Bears, Bears, Bears June 2005

Kodiak is synonymous with a sub species of grizzly bear - the Kodiak Brown Bear. When you mention Kodiak, people think big bears. Actually, the 'Kodiak' brown bear is pretty much the same creature as all the other brown bears that live along the coast of the Gulf of Alaska. Coastal brown bears are simply bigger than normal because they eat better than interior grizzlies. Lots of salmon, berries and dead beached whales on the coast.

Fat bears tend to be happy bears, and the coastal brown bears are a lot more communal than other grizzly bears. In the Interior of Alaska, away from the coast, bears tend to be hungrier and more stressed. These bears are notoriously ornery. The fat, dumb (oratorically speaking) and happy coastal bears are far more forgiving of intrusions into their space. Often you'll find literally hundreds of bear sharing a river while fishing for salmon. These bears don't mind sharing space with humans - as long as everybody follows the 'rules'.

The funny thing is that Kodiak, 'home of the bears' (high school motto), is actually not the best place to view bears. On Kodiak practically the only place to watch bears is on the salmon rivers. At Katmai National Park on the Alaska Peninsula the bear viewing is phenomenal in a variety of settings. You can watch bears graze the new grass on the tidal flats like cows in May, dig clams on the beaches in June, and fish for salmon in August. And the bears are used to bear viewers. Both the bears and the guided viewers have established a rapport over the last decade or so, and both sides know 'the rules'.

In June 2005 when I went over to the Peninsula on a bear viewing trip with Lisa and Gregg I was amazed at how close we got to the bears. I was expecting brown dots on the hillside, and got bears up close and personal. I think the bears thought of us as another group of bears. It was really cool. I highly recommend that anyone who visits Kodiak takes the time to take a float plane over to Katmai National Park to view the bears.
Patrick

Nora and Stuart Together

Nora loves giving Stuey kisses...she'll do it spontaneously throughout the day-without cueing from me. Every day I can see she is more and more interested in Stuart. They'll be good buds in no time. :) (ZAS)

Sunset Skate

All the ice skating on the 'lakes' about Kodiak brings back childhood memories of skating on the big lakes of Maine. In many regards Kodiak is a lot like the coast of Maine. Rocky coast with spruce trees, and the wide open ocean. Only in Alaska everything is bigger and more rugged. I always say that Kodiak is like Maine on steriods.

One exception, however is our 'lakes'. In Maine they would be termed 'ponds'. I miss the skating expeditions on the big lakes in Maine. We'd skate 10 miles down a lake and then eat lunch and head home up the other side. Lots of big lakes to explore all within a short drive. Here we only 3 ponds of any size, and it does get a little boring going round and round the perimeter. Not that a lot beats skating on Abercrombie at sunset!

This photo is of my Mom and stepfather, George, skating back to the car at sunset on Damriscotta Lake sometime in the early 1990s. Damriscotta is a big lake on the coast of Maine. The ice looks pretty good too.
Patrick

VILDA Digital Photo Archive

i f you are interested in old photos of Kodiak, or of anywhere in Alaska for that matter, you should check out the VILDA digital archive (http://vilda.alaska.edu/).It's an archive of images from various Alaskan Museums with a search engine. I am hoping to eventually get the Alutiiq Museum's photos onto it (this will not be happenning soon!).

Here is a photo I found there of Frye-Bruhn ranch near where the airport is today. I bet Bruhn and Frye Points at the head of Womens Bay were named after these families! The Photo was taken soon after the 1912 Katmai eruption by the National Geographic team on it's way to the Alaska Peninsula to check out the Volcano that erupted. This was the largest volcanic eruption anywhere in the World in the 20th century and it deposited several feet of ash on the city of Kodiak - almost 100 miles from the volcano itself. While in Kodiak they also studied the effects of the Katmai ash on local vegetation. I have some of those reports and many of these images can also be found in them.

Each image comes with quite a bit of information - here is the accompanying data for this photo.

