Exploring Revillegigedo Island

My first two months in Ketchikan centered on the marine aspects and a bit of local history afforded by trips as far as the bus runs north and south, and by the tours by Allen Marine.  But In July, during Chris's visit, we rented a car and drove the full length of the Tongass Highway. First we went south to where the pavement ends--12 miles), then continued the few miles of dirt road to the locked gate that goes to the George Inlet Cannery.  This is the same cannery that I go to once a week on a tour from the water side. (see previous entry).  The facility is only accessible on guided tours but I hoped to catch the employee, one of my fellow crew members, to allow Chris to take a peak.   He missed out on that tour because he was going as a "comp" and there was no space available.

 

We missed Kaile, and a chance toget in,  but were rewarded with some berry picking, a great waterfall, and a black bear.  We got photos of the waterfall, the fireweed that is now blooming, but missed the bear as we were in the car as the bear headed across the dirt road.  We did find lots of eagles at Herring Cove and watched some King Salmon begin their migration up-stream. The numbers were small, but are increasing rapidly now that there has been some rain and the season is well underway. We had hoped for black bears fishiing for the salmon but were not that fortunate. I hope to get back out there before long and try again.

 

 

 

Chris getting close to the waterfall

Then we drove to the turnaround that ends of Tongass Highway about 20 miles north of downtown.  A co-worker\resident in my same building told me about a great waterfall there.  We spent a couple of hours walking through the lush rainforest, viewing and photographing the waterfall, and going down to the beach.  My knees were screaming by the time we finished.  Steep downhill trails and steps are hard.   But we had a great time.

 

 















The lush rainforest is similar to the Redwoods in Humboldt County on the northcoast of California where I used to live.  But here it is even more damp

My knees, particularly after a good bit of downhill walking
were ready to relax in the car as we drove inland.




Lunch Creek Falls

Beach below Lunch Creek Falls

Then we headed to Ward Cove and took the only inland road for a look at the higher country and a bit of Revilligigedo Island's interior.  We went to Ward, Connell and Talbot Lakes and then took the road to Brown Mountain, an old logging road.  It deadends with some beautiful vistas.  By then it was getting well after dinner time and we passed on hiking along the trail.  

The muskeg is filled with its own unique niche of plants

View from Brown Mountain.  Old logging roads carried us inland and upwards.

 

 

Misty Fjords

View within Rudyerd Bay in the heart of Misty Fjords National Monument.   Gray skies and
wispy clouds against the granite rock walls are typical.

Five days a week I serve as the naturalist aboard either the St. Nona or the St. John, on a four and a half hour tour to the Misty Fjords National Monument.   The voyage, to the heart of Rudyerd Bay, is 120 miles round trip using a catamaran with 4 jet engines.    With two decks with inside seating, these tours handle about 140 people, a far cry from my small, more intimate tours on the red and yellow historic buses of Yellowstone and Glacier, or even my 20 person walking tours at Bodie.

View of Rudyerd Bay on a sunny day.  These are far less common and this one was during training.  There is
still a lot of snow high up.  By mid July there are just patches

Small waterfalls and clouds, trees growing out of of the granite rock face
is a typical scene within the Monument.

    The boats were built specifically for this trip since speed, comfort and good visibility are all required.  Allen Marine started out as a boat building facility in Sitka.  They are still  in that business, but a number of years ago began giving tours in Sitka.    They designed and build the boats for their tours in Sitka, Ketchikan, and Juneau.
    The founders are Bob and Betty Allen.  She is Tlingit, Bob came to Alaska (after being born in my old stomping grounds of Humboldt County, CA) and most of their boats are named for saints  of the Russian Orthodox Church.   Russians were the first people of non-Native origin to settle in this territory, and Sitka still exhibits the ties to that past.   The third generation of the family now hold management roles in the firm.
     Our journey takes us through waterways carved by glaciers, between dozens of the 10,000 islands of coastal Alaska, past remnants of volcanoes, beneath monoliths of granite and peaks shoved up by tectonic activity.   Except for private lands in and around Ketchikan, Pennock Island, Gravina Island, and the only Native Reservation in Alaska on Annette Island, all of which are close to our starting and ending point, the day's tour is mostly in areas without human habitation.   Much of SE Alaska is in the  17,000 acre Tongass National Forest, the largest in the country, and one which is larger than 5 of the states in the lower 48.  Misty Fjords National Monument, established in 1979 is a 2.2 million acre area within the larger Tongass National Forest, and except for a small area with  molybdenum which may someday be utilized, it is a designated wilderness area.

Within a short geographical range, the environment goes from the depths of the ocean to alpine lakes and peaks.   It is a rich natural region.     Major currents meet here creating upwellings and rich marine life.   It keeps the weather wet and mild in temperature and maintains a highly productive mix of organisms that feed the larger fish and mammals.   A humpback whale eats very little during their migration or their time in Hawaii where they mate and calve. During those months they live off the blubber built up during their summers in rich SE Alaska where they eat up to a ton of food a day.

