Bears on the beach

 

I took the day off of work on Friday and went on a bear viewing sight seeing tour with Seahawk Air.  On Thursday Seahawk Air had flown us to the south of Kodiak for a day long archaeological survey, and Rolan the pilot had mentioned that the next day they planned going to the Alaska Peninsula to watch bears eating a whale on the beach.  Getting the chance to watch bears chow down on a whale does not happen very often, and this particular whale was on an outer coast beach so the weather had to be perfect.  No landing on the beach if the swell was too big.  And so I jumped at the opportunity and went on the bear viewing tour.

And WOW!

Last time I went on a bear tour was way back in 2005 and I used like a 4 mega pixel camera to take bear pictures (click here for post about 2005 trip). On this trip I took so many good pictures that when I got home I could not decide which ones are good.  They all seem good!  I also made sure to not take pictures all the time and to watch the bears through the binoculars rather than through the camera viewfinder.  In the binoculars the details were just so much more clear.  And the bears were so close.

The best part of the bear tour is learning about and observing bear behavior.  Jo has been guiding these bear tours long enough that she can reminisce about running into Timothy Treadwell while giving tours back in the day (I gather he would just walk up to the tours and start talking).  So Jo knows bear behavior.   The bears are like big dogs and there are dominant bears, submissive bears and all the gestures, eye avoiding etc, that the bears use to speak to each other (and to us and Jo!).  It was amazing.

It also got me thinking about how bearanoid most people on Kodiak are about bears.  And I also realized that all the training people do for when they go into bear country is all about watching a powerpoint and time at the rifle range with guns.  This is considered 'bear safety' training (think USFWS and ADF&G).  Perhaps instead of a powerpoint and some time at the range with a shotgun they should fly over to the Alaska Peninsula with Jo and hang out for a morning with the bears on the beach.  No guns just some pepper spray and a good understanding of bear behavior.

Patrick

Rocks we found

 

The contact between the conglomerates and coal beds in the Sitkinak Formation

It's been 2 weeks since I returned from the Sitkinak Island survey and I still have 2 blog posts to go.   But they are also the most important ones all about the geology and archaeology of the island.  This one is about the rocks we found.

As archaeologists one way that we learn about past trade and interaction between regions is by sourcing the raw materials we find in sites.  If we find volcanic obsidian in a site on Kodiak where there are no volcanos we know that the obsidian had to have come from a volcano on the mainland.  Or if you find a lot of shared rocks between 2 different regions then you know that there was a great deal of interaction between the 2 regions.  Anyway there is a lot to it, but a most important aspect is that you need to figure out the sources for all the raw materials you find in archaeological sites.

Many of the raw materials are easy to source - caribou antler and obsidian and basalt were from the Alaska  Peninsula.  Slate and Greywacke from Kodiak.  Ivory from walruses in Bristol Bay.  And then there are a bunch of rocks that we think we know where they came from.  We read the geologic literature and try to interpret it to our ends.  Geologists use a lot of terms like 'argillite' that need to be translated into what we call the same materials when we find them in sites.  Perhaps what a geologist calls shale or argillite might be what we call 'slate'.

There is no better way than to find the actual source of various rocks than by checking on the actual rocks where they are eroding out onto the beach.  And on Sitkinak Island I was amazed to find a number of rocks that I commonly find in archaeological sites elsewhere on the island.  This does not mean that all the 'Sitkinak' rocks we found elsewhere originally come from Sitkinak - but it does help us interpret the geologic maps and pinpoint all the possible sources.  Many of the rock formations we examined on Sitkinak outcrop elsewhere along the east coast of Kodiak Island.  We also examined the crumbly Sitkinak coal and determined that it is NOT the same high quality carvable material we find carved into jewelry elsewhere on the island.

The biggest discovery was that the local Sitkinak conglomerates were full of high quality chert and metatuff cobbles.  Now if we find these particular cherts in sites elsewhere on the island we know that they  are local to the archipelago and not from the mainland.  We also know that they are likely to be from the east side of Kodiak.  Although we were surprised to find a particular and distinctive type of red chert that outcrops on the west side of Kodiak in the east side conglomerate!  So it is complicated!

Patrick

Glacial sediments - the grey clay created by settling of sediments in lakes

Siltstone and sandstone used for whetstones in situ

A piece of conglomerate with high quality metatuff in situ from the 'Albatross sedimentary sequence'

Normally west coast radiolarian red chert within the 'east coast' conglomerate

Some of the rock samples I collected from the west shore of lagoon

Sitkinak coal seam

conglomerate cobbles on the beach

high quality flaking material from the 'Albatross sedimentary sequence'

Sitkinak coal

More cobbles on the beach of the lagoon - note sandstone

Tanginak chert cobble

Skiing with Dale

 

Some final ski pic from last weekend.  It really was some of the best skiing of the whole year.  

On Sunday Dale and I returned to the area up behind Cope Mountain, and I did not bring along the dogs.  They were already super tired and with them along I do not like to do multiple runs or go really fast.

We got to the top and did a couple runs down the other side towards Sharatin Mountain.  We went down into the halfpipe that I think I last skied back in the 20th century.  It was ideal ski conditions.  After the 2 runs to the north we did a run almost 2 miles long back to the car.  

Patrick

that's Sharatin in the distance on the right - where I skied on Saturday

bottom portion of the 'halfpipe'

the half pipe

Things we saw

 

Greater Yellowlegs

On the first day just when we reached the snowlike we got harassed by a pair of nesting yellowlegs.  Brewster and Bode chased the birds all over and the birds kept up with their screeching.  On the way down one of the yellowlegs even followed us for a full 1/4 mile past the nest!  I did not expect to see yellowlegs in the alpine.  I sort of associate them with lagoon and rivers down near the coast, but I gather they nest on high too!

On Saturday when we climbed Sharatin we got into the first bowl and there was a bear crossing the snow on the other side of the bowl.  I was afraid the dogs would see him and give chase or that the bear would see us and trot on over to investigate.  So I just stayed where I was and watched the bear.  I was worried that if he did not leave that we would have to turn around and go home.

I was also thinking, 'gosh this is a bigger bowl than I remembered because that bear looks tiny'.  The bear did mosy on out of view and the dogs and I continued our trek.  I saw the bears tracks ahead in the snow and was thinking it would be great to get a picture of them.  And then the tracks were barely Brewster sized - too small to even really photograph.  The bear was a tiny one year old cub!

Then I got to thinking, 'where is mom?' We crossed the cub's tracks again on the top of the mountain.  He had climbed up from the other side and then down on into the bowl where we first saw him.  And no mom anywhere to be seen.  

Back home talking to people who know about these things, I found out that there are more boar bears about than usual this year.  And that they also have been attacking cubs and sows more than usual this year.  Perhaps there are more boars out and about because there was no hunting season for bears last year?  In any case, a big old boar probably separated the little guy we saw from his mom.  His mom may find him or she may not - nature can be cruel at times.

Patrick

This guy looks small because he/she is small!  A 1 year cub separated from his mom

These are the budding cottonwood trees at the river crossing

Both the yellowlegs harassed us when we got near their nest

angry bird

Summer Snow Landscapes

 

Today it is raining and dismal outside.  A stark contrast to last weekend's sunshine.  It was so beautiful I took too many pictures to post them all at once - and a couple more to follow after this one too. 

This time of the year on high on the snow I always love how you can look down and see the green.  And even where the snow is melting you can see that the newly exposed plants already had buds on them even under the snow.  And then when you ski back 'down to summer' you can hear all the birds singing.

Patrick