Finally... A Day Off

It's not a vacation up here for me; we work 40 hour weeks and I spent my last weekend doing boat training so I had my first day off in over 2 weeks on Sunday. It ended up being a productive day. In the morning I actually had to finish up boat training, which involves crossing the river to get to Lake Brooks. Of course, a bear was sleeping on the trail right next to the bridge. So after a while we went to wake Imes up, who was all too happy run off a bear. (We call it "hazing" here, so if I use that term don't imagine a grizzly doing a keg stand). The fun part of this was I got to do it with him -- the three of us marched up to this brown bear with Imes in the front clapping and making huffing noises. It turned out to be a skittish female named Amelia who is very small for her 5 years, and more than happy to get out of the way of three apparently insane men. Later, as we were launching the boat, I saw a magnificent moose crossing the mouth of Lake Brooks. This may have been the first moose sighting on the ground this year (many people saw them from the air on the way in), and it was pretty close to us -- within a couple hundred yards, which is plenty close enough to get a good look at such a huge creature. Its movement seemed surprisingly equestrian to me, kind of like an goofy horse who had drank one too many. It actually walked along the beach toward us for a bit before catching wind of us and spooking into the forest. I didn't have my camera but my roommate Matt got a great video of it, I will see if I can post it somehow. Troy, a fisheries biologist and one of our highest-ups here, was giving the boat training and though we didn't want to admit it at first, the main thing we were thinking about as we watched that moose awkwardly slink across the river was how good he would look packed into our freezer for the next 3 months.

After completing the training -- I am now officially certified to operate a Department of the Interior motorboat anywhere in the country -- I went fishing on Lake Brooks with a maintenance guy named Tom. He took me to some good spots to catch rainbow trout and we ended up catching 3, two of which were small enough to keep (they have to be 18 inches or less). I had a huge trout hooked and pulled up to the side of the boat but I wasn't in any hurry to get him in because he was clearly over 18 inches and I thought I was just going to reach over and release him. By the time Tom explained to me that it was actually a lake trout and not a rainbow, and that you could keep any size lake, he had wriggled himself free. So instead of being able to cook for the whole neighborhood, I ended up that night with a nice dinner for two of delicious rainbow trout. Something about catching, cleaning, and cooking a fish yourself makes it taste so much better.

If I seem to be mentioning food frequently, particularly meat, it is because that is quite the concern here at Brooks Camp. If you remember, I am 30 miles away from the closest town, which itself is 300 miles from the closest road system. And the Park Service doesn't pay to fly me into town and back anyway, except for my first flight in and last flight out. Most people, including myself, order their food from Fred Meyer Grocery in Anchorage and have it shipped here, but that takes a week or more and of course cannot include perishable items. So in Brooks Camp many a scheme is launched to try to get perishable foods. Some people are content to slug out the summer on ramen and peanut butter, but among most of us fresh fruits, vegetables, and cheese along with frozen meat are worth their weight in gold. You can bring out some frozen/refrigerated stuff on the way out, but once that runs out it's back to canned goods and pasta. You would be surprised, however, at how well you can eat on non-perishable stuff only. They make a kind of milk that comes in one quart boxes that is ultra-pasteurized and does not have to be refrigerated until it is opened. It tastes great to me, perhaps a little more buttery than typical 2 percent but fine to drink. And if a spanish speaking man in a sombrero would have set the Cheesy Enchilada Chicken Helper I made the other night with canned chicken in front of you on a hot plate in a mexican restaurant, you would have come back the next week for more. Seriously, Cheesy Enchilada Chicken Helper... try it. I've also got a bunch of ingredients saved up to make chili and a lot of other bean soup type recipes (including some meat in the freezer to flavor them with), and I'm working on one of those aformentioned schemes involving a girl who will soon be leaving here for King Salmon going to the grocery and boxing up some fresh stuff to be sent over to me. Between that and all the trout, pike, and (soon) salmon that I can eat I think I will be eating pretty rich for the next few months.

Still, someone has asked me if I have a mailing address so this seems as good a time as any to fulfill that request. Packages are a serious event here; it is pretty much everyone's favorite thing to get one in the mail. Strangely enough to me, candy and chocolate seem to be most desired item around here. A woman giving a presentation pulled out a bag of snickers today and it literally caused an audible gasp followed by a small commotion in a room full of grown men and women. Go figure. So anyway, if you feel like sending me some chocolate, booze, nuts or dried fruit, quilted toilet paper, naked pictures of your sister, or vicious hate mail this is my address:

Mason McLeod
P.O. Box 229
Katmai National Park - Brooks Camp Interp
King Salmon, AK 99613

Can you guess which one would elicit in me the same reaction that snickers gave most people? A hint: it should probably be mailed in a plastic bottle where it doesnt slosh, since it is technically illegal to send it in the mail (but it does work, I know from experience). And seriously... one-ply sucks.

