Fox Creek, Chichagof Island, Kayaking off George Island
The Sea Lion lifted her anchor at 6:30AM this morning. Under rainy skies, our vessel began a slow passage heading a short distance to Idaho Inlet. This narrow and long inlet is well known as a haven for sea otters, and as our vessel entered the protected waters within Idaho Inlet we spotted several animals with their head, front, and back flippers in the usual black floating pose of sea otters! As the rain continued, the Sea Lion motored towards our morning destination located slightly east of the entrance to Idaho Inlet at Fox Creek. Our walks would consist of an exploration of an Alaskan temperate rain forest. The most important component or climactic condition for a rain forest at northern latitude was definitely with us today…..it was raining, and all through the forest, every blade of grass, every needle and leaf of each tree, the mosses, and the lichens all dripped with “Alaskan sunshine,” a local nickname for the typical abundance of rain.
Once on shore, our groups passed just under the outer Sitka alders and spruce facing the beach and entered a quiet and just slightly less wet part of the forest. Temperate rainforest structure is extremely complex because of many canopy layers. The forest is made up of a wide range of tree sizes and ages an abundance of epiphytes (plans that live on the surface of other plants, here often represented by hanging lichens, mosses and ferns) and a dense shrubby under story. To add to our hikes this morning, we were on one of three islands of Southeast Alaska that are home to the largest concentration of brown bears in the world. Our walks started on bear trails and our first stop just inside the forest was to pause near an extremely well established set of bear footprints surrounded by mosses and small plants. These footprints connected the beach, led into the forest and continued a link to a huge network of trails leading deeper into the woods…..and it was on one of those trails our groups began moving into the forest, searching for some of the signs of later summer and early fall.
One of the more interesting features of a temperature rain forest in the cooler season of late summer are the fungi! These organisms need moisture to develop, and most species prefer temperatures of 40-70 degrees Fahrenheit. In every region of the world there is an optimum time, the “mushroom season” when most of the mushrooms appear. These sometimes gorgeous and often strange shapes we see on the floor of the forest have developed from spores of the previous year’s crop of fungi….the spores settle in an optimum habitat, germinate and soon grow into a mass of threads called mycelium. This vegetative part of the mushroom continues its life cycle into the warm late summer rains and as daily temperatures begin to drop, fruiting bodies develop on the mycelium and begin to push their way to the surface of the soil. Here in Southeast Alaska, the mushroom season lasts only a few weeks, from the end of August until the middle of September.
And so it was…..protected by the dinner-plate size leaf of a devil’s club plant that we found an 8 inch tall fly amanita (Amanita muscaria). Few mushrooms are as famous as the bright red one with the white spots; depicted in so many fairy tales. It gets it common name because it was once thought that a decoction made from the fly amanita would kill flies. From several large specimens like this we continued through the forest finding many other species of mushrooms often decorated in raindrops, punctuating not only the season of the year, but the transitory and delicate beauty of this place called Alaska.
The Sea Lion lifted her anchor at 6:30AM this morning. Under rainy skies, our vessel began a slow passage heading a short distance to Idaho Inlet. This narrow and long inlet is well known as a haven for sea otters, and as our vessel entered the protected waters within Idaho Inlet we spotted several animals with their head, front, and back flippers in the usual black floating pose of sea otters! As the rain continued, the Sea Lion motored towards our morning destination located slightly east of the entrance to Idaho Inlet at Fox Creek. Our walks would consist of an exploration of an Alaskan temperate rain forest. The most important component or climactic condition for a rain forest at northern latitude was definitely with us today…..it was raining, and all through the forest, every blade of grass, every needle and leaf of each tree, the mosses, and the lichens all dripped with “Alaskan sunshine,” a local nickname for the typical abundance of rain.
Once on shore, our groups passed just under the outer Sitka alders and spruce facing the beach and entered a quiet and just slightly less wet part of the forest. Temperate rainforest structure is extremely complex because of many canopy layers. The forest is made up of a wide range of tree sizes and ages an abundance of epiphytes (plans that live on the surface of other plants, here often represented by hanging lichens, mosses and ferns) and a dense shrubby under story. To add to our hikes this morning, we were on one of three islands of Southeast Alaska that are home to the largest concentration of brown bears in the world. Our walks started on bear trails and our first stop just inside the forest was to pause near an extremely well established set of bear footprints surrounded by mosses and small plants. These footprints connected the beach, led into the forest and continued a link to a huge network of trails leading deeper into the woods…..and it was on one of those trails our groups began moving into the forest, searching for some of the signs of later summer and early fall.
One of the more interesting features of a temperature rain forest in the cooler season of late summer are the fungi! These organisms need moisture to develop, and most species prefer temperatures of 40-70 degrees Fahrenheit. In every region of the world there is an optimum time, the “mushroom season” when most of the mushrooms appear. These sometimes gorgeous and often strange shapes we see on the floor of the forest have developed from spores of the previous year’s crop of fungi….the spores settle in an optimum habitat, germinate and soon grow into a mass of threads called mycelium. This vegetative part of the mushroom continues its life cycle into the warm late summer rains and as daily temperatures begin to drop, fruiting bodies develop on the mycelium and begin to push their way to the surface of the soil. Here in Southeast Alaska, the mushroom season lasts only a few weeks, from the end of August until the middle of September.
And so it was…..protected by the dinner-plate size leaf of a devil’s club plant that we found an 8 inch tall fly amanita (Amanita muscaria). Few mushrooms are as famous as the bright red one with the white spots; depicted in so many fairy tales. It gets it common name because it was once thought that a decoction made from the fly amanita would kill flies. From several large specimens like this we continued through the forest finding many other species of mushrooms often decorated in raindrops, punctuating not only the season of the year, but the transitory and delicate beauty of this place called Alaska.
