Caution: Wildlife

When you build a road through the wilderness, it is inevitable that large animals will find their way onto the pavement, creating potentially dangerous situations for both wildlife and drivers. It also creates some amazing wildlife viewing opportunities. Early on our trip I was intrigued by the signs warning drivers to look for everything from moose and caribou to sheep and wolverines on the highways. We ended up seeing many of the species right where predicted. Here is a little series I put together showing the often creative signs and the animals on or near the roadway. I think these photos demonstrate an interesting juxtaposition between wilderness and civilization. Most of these photos were taken in the Northern BC Rockies, and the others on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska.

Woodland caribou:

Wood bison:



Stone sheep:

Moose - probably the most common of the bunch, and hence the most often hit. In one town we saw a sign alerting drivers to how many moose have been struck since last July 1 (a whopping 174 in this case!)

And though they didn't often have signs warning you about them, nearly all of our bear encounters came along roadsides as well:

Halibut Cove and Exit Glacier

Location: Seward, Alaska
Population: 2830

Yesterday we had another boat ride out of Homer, this time a passenger ferry over to Halibut Cove, a small artist's community on the other side of Kachemak Bay. The weather report was for wind and showers, but we lucked out and were greeted with a beautiful day. On the ferry ride over we got to make a stop at Gull Island again, and I certainly didn't mind seeing it twice! The sun was shining and some different birds were about, so I got some completely different photos from the day before. Here's a pigeon guillemot taking flight:

Most of the murres that were floating in rafts the day before were perched on top of the rocks this time. Although it's a more common sight in Alaska, it's still bizarre to see mountains behind sea birds:

Most exciting of all, horned puffins (year bird 202)!! We didn't see any the day before, but we saw at least two or three yesterday, and we were even close enough for pictures:

Most of the people that take the few hour excursion to Halibut Cove eat at their locally famous restaurant, The Saltry. We decided to pack a picnic lunch and take more time to explore the quaint boardwalk community and the two art galleries featuring local artists. It was certainly a picturesque place!

We also hiked up the hill on the island where Halibut Cove is situated, which gave views towards the Kenai Mountains on one side and back towards Homer on the other. Here is a view overlooking the trail, the town, and the mountains beyond:

This morning as we packed the car the owner of the cabin where we were staying came to tell us there was a moose nearby. We went over to take a look, hoping it would be one of the moms with calves she had seen around recently. Sure enough, with a little patience, two young ones emerged from the trees and took a curious look at us before scampering deeper into the woods after mom:

Then it was time to hit the road and make our way towards Seward on the other side of the Kenai Peninsula. We stopped a few miles outside of Seward to take the hike up to Exit Glacier, the most accessible point of Kenai Fjords National Park and Preserve. As we hiked up the trail, we saw and heard a couple of hermit thrushes (year bird 203). It was amazing to see how much the glacier as receded, as marked by signs stating the years at sites that were formerly the ice front of the glacier. This photo was taken from where the ice stood in 1998:

It's easy to jump to the conclusion that global climate change is the sole reason for the recession of this and other glaciers. I'm sure it plays a role, but it's also interesting to think about the cyclical advance and retreat of ice ages that the earth goes through anyway. Exit Glacier, for instance, has been retreating since the end of the last "little ice age" around 1815. We passed signs showing where the glacier stood along what is now the highway, miles away from its present location. It lost a lot of ground before we humans were pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, indicating that we're in the middle of a warming phase anyway, though human factors are accelerating it to never before seen levels.

The air temperature dropped considerably as we approached the glacier and we started feeling the katabatic winds, or a chilly breeze that runs off the glacier as the cold air rushes down its slopes. Basically, the air on top of the glacier is cooled, and as a result becomes more dense since the density of air is inversely proportional to its temperature. The denser air then sinks and is pulled down the slope by gravity, replacing the warmer, less dense air down at the face of the glacier, where we were standing. Luckily it was warm enough out that the cold air felt great!

