We didn’t arrive in port this morning until close to 10:00 so the day started slowly – Deck, Breakfast, Supervising our arrival and the deployment of lines tying us to the dock, a bit of reading, finding all the bits and bobs to take on our excursion… Oh, and Cheryl had a massage.
I had a Zoom meeting at 11:00 – one last Synod Finance Committee meeting (my term ends in October). I ducked out early from that in order to grab some lunch before heading out to the dock for our afternoon excursion – Bear Country and Wildlife Expedition.
We were bussed to an abandoned sawmill that the Alaska Rainforest Sanctuary bought. The purchase included a couple hundred acres of second growth forest with a salmon stream emptying into an estuary (prime bear habitat). They (the people, not the animals) have constructed an elevated walkway that allows cruise ship passengers to observe activity at ground level without disturbing the bears (or being disturbed by those bears). Almost immediately we spotted a young bear nosing around at the stream edge. Sadly he was being shy so I only got a photo of his backside before he decided to move on and disappeared thru the underbrush. We followed the walkway around to the estuary but didn’t see any other bear activity. We did see hundreds of salmon at the mouth of the stream waiting for the tide to raise enough for them to make their way up to spawn.
Along the way we stopped at one of the outlets of the Alaska Raptor Center. There we were introduced to a Red Tail Hawk, a Bald Eagle, and a Great Horned Owl. All of them were injured or imprinted on humans so they can’t hunt and sustain themselves in the wild.
Next we stopped at the old sawmill where we saw an apprentice carver working on a canoe paddle.
We took some time to explore the mill; the equipment is in place but is not in use and covered with a coat of rust.
While we were there one of our group, while gazing out a window across the estuary, spotted a black bear.
Before we left we took some time to wander around their totem park.
Returning to the ship we settled down to a traditional cruise schedule:
- 4:30 Port talk on Sitka (tomorrow’s port)
- 5:30 Resident Historian Forum: “Anybody Home? Art Appropriation in Native American Villages”
- 6:30 Lecture by our Naturalist: Fur & Flippers: Seals, Sea Lions, Sea Otters
We had a quick dinner before an 8:00 appointment with the onboard Cruise Consultant. We wanted his help to move one of our 2024 cruises to 2025.
So that’s the day.
Till Tomorrow, TTFN, R