Capturing the Moment

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 cap...

Getting an insider tour through the native Tlingit village of Kake, Alaska.  First look at Kake, Alaska In the middle of Alaska's inside passage lies a village where native Alaskans have been living for thousands of years. The Tlingit culture has been going strong in the Kake region all this time partly because of the sheer amount of resources and food here, but also because of their ingenuity in harvesting and keeping that bounty through the long winters.  Settling for grass at the moment  The long winters also brought a bounty of another kind to this small community...a bounty of time. With daylight hours numbering close to the four hour mark in the heart of winter there was plenty of forced leisure time around these parts. That is when the weaving, carving, dancing, and story telling really took hold. This was the culture that we were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of this week on the Safari Quest.  Pulling up to the village of Kake, whose ...

Discoveries along the way Through a patch of devils club   One part of my job this season up in Alaska is taking guests out in the bush where there is no dock, no trail except those left by game, and no real destination or goal other than to immerse ourselves in the temperate rain forest and explore. We call this bushwhacking, and it is a favorite past time for people who live in and around the forest. You can blaze you own trails and find new discoveries on every trip. I don't carry a machete because I don't want to leave a trail of destruction behind us, but I do carry bear spray.    One big aspect of bushwhacking or hiking in Alaska is that you are walking through bear country. Luckily humans are not on the normal menu so it's not like bears are stalking you as you walk. If anything they want to get out of your path or just hunker down and hide until you are gone. I make plenty of noise so as not to startle any bears, and to make sure that moms with cubs ar...