Collection Name: National Geographic Society. Katmai Expeditions. Photographs, 1913-1919. UAA-HMC-0186
Identifier: UAA-hmc-0186-volume1-3546
Title: Drifts of ash at the Frye-Bruhn ranch south of Kodiak.
Description: Title taken from caption. View of an ash drift against a building and fences on the Frye-Bruhn ranch, Kodiak Island, Alaska. Photo taken during National Geographic Society expedition on the way to Katmai area. 1915.
Creator: Griggs, Robert F. (Robert Fiske), b. 1881
Subject.TGM: Fences
Buildings
Ranches
Expedition photographs
Expeditions & surveys
Subject.LCSH: Volcanic ash, tuff, etc.
Corporate Name: National Geographic Society (U.S.)
Location: Kodiak Island (Alaska)
Region: Western Alaska and Aleutian Islands
Time Period: 1913 to 1939
Date.original: 1915
Type: Image (Photographs)
Related Materials: http://www.lib.uaa.alaska.edu/archives/CollectionsList/CollectionDescriptions/KtoN/NGSKAT.wpd.html
Ordering & Use: http://www.lib.uaa.alaska.edu/vilda
Holding Institution: University of Alaska Anchorage. Consortium Library. Archives & Special Collections. 3211 Providence Dr. Anchorage, AK 99508 mailto:archives@uaa.alaska.edu

Similarities Between Stuart and Nora?

Many people have asked if there are similarities between Nora and Stuart in appearance, and I'd say there definitely is. Nora is on the bottom, Stuart on the top. Nora had about 2X as much hair as Stuart at birth but their noses, cheeks, face shape and eyes are simliar.

Nora continues to make progress with transitioning every day. I'd say she is almost "back to normal" for a toddler! She has her occasional temper tantrums, but I think they're more about being tired/hungry than having much to do with Stuart.

I'm feeling OK...felt wiped out over the weekend. A bit drained of energy, fluids, sleep....but doing better today. A friend brought by a DELICIOUS pot roast for dinner this evening which hit the spot. (ZAS)

Karluk - Always Changing

This weekend I've spent my spare time scanning Clyda Christensen's slides (all 400 of them) from Karluk in the 1950s. Karluk is a small village situated on the Southwest corner of Kodiak Island. Really an amazing collection of images. I used photoshop to stitch together two of Clyda's images from 1957 and realized it depicted the same view of the Karluk spit as another well-known image from the Albatross Collection in the National Archives taken around 1890.

Back in 1890 the Karluk spit was home to a number of canneries and the river was one of the top producers of salmon in the world. The canneries imported chinese labor, and Karluk River salmon was exported far and wide.

By the 1950's most of the canneries on the spit had been torn down or swept away in winter storms. Karluk was no longer the major commercial hub it had once been, and quite a few of the local Alutiiq had moved to the nearby village of Larsen Bay.

Around 1980 a major storm breached the spit and over the ensueing 20 years the river slowly eroded away the rest of the spit. The canneries of the Karluk spit are now all gone. The modern day village of Karluk is now situated about a mile inland on the south side of the Karluk lagoon.

I spent my first summer in Alaska (1985) as a field hand helping to excavate the prehistoric village at the base of the upriver end of the bluff on the right side of the photo (the little spit that sticks out with houses on it). Since 1985 the entire site has been demolished by the river. I can't wait to get back to Karluk and take another photo of the same view from the exact same spot as Clyda stood in 1957. I'll then have three photos spanning 120 years documenting how the spit has changed.

Patrick

Rose Tead Lake Skate

This morning John and I drove out the road to Pasagshak and went for a skate on Rose Tead Lake. I don't know why we don't do this more often. Scenic drive out the road and a fairly large lake to explore. Flat calm and sunny. The mountains shining white all around, and the hillside falling steeply right down to the lake. At the outlet to the lake we scared up 11 tundra swans and they circled over head honking. Those are big birds!

Mother of 2

The dust is finally starting to settle from our transition last week. Phew! Nora makes huge gains every day with her tolerance for Stuart and is more and more interested in him. She is beginning to cruise around the house like she used to before-rather than focus on me and what I am doing with Stuart.

My energy has been fairly good...I go to bed at 9 pm and wake at 7 with Nora. With Stuart waking every few hours to feed, I am still able to get 7 hours of sleep or so, which feels great. Stuart only cries if he needs his diaper changed or if he is hungry-so I'm not up all hours at night, thank heavens.

Patrick said the other day that having 2 kids isn't quite as difficult as he expected it to be. That was reassuring to hear. People locally have been so wonerful with bringing dinners by and stopping in to hang out. Gosh I love Kodiak. The doctor who delivered Stuart, Dr. Walters, has followed his care-from his ER visit to his 2 week visit. She is just fantastic.