Even though Exit Glacier is just a fraction of its former size, and in fact is one of the smallest glaciers that extend of the Harding Ice Field that makes up the bulk of Kenai Fjords National Park, when you are right at the face of the glacier it still seems pretty huge!

Urban Wildlife in Anchorage

Location: Anchorage, Alaska
Population: 279,243

Before leaving the Denali area yesterday we got to take a tour of the sled dog kennels at the place where were staying. The owner of the lodge is a dog musher who has been on some pretty extraordinary expeditions and now guides back country dog sled trips in the winter. (Another side note of interest: we were staying on Stampede Road, the site where Christopher McCandless headed into the wilderness and eventually died of starvation while living in an abandoned bus 20 miles from the nearest road. You're probably familiar with his story - it has been documented in the book and movie Into the Wild.)

I have always found dog sledding intriguing but have never learned that much about it, so it was awesome to be able to learn a bit from someone so passionate about it. He raises his own dogs and currently has 22. They aren't Siberian huskies or malamutes, but northern sled dogs - a breed he says you cannot really call purebred or mixed, but rather "neither". They are direct descendants of the dogs brought over by people on the Bering land bridge. There is a lot of variation within them, and overall they tend to be much healthier than the ultra purebred dog speices.

He had a little of puppies in the yard which were almost five months old. I was immediately attracted to the playful female pictured below, and he said he has keyed in on her as a potential future lead dog. As any dog owner knows, dogs have varying personalities and that was very clear in the half hour we spent in the yard. He explained that the qualities he looks for in a lead dog are the same as the qualities you'd look for in a human leader, and that those qualities are just a rare. Most dogs are content to be followers, but some are willing to be out in front, make decisions, and take responsibility for the team. If I ever make it to Alaska in the winter I will have to try dog sledding for sure - I don't think I'd like the darkness of the northern winter, but the lure of dog sledding and seeing the aurora borealis might just be enough to lure me back.

Yesterday and today we've spent in Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska and home to nearly half the state's population. The setting for this city is a pleasant one as it is right at the end of Cook Inlet and surrounded by mountains. Even though it is a fairly metropolitan area, the wildlife of Alaska still make a home here. We went to Potter Marsh, part of the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge and just yards from a highway, to see some of the urban wildlife for ourselves.

Right away we saw this tree swallow that was amazingly accommodating and gave us the closest views you are ever likely to get of a wild bird:

While the marsh is an important stopover for many migrating species, some breed there as well. There were many mew gulls sitting on nests all over the wetlands, and several families of Canada geese as well:

Multiple fish species spawn in the marsh or transit through to higher streams, and off the boardwalks we did see some fish. I don't know a lot about fish, but after looking up some photos these don't look to me like the salmon, char, grayling, trout, stickleback, or scuplin listed as being native to the marsh. Unfortunately they look most like the northern pike, a species that was illegally introduced 10 years ago. Does anyone know for sure if that's what this is?

All the fish provide food for many of the birds, including the Arctic terns that dive-bomb the water from above. This tern caught (by the tip of the tail!) what looks to me like a stickleback:

Speaking of dive-bombing some tree swallows that must have had a nest in the area harassed this black-billed magpie until it took off looking for a quieter place to perch:

Some other birds seen and heard while strolling the boardwalks include the alder flycatcher and Lincoln's sparrow (two species that were life birds for me this trip), black-capped chickadees, orange-crowned warblers, northern shoveler, northern pintail, green-winged teal, and savannah sparrows.

Being Alaska, big animals make a home in this urban area as well. I read that an estimated 30 brown bears and 60 black bears make their home within the city limits, living in the greenbelts and taking advantage of the numerous lakes and streams. At Potter Marsh we saw a moose grazing in the wetlands:

There were dragonflies and damselflies making their home in the marsh as well, and this dragonfly settled down long enough for some photos that allowed me to tentatively identify it as a black meadowhawk (Sympetrum danae). This species is found in Europe and Asia as well, and in Britain it is known as the black darter. Are any of my British friends able to confirm this ID? You guys know more about dragonflies than I do!

