Nothing to Offer but Blood, Sweat and Bears

 Goat Haunt, Montana

We buy tickets on the "International" in Waterton, Alberta. She's 84 years old, all wood and carries 200 passengers South to Goat Haunt, Montana four times a day.



Waterton Lake is ten miles long. Our tickets are "one-way". We plan to hike back. This is our third time on the 10.5 mile hike. It's sort of a way to prove to ourselves that we're still viable. Mrs. Phred and I are the only ones making the hike today..



When we get off the boat and two Homeland Security agents in black uniforms examine our passports. It's 90 miles of wilderness to the nearest US road, but it pays to screen out the threats. As Bush pointed out, "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."



The trail is severely overgrown. Sometimes the vegetation is waist high. It's very hot. I'm sweating within a mile and swatting dozens of blood-filled mosquitoes. The trail has deer ticks and Lyme disease, but we stupidly wore shorts instead of long pants.


Entering the park, a big mama bear and two cubs run across the road in front of us. They're cute, but we get no pix.


On the trail we spot a motionless black bear about 100 feet down the trail. The bear is downwind of us. He eventually catches our scent (we don't see any cubs) and moves off the trail. I shout out a bunch of threats and tell the bear that I'm more dangerous than a Great White Shark and that he should just keep moving on because I'm bad to the bone....



About five miles north of Goat Haunt we run into the International border. By treaty agreement, the entire border must be clearly marked, so every ten years or so a team comes though and cuts down all the trees on the 2,000 or so miles where we connect on 49th parallel. Mrs. Phred has her left foot in Canada...The last two hours, we are pelted with hail, drenched with rain and menaced with lightning. The last five miles are very up and down...



The hike took five hours. We hurt all over, we're soaked, riddled with mosquito bites and probably covered with deer ticks...It was really great...I have a longer hike in mind for tomorrow. It's a 12 mile round trip up to a lovely lake filled with icebergs...

Bear Advice

Close Encounters of the Bear Kind

Goat Haunt, Montana

We walked the ten miles along Waterton Lake about 13 years ago. This time we decide to walk south from the town site of Waterton, Alberta, down to the lonely ranger station at Goat Haunt, U.S.A. and then take the boat back. I tie a bear bell to my right boot.

Right now the average bear is preparing for winter by eating 100,000 berries a day, to take in about 20,000 calories. Rasberry seeds are 70% more likely to germinate after passing though a bear. The whole ten mile trail is solid rasberries, but we leave them all for the bears.

The first five miles are continuously up on tall ridges and back down to the lake. The last five miles, after the international border, are fairly flat. We pass three hikers during the day traveling north.

We run into an inquisitive ground squirrel at a lake campsite, on the Canadian side, after about three miles. He attacks our backpack and Mrs. Phred gives it some cookie bits. At one point he stands on my boot looking for more food. I’m guessing that the four ham sandwiches in the backpack have an irresistible odor to ground squirrels.

We descend to the lake and pass though a thick patch of raspberry bushes. Suddenly we see a black bear in our path less than ten feet away. It runs into the bushes. I can see over the bushes to a rockslide. The bear does not reappear on the rocks, so I know it must be very close.

The bear begins to peek out of the bushes and I snap several pictures. It climbs up on a rock and I recognize the hump that distinguishes a black grizzly from an ordinary black bear. It’s a dismayingly large bear.The bear is only 30 feet away and it advances toward us. I stop taking pictures and start yelling at the bear to go away. The knowledge that my big brain makes me the most dangerous animal on the planet is not all that reassuring just now.

They say to play dead when a bear starts biting you to see if the attack is defensive in nature. After two minutes, if the bear is still biting you, you should fight back because this is an indication of predatory behavior. I make a note to check my watch.

Mrs. Phred picks up a three foot long piece of driftwood and holds it over her head to appear taller. She stands beside me and begins to talk to the bear with that tone of voice that says, “If momma’s not happy, nobody’s happy”. The bear slows his advance.

