A long time ago, an intrepid explorer sailed the same long, narrow bay that we entered this morning; in July of 1794 George Vancouver spent 18 days at anchor in the place he named Port Althorp, possibly very close to the site where National Geographic Sea Bird stopped before breakfast. Located on the northwest portion of Chichagof Island, Port Althorp is a remote place seldom visited by anyone other than the few residents of the small fishing community of Elfin Cove a few miles away. The same people that asked the state government to declare the place a no-brown-bear-hunting area, a status that Port Althorp obtained in 1984 and that makes it one of few such heavens for bruin on the ABC islands of Southeast Alaska and the only one in Chichagof. In fact, we were lucky enough this morning to see one solitary brown bear and a sow with her two-year-old cub on the meadow at the end of the bay shortly before we anchored! With high hopes and energy we explored the area form kayaks and by foot, getting the chance to watch all kinds of wildlife, from harbor seals and Canadian geese, to bald eagles and sea otters. Many of us hiked to the stream and watched numerous pink salmon in the shallow water fighting and spawning; the prominent humps of the males sticking out of the water reminded us of another one of the species’ common names, the humpback or “humpy.”
After a morning full of activities we saw a group of four killer whales entering the bay; being members of the Bigg’s (transient) ecotype, those killer whales were looking for harbor seals to hunt. What a wonderful surprise!
During the afternoon we arrived to and explored the Inian Islands using our expedition landing craft; the Inians are strategically located between the southern part of Glacier Bay National Park in the mainland and Chichagof Island, just in the northern entrance of the Inside Passage. They act as a bottleneck and speed up the already strong tidal currents that exchange waters between the Gulf of Alaska and the Inside Passage, creating upwellings that bring fish and invertebrates to the surface where Steller’s sea lions and numerous bird species capture them. Sea otters are abundant in the kelp fronds and the whole place is teeming with life. The region of Port Althorp and the Inians is a prime example of the beauty and abundance of life of Southeast Alaska and today we truly experienced it!
