We were coming back from Wrangell-St. Elias on the Glenn Highway and the ice field was actually visible from the highway very clearly. This is pretty unusual and so we had to stop and get some photographs. The scale in Alaska is so enormous that one loses perspective and frequently underestimates size and distances without a reference. Looking at this photo it is hard to grasp how expansive this view is. Come on up and see for your self.
Somateria spectabilis, The King Eider is a large, ornately plumaged duck that spends the predominate portion of its life in the very far north. Its breeding grounds in the Americas are in the Arctic and the North West Territories and it winters mostly no farther south than the Aleutian Islands. In addition it spends the predominate portion of its life out on the remote northern waters and therefore is not easily observable.
The King Eider population migrates very early, sometimes to their own detriment, flying across the tundra in flocks reported at up to 113,000 in one half hour period. Now these birds fly at about 60 km/hr at less than 100 meters off the ground. Imagine yourself on the Arctic tundra with over one hundred thousand birds, flying less than three hundred feet over your head, at forty miles an hour. Wow. And these migrations can fill the sky for hours, ten hours in the case of this particular report.
McLaren Summit at 4086 feet is not the highest mountain pass I have ever driven up (short by almost 10 thousand feet) but the view, well it speaks for itself. Only Atigan Pass in Alaska is higher. The valley below McLaren is absolutely beautiful, the lazy Susitna River in the evening light makes a slivery highway running towards the distant Alaska Range peaks. The rain was out on this late evening, but really, it it only served up the drama instead of damping the mood.
We were cruising down the Denali Highway and came around a corner and this guy was in a fire ring rooting around for leftovers. They are quite endearing actually and you really want to get out and pet them. That would be disastrous of course. They don’t move very fast and they tend to have great facial expressions so they are fun. They pretty much know that they can hurt you far more than you can hurt them (unless you have a gun. See last years Alaska Experiment.) We gave the old boy some room and he waddled on past in no particular hurry. I think no particular hurry is a good way to waddle.
We passed a hatchery along the River on the Richardson highway and the Gulls were out in force. They were gorging themselves on the newly released fry apparently. They would line up on this roof and then swoop down and gobble some hatchlings up and then return to the end of the chow line and roost for a while. I don’t know how much Fish and Game is paying to feed the gulls but I hope they put enough in for the rest of us to catch some. What you see hear is a fraction of the hundred or so that were taking advantage of the free meal.
New Print of the Month. Watchful King Eider. From the North Slope. Alaska. FallRiverPho
I am sure most of you are aware of the northern boundary water canoe trails up on the Minnesota-Cana