The temperate rain forest provides the perfect environment for salmon to spawn.   All the rain means plenty of clear creeks, the forest provides the shade\downed trees,and stream side vegetation and insects necessary to maintain creeks good for spawning and fry.  Five kinds of salmon; chum, sockeye, king, silver and pink begin and end their lives in those creeks with the interim spent in the salty waterways of southeast Alaska.  Between ocean and forest is a band of tidal zones, each with its own distinct crustaceans and flora.   The local saying is that when the tide is out, the table is set.   With 23 foot tides, there is a lot of intertidal life from giant sun stars and crabs, sea cucumbers, limpets, mussels and barnacles. 

The forests are home to bears, both black and brown (grizzlies), wolves, sitka black tail deer, mink, martens, weasels, beaver, eagles, and ravens,.  Waterbirds like pigeon guillemots, marbled murlets, sea gulls, and others finds nesting areas along the cliffs (or, in the case of the murlets, in old growth forests well inland).  Harbor seals pull out on rocky islands to give birth and to rest, dall's porpoises like to ride the bow waves of the boat, transient pods of orcas (killer whales) search for seals, fish and even whales to feed upon, while the resident orcas leave the bigger prey alone and feed largely on salmon.    Estuaries provide for places for river\land otters, herons, and songbirds to live.   Muskeg, with its acidic water is great for cranberries and blueberries and the sphagnum moss acts like giant sponges capturing and releasing the abundant rains and releasing water into streams and waterfalls.  High above it all, in the alpine regions, mountain goats and pikas live.

"Fjords" are salt water inlets and waterways created by the glaciers.   The large carved, U-shaped glacial valleys filled with salt water as glaciers melted creating the marvels of southeast Alaska's land of fjords, islands and waterway links throughout the region  

And in Misty Fjords National Monument are some of the most spectacular of these fjords.  In Rudgear Bay in the heart of the Monument, granite cliffs rise straight up 3,000 feet and waterfalls spill down the faces.  

New Edystone Rock, named by explorer George Vancouver after the New Edystone
Lighthouse in Plymouth England is a 237 foot,6 million year old spire, a volcanic plug of basalt.   Only this much remains
of a once much larger cone but has been eroded by later glacial action.  It sits in Behm Canal not far from where two "new" volcanoes were discovered by NOAA this spring.  These new volcanoes are old and extinct, "new" only in the sense that it was a new discovery for humans.

Rudyerd Bay is filled with waterfalls.  They do disappear, mostly, if there is a period of dry, warm weather.  But then
reappear after a rain.   They are fed by snow melt, overflow from alpine lakes and release of water by sphagnum moss in muskeg areas.    A good rainfall fills the lakes to overflow and re saturates the muskegs.

Here I am as a naturalist, interacting with guests.  Chris took this photo during his
vacation the week of the 4th of July.

One of many waterfalls in Rudgear  Bay, Misty
Fjords National Monument.

Harbor seals on rocks in Behm Canal in Misty Fjords

George Inlet Cannery

That's the Sea Lion Express, the boat we travel in for this tour

One day a week I am the naturalist for one part of a three part trip by visitors.   We take guests from the dock, along the Tongass Narrows and up George Inlet.   We view some of the natural history along the way and then deposit guests at the dock at the George Inlet Cannery.  The cannery, once owned by Libby Corporation,  is no longer in operation and the property is now owned by the Cape Fox Native Corporation.   Our company has a permit to give guided tours of the property and the corporation leases space to local fishermen to store their gear.  Someone has collected and restored all the mechanical parts of the operation.  And while no fish go down the line now, our crew there turns on and runs each of the machines which form the cans from flattened disks (easier to ship them up from "outside,") put the bottoms on, behead the fish, slice it open and gut it (all the unwanted parts dropped thru shoots on the floor and fed a voracious quantity of crabs, eagles, river otters and other animals), cut into slices the right size for the cans, stuff the cans, weigh and sort (with the  light cans diverted to humans to top off), to putting on the lids, extracting air and sealing before going into the ovens.  If anyone wants, they can take a can of sealed, local air, as a souvenir.

 After a tour of the cannery, guests board a bus for the trip back to town.  The road ends just before the cannery so they  is a short nature walk through the forest and across a bridge with nice waterfall.  The bus stops at Saxman Village to see the totem poles.



This is an old dormitory

Sometimes two tours run in opposite directions and we pick up passengers who have come by bus and return them to town by water.  If not, we "deadhead" which is a relaxing trip for me.

My part of the tour is on the water.   While it covers some of the same materials as the Misty Fjords tour in terms of the geologic history, I emphasise the diversity of ecosystems which give rise to the rich fishing of these waters.  That way it ties in well with the cannery tour.

When this was a functioning cannery there was no road to the site.   Workers arrived by boat and were housed in dormitories on the site.   Early contract Chinese workers were used, then Filipino workers, as well as Native Americans and Anglos who  were from South East Alaska. The cannery buildings are in good repair but the dormitories and other outbuildings, except one where the caretaker lives, are no longer safe to enter.  But they are interesting to look at from the outside and to photograph.

Today fishermen store equipment at the site.  Our captain stores his dungeness crab pots here and uses them in the winter months.

At low tide, the ramp is steep.

View up from the dock at low tide