Idaho Inlet, Chichagof Island/Point Adolphus, Icy Strait, Southeast Alaska
This morning found us entering Idaho Inlet. The day, somewhat overcast and with a light breeze, did not deter us from searching the waters for the sight of cute and charismatic sea otters. Our determination succeeded. We found several small groups that watched with curiosity as the Sea Lion approached. Occasionally, they would give a few supple rolls on the surface to fluff up their fur with air to improve insulation. Others would slip below to seek food.
Sea otters on this coast were virtually extirpated in the decades following European contact. In 1778 members of Captain’s Cook’s crew discovered that they were able to trade, quite cheaply, with the people they met at Nootka for the pelt of an animal they did not know. The sailors wanted the furs for their clearly apparent density and warmth, to protect them from the cold they knew they were to be facing shortly as Cook headed north. However, when those seamen reached China and discovered that those same pelts were each worth a fortune, a new “gold rush” was on. Several trading voyages were quickly launched, both from England and out of Boston. For the next few years, a frenzy of ships entered the tiny harbor of Nootka, all seeking to buy sea otter pelts for the China trade. No population in natural equilibrium could have withstood such an onslaught. The entire coast from California to Southeast Alaska was rapidly depleted of sea otters.
Sea otters, the largest of the mustelids (weasel family) have been protected since 1911 with the enactment of the Fur Seal Treaty. They have additional protection from the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act and other legislation. This has helped their recovery, which is not yet complete. During the 1960s, otters were reintroduced into portions of their historical range and have expanded since then. Their voracious appetite keeps them on the move in search of resources. While they have up to a million hairs per square inch to help keep them warm, their lack of insulating blubber requires that they eat about 25% of their body weight per day. Prey items include crabs, clams, and urchins, and the otters will sometimes use and reuse tools to crack durable shells.
Captain W.E.George, skipper of the excursion steamer Idaho, one night in 1883, made an error. Confidently, he sailed up a long, sheltered inlet that offered an attractive shortcut to Sitka, only to run aground in the shallows that blocked the head of the inlet. The inlet retains the name of Idaho, recalling for posterity the captain’s misfortune.
Hiking and kayaking were options in this inlet for the morning. We explored forest, meadow, shoreline, and tidal flat. We observed evidence left by brown bears, deer, and river otters. An abundance of wildflowers added myriad colors to the landscape – silverweed, chocolate lily, nagoonberry, and cow parsnip. Age-old bear tracks have been worn into the soil leading from forest to meadow and to a favorite scratching tree of a habitual bear.
In addition to the sea otters, other members of the weasel family were prominent today. The kayakers saw a family of river otters resting on the shore near the head of the inlet. Further up a tidal channel, mink were busily hunting during the low tide. The short legs and long body characteristic of the mustelids serve this sharp-toothed carnivore well in its search for foods in the forest as well as in the intertidal zone. Curious as well as wary, one peered out at kayakers from a secure hideout. As with other weasels, humans have found the minks’ pelt to be luxurious and appealing. The fur industry followed a different direction with the mink, resulting in a less devastating outcome than with the sea otters.
We left Idaho Inlet and reentered Icy Strait. This was so named in 1794 by Captain Vancouver, in recognition of the huge volume of floating ice that had calved from the snout of the Grand Pacific Glacier. The snout has now, 209 years later, retreated some 60 miles to leave the spectacular Glacier Bay we so enjoyed yesterday. Icy Strait connects with the Pacific Ocean through Cross Sound, first seen by a European in 1778 by Vancouver’s mentor, Captain James Cook. Cook, a Protestant, chose to name the entrance that he saw but did not enter, in the Spanish style, by the Catholic feast day when he encountered it -- Holy Cross, May 3rd.
Vancouver’s name for the twin islands now called Chichagof and Baranof did not survive the US purchase of Alaska: King George III’s Island. But the name of the British king’s seventh son, Adolphus Frederick, did make it onto modern charts. This was to be our destination after lunch.
At Point Adolphus at the northeastern tip of Chichagof Island, the remaining wish for many aboard the Sea Lion was amply granted. As we watched spellbound, groups of humpback whales chose to come close to our ship after we had stopped at a discrete distance from them. Mothers were teaching their calves the techniques needed to survive, thrive and enjoy life in these waters. We watched, and with our hydrophone, listened, to some twenty animals within close proximity for almost two hours, completely oblivious to the patches of light Alaskan drizzle.
The waters off Pt. Adolphus are extremely rich in marine life. With each rising tide, the Pacific pours through Cross Sound, into Icy Strait, swirls around two small islands and creates a complex eddy near the point. The mixing of these nutrient-laden waters supports a chain of life linking phytoplankton, zooplankton, small fish and eventually, the great cetaceans, humpback whales. While the whales rose and plunged, we also witnessed another predator at the top of the food chain: more than twenty bald eagles attempting aerial snatches of herring that flashed near the surface.
