Capturing the Moment

  This week we made a stop on Baranof Island to check out a little creek that I thought might have some salmon in it. Turns out the coho, or silver salmon were returning to the stream in droves. And luckily enough we weren’t the only ones to be drawn to this stream…brown bears were also there. I guess coho is pretty high on their menu because when we first glanced over the stream bank we found ourselves looking down at 12 brown bears.     The huge bears were so concentrated on catching salmon that we were able to hang out on the bank without disturbing them. Some of our group were taking pictures and movies, while others were just trying to savor the moment with their eyes and ears. Bears were biting into female salmon sending bright red roe arcing out. A few times fights broke out between the bears over who gets the salmon. Usually it wasn’t the bear who actually caught it.     To have all of this unfold so close to us was a true Alaskan experience.   To se

Kayakers starting their trip   I recently returned to Alaska after some quality family time back East to lead the last few UnCruise expeditions of the season onboard the Safari Quest. I was excited to be in Alaska at this time of year because wildlife in August can really put on a show. The whales are here in mass, their food being at peak bloom, and the salmon are returning to their streams, which means the bears are gorging on an all you can eat buffet. What I quickly realized was that all of the wildlife is really just icing on the cake.   Just being in Alaska, and getting out into the wilderness is enough to satisfy any adventurer's soul. And today's kayak around the Keku Islands was about as good as it gets...and this was our guests first excursion of the week. Incredible kayak conditions   We woke to an all encompassing fog. Standing on the bow in the middle of a cloud it has a way of deadening all noise around you. You are forced to be in the present, in yo

Young black bear down the driveway, Vermont    It has been a wild couple of weeks here in Vermont with high temperatures and lots of wildlife. The snakes are out at Stave Island, fawn are running around with spots all over them, a mystery animal on the island, and both monarch butterflies and their caterpillar counterparts have been seen. But the biggest wildlife sightings of the summer have both come within the last few days.    First we had a young black bear sighting right down the driveway. It was munching away on some of the grass and flower in the meadow before crossing the road and darting off into the trees. We figured it was headed towards the berry bushes that have been prolific this summer. We were pretty excited so we grabbed the trail camera and set it up down near the woods hoping to get a shot of the bear. But when we retrieved the camera the next day we were in for shock.   We didn't get the bear, but in one night vision video we captured a cat-like cre

Near miss in the fog Minke whale sighted!   I was pretty skeptical about our chances when we arrived at the harbor and we couldn't even see the boats on the dock. The fog was so intense that we could have played a game of hide-n-seek and the seeker would have had no chance. In reality the visibility was about 50 yards, and with the approach regulations inside the marine park being no closer than 200 yards I figured our chances were pretty much nil. But the crew surprised me and with a little help found us some whales! Horror Movie villain? The gang ready to go   Tadoussac is a tiny town in French Quebec, Canada where the Saguenay Fjord empties into the St Lawrence Sea Way. Its hard to understand how whales are here unless you zoom way out on the globe and see that the whales have an easy opening to the sea. They come here in the summer months for good feeding. 13 different species have been seen here, but I feel pretty lucky to have even seen one of those species

Motel de l'Anse a l'eau After all my stories of visiting Tadoussac for whale watching in the past, it was about time I take some family up that way. So this past week my mother, sister, and brother in law all made the trip up to Vermont where we piled into a rental car and hit the road for the 7+ hour road trip up into Canada. It was a beautiful drive through French Quebec past rolling farm lands and sparkling water of the St Lawrence. We finally made it to the ferry which took us across the Saguenay River into the quaint little town of Tadoussac. This town is filled with cute, French style eateries and small boutiques. Old wrought iron lamppost dot the streets and walkways while the impressive Hotel Tadoussac dominates the waterfront.  We stayed at the quaint Motel de l'Anse a l'eau, which I think means 'from the cove to the water.'   Most visitors to Tadoussac come for the whale watching in the Parc Marin du Saguenay-Saint-Laurent. Beluga whales