A conversation I had this week while in the field with Tony, our local crew leader, helped me put life on Prince of Wales into perspective--at least when it comes to bears. There is an association I have (and I think many others) between the Alaskan wilderness and the reality that bears are a vital, and ever-present, part of the ecosystem. Back in Wisconsin, I have spent many hours in the outdoors in both work and play and have given very little thought to bears being an issue. The idea of carrying a weapon on the outside chance that one encounters an aggressive bear never crossed my mind while in Wisconsin. Alaska is a different story.
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| Tony and I taking data in the rain... |
Tony, who I would guess is around 50, grew up in Hydaburg and has spent the majority of his life hunting and fishing the area. On the subject of bears, he mentioned to me that he has seen an estimated 50-60 bears--since May of this year. It appears that locals don't hunt bear very often as they consider the meat less-than-stellar as table fare, but there is a large contingency of out-of-state hunters that consider Prince of Wales prime trophy black bear country. And Tony agrees that there are large bears in the area. This is where the the relativity of life on Prince of Wales came to bear (excuse the pun) for me...Tony nonchalantly told me that he has ONLY had to use his weapon TWICE in defense of aggressive bears.
Up until this point, I had never met someone who had ever been charged or threatened by a bear. I have read numerous accounts and have heard a couple second-hand accounts, but nothing such as the experiences that Tony has had. It is just a part of his daily life.
As is the rain. We got lucky our first week of surveys, and even though we had rain, it was relatively light and short-lived--we even had an 80 degree day (which felt quite warm).
Mother Nature wasn't quite so abiding the second week. Prince of Wales gets somewhere in the neighborhood of 120" of precipitation annually. From what I have experienced, the rainfall isn't heavy, just persistent. On our final day of surveys we had a larger stream to tackle that took us about a mile upstream from the inlet of the lake.
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| Persistent rain made taking good pics a challenge... |
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| Relative calm on the way in... |
Going in we were able to cross the stream at opportune times making the hike in bearable. However, on the way out, about 8 hours later, the stream had risen about 10" and we had to change our route and spend more time bushwhacking than we would have liked.
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| ...not so calm on the way out. |
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| A rather sizable beaver pond we found. |
