Iyoukeen Cove, Pavlof Harbor, and Kasnyku Falls
Of the roughly 6,000 humpback whales in Southeast Alaska, here to feed every summer, only 50-60 partake in cooperative bubblenet feeding, one of the most remarkable wildlife displays in the natural world. We witnessed it this morning, all before breakfast. Again and again six to ten humpbacks worked great schools of herring, diving beneath their prey and spiraling up, blowing bubbles to corral and concentrate the fish, then rising up through the “bubble net” to swallow hundreds at a time. We whooped and hollered when the whales, rising in unison, broke the surface like a great orchid, blooming from the ocean, the massive jaws, seawater streaming off their baleen, their ventral throat pleats expanded, the herring flying through the air trying to escape.
Each whale eats and estimated 1,000-2,000 pounds of forage fish per day while summering in Alaska, all to build up energy reserves for the long autumn swim to Hawaii where they’ll court, mate, and give birth in warmer waters, then make the long swim back to Alaska next spring, while eating nothing. No wonder they arrive here hungry. The more we learn about these animals, and nature in general, the more we stand humbled and honored to share in the spectacle of life on Earth.
After breakfast, we landed at Pavlof Harbor, on Chichagof Island, and watched a young coastal brown bear fishing for pink salmon. Some of us watched from on shore, and others in kayaks, as the sub-adult bear (in its first summer away from mom) worked the riffles below a broad waterfall. Twice the bear caught a salmon, not without serious effort, and scampered into the forest for a private meal, mindful, no doubt, of bigger bears that could show up any minute and take his prized fish.
This afternoon we steamed down Chatham Strait, making the long run to Petersburg (the longest transit of the trip). En route, we stopped at Kasnyku Falls, a robust waterfall charging through the shaggy green forest, where Melanie Heacox, one of our naturalists, had us stare at the waterfall and then look away, creating an optical illusion that threw us all of balance…in a fun way.
So much to learn, so much to experience, so much to think about, and new friends to meet. Alaska charms and challenges us to be somebody beyond who we were when we arrived, undaunted by the rain, grateful in the presence of whales and bears.
