Capturing the Moment

  Parts of the estuary maintained enough wetness to throw off some beautiful reflections on our hike back. At one of the least visited National Monuments in the USA, our group braved boot sucking mud and massive brown bears to hike deep into the valley at Aniakchak Bay, Alaska. This is a truly wild place. There are no building, no roads, no facilities.... just pure Alaskan wilderness. Brown bears roam, unimpeded by anything man made. And if people do arrive, we are just temporary visitors.

  Takatz Bay is one of the most beautiful places to kayak. It is located on the east coast of Baranof Island in Southeast Alaska. It is a long fjord, carved out by a glacier many years ago. Snowy mountain peaks are still visible deep up the valley, and the water is still tinged sky blue with glacial meltoff. Now a beautiful stream thunders out of the rainforest into the back of the bay, and salmon come back year after year to swim their way up it. This means that on occasion, a brown bear comes down to the river to do some fishing. If you get lucky, and you time the tides right (it has to be a high tide to get up the river to the falls), then you might just get to kayak with a wild Alaskan brown bear. Today was that day. And this bear was hungry. I watched the bear walking purposefully along the high tide coastline, peaking in and out of the forest as it cruised towards the river. I followed silently in my kayak, trying to keep my eye on it through the foliage. After busting out in...

Mom and cubs   I havn't seen a lot of brown bears yet this season but this one encounter more than made up for it. We were exploring the shoreline of Baranof Island, one of the ABC Islands famous for their dense population of brown bears.    We had seen a few bears from a distance, but nothing up close. That is before we rounded the point of a peninsula jutting out and came almost face to face to with a family of Ursus Arctos, or brown bears. A mom with three cubs was hanging out on the rocks. They didn't seem too bothered by us drifting by, or our other skiff motoring up to join us in the show.   The cubs occasionally wrestled a bit while momma bear snagged a salmon out of the water every few minutes. We were near the Hidden Falls Hatchery so the salmon return is quite plentiful here. The entire family of bears looked very well fed.  Brown bear cub antics   We all delighted in the encounter. It was another experience of being all alone ...

daimarsphotos.com  It is time to say goodbye to Alaska for another season, and it said goodbye to us in epic fashion. The weather was beautiful, the seas were calm, there was a plethora of wildlife, and the adventures ran thick. Our guests were excited and eager to answer the call of the wilderness that only Alaska can provide.      On Baranof Island along a tranquil rocky stream we watched as 15 different bears spent time chasing salmon, or each other, trying to get their fill. A few times some of the younger bears looked like they were heading out way, but we remained safe and sound ontop of the river bank. www.daimartamarack.com   Back out on the water we had multiple encounters with feeding humpback whales. We watched from the bow of the Quest as the fading light of day backlit the blows of one group. Then the next day we sped off on our small zodiac skiffs to get a closer look at bubble net feeding humpbacks.    After the bubb...

  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...

Like a painting   I've been watching this family of bears for a couple years now. The cubs are just about that age where they are ready to move on from their mother's side. They are rambunctious and even a little bratty towards other bears. I saw more than once the mom swat at them after she caught a salmon and they charged in to share the spoils. Tough love I guess. Climbing the old salmon ladder Mom and cubs    This latest encounter was at the waterfall on Pavlof stream, on Chichagof Island. Being one of the ABC islands, Chichagof has a dense population of brown bears. This time of year they all congregate around salmon streams to feast on the returning fish. They need all the calories they can get to make it through their winter dormancy. Eyes on me    It is always amazing to be out in the wild, with no one else around, witnessing a wildlife spectacle. Running tours on a boat in Southeast Alaska allows me the flexibility to do things l...