This morning found us entering Idaho Inlet. The day, somewhat overcast and with a light breeze, did not deter us from searching the waters for the sight of cute and charismatic sea otters. Our determination succeeded. We found several small groups that watched with curiosity as the Sea Lion approached. Occasionally, they would give a few supple rolls on the surface to fluff up their fur with air to improve insulation. Others would slip below to seek food.
Sea otters on this coast were virtually extirpated in the decades following European contact. In 1778 members of Captain’s Cook’s crew discovered that they were able to trade, quite cheaply, with the people they met at Nootka for the pelt of an animal they did not know. The sailors wanted the furs for their clearly apparent density and warmth, to protect them from the cold they knew they were to be facing shortly as Cook headed north. However, when those seamen reached China and discovered that those same pelts were each worth a fortune, a new “gold rush” was on. Several trading voyages were quickly launched, both from England and out of Boston. For the next few years, a frenzy of ships entered the tiny harbor of Nootka, all seeking to buy sea otter pelts for the China trade. No population in natural equilibrium could have withstood such an onslaught. The entire coast from California to Southeast Alaska was rapidly depleted of sea otters.
Sea otters, the largest of the mustelids (weasel family) have been protected since 1911 with the enactment of the Fur Seal Treaty. They have additional protection from the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act and other legislation. This has helped their recovery, which is not yet complete. During the 1960s, otters were reintroduced into portions of their historical range and have expanded since then. Their voracious appetite keeps them on the move in search of resources. While they have up to a million hairs per square inch to help keep them warm, their lack of insulating blubber requires that they eat about 25% of their body weight per day. Prey items include crabs, clams, and urchins, and the otters will sometimes use and reuse tools to crack durable shells.
Captain W.E.George, skipper of the excursion steamer Idaho, one night in 1883, made an error. Confidently, he sailed up a long, sheltered inlet that offered an attractive shortcut to Sitka, only to run aground in the shallows that blocked the head of the inlet. The inlet retains the name of Idaho, recalling for posterity the captain’s misfortune.
Hiking and kayaking were options in this inlet for the morning. We explored forest, meadow, shoreline, and tidal flat. We observed evidence left by brown bears, deer, and river otters. An abundance of wildflowers added myriad colors to the landscape – silverweed, chocolate lily, nagoonberry, and cow parsnip. Age-old bear tracks have been worn into the soil leading from forest to meadow and to a favorite scratching tree of a habitual bear.
In addition to the sea otters, other members of the weasel family were prominent today. The kayakers saw a family of river otters resting on the shore near the head of the inlet. Further up a tidal channel, mink were busily hunting during the low tide. The short legs and long body characteristic of the mustelids serve this sharp-toothed carnivore well in its search for foods in the forest as well as in the intertidal zone. Curious as well as wary, one peered out at kayakers from a secure hideout. As with other weasels, humans have found the minks’ pelt to be luxurious and appealing. The fur industry followed a different direction with the mink, resulting in a less devastating outcome than with the sea otters.
We left Idaho Inlet and reentered Icy Strait. This was so named in 1794 by Captain Vancouver, in recognition of the huge volume of floating ice that had calved from the snout of the Grand Pacific Glacier. The snout has now, 209 years later, retreated some 60 miles to leave the spectacular Glacier Bay we so enjoyed yesterday. Icy Strait connects with the Pacific Ocean through Cross Sound, first seen by a European in 1778 by Vancouver’s mentor, Captain James Cook. Cook, a Protestant, chose to name the entrance that he saw but did not enter, in the Spanish style, by the Catholic feast day when he encountered it -- Holy Cross, May 3rd.
Vancouver’s name for the twin islands now called Chichagof and Baranof did not survive the US purchase of Alaska: King George III’s Island. But the name of the British king’s seventh son, Adolphus Frederick, did make it onto modern charts. This was to be our destination after lunch.
At Point Adolphus at the northeastern tip of Chichagof Island, the remaining wish for many aboard the Sea Lion was amply granted. As we watched spellbound, groups of humpback whales chose to come close to our ship after we had stopped at a discrete distance from them. Mothers were teaching their calves the techniques needed to survive, thrive and enjoy life in these waters. We watched, and with our hydrophone, listened, to some twenty animals within close proximity for almost two hours, completely oblivious to the patches of light Alaskan drizzle.
The waters off Pt. Adolphus are extremely rich in marine life. With each rising tide, the Pacific pours through Cross Sound, into Icy Strait, swirls around two small islands and creates a complex eddy near the point. The mixing of these nutrient-laden waters supports a chain of life linking phytoplankton, zooplankton, small fish and eventually, the great cetaceans, humpback whales. While the whales rose and plunged, we also witnessed another predator at the top of the food chain: more than twenty bald eagles attempting aerial snatches of herring that flashed near the surface.
