the north end of the island.  A truly treeless landscape.  It is also a landscape that lends itself well to panoramic photos.  I took way too many photos!

Patrick

Tugidak Lagoon with Sitkinak Island in the distance

The south shore of Tugidak Lagoon

A lake that partially refroze and got blown in the wind

Tundra pond

This was probably the beach 100 years ago - the active beach is beyond the berm in the distance

Old beach ridges

Tugidak Wildlife

Sitka Blacktail Deer

Tugidak has a lot of wildlife, and since there is no brush or trees the animals are pretty easy to spot.  As you walked along there was the almost constant cackling of the breeding willow ptarmigan defending their nests.  KickikkikrrRR and they would sit and stare you down.  

Another very common animal is the ground squirrels. They are common on Chirikof Island but you do not see them much in the rest of the Kodiak Archipelago.  I had not realized that they were on Tugidak Island.  When you got close to their burrows you'd hear a warning whistle - hence their nickname as the 'whistle pig'.  Their burrows disturb the ground and bring up dirt from deep down below and so the ground squirrels helped us find archaeological sites.  Rather than dig test pits or use a soil probe you just check the spoils of their burrows for charcoal stained soil or firecracked rock - the distinctive 'tell' of archaeological sites.

One mammal is conspicuously absent from the island - there are no foxes.  I think this may be why there are so many nesting birds.  There are no foxes to raid nests. Even the eagles down there just nest on the ground - you'd be walking along and suddenly a pair of alarmed eagles would be squawking around your head and it was time to back up and avoid the nest.  Practically every lake or pond had a pair of nesting swans on it.

Deer were everywhere.  They were like grazing cows.  When I looked into the distance across the grassy plain it looked like game animals on the plains of Africa.  Walking along you'd disturb individual groups of deer and often end up with a herd of deer trotting along in front of you.  Then they'd all bolt at once across the grassy muskeg.

Patrick

Bald Eagle

Female willow ptarmigan

Parasitic Jaeger

Willow ptarmigan

Lapland Longspur

Sandhill cranes

Tundra Swans

Male Willow Ptarmigan

Ground squirrels

Tugidak Survey

 

Our main base camp

I recently got back from the season's first archaeological survey. My co-worker Molly and I spent 6 days looking for sites on Tugidak Island.  Tugidak is a very remote place off the south end of Kodiak Island.  It is a fairly flat, wind-swept island.  It also has a very dynamic shoreline.  Parts of the island are severely eroding (on the order of a mile every 100 years or so) while other parts of the island are growing at the same rate.  The northeast side of the island is a series parallel beach ridges that go on for miles and miles.  And part of the survey was figuring out where the shoreline was at various moments in time.  Normally on a Kodiak survey I can predict fairly accurately where I will find sites, but not so on Tugidak!  We had to walk everywhere.  We did figure out that the last 2 outer beach ridges on the northeast side of the island probably formed in the last 200 years, and so we focused on looking for sites on the ridges further inland.

So we camped and hiked for miles and miles looking for sites.  We had a base camp on the northeast corner of the island and carried a camp with us for a night down at the other end of the beach ridge complex.  Lots of time in the teepees by the wood stove.  The survey was funded by the BIA and our main task was to find archaeological sites, describe and map them, and assess their condition - are they eroding or are animals digging into them?

The wildlife was remarkable and there was also some pretty good beach combing. It even snowed.  I'll post more on the various other aspects of the survey in later posts.  But suffice it to say it was a remarkably successful survey.  By my rough count we found 31 new archaeological sites, and documented another 7 or so sites that had already been known.

Patrick

We found sites remarkably far inland

Molly documenting a HUGE house depression

Canadian geese

An eroding midden

Interminable beach ridge - we had to walk these for miles

Our 'spike' survey camp

Molly documenting a 500 year old village site - this site was probably on the ocean when occupied

artifacts eroding out of an archaeological site

Dinner in the teepee