All in all, things are smooth. Just trying to keep my nose above water with drinking enough fluids, eating enough, getting general household stuff done and tending to the kids. There are moments which test my patience, but I seem to have vast amounts of patience which I never knew I had! Amazing how that happens. (ZAS)

On thick Ice

Nora, John Mahoney, the dogs and I hiked down to Abercrombie and went skating today. Pretty darn good ice! I was amazed at how well the BOB stroller worked as an ice machine. Nora loved it when I'd skate backwards just in front of her. She also liked the way the dogs had a hard time 'cornering' on the ice. Roxy kept on sprawling out and Nora would roar with laughter. Tomorrow John and I plan to go out to Pasagshak and skate on Rose Tead Lake. I think I'll even bring along the skimbat. Not sure if we'll bring along Nora or the dogs.

Stuart Doing Well-2 week Check up

I have a few minutes to write-things are going well here at the homestead. Stuart continues to be a pretty mellow guy. He had his 2 week check up today and he is gaining weight beautifully-so I don't have any concerns about continuing to tandem nurse. I thought that if he wasn't gaining weight, I would reconsider my decision to continue to nurse Nora.

I believe nursing Nora has helped make this transition easier on her. Many people have said that if I wasn't nursing Nora it would've been easier on her, but its hard to know what would've happened. All I know is that 5 days after coming home with Stuart, she is doing amazingly well. Such huge gains in her behavior every day. Pretty amazing how well she has adjusted considering a new person is in her mommy and daddy's life.

Being a mom of 2 is fun and SO busy....Stuart is waking-gotta go nurse him. More to come later.... (ZAS)

Living Large on the South End

It looks like I'll be heading up an archaeological survey again this year on the South End of Kodiak. The last few years the Alutiiq Museum has been conducting archaeological surveys for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. The USF&WS needs to know where all the archaeological sites on the Kodiak National Wildlife Rufuge are located and their current condition for management purposes. This means the museum gets to do some cutting edge archaeological research and I get to go to some cool places. Over the last couple years we've surveyed the Uganik River, Ayakulik and Red Rivers, Paramonoff Bay, Chirikof Island, and the Olga Lakes.

These photos are from our survey last spring on Upper Olga Lake and River. It looks like we'll be returning to survey Lower Olga Lake and River this coming May!. Incredible place. Lots of archaeological sites to map - the old house pits are very clear and we map them all - and beautiful scenery. The fishing is not bad either.

The top photo is of me with a Steelhead - a rainbow trout that migrates every spring back from the lake out to the ocean. The next photo is of Mark and Catherine on survey looking for sites on Upper Olga Lake. The next two show what our living conditions are like back at camp. Our cook tent is a teepee with a wood stove (tent and stove weigh around 12 pounds total). For greens we eat nettles and fireweed cooked with SPAM, and we also fry up the occasional rainbow trout. Finally the last one shows the landscape down there - that's the Olga Lakes down below.

Beautiful - I can't wait to get back!
Patrick

Iguana Baby....Trip to the ER for Zoya and Stuart

Ahhh...enough adrenaline for one day. This morning Stuart was difficult to rouse, and his breathing seemed slower than normal AND his nailbeds were blue. I was worried he was declining in respiratory function...I called the clinic and they encouraged me to take him to the ER.

Upon arrival there, they whisked me back with him, checked his vitals and he is in good shape. Thank heavens. He is a very mellow baby....so different than Nora. After his NICU stay, I was extra concerned...the nurses at the ER completely understood and gave me more info on what to look for if I am worried about him declining in respiratory function.

Patrick has nicknamed him Iguana Baby-earlier when I asked him to check on Stuart when he was sleeping Patrick said his slow movements of his arms in his sleep reminded him of an Iguana. And he is quite peaceful and still. I am used to the colic/gas that Nora had the first months of life-so different than Stuarts mellow temperment!!

Nora cried only 25% of the day today. Making progress every day...thank heavens!! What a big adjustment for her. (ZAS)

A Tad Bit Better Today

It was still a rough day today, but MUCH better than yesterday. Today I was actually able to hold Stuart a few timeswithout Nora shrieking on the top of her lungs. She continues to want to be near me/on me/nursing me while my attention is with Stuart.

In this photo, Nora's eyes look puffy from so much crying, but we had a fun lunch together...I made "Gulp, Gulp" noises which she laughed at. I think in a matter of days there will be significant improvement with Nora. Patrick is good at helping divert her attention and he is VERY patient when she loses it!! More patient than me---I think right now my biological "feed the baby"-mommy instincts have kicked in...I am only able to console her so much while I'm feeding Stuart. She will soon learn to take advantage of time when I'm sitting with Stuart as time that she and I can read together.

I have a 17 year old girl (senior in high school...she only has 1 online class to take this semester) helping in the mornings with Nora, Stuart and I. This morning she was a HUGE help! She took Nora on a walk, made lunch and helped with household tasks. Boy am I thankful she was here! Stuart needed a lot of nursing time this morning.

Here Meg holds Stuart while I enjoy lunch with Nora.

A Tad Unhappy

Not everyone at 4002 Cliffside has been overjoyed with Stuart's arrival. Nora has had a tough time coping with the shared affection. Still she does 'kissy, kissy' Stuart, and we have hopes that all will be well in a few days. Daddy is definetly taking on more of a role in her life. Nora is quite good at letting us know her feelings.. . ..
Patrick

Gregg & Lisa - Year Ago Today .. .. .

One year ago today Lisa and Gregg got married on top of Pilar Mountain. And Gregg has been a cheerful guy ever since. Thank you Lisa!

Today we celebrated their aniversary skiing on Pyramid. Pretty darn good snow. Lisa is skiing the steeps like a rock star.
Patrick

Morning Photos of Stuart

Domestic Bliss. .. .. The Pack is Back!

Nursing both kiddos upon my arrival home. Thankfully Nora hadn't weaned herself in the 12 days I was gone. As she nursed she looked over at Stu with curiosity. They both nursed for a good 15 minutes together.

A few temper tantrums from Nora this morning and last night. I can tell there will be an adjustment period....she seems fine until I pick up Stuey then the tears flow. Poor kiddo. Her world has been turned upside down.

Our first family photo upon our arrival home. Our friends Katie and Matt brought by some homemade chocolate chip cookies as we drove up-they snapped the photo. The plane ride was smooth (Stu slept the entire way) and boy did it feel good to get home!! (ZAS)

Heading Home!

Yesterday we got the clear to go home! Last night I spent the night with him at the hospital in a mommy/baby room. Bonnie brought yummy Mexican food and we ate as we watched Stuey sleep, free of monitors and lines. Last night my sleep was fragmented but wonderful. And I think Stuey slept hard, in the peace of our room. I realized it was his first time sleeping in peace-without beeps and monitors.

Yesterday evening as I sat there nursing Stuey in the NICU, there was an admit from a life flight in the level 3 NICU, where Stuey was admitted. I watched as they brought in the "environmental Bubble" isolette and the team of nurses and doctors began their evaluation. It brought a flood of reminders of the uncertainty when I first arrived and reminded me of when Stuey was admitted. I was so glad to be at the end of the stay, and was grateful to sit there and nurse my healthy boy.

It was a tearful goodbye this morning to the NICU nurses. They are just amazing people and so wonderful at what they do. They took such good care of Stuey. I'm forever grateful to them. They made our 9 days in the NICU as smooth as it possibly could have gone.

Many people have asked if Stuey will be able to see people, and he will. Because of his course of respiratory care, the nurses encouraged me to have people wash their hands or use purelle hand sanitizer before holding Stuey. They suggested doing this for 2 months, so I"ll have purelle always handy. Hand washing is by far the largest way to avoid spreading of infection.

I head back to Kodiak this afternoon-Oh I can't wait to see Patrick and Nora. Now I"m off to pack my bags....and stare at Stuey. :)

Early trip to NICU-Stuey's night progress

Just returned from a 3 AM milk run to the NICU. Nurse ALexis called to report that she was almost out of pumped milk in the fridge. When I checked yesterday, there were several bags there....this meant that he has been eating like a champ all night!!

After arriving to Stuey's station with more milk, I saw him without any nasal cannula on! Yeah! No more oxygen!! He will have it off from here on out and the staff will see how he does for 12-24 hours. If it goes well, the nurse practitioner and Alexis said that I'll be able to "room in" with him tonight! He'd be off all monitors and he and I would have our own routine. The nurses would just make sure I am confident with his care (which of course, I am....). He also doesn't have an antibiotics site on his arm-thank heavens. Looked totally uncomfortable-so thats gone.

He was in a cute little striped outfit with the nasal cannula stickers still on his face. Alexis said they'll wait to remove those just to make sure he doesn't need more.

So at this rate we could be coming home this weekend! Yeah! I"ll see what each day brings, however. I have to remind myself that its not a race, we're not in a rush. Yes, I"m eager to get home and see my (WONDERFULLY SUPPORTIVE!!!) friends and Patrick and Nora but I want Stuey to be 100% healthy.

I can't wait to pick my little Stuey up with monitor lines, O2 lines, etc...It'll make diaper changing a breeze as well!!

OFf to get more zzzz'ss....