Moose tracks, goose tracks, and an otter slide, oh my!
Ideal Cove on Mitkof Island certainly was this morning as we tromped along the dry boardwalk. Rain has been sparse this past week and the babbling brook paralleling the trail was more of a quiet murmur. Our introduction to the temperate rain forest included meeting skunk cabbage. A plant with leaves so large you would think it was taking vegetative steroids. The spiky devil’s club seemed to be a leafy oxymoron with its threatening spikes on the outside and medicinal elements extracted from the roots and stems of the plants. A multitude of decorative and distinctive mushrooms have popped out in the damp forest. Bear’s head stuck its fluffy fungal cranium out of a log, chicken of the woods sat perched on a rotting stump, and a hapless tree was smeared with the fairy barf lichen.
The town of Petersburg was our playground for the afternoon. Presented to us were a plethora of options: investigating the nutrient poor muskeg environment, being awestruck by the diversity of life attached to the underside of the floating docks, finding focus on the photographic walk, bicycling along the scenic coastal roadways and moseying through the delightful downtown.
Our evening ended with a delicious mayhem of a crabfest. Dungeness crab was the featured gastronomic event. We cracked open the shells and savored the sweetness of the sea. In the failing evening light, a lunge-feeding humpback whale scooped up krill and created its own crustacean mayhem gulping its meal of krill. A delicious end to a delightful day for all of us.
