Capturing the Moment

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 ...

The Chum Salmon heading upstream Lining the River   Here we go! I've been looking and looking for salmon to start showing up in numbers in all the Southeast Alaska streams. It only took a closer look in Juneau to find my first salmon run! And it actually turned out to be two different runs, the chum and the sockeye! Eagles Eagles Everywhere   The first was at Lemon Creek. The fact that hundreds of bald eagles were surrounding the creek was a great tip off that something was up. A closer look at the creek showed that is was packed with chum salmon. They fought their way upstream in the creek that was only inches deep. Still they fought on. It seemed that some had either already spawned and passed on or perhaps just ran out of energy. There were salmon carcasses all around. Feasting on fresh salmon "This is my meal."    Quite a few of the carcasses could be chocked up to the hungry eagles. I got up close and personal with one juvenile bald eag...

  Growing up in Savannah, GA it was always a big deal if you saw a bald eagle. Sightings were rare and nests were a show stopper for any kind of construction project nearby. Now I am in the land of eagles, Alaska, where I sometimes see thirty or forty bald eagles at a time. Yet they still hold that same place in my heart. I stop what I do them and watch with awe and understand perfectly why they were chosen as our national symbol. The give off such a regal nature while mastering their role as the top bird-of-prey.   So instead of getting tired of seeing eagles I work on seeing more of them and learning more about them by watching and photographing them here in Alaska. Outside of Homer, Heidi and I found the perfect location for an eagle photo shoot. With nearly 20 adults and juveniles lining the beach we casually walked up and down taking pictures as we went. Different shorebirds and ocean birds were bobbing in the waves just offshore but while Heidi was trying to ident...