After leaving Potter Marsh we headed a little further south of the city to Beluga Point which overlooks Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet. As the name suggests this is a good spot to look for the Cook Inlet beluga whales, probably our shot of seeing them this trip. Unfortunately this population has declined dramatically and was recently listed as an endangered population, a fact that is very controversial locally even though the population has plummeted from several thousand to several hundred in a relatively short period of time. The reason for the decline is heavily debated as well, with reasons spanning over-hunting by local natives to pollution, disease, prey decline, over-predation by orcas, noise disturbance, etc., etc. With all the political attention surrounding these whales it was surprising to me how hard it was to find information about where and when to see them. We spent a couple of hours at Beluga Point on the incoming tide when they apparently follow the fish into the inlet, but no luck today. There were some Dall's sheep up on the cliffs above the overlook, another large mammal making a home within a fairly large city.

The incoming tide is a sight to see in itself, however, as this is the site of one of the world's 60 or so bore tides. A bore tide occurs when a huge tidal exchange is funneled into a relatively narrow inlet or bay, resulting in the leading edge of the incoming tide forming a standing wave. We didn't get to see the bore tide today, but with up to a 30 foot (!!) tidal exchange in six hours watching the tide come in is impressive. In a matter of minutes we watched the mudflats get covered in water as the rise rose several feet in front of our eyes. Pretty cool.

Into Denali

Wilderness is a spiritual necessity, an antidote to the high pressure of modern life, a means of regaining serenity and equilibrium ~ Sigurd Olson, conservationist

Denali. The word is Athabascan for "High One" and was given to North America's tallest peak, also known as Mt. McKinley. Yet it has come to mean so much more than that. Say the word aloud. Denali. It evokes pure wilderness.

Today we traveled 66 miles into Denali National Park. Before I go further, I have to say I am extremely impressed with how this park is managed. The National Park Service is succeeding in both preserving wilderness and managing human access to experience it while sending a strong environmental and conservation message. It's really reassuring in a time of so many environmental issues to see something done so right.

As part of the plan to reduce human impacts on park wildlife vehicle access to the park is limited. While anyone can drive the first 15 miles of the only road that eventually leads deep into the park, after that vehicle access is mainly restricted to shuttle and tour buses. We rode one of the shuttle buses which pauses to see wildlife and also makes stops at set points where you are allowed to get out.

Now on to the animals! First of all, grizzly bears. Also known more popularly as brown bears in Alaska, as I had hoped we got to see our first grizzlies of the trip today in Denali. We saw two adults together, and our guide hypothesized that it was a male following a female. The picture above is of the bear that was being followed, presumably the female. The photo below is of the other bear who was lighter colored and potentially the male:

We got amazingly close looks at them and it was cool to see how little heed they paid to us. They just came out of the bushes, tromped along for a little ways, and then disappeared again without giving us so much as a glance.

From one of the largest animals of the day to one of the smallest, we also saw lots of Arctic ground squirrels. These little mammals were abundant, and as cute as they are they are also an important food source for most all of the larger animals that live in the Arctic tundra.

I was very thankful that our driver was also a bird-watcher himself and thus was also looking for birds and, even better, stopping the bus to look at birds! We got a closer look at some willow ptarmigans, a bird I saw for the first time earlier in the trip. Unlike the other ones we saw that were still partially white, the ptarmigans in Denali were already in their full brown summer plumage. Notice how the legs are feathered all the way down to the feet.

