Mark, Brian, Justin and I got back yesterday from our archaeological survey and excavation on the Olga Lakes on Kodiak's South end. It was quite a trip and deserves a couple of posts. Today I'll post on the bears and food. Weather was a bit on the chilly side, but we had a big teepee and wood stove. Ground was still frozen and it snowed a few times. But hey - no bugs! And I only got cow parsnip burns at the very end (cow parsnip is a plant whose juice makes your skin highly sensative to sunlight - like huge blisters).
The top photo is a pan of the area we surveyed. Mostly flat with high mountains all around. The river and lakes are one of the top three salmon producing systems on the island ( up there with karluk and Ayakulik Rivers). We actually did not see many bears - only two - but the second photo of the bear represents my adrenaline moment on the trip. I did not use the the zoom feature on my little happy snappy.
We saw the bear at a distance and I yelled to Mark that there was a bear about and to be bear aware - I fully expected the bear to run away like they usually do. But he trotted towards me. I figured he wanted to cross the river, and turned around to walk and join Mark, and get out of his way. Then Mark yelled at me to turn around because the bear was charging. And he was - quite a sight to see a bear coming at full speed towards you. So I hopped on the nearest grass tussuck to make myself taller and waved my arms and yelled. Banged my radio on the notebook. He closed the distance amazingly quickly. He suddenly stopped around 20 meters away but continued to circle closer. Then he stood on his hind legs. I decided that maybe my camera flash might scare him off, but i was convinced that people would find my body and wonder why I tried to get so close to a bear to take his picture. That would be embearassing. But the camera click worked and the bear ran off!
He ran over to a nearby dead deer and ran off carrying a leg. The reason he had been so aggressive was that he was defending his cache of deer meat. Anyway - I had a lot of adrenaline in my legs after that little encounter.
We ate quite well down on the lakes. Plenty of rainbows and dollys - and even the pictured stellhead which we did not eat. We'd have trout for appetizer before our big meal of either pasta or rice and beans. I'd cut slits in the flesh and rub the trout all over with 'Tokyo Spicy Rub' and then cook them in the cast iron fry pan. Very good! We also ate plenty of nettles and fireweed. Excellent greens that people should eat more often. They were especially good with SPAM - sort of like ham and collard greens.
Patrick
