Rev. 08/01/01
Alaska & beyond - continued
8/01 - 8/03
Cordova
Cordova is not a tourist town. People are not unfriendly,
but do not go out of their way to encourage tourism. One example -- a
conversation with a lady went something like this. "I noticed you
add a tax on to all sales here in Cordova, but there's no tax in Valdez.
Why is that?" I asked. She replied, "We don't have the Pipe
line and all the money it brings." And I, joking, "You need
just a little Pipeline here, then you could finish the road up the Copper
River." Her reply was, "We don't want a road. We like
it remote, isolated, the way it is." It is a small town, and I
found out that very shortly, nearly everyone in town knew about the Dodge
RT from Hawaii.
As for camping, my phone calls from Valdez were not encouraging,
but figured once I got here I could check it out myself. Found out
immediately, there are no commercial RV camps here. The choice is,
a small one run by the city with electric hookup, or remote dry camping at
US Forest Service camps out of town. I wanted electricity so drove
out to the city camp and made a list of empty sites. Then found the
city manager responsible. He was friendly, and said he'd drive out
and check it out and to meet him back at his office at 10:00. I did,
and was told I could use site 15, and he went on to explain why the other
sites I'd found were not usable.
As for Internet access, I wasn't so successful. The library
does not provide that service. I could use their computer to check
my e-mail, but not hook my laptop to their line -- bummer.
My immediate wants taken care of, headed east on Route 10 to check out the
fishing, and to see the Copper River delta. The Copper River drains
a major part of south central Alaska. Besides being a typical river
delta, with meandering channels, and marshes, it is augmented with large
beaver ponds, each with a huge lodge. These ponds, almost small lakes,
support a lot of water birds, the largest of which is the Trumpeter Swan.
I saw several mated pairs of these huge birds, but they are very shy
and swim into a hidden coves the minute I stopped the RT.
At mile 42 on the Copper River delta road, the river washed
out the road this year. So couldn't get out the the Child Glacier and
the Million Dollar Bridge.
The
next morning dawned bright and sunny, such days have become a rarity for
me in Alaska.
Took a drive south to check out a small river, the Hartney, where I saw salmon
yesterday. And what do I run into today -- two black bear. I
was able to get a pretty good picture of one, but the other was too fast
for me.
Later in the morning I saw a third.
Carl, my next door neighbor at the camp, is a minister. He and I were
talking one night and told me stories and showed me pictures of black bears
in town, and of brown bear, grizzles to us, a few miles out of town -- there
are a lot of bears in this part of Alaska.
Further out on the Copper River road I saw three different mated
pair of Trumpeter Swans.
With the first pair, one, I believe the female, headed for tall grass at
the rear of the beaver pond. The male stayed in front, in plain view.
Missed pictures of the second pair. But the third, again separated like the
first pair. This seems to be a common behavior. This pair had
eight young ones, in their gray feathers for camouflage. Two of the
young stayed with the male, while the rest swam into the high grass with
the female, just their heads and necks showing.
Lynn, Keoni's auntie, I have a job for you. Please
call Sheri, on NB 2, and tell her I found her glacier. The picture
with the trumpeter swan in the foreground, has Sheridan Glacier as a background
-- just for her. Have her look at
http://www.bgrahamonline.com/108a.html or she can start at the beginning
if she wants to.
While I was taking these pictures, a plane came into land at
Cordova's airport -- Merle K. "Mudhole" Smith Airport. I'll have to
find out the story behind that name.
Fishing has been fun. I've caught cutthroat trout, as well as salmon.
Even had a salmon on while fishing for cutthroat with my light spinning
rod -- boy, what a surprise.
When I returned the Hartney River south of town, the tide was high.
Schools of salmon had entered the river, and as I watched from the
wooden bridge, I could see several different schools in the water.
Some were three feet or more in length. Another school held fish about
two feet in length -- that is a great difference in weight.
The schools were so dense they each looked like a single living dark shadowy
mass in the water -- they would move up and down the large hole in the river
as one body, that constantly changed shape. In the pictures you can
see a school as it changes shape -- the two pictures are only thirty seconds
apart.
As I watched, they started to move to the head of the hole,
then a few at a time, swam through the rapids, up into a narrower part of
the river -- they had started their spawning journey.
Friday morning, I'm scheduled to catch the ferry back to Valdez
today, and of course, its cloudy, foggy and raining.
But today is my day for eagles. Finally saw a juvenile and got close
enough to get a reasonable shot before he took off.
As I was fishing in the Eyak, another eagle sat high in a tree, watching
my every move through the light fog. I caught my first silver salmon
up here -- boy do those fish ever jump and give a real hard fight. But
the eagle didn't move. Don't know what I'd have done if he wanted my
fish.
There were a lot of red salmon, sockeye, in the Eyak River
where I was fishing. It is the outlet of Lake Eyak. Sockeye always
spawn in a stream that flows into a lake. The juvenile sockeyes spend
their first year in the lake and then migrate down to the sea.
I decided to see if I could find the stream where the sockeye spawn. There
is a dirt road on the other side of the lake. Following it up, it got
narrower and rougher the further I went. But finally I found the
stream I was looking for. Sure enough, peering though bushes on the
stream bank, there were red spawning sockeye.
This morning when I went south of town to the Hartney River, standing on
the wooden bridge, I could see everything in the water below. The schools
of big "dog" salmon, and smaller pinks, but what surprised me was to see
a good sized halibut swim into this tidal area..
The RV camp I stayed at was populated primarily, I learned,
by Russian immigrants who belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church.
The married women all wore their hair in a white babushka, and wore long
ankle length dresses, gathered at the waist. Boys wore baggy pants, with
loose fitting pull over shirts, gather at the waist with a narrow prayer
sash. While the girls all wore ankle length dresses, gathered at the waist
like their mother's.
Though their dress was different, I was intrigued by how well the children
all got along and played games together. And how the older children took
care of the younger ones, regardless of what family they were from.
Cordova traces its roots back to the Russian days. And there
are a large number of of people of the Russian Orthodox faith there. I'm
guessing that is what drew the Russian immigrants.
In the cemetery many graves were marked with the a distinct white wooden
cross, used by the Russia Orthodox church.
Finally boarded the ferry at 5:30 pm, I was last on.
At dinner, on the ferry, I sat with three young people. Kim,
and her two brothers, Mike and Dan. They are spending six weeks driving,
camping and hiking around Alaska, together.
They got up to Child's Glacier by parking their van couple hundred feet back
from where the road was washed out. Then loaded their sleeping bags
and gear on their backs, waded through the flood water by staying to the
edge, and hiked to the glacier. Kim said it was quite and experience
listening to the glacier crack, move and calve all night long -- what a trip
they are having..
Icebergs from Columbia Glacier were our indication we were nearing Valdez.
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