In addition to the ptarmigans, we spotted several golden eagles (year bird 197) including a great look at a juvenile perched on the hillside below us. The most exciting bird sighting of the day was a gray morph gyrfalcon (year bird 198, NA life bird 330), another bird I had really hoped to see on this trip. For those of you who aren't familiar with this bird, think peregrine falcon but much larger! This was my tenth lifer of the trip, and we are only halfway through!

Another fantastic sighting was a good look at a mother moose and her two calves. Having two offspring at a time is typical for moose, and as our driver explained, more than half of moose calves are predated upon so for the mama moose it is a good insurance policy in terms of successfully passing on her genes.

Dall's sheep were a common sighting today. We saw several groups including one nursery band of nearly 30 moms and young. This adult male was grazing just below another group of five males that were lounging on the hill above:

Another new mammal for me was the barren ground caribou. Going through the BC Rockies we spotted two woodland caribou, but these are their tundra counterparts. In BC we saw a female and a young male, so I was really hoping to see some adult males with their impressive antlers. My wish was granted as we saw two separate groups of males, including this big guy:

Another cool mammal sighting was a brief look at a hoary marmot! No photos of that one, but if you saw my post featuring yellow-bellied marmots from earlier in the trip they look similar but are blue-gray in color. We also saw a red fox carrying a lemming back to its den. I learned that if a fox is carrying its prey, it probably has kits and is carrying them back food, otherwise it will likely eat right on the spot. The only big mammal we didn't see were the wolves, which are a rare sighting though 70-80 of them are living in the park this year.

The wildlife was of course the highlight for me, but the scenery wasn't too shabby either. It was too cloudy to see Mt. McKinley today, as it is two-thirds of the time, but the painted hills of the Alaska Range were a beautiful landscape to take in all the same. Here are a couple photos to give you the feel of it:

The Land of the Midnight Sun

Location: Fairbanks, Alaska
Population: 35,132

Here we are in Fairbanks, and this is as far north as we will make it on this trip into the Land of the Midnight Sun, as Alaska is so appropriately known (at least for half the year). Looking at a map it is amazing to see where we are, and I have been thinking about it in different ways as I try to fully absorb being in this place.

We are less than 200 miles from the Arctic Circle, the line where on the summer solstice the sun will not set at all.

In terms of latitude and longitude, we are at 65˚ N and 148˚ W (compared to 49˚ N and 123˚ W in the San Juan Islands). Every degree of latitude is always 69 miles, but as you approach the North Pole the distance between degrees of longitude is reduced – from more than 40 miles per degree in the San Juan Islands to less than 30 miles per degree here (think about how all the lines of longitude on a globe converge at the top and bottom at the poles). As a result, we are so far west that if we were to head due south we would run into the Hawaiian Islands. Isn’t that strange?? I was surprised to learn that.

Today, the sun will set at 12:20 AM and will rise at 3:17 AM. It basically hasn't gotten dark for more than a week now. We've seen swallows catching insects at 10:30 PM. We've heard robins singing after 11:00 PM. I wonder how and when animals decide to sleep when it is so light all the time? Perhaps, like me, they just sleep less this time of year, too tempted by the lure to be active during daylight. How about those animals that are normally nocturnal?

I wanted to post a picture taken at midnight to show how light it is, but that will have to wait for now since last night I fell asleep before then (those shorter nights catch up with you at some point!). So here is a picture I took at Marsh Lake in the Yukon after 10 at night on May 27th, with the sun still shining on the mountain peaks:

Our drive to Fairbanks was relatively uneventful, and since we had a good number of miles to cover from Valdez we didn’t make a lot of stops. The highlight was a stretch of highway where we saw four moose, including our first male with a growing pair of antlers.

The weather remained cloudy for our drive, and instead of seeing the tops of the mountains we saw the sides of the mountains and a low layer of clouds that hung ominously above. This photo shows the fog covering most of Rainbow Mountain, which is known for its slopes made up of various minerals giving it colors that range from red to black and from blue to yellow:

We had our first thunderstorm as we pulled into Fairbanks. It's amazing how after a couple of weeks of being in the remote areas of the north and visiting the smaller communities, 30,000 seems like A LOT of people. It's somewhat of a culture shock to see fast food restaurants, freeways, traffic lights!