Mrs. Phred begins to slam her driftwood on a piece of rock and then she leads me in a slow strategic retreat away from the trail to the lakeshore. For a few minutes, after we regain the trail, we look over our shoulders to see if the bear is still following.

At the ranger station they check our passports carefully and stare into our eyes to verify our eye color. Mrs. Phred has to remove her sunglasses. It’s all dead serious. Who knows? It’s only 100 miles of brutal wilderness to the first small town in Glacier National Park. We could have anything in our backpack.

We talk to a young man who just finished walking the 100 miles alone though Glacier. He took seven days. He says he has done the whole Appalachian Trail.

Back in Waterton, I spend my last Canadian Loonies on a bottle of wine, but I'm too tired to drink it.

Love It to Death

Wolverine Creek, Alaska

We took a small float plane over Cook's Inlet to an isolated lake. You can only access the area by float plane. The lake is turbid with glacial silt, except for a tiny corner where Wolverine Creek turns the water blue and clear.


The salmon bunch up in the small patch of clear water, waiting for the urge to make the run in mass up the rocky creek to another lake further up the mountain pass.

Eagles, black bears, brown bears and grizzlies come to the mouth of the creek to feed on the Sockeyes, Silvers and Pinks.

If you go down to the woods today,
You're sure of a big surprise.
If you go down to the woods today,
You'd better go in disguise.
For every bear that ever there was
Will gather there for certain because
Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic

The ride in the small plane was exciting and the bears put on a continuous show for six hours. One tried to get in a boat and several dragged off their own salmon.


This State is like Florida, quickly being ruined by its own beauty. We went fishing today with Larry. Larry has been fishing here for thirty years and has the record for two of the ten biggest King Salmon ever caught (both nearly 90 pounds). He remembers when there were 20 boats in the river instead of 500. Back then you didn’t keep anything under 50 pounds. Now the boats zip back and forth all day, disturbing the fish. He feels it’s a good day when one of his clients catches a 30 pound king. We haven’t caught anything on our last four trips with him, despite his skill.

The bear flight was similar. They get $300 a head for flying tourists to the lake. The accountant in me can’t help estimating a daily harvest of $60,000 and wondering why the bears are so thin. We waited six hours for a chance to catch a salmon, but our boat never made it to the head of the line of tourists in boats to fish in the small patch of lake where the fish churn the water.


The salmon runs in the rivers are very late this year. The rivers are low because of limited snowfall. When the run starts at some ancient signal, they come into the rivers in swarms on the rising tide. I’m hoping tomorrow will be the beginning of the Sockeye run.

Sockeyes (reds) are the best tasting of the five types of wild Alaska salmon. They have adapted to eat only plankton, unlike their carnivorous relatives. Their flesh is bright red.

Tourists hook a sockeye by casting a fly with a single hook (no larger than 3/8 inch diameter) out into the river. They swim upstream with their mouths opening and closing. The trick is to drag the line though their mouth and snag them in the mouth. Sockeyes snagged anywhere else must be released. Residents can use large dip nets and even fish scoopers on rafts to catch the Sockeye.

DB Cooper: You have a message.

Alcan Highway: The Yukon – Mile 1135 – July 6, 2007.

On the 4th of July we took a hike though the Chilkat rainforest near Haines, Alaska.

 
The trail comes out on a rocky beach overlooking a glacier across a bay. It’s quiet. All you can hear is a waterfall under the glacier about ten miles away. I try my luck fishing with the usual result.


Later, we encounter a huge grizzly bear. She has her new cub with her. She is eating yellow flowers and pretty much ignoring us except for an occasional glance. You can tell a grizzly by the size and by the hump on the back. Black bears and brown bears are smaller.


In the evening we go up to Chilkoot State park to watch the “Mad Raft Race” on the Chilkoot River. There are four rafts in the race, all home-made. In last place are two little girls on a raft built of milk jugs. Their raft disintegrates as they pass, but they float on in the swift, cold water to finish. A fisherman stands in the current and brings in a salmon. So far this season, only about 10,000 “reds” have crossed the weir. The big run should start soon.


