Inian Islands, Fox Creek
It is almost axiomatic in SE Alaska that ‘today it is going to rain.’ It is a temperate rainforest after all, and rain is its lifeblood – a source that runs frequently and true. All those that dwell or visit here are, or should be, prepared for the inevitable and timely cascades of raindrops that feed this lush and verdant ecosystem. This year has been a dry one however, and along our walks, we witnessed streams reduced to a string of puddles, browning conifer needles, and mosses that are turning the color of goldenrod. Forest fires here are the rare exception and lightning strikes are almost unheard of. This season bolts from Thor have struck, trees have burned (albeit in small, isolated locations), and strong tepid winds have blown across the land. The upshot - skies have warmed to hues of blue, through which the sun has burned holes, and Lindblad travelers have been the beneficiaries.
The Gulf of Alaska is the very crucible of storms. Cold, dry winds blow eastward off the Siberian landmass where they collide with the warm, humid stream of the Japanese current. The energy created by this meeting generates powerful zones of low depression; they come with the frequency of baseballs shot out of a pitching machine. Further fueled by the Gulf’s energy, in a general eastward movement, they gain momentum and unleash their gathering wrath against the Pacific Northwest. This is the norm in winter. In summer, they are reduced, but the elements remain – subdued yet still potent and defining. The lifeblood flows year round.
Yesterday evening, the National Geographic Sea Lion cruised north through Chatham Strait and Icy Strait under mostly blue skies and light winds – a hopeful harbinger. We awoke to the sound of the anchor chain running hard to set the ship’s pick in the Hobbit Hole, a trenchant, protected corner of the Inian Islands. The Inians lie in the very blast zone of Icy Strait, nakedly exposed to the Gulf of Alaska. If storms are baseballs hurled from a pitcher named ‘The Gulf’, the Inians are somewhere between the mound and home plate. They are systematically lashed by cold wind, rain, and big waves, as evidenced by coastline naked of growth fifteen to twenty meters above the high tide line. A new day did not bring a change in weather. If anything, dawn crept in with a heightening of the previous day’s conditions. Seas were mirror calm under brilliant blue skies as we fanned out into the Inian Archipelago in search of new discoveries.
The waterways through this island group run north south. With their homogenous appearance, under brooding, low clouds, directionality can be problematic. Such was not an issue today. To the north of our position lay the Fairweather Range, majestic guardian ramparts of Glacier Bay National Park’s western edge. They blazed high and white in the distance – husky and forbidding in capes of snow and ice. To see them was to have a continuous handle on compass direction.
Steller’s sea lions had deserted their principle rocky-islet haul out in the heart of the Inians in search of food transported by the incoming flood tide. They were swimming about the waters surrounding the Islands in anticipation of the arriving banquet. Many held their bodies positioned forward into the torrent. Their food was virtually being served. Salmon and halibut were dispatched with ease. Bald eagles perched atop coniferous lookouts. Gulls, puffins, pigeon guillemots, and cormorants moved through air and water with purpose, as a conveyor belt of aquatic calories funneled into the constricted watercourses of Southeast’s northernmost reaches. Just as lunch was at its peak production, humpback whales arrived to gorge on nature’s tide-swept bounty. They were all around us. The cafeteria’s doors were wide open, and the place was packed.
On a sliver of east-facing shoreline on the northern coast of Chichagof Island, a thin stream of water winds its way from alpine slopes through muskeg and then coniferous forest to expel its contents into the waters of Icy Strait. Its name - Fox Creek. From a distance, the scene is unassuming, even pedestrian. But step ashore and a world opens.
Kayaks were deployed for seaside discovery. Hikes fanned out from the stream’s terminus to venture deeper into the forest’s interior. Though no bears were spotted, their fresh prints and scat let us know that they were not far. This is their world, and we are just visitors here. The terrain around Fox Creek is relatively flat, undulating gently over ancient glacial till covered with verdant moss, bunchberry, false lily-of-the-valley, five-leaf bramble, ferns, and inch-high wildflowers. In the second story, berry bushes, false azalea, and other shrubs thrived. Towering over the scene were the temperate giant conifers. Some of them showed striking buttress-like roots, which stretched horizontally wide to maximize growth in the shallow soil. Red squirrels, natural architects within the frameworks of big-tree roots, had constructed conspicuous middens in a few of them. A usually elusive and solitary animal, one squirrel pleasantly surprised us when we saw it sitting on a branch biding her time picking apart a spruce cone. It was just one more long-exposure frame in the seasonal movie that daily plays in SE Alaska.