The rain has stayed with us into today, for which the people here are thankful. They are talking about how much their gardens need the water, and how rain is better than the smoke that would accompany potential wildfires. We didn’t let the wet deter us from going out and doing some birding on our full day here. We saw a pair of sandhill cranes and a flock of Canada geese out in a field, with some cliff swallows flying overhead. American robins and yellow warblers were singing all over the place. We saw a few slate-colored dark-eyed juncos, a different race from the dark-eyed juncos we see most often in Oregon and Washington. Where are all the birds unique to the north? We got one, as courtesy of my dad’s iBird Pro application on his phone we were able to confirm the singing of several northern waterthrushes (year bird 194, NA life bird 326) – cool!

As we drove back from dinner tonight the weather finally started to clear and as we crested a hill we saw a mountain peak in the distance - Mt. McKinley! The tallest peak in North America looked big even from 120 miles away. It is only visible about a third of the time, so I was worried we might not even get to see it at all. Now I'm hoping we'll get a closer look, as tomorrow we head towards Denali National Park.

Mountains, Glaciers, and Birds on the way to Valdez

Location: Valdez, Alaska
Population: 4036

Although we did have some rainstorms overnight, we woke up again to sunny skies and hit the road to head to Valdez. The first part of the drive was along the Tok Cutoff which brought us by several lakes and marshes. We stopped at one point to look at some ducks, and noticed some birds that were flycatching from the trees next to the marsh. A closer examination revealed them to be a flock of Bohemian waxwings (year bird 190, life bird 325)! I often see their cousins the cedar waxwings, but have long wanted to see these slightly more colorful birds. Very cool. While we were working to identify the waxwings a male rusty blackbird (year bird 191, life bird 326) also flew in!

Next up were some great views of several of the mountains in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. At over 20,000 square miles (over 13 million acres) it is more than six times the size of Yellowstone and is the largest National Park in the United States. It borders Glacier Bay National Park of the US and Kluane National Park and Tatshenshini-Alsek Provincial Park of British Columbia, which together are recognized as a World Heritage Site and make of the largest internationally protected areas in the world. Within Wrangell-St. Elias are several of the tallest peaks and biggest glaciers on the continent, and since access to the park is limited we were thankful for the clear views of the mountain peaks from the highway that borders the park. This is Mount Drum, which measures in at 12,010 feet:

It's a good thing we didn't make quite as many stops in the morning because once we reached the Richardson Highway that heads south to Valdez we were again face-to-face with snow-capped mountains and glaciers which required frequent stops to photograph and take it all in. Here is a view looking straight down the highway:

It wasn't just about the mountains though, as we had some good wildlife sightings as well, including our closest moose encounter. This female was swimming around in a boggy area - quite an impressive sight!

We stopped to take a look at Worthington Glacier which is close enough to the road that you can walk nearly to the face of it. By this time we were near the top of Thompson Pass, and while it's just over 2700 feet there was still quite a bit of snow on the ground. We had to trudge through the snow-covered paths to get the best look at the glacier, but the woman at the visitor's center said that just about a ten days ago the snow was still towering over her head and the parking area and paths were impassable. These warmer temperatures are just now bringing summer to the region. Here is a photo looking up at the glacier that, due to its accessibility, is also a research site for scientists studying how glaciers move and the impact of climate change:

The lady at the visitor's center had also put out some fresh fish in a nearby snow field with hopes of keeping this eagle from predating on the mew gull nests nearby. I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do, but how different is it really from putting seeds out for passerines in your backyard? The eagle gave one impressive flyover - look how mottled it is! Not quite fully adult yet since the tail isn't white:

Several black-billed magpies were also taking advantage of the easy meal:

As we passed through Thompson Pass a little further on we found ourselves nearly surrounded by mountain peaks. A single photograph just wouldn't do it justice so I tried piecing together a panorama. It's not the best but it gives you the idea of about 180 degrees of the view. I'm not sure how to post it much bigger than this so you'll have to click on it to see a larger view. The only time I've seen a view even remotely like this was in the Alps in Switzerland 12 years ago!

