Chatham Strait
Today the National Geographic Sea Bird awoke to a beautiful morning as we cruised south in Chatham Strait. Dropping anchor off the east coast of Baranof Island in the middle arm of Kelp Bay we departed for our activities after breakfast.
Shortly after leaving the ship we spotted our first brown bear of the day as it crossed a snow-covered slope not far from where our walks would end. That bear served as the good omen of the day as entering the forest wild we soon realized we had entered the area where the big bruins live. Following bear trails into a beautiful forest we found ourselves constantly walking over fresh piles of scat that led us to the remains of a dead bear. The skull present and intact provided an amazing teaching tool regarding the senses of bears, which helped portray the life they live. Being on Baranof Island we knew this had to be a brown bear as only brown bears live on the ABCs (Admiralty, Baranof and Chichagof islands); and judging by the size of the skull it was a probably a young bear that had perished.
Further in to the enchanted forest banana slugs left their slime trails as we climbed over and under some of the many tree falls that help create the mosaic of an old-growth forest. As all great walks have an end, we left the temperate rainforest and at a river’s edge were welcomed by a meadow of shooting stars in bloom. Exploring up the river we found more remains to add to our catalogue of the living and the dead, as a bald eagle skull and remains sat adjacent to the catastrophic shedding of a deer…or rather, all that remained of that small species of Sitka black-tailed.
After lunch we headed for the south arm of Kelp Bay and were accompanied by a humpback whale travelling close to the shoreline. Poking our bow into the arm we soon discovered more coastal brown bears contently consuming sedges on the fringe where the meadow meets the sea. Exploring from the ship by kayak and Zodiac we were all blessed by close encounters of a sow and cub kind as we were able to get an intimate look at the sow and yearling feeding on fresh spring growth.