Well that's about all for now. It doesn't get dark until midnight here, which is great because it gives you a ton of energy to do things when you get off work. Unfortunately, I couldn't go fishing today because there is a 40 mile an hour wind coming from the east; the beach of Naknek Lake looks like an angry Atlantic right now with the waves coming in. I should have my first couple of rolls of film developed soon, so my next post should have some good stuff including some spectacular pictures taken from the overlook of a mountain next to our camp. Check back soon.

Divot

Arrival at Brooks Camp was a quietly exciting experience. People talk about the feeling they get when the floatplane that brought them in turns around and departs, leaving them isolated in a small lake camp surrounded by the glacial wilderness they had just viewed from the air. I can't say I was particularly nervous or high-strung on my first day here; all the talk and thought about Brooks Camp over the previous month had created the kind of anticipation that makes you feel relieved to finally be at a place, like you have belonged there all along.

I have been here for a week now, and not a day has gone by without at least one moment - usually marked by a spontaneous and prolonged grin - when I consider with wonder and awe the fact that I somehow ended up in one of the most beautiful places on Earth this summer. It is actually, physically unbelievable at times. For example: looking down from Mt. Dumpling onto an endless expanse of crystal blue lakes surrounded by snow covered mountains and punctuated by our tiny camp, watching the mating behavior of an arctic tern and knowing that he just completed a 12,000 mile journey from Antarctica to get here, standing by as a 500 pound brown bear slowly meanders down the beach about 20 feet in front of you.

Speaking of bears, we were lucky enough to see our first one the day we arrived. It is still early in the season, before the salmon begin to run, and most bears have not yet made the Brooks River area their home yet at this time of the year. But sure enough, as we turned the corner on our orientation tour we saw a lone bear furiously digging at a gravel sandbar in the middle of the river. From 150 yards away, though, there was still something of this encounter that resembled watching a nature program on the Discovery Channel. It just didn't seem quite real from that distance.

That was not a problem on my next encounter. I happened to be standing with a 6th year Bear Technician named Imes, newly arrived from King Salmon, when we got word of a bear on the beach. So we went out to the beach to behold this beauty slowly walking toward us, ambling along the shore as if she owned the place (she does, until bigger bears show up). Imes had answered my first questions, telling me that the bear was a subadult female in about her 4th year, so possibly ready for breeding this season. I asked him how he could tell so much from 100 yards away and he said, "Because I know that bear, that's Divot." Divot is a distinctive sandy blond colored bear who, as we had unknowingly witnessed the day before, likes to dig. We walked up the beach to get out of her way and let Divot pass right in front of us, maybe 15 or 20 feet away. She was totally disinterested in us, and had it not been for the fact that she had to have seen us and be aware of our presence, you might have thought she didn't even realize we were there. She never so much as glanced out way as she walked by onto a trail through the forest. But believe me, when you can see the individual hairs on a bear's back, and the look on their face, there is no feeling of being trapped in an Animal Planet TV show. It feels real, very real, for lack of a better word.

Yesterday Divot was decidedly less popular as she decided to take a nap on the side of the trail that leads to the bridge across the river. When this happens, whoever is trying to cross the bridge gets stuck and has to wait -- in this case myself and the rest of the people who had just finished boat training on the far lake. Many people had to wait to get back to camp for over an hour. This is a common occurrence during the summer, and apparently this becomes a big deal once visitors arrive and they have multiple hour waits to get to their lunch, or a bathroom, or their flight out of Brooks Camp. A primary part of my job will be closing trails when they are blocked by bears, and explaining to visitors (who are often not happy) why we allow the bears to live, fish, and sleep naturally instead of moving them for the enjoyment of people. In any case we ended up having to do that after I was there for about 15 minutes, and so from across the river I watched Imes storm up to sleeping Divot, clapping his hands and yelling, forcing her to flee the trail. She didn't go far, and I wanted to stay and watch her more after we crossed the bridge, but we decided that it was best for us all to leave and let her use the river and trail for whatever somnolent purpose she pleased.

Well I still have to tell you about what life here in Brooks Camp is like and what I have been up to for the past week, but that will have to wait. Coming up: pictures from my climb up Mt. Dumpling (as soon as I can mail the film to someone to get developed and put on the internet). For now, meet Divot:

* thanks again to my coworker John Castor for this picture of Divot and the previous picture bears fishing (from last year). John is a semi-professional photographer who has been nice enough to let me use some of his pictures while I try to figure out a way to get my anachronistic rolls of film developed. You can check out his blog, with lots more good photos, at jonnyhorizon.blogspot.com.