2018/07 Arctic Part 3 - Fish Creek wildlife area |
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At the Fish Creek Wildlife Site the US forest rangers gave us the bad news that the chum salmon, due to spawn in mid-July, were running a few days late. So the bears which gather there to eat them had not arrived either. A brown bear had come down the previous evening to check out the creek but had found nothing, and a black bear had stopped by a few hours ago.
We decided we’d hang around for a few hours anyway, and we paid for entry to the viewing area, a platform that stretches about a hundred yards along the creek. In the absence of bears we looked for other animals, so we have a lot of beaver and merganser pictures.
The beavers were busy rebuilding a dam the rangers had destroyed. As the rangers pointed out, dams stop the chum from getting into the creek and spawning and then there are no bears, so the dams are regularly destroyed and the beavers spend all summer in futile repair efforts. Like the bears, the beavers have grown used to people, and this one came gathering a few feet away.
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Beavers (8.31) |
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A merganser with one duckling showed up just as we were getting bored with the beavers. Mom looked to be very casual about minding her duckling which may be why she only had one left. Mergansers can’t just leap into the air like most ducks do. They have to sprint across the water to get up to take off speed.
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Mergansers (1.47) |
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By 9pm we had given up on seeing a bear and I was getting into the truck to leave when a ranger ran up and told us he’d heard on his radio that there was a brown bear walking up the creek.
We sprinted back to the walkway and joined the small crowd that was walking backwards keeping pace with the bear.
The ranger said this was a male, about 7 years old; these grizzly bears may live into their 20s. This one looked to be all muscle and claws, and clearly aware that he was at the top of the food chain.
As Yogi would say, “Definitely more handsome than the average bear.”
Just like a black bear, in the absence of meat or fish, he will eat grass.
He was obviously aware of us only 10 feet away at times but the bears have become accustomed to humans with their clicking cameras. The rangers have bear spray in case a bear decides that the gathering is actually a tourist tasting.
The bear walked under the bridge and disappeared but it was almost dark anyway and we went to camp nearby behind the dike of the Salmon 
River. The trees had grown up around the dike and our mirrors were touching both sides; luckily we met no one. We set up with a nice view of the mountains. It had been an amazing day.
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Grizzly (5.58) |
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Sunday July 15th
The day was cloudy but still warm. The river looked lower and felt warmer than on our last visit. Apparently Summit Lake will fill up in late summer, lift the glacier, and flow out under it, raising the river level by 5ft, or so. We guessed that this hadn’t happened yet this year.