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This trip to Alaska was not as easy or adventurous as you might imagine. Right after I arrived, I was sick in bed for four days. I don’t know if I caught some bug on the airline or upon arrival in King Salmon. I do know I was healthy in Ohio. But, when I arrived, I soon had a cough, fever, headache, and body aches. It was not a fun time.
When I was nearly recovered, I went to work in the kitchen at my sister's fishing lodge. I worked every day, every meal, 60-hour weeks, for the next five or six weeks. And, I quickly found out that I was not cut out for work in a kitchen. In the past, dishes were scrubbed in a device with brushes on both sides. Then, they were washed as usual in a sink. That method has been set aside for a new, speedy, dishwasher. However, I discovered very quickly that my back does not like lifting trays of dishes, bowls, and everything else for three meals a day. I do not usually have back problems, but my back ached -- day and night -- the entire time I worked in Alaska.
After six weeks, all of the guests finally left and there was a week to pack up the camp for the long winter that is just unimaginable this far north. But, on one of those days, I was asked if I wanted to go to Katmai National Park for the day. If you’ve ever seen photos of bears in Alaska fishing for salmon in a shallow waterfall, that is Brooks Falls at KNP. Of course, I wanted to go!
You will see bears at the park. It is their natural environment. If you visit the park, you are invading their space. So, I was a space invader in bear territory. All bears within 70 miles of the coast are brown bears. However, if they are any farther away, they are grizzly bears. As far as I’m concerned, that’s just word games. I was in the neighborhood of 2,200 grizzly bears!
In bear class, visitors are taught what to do if a bear is seen on the path. Walk off of the trail and keep a 50-yard distance until the bear passes on by. The bears are interested in Alaskan Salmon and not Ohio Buckeyes. On the walk to the falls, there was a curve in the path. I walked along the curve. When I was in the middle of the curve, I saw a bear about 50 FEET away from me in the brush along the path. What to do? About the same time that I saw the bear, I spied two park guides enter the other side of the curve. I thought safety in numbers sounded good to me. Besides, most likely the guides would have bear spray or a gun. I had nothing like that.
As it turned out, the guides didn’t agree with my thoughts. I was instructed that I should have gotten off the path, on the other side of the trail, and explored 50 yards of Alaskan tundra. I didn’t see the bear until it was really too late to do that. However, I don’t think the guides thought that was a sound excuse.
Anyway, I made it to the falls without being slashed to death by bear claws or jaws. The last time I was there, the railing of the terrace by the falls was lined with photographers with huge camera lenses. None of them moved away after a reasonable time. Everyone wanted their perfect bear photo. If you weren’t one of the few in that front row, you were not going to get that picture.
On this occasion, I spent an hour by myself on the terrace overlooking the falls. It was peaceful and so very beautiful. Some days, the falls are packed with bears. On this day, there was only one. But, he cooperated with this photographer. It was a good trip to Katmai National Park.
Of course, everyone comes to this part of Alaska to see bears. Anything else is just a bonus. On this trip, in the final week, I saw several foxes. Two of them wandered near two different lodges that I visited. They weren’t as terrified of humans as you might expect. In fact, in both locations, the foxes came up to the front doors and peered through the windows. Adorable!
In recent months, solar flares have created Northern Lights as far south as Michigan and northern Ohio. I don’t live that far north and have missed the lights this season. I seriously hoped that I’d see them much farther north in Alaska. However, King Salmon is not so far from the coast and has lots of cloudy weather. Even when this part of Alaska was supposed to see the Northern Lights, they weren’t visible around King Salmon.
Until they were!
When I got up to work at 5:15 AM each morning, I tried to go to bed around 9:30 each evening. But, on my last week in Alaska, the clouds cleared away – after bedtime. Some of the camp guides called around 9:45 PM to announce they had seen the lights. When I first saw the Northern Lights in Iceland, they were bold white lines in the sky. I was extremely disappointed because I expected pink, blue, and green in the sky. I learned that 90% of the lights in Iceland were white. Bummer.
When I rushed to the terrace – the very freezing terrace at this time of year in Alaska – there were white streaks of light across the sky going up and down. There were also hints of green and a bit of pink. It was wonderful. I would have been devastated to miss them in Alaska while it was possible to see them.
I learned an unusual thing about technology as well with this spectacle. When I took photos of the lights with my phone, I saw colors that were not visible to the human eye. It looked much more spectacular on my phone. I don’t care. I saw the Northern Lights. And then, I was certainly ready to go home.
The last week had work for me to do, but a whole lot less lifting trays of dishes. As I headed back to Ohio, my back no longer ached as much as it did. Can’t say that I will volunteer for this duty next year or ever again. But, I had an amazing final week in Alaska.
