Rev. 09/08/01

Alaska & beyond - continued 9/03 - 9/08
around the Skeena

At Kitimat, it rained all night.  The next morning water was running all over the RV camp, and it was still raining.  All I wanted was some place without rain.  But first, I wanted to upload the web pages I'd written.

On the way out of Kitimat, I stopped at the Chamber of Commerce.  Lynn, the Manager, said it would be fine to use the line that the FAX is connected to.  For the first time in months, I was on a high speed line, 56Kb.  What a difference than 2400 baud.  The upload went fast.

It also gave me a chance to ask a bunch of questions about Kitimat.  Lynn and Angela wanted me to see the computer presentation they had on the City of Kitimat.  It was a good, well organized presentation and I learned a great deal about the city and the area.

A few miles out of town a BIG black bear, and I mean real big, loped across the road into the brush on the other side.  He didn't tarry at all -- wasn't able to get his picture.

At Terrace -- still raining.  Let's go east and see if we can get out of the rain.  Drove all the way to Hazelton -- the sun was shining. 

Just before Hazelton, the road crosses the Sushwa River over a single lane suspension bridge.  You have to wait until all cars coming toward you are off the bridge before you start.  I'd always wanted to see what was under that bridge, but it is so narrow I didn't dare take my eyes off the road for a second.  This time I said to heck with it -- I'll stop on the other side and walk back and look 

The canyon below, that the Sushwa churns through, is very narrow, about a quarter of a mile long, and four-five hundred feet below.  It empties into a large pool, turns right and joins the Skeena a short distance more down stream -- quite a sight -- well worth the walk.

The raven totem, guarding 'Ksan, always intrigues me -- I enjoy ravens, they have personality.  There were some thing I wanted to buy there, so took my time looking.

I'd never looked at the exhibits in the museum before.  This time I did, excellent.  Wandered upstairs.  There they had a different kind of display -- Canyon Creek: a script by Sheila Peters.  It tells of the Wet'suwet'en Indians, their lives, and what happened at Canyon Creek, near Smithers -- I was moved.

On the way back down the Skeena, the weather created some interesting scenes with the clouds and the mist that seems to always hang over the Skeena River -- I was entranced.  Took picture after picture, trying to capture the perfect mood this scene created -- this is as close as I was able to portray it

Turned south at Terrace on the road down to Kitimat.  The rain had abated pretty well -- just a few drops now and again.  As I drove over the bridge that crosses the Kitimat River, about half way from Terrace to Kitimat, I saw a sight I never expect to see on this trip -- four grizzles on the river scavenging for spawned salmon.

I parked the RT at the end of the bridge, grabbed both cameras, and ran back.  There are four bears in the top picture, the one in the front is lighter colored, almost the same color as the water.  The darker one in the back, sort of hung back and did it's own thing -- finding salmon on it's own.  The other two stayed close to mom and she sometimes shared her finds with them.  One would find a salmon, then with the salmon in its jaws, wander over to the side a bit, and start to eat.  A loud growl would keep the others away.

Gradually they worked down the river until they got fairly close to the bridge.  By this time there were a number of people standing on the bridge, all speaking in hushed tones.  Then someone on the bridge said something in a loud voice and the spell was broken -- momma bear looked up, saw people, and when she started to amble toward the river bank -- prudence the better part of valor, I decided it was time for me to get the heck out of there.

The Sony Cyber-shot digital camera, with a ten power zoom, also can take about thirty seconds of mpg movies.  I took a very amateurish thirty seconds of the grizzlies, feeding on the river -- if I can find a way to add it to this page, I will.  Otherwise I'll try to send it, as an e-mail attachment, to friends and family that ask for it.  It is 1.4 Megabytes in size, so will take a bit of time for you to download (and for me to send <grin>).  Send me an e-mail at graha82@NO_SPAMattglobal.net just remove the "NO_SPAM" from the address.  This is my traveling address, using mostly very low speed lines all over the US and Canada -- I can't afford to get it cluttered with "spam."

Let's try this -- Kitimat bears page -- if it works, let me know by e-mail, as above.  If you have Windows, it should work -- just take a little time to load this page.  One of my sons told me it, at 48 kb it downloaded in 6 min.  When I'm smarter, I'll speed it up.  As for Macs, duh.......(he also said it worked fine on Macs)

That evening, back at the Kitimat RV camp, I shared my photos and movie with Janette, the camp manager.  She has been very helpful, telling me about sites to see locally, fishing, and other interests.

Ann was the guide, and boy, she knew facts and figures about the whole operation.  I thought the ore came from Chile, but no, it comes by ship from Australia and Java.

I knew -- book learning -- how the aluminum was extracted from the ore, but to see the actual process, heat and all, was much more informative.

She had a collection of photo back into the 1940's and 50's.  They were of the construction of power plant at Kemano -- the building of the transmission line -- the tunnels from Nachaco reservoir -- all of that stuff that really interested me.

All in all, the tour took about two hours, and I enjoyed it.

In the morning the sky was clear, but there was a chill in the air -- the storm had left fresh snow on the mountains.  That snow line will move further and further down the mountain as September progresses.  So I'd better get any back country exploring done now.