We drove north from Haines on the 5th and reentered British Columbia, then the Yukon. Northern Alaska is about 60 miles from where we camped last night. As we drive we pass a bald eagle preserve area where about 3,500 eagles gather to feast on salmon later in the summer. The campground is full of abandoned WWII highway construction equipment.

The bears here in the empty Yukon put on fat for the winter in September when the “chum” or “dog” salmon come to spawn. Chum salmon are considered the least desirable of the five species of Alaska salmon by humans.

They say to wear little bells and carry pepper spray when you hike in the woods because of bears. We see lots of bear droppings on the hike. You can tell black bear droppings by the berries and squirrel fur. Grizzly bear droppings are full of little bells and smell like pepper spray.


Here are some bear and forest pictures.

Fleece and Release

Kenai River, Alaska - July 12, 2006

I must have had a feeling when I put on my Pink Floyd shirt this morning to get on the boat. Syd died yesterday at 60. Pink Floyd won't be getting back together in this world.

after the service when you're walking slowly to the car
and the silver in her hair shines in the cold November air
you hear the tolling bell
and touch the silk in your lapel
and as the tear drops rise to meet the comfort of the band
you take her frail hand
and hold on to the dream

We had another fisherman on our small boat named Otto yesterday. He talked incessantly as we fished for king salmon. He's on the cell phone six times. He whistles when he runs out of things to say. Otto has 12 kids. He tells about finding his naked wife in the snow with blue nipples after the last one. He warmed her up in the shower. I'm not surprised at her behavior after sitting next to him for six hours. We caught nothing. I snagged several rocks and logs. It’s very cold when the boat moves.


Danny caught and released a seven pound king salmon. We kept a two pound rainbow trout for dinner. You only get to keep one king a day and we were hoping for a 90 pounder later in the morning.


Last night the moose came back in bright daylight and I snapped way too many pictures. Since Carol is not here I get to drink as much bourbon as I can handle every night. I woke at 3AM as the sun rose. At five we headed downriver again in search of Chinook (king salmon).

I hook a big one...about 50 pounds...I work him slowly to the boat over a 30 minute period...he looks at me and dives under the boat, circling the prop and breaking the line....by the time we are back to shore he has grown to 75 pounds....I think he may be a new world record by the time I return to Tampa..


We leave Soldatna and drive down the peninsula to Nimilchik to watch several hundred people digging clams on the 28 foot low tide…the tide here is only six feet less than the Bay of Fundy. We continue to Anchor Point and talk to Captain Tim about our Halibut charters…he is a nice man and gives us a 3 pound chunk of fresh Halibut for dinner tonight.


We are checked in to our new home in Homer... The view from the front porch is spectacular

There is a Billy the Kid 24-hour movie TV extravaganza going on here Billy has been the subject of more movies than any other human.

The wind died down today and we and we went out again 20 miles into Cook’s Inlet on a small boat. Danny loved it…we are shipping 100 pounds of flash-frozen, vacuum-packed halibut back to his house. He just called me out on the cliff in back of the Inn to show me the sea otters working the clams a few yards way at high tide. A bald eagle buzzes the cliff about once an hour but I can’t get my camera cycled up quickly enough for a photo. The tide here varies by 28 feet over a six hour period. Just pulling up four pound weights from 200 feet down for a bait check is a workout. When the tide is ripping they don’t hold on the bottom. I catch the biggest halibut taken on the boat both days. One is 75 pounds. It’s a workout to bring him up. Limit two.

A black bear trotted by the back door last night only ten feet away. My camera was off. On the trip back we spent an hour watching fly-fishing anglers catching 15 pound sockeye salmon. They take a fish every four casts on average. The bag limit is three. Last year an emergency order lifted the limit to six as too many fish entered the river. The plane left Alaska at 9:40 PM. We gradually flew into darkness as we headed south…the cloud cover was broken by brightly illuminated snow-capped mountain peaks. I arrived home at noon today.

A bumper sticker observed on the back of an Alaska fishing Captain’s pickup truck:

The Tourism Run Is In
Fleece and Release