As we descended from the Pass the snow faded quickly into waterfalls, rivers, and marshes fed by all the snow melt. We saw several more pairs of trumpeter swans, but this is the first pair thus far that we've seen that already has signets. A baby swan is the little ugly duckling of the storybook, but these guys were already pretty darn cute!

As we continued our descent towards sea level the tall cliffs of Keystone Canyon started to tower over us on either side. This trip has at many times been a living geology lesson as in a short stretch of highway we passed through the broad U-shaped valley characteristic of being carved by a glacier into the steep V-shaped valley cut through the mountains by a river. The numerous tumbling waterfalls continued to slowly shape and morph the canyon as we watched, and by looking up into the grooves cut into the valley walls you could see where water had been running for thousands of years. This is Horsetail Falls:

The weather has finally caught up to us! The beautiful clear skies stayed with us into Valdez, but this morning there is rain and low-lying clouds are now hiding most of the mountains that encircle this town.

The Northern BC Rockies

No internet yesterday, so for now, here's an update I wrote from yesterday, Tuesday the 25th....

Location: Muncho Lake, British Columbia
Population: 20

Have I mentioned that British Columbia is huge? I know I said so yesterday but it really is hard to believe that we often transit through British Columbia on our whale watching trips out of Friday Harbor and that after four long days of travel we are still in this amazing province. I see on the map where we are, but it is hard to grasp being at 59 degrees latitude, with much further north to go! It does the soul a lot of good to see so much untouched land, and to think that we’re seeing the most developed of it on the only main highway for hundreds of miles around. Over the years we all see and hear a lot about the world’s environmental issues, and I don’t want to belittle them because I worry about them a lot, but today was a perfect example of how there is a lot of raw wilderness left, and that all has not been lost.

They call this region the Serengeti of the North and with good reason. Black bears. Mule deer. Elk. Moose. Woodland caribou. Caribou!! And this isn’t even Alaska yet. I am just awestruck at the sheer beauty of this place. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking, since they capture it for me better than words as this point.

For the first part of the day the highway look like this:

Along this stretch of highway we spotted another moose, and this time she stayed long enough for me to take a photo:

Soon we started our climb into the Rocky Mountains, and for a while it seemed like there was wildlife around every corner. Elk - like this mom and her youngster:

We saw five black bears. This was my favorite photo from today:

We saw a couple of woodland caribou. I really didn't expect to see caribou until Alaska if at all, and I didn't know there were two types of caribou (the other type is the barren ground caribou). Here is a young male who was licking the rocks for salt alongside the road:

Whenever there weren't animals that demanded my attention, the scenery was breath-taking. Here is one example of the still mostly frozen Summit Lake, with snow-capped peaks in the background:

Today we covered part of the most remote stretch of the Alaska Highway. There are miles and miles of nothing but road, and when you come to a "town" it's nothing more than a hotel and a gas station, if it is open at all. Our stop-over for the night was the Northern Rockies Lodge on Muncho Lake.

Before leaving Fort St. John this morning, we saw a lake with Bonaparte's gulls and black terns (year bird 176) circling overhead. When we arrived at Muncho Lake, this gray jay (177) met us at our cabin:

Muncho Lake is a beautiful aqua color due to suspended copper oxide left as rock dust by receding glaciers. If you don't want to drive all the way to the lake, you can catch a float plane in from Vancouver, as many fly-fishers do for a weekend getaway. Here was an early evening float plane taking off in front of the beautiful mountains that encircle the lake: