Exploring and Saook Bay
We woke to whales today. Our best laid plans to visit a small bay before breakfast were put aside when whale blows arose on the far side of Chatham Strait. Off we went, and for the next hour or so drifted lazily as a humpback whale surfaced again and again. It was blowing a ring of bubbles produced by swimming in tight circles below the water’s surface and releasing air through its blowhole to corral krill.
What a magnificent way to be introduced to Southeast Alaska! After breakfast we held a binocular and scope-using workshop on the bow just in time, as it turned out! At the head of Sitkoh Bay a female brown bear with her two cubs were spotted crossing from one side to the other in a great hurry. It wasn’t us, because she ran at an angle towards us, stopping every so often to look back over her shoulder. Whoever was behind her never showed its presence, but the female took her cubs into the woods safely away from the stream where she started her exit, stage left.
After lunch we found ourselves anchoring in a beautiful bay that goes by the name of Saook Bay. The Southeast Alaska Conservation Council targeted this bay for protection from any form of development because of its significant salmon stream and pristine ecosystem. Located on northern Baranof Island, a tremendously rugged island with a mountain range all of its own. Its bays and estuaries are among the most spectacular in all Southeast Alaska, and here, the Tongass National Forest is at its best. Rated among the most important watersheds in terms of habitat value, Saook Bay encompasses a large tidal estuary that includes a major salmon-spawning stream (coho, pink and chum) and alpine habitat up to above 3,500 feet. Here live eagles, bears, mink, moose, otters and myriads others who leave traces of their presence in the woods, in the mud, hanging on the bushes and branches.
Kayakers stared at a river otter who stared back. A mink was almost taken out by a juvenile bald-headed eagle, but jumped in time. Hikers saw bear scat that was almost steaming. Ten people circled the trunk of an old-growth spruce; five children fit under the roots of the same giant tree.
By foot, hiking into the backwoods; by kayak, paddling quietly; by Zodiac, moving upstream, we explored this wonderland and came back with many a tale to tell.