Always wanted to see the upper end of the Babine River to the north.  Now there is a road into that part of the country, but you get to share it with loaded logging trucks.  And, like in the west, those trucks don't slow down for anyone.

This particular one was crossing the Babine River bridge.

As soon as it was clear I drove across.  There were two guys fishing and one had a fish on.  Parking the RT on the other side, grabbed the camera and ran back on the bridge.

He said he had a Spring Salmon on, and I could clearly see it darting and rolling in the water below me.  Only then did I really see all of the salmon in the river below -- springs, sockeye, coho -- thousands  upon thousands of fish moving up into Babine Lake and into the streams and rivers above.  What a sight!

The fish counting weir was clearly visible from the bridge.  I wanted to see it in operation so drove the short distance up.

Every fish, moving into Babine Lake is counted.  The weir has about six stations, or gates, that fish must pass  through.  The person counting opens a gate, allowing fish through.  He sit there and tallys them, as they swim across a white plate, using a specially designed "click" counter to count fish by type -- coho, spring, sockeye, etc.  He counts for a certain amount of time, closes the gate and goes to the next gate, opening it and repeating the process.

There were two guys counting while I was there.

The total, so far this year is -- Sockeye - 1,801,017, Chinook - 1,362,  Pink - 53,141, Coho - 462, Steelhead - 3.

Spoke to one of the counters during his break.  He was an Indian.  We talked a bit.  He said he'd lived his entire life at Fort Babine, but would like to get out and go see Hawaii.  About the fish count, he told me the fishery people were estimating 2 million Sockeye, and he thought it would be close.  Also, the Coho were just coming in and the Steelhead were still way down the river.

That evening I stopped at the Steelhead fishing lodge, on the Bulkley River, where I'll be the end of September.  Met Collin, the owner, and his wife Cary.  They invited me to dinner -- which I couldn't refuse.  Had a very enjoyable evening.

To get there you have to take a ferry across Francois Lake.  It is quite a sight to see them load those logging trucks on to the ferry.  And a bit spooky when the ferry bumps the pilings of the dock, as is normal making a landing -- all those logs next to you sway on the truck -- hope that chain holds!

The spillway from the Nechako Reservoir created its own channel and runs into a small new lake, eventually making its way down to the Nechako River.  I wanted to see that spillway channel.  Taking a real back road I finally got to it.

Surprised a deer drinking out of the stream on the other side.  Too far a way to get a good picture.  And when I moved, she split.

The gravel bottom of the outlet stream, half a mile or so from the spillway, looks like most mountain streams, clear and the gravel coarsely tumbled.  I have no idea what it looks like at high flows.

I read in the Alcan paper, The Ingot, they have been having an erosion problem at the spillway.  So a lot of construction work is being done right now to correct it.

Driving around the edge of the reservoir, I ran into another small dam needed to contain the lake.  And the spillway seems to be created in a dam.  I wonder how many more were required to complete the enclosure of the entire reservoir?

Talked to a guy fishing.  He told me that fishing was pretty slow since they no longer could fish near the spillway because of the construction.

As I approached the dam, the first ting I encountered was an Alcan warning sign -- someone had used it for target practice, two large holes through "Alcan."

Then, around the bend was Kenny dam.  A 360 foot high, earth filled dam that blocked the Nechako River, built in the late 1940's.  The earth core is covered with rock to protect it from erosion.  The down stream face is further reinforced with additional layers of rock.  The upstream side, probably is similar, underwater -- making the dam tapered as it rises.  There is a road across the top.

It was noon, time for lunch.  The owner of the RV camp in Vanderhoof told me there was a nice restaurant at the Nechako Lodge, south of the dam, on the reservoir shore -- a good lunch sounded better than what I could fix.

There I met Elizabeth, owner/chef of the lodge.  She, her husband, and two sons live there all year 'round.   He is a pilot and flies guests into the remote brush and into Tweedsmuir Park.

All along the Skeena area, I kept hearing murmurs about Alcan and the Nechako River and the reservoir.  These weren't just isolated incidents, but just about everyone seemed to be concerned -- like they had killed the salmon run in the Nechako -- when forced, by the government, to release water for salmon returning, they released warm surface water.  Many other similar comments -- not all is well with Alcan's relations with the larger community.

Elizabeth told me more about the problems they have had with Alcan, and the effect it has on the community.  They had a small web page that gives information about the problem.  Promised I'd check it out when I get home.

Elizabeth gave me the names of some people who had lived in the Nechako for years, grew up there.  I stopped, but they weren't home.

Driving back, as I passed through the Indian village of Sai Kuz, a couple of young boys were hitch hiking.  Stopped, and it turned out there were four -- made room for them all.  They were going to Vanderhoof.  All were in the tenth grade, and dressed as boys that age -- ball caps on backwards, visors backward and up-side-down, baggy pants -- typical teens.  They were all fascinated by the GPS running on my laptop.  We talked about the computer, Hawaii, a number of things.  I asked if their parents and grandparents had fished for salmon on the Nechako when they were young.  They said yes, and then there were fish camps along it.  The native people should be a great resource to establish just how extensive the salmon were on the Nechako.

Maps

• 9/03/01 - 9/08/01 the Skeena area
• 9/08/01 Vanderfoot to Williams Lake

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