I’m currently on my way up to Alaska for another supremely short season of guiding (just two trips this years). I was going through some old photos and came across this image of the Milky Way from a trip back in 2014. It evoked a memory of the last time I paddled with Ken Leghorn in Windfall Harbor.
Ken Leghorn was a hero of the Alaskan conservation movement and a friend and mentor of mine who passed away a little over a year ago. I wrote down this recollection on the airline napkin:
The night was dead still under the stars as we scraped the final bites from our dishes and made the slippery pilgrimage over the popweed to wash plates at the waterline. As we cast our rinse water out, the splash excited thousands of tiny green sparks in the wake. Bioluminescent algae had flooded into Windfall Harbor with the rising tide and now the bay was dense with the tiny flashing organisms. Ken and I decided it was definitely worth the effort of pulling a tandem down from the woods. We slid off into the black indefinite water. Every paddle stroke lit up like an aquatic Christmas tree. We stopped paddling not far from shore and floated. As the hull lost momentum it ceased to perturb the algae. Now the water was a black mirror of the star-full sky. Between the silence, Ken and I traded similes: Our kayak was like a space ship floating in space. Our wake was like a ripple in space-time. The Alexander Archipelago was like a solar system hurtling through the universe and we were a satellite in orbit around a tiny island planet.
We paddle back and pulled the kayak back up into the treeline. Knotting the bowline, we agreed it was the best bioluminescence we’d ever seen in Southeast.
Since I shuttered my photoblog a few months ago, I realized that my original post from that trip to Windfall Harbor had been lost to the ether. So, I resurrected the photos and lightly edited that post below.
From August 2014:
There are only a few Wilderness areas in Southeast Alaska that I have not been to. Surprisingly, Admiralty Island/Kootznoowoo Wilderness, one of the larger Wildernesses in the Tongass is one that I had never visited. Along with Baranof Island and Chichagof Island, Admiralty Island has one of the highest concentrations of brown bears in the world. The average is one bear per square mile. In total, that means that the bears outnumber the people on these large islands. In fact, Admiralty itself has more bears on it than all of the lower 48 states combined.
Pack Creek is a special place for bears. It is a wildlife sanctuary in addition to its Wilderness designation. That means that there is no hunting of bears at Pack and the viewing at the Creek is strictly regulated. This is a great set up for bear viewing, as bears get much closer than would be normally comfortable. We arrived late in the season, well after the tourists, so we basically had the place to ourselves.
Many thanks to friend Ken Leghorn and Pack Creek Bear Tours for loaning us a kayak, sharing salmon dinner, and providing super helpfully detailed info about Pack. If you ever want to make the trip yourself. Pack Creek Bear Tours are the folks to call.
The inspiration for this trip was a visit from one of my best friends from middle school, Jordan, who came up to visit Alaska for the first time. After years hearing about the incredible bear viewing at Pack Creek, this seemed like the best excuse to spend a few days there. We boarded the float plane in Juneau and made the short flight to Windfall Harbor where the Forest Service maintains a small seasonal camp for their rangers on an island just a stone’s throw from the Creek. This is also where Pack Creek Outfitters store their kayaks. It was the end of the season, so Ken offered to let us use a kayak for a few days if we would help him move his fleet to the winter storage area.
The operation at Pack Creek is nothing like any other bear viewing site. There is no platform, no fences, no barriers. The viewing area is a 5 by 10 meter area of mown grass with a driftlog to sit on. The Forest Service and Fish and Game rangers are on-site at all times that people are present. They are trained to let the bears move about freely up to the edge of the mown grass line.
The unique situation at Pack Creek is a stamp of its history. In the 1930s a major conservation campaign sprouted with the intent of designating all of Admiralty Island a bear refuge, but succeeded only in protecting the Pack Creek drainage from hunting. In 1935, the Forest Service designated it an official bear viewing. Despite the restrictions, poaching was regular in the remote watershed. In 1956, a local miner and logger, Stan Price, rowed his floating cabin on shore at the mouth of Pack Creek and established a homestead with his wife, Edna. Rather than fear, they treated the local bruins as neighbors. Their presence helped to curtail poaching and also attracted new visitors. For almost 4 decades, the Prices lived with the bears. Over that time, new generations of cubs were born and reared with the Prices as a normal fixture of life. By the time Price died in 1989, just about every local bear was habituated to constant human presence.
In 1984, the tiny sliver of bear sactuary was expanded to a no-hunting zone encompassing Pack Creek and the adjacent watersheds, as well as the islands in Windfall Harbor. As the 80s progressed visitation increased to the point that the agencies decided to actively manage the area. Viewing times were limited, rangers were installed on-site, and visitation was limited to just 24 people per day.
As a result, generations of bears have come to associate Pack Creek as a safe haven from hunting and to ignore the small groups of human onlookers.
Sitting on a log, surrounded by Alaskan brown bears playing, snoozing, bathing, and snapping at salmon is a mesmerizing experience. We spent most of our time sitting on the log at the Creek mouth or walking up the trail to the viewing platform. But we managed a couple paddles around the Harbor, including a visit to the most impressive Sitka Spruce tree I’ve ever met.
On our second night, we sat under the clear night sky and discovered bioluminescent algae in the water. It is rare to see stars in Souheast Alaska. And it is a pleasure to see them reflected in the still waters. It is utterly, chest-caving, breathtaking to paddle the myth-like firmament of water sandwiched between a sky of stars above and swirls of bioluminesces below. Ken and I paddled out in a tandem just to sit and float. I can’t describe it. It was one of those utterly unique experiences that will forever bound my conception of hyperbole.
On the final evening of our visit, Jordan and I sat on the log with my friend Daven who happened to be the Forest Service Ranger on staff for the day.
The three of us sat in silence for most of the evening, occasionally swatting mosquitos, surveying the moldering ruins of Stan Price’s cabin, and potting bears across the river. With the sun dropping behind the mountains, we were contemplating packing up for the evening when a medium-sized rich-chocolate colored bear sauntered out of the trees. Daven recognized her immediately as Chino (her mother, a creamy brown bear, was named Mocha… get it?). Chino ambled across the streamlets and with no attention to us, came to rest in the tall grass at the edge of the viewing area. We were stunned into silence. I frantically switched lenses since she was closer than the focusing distance of my long lens and filled cards with her portrait.
I’ve seen many, many bears at very close range. But the general protocol for bear encounters is to make your presence known with the goal making it clear to the bear that you want your space. At Pack Creek, the tone is completely different, the intent is to discharge any discomfort, to let Chino forget we were even there. I learned that nonchalance is a powerful emotion when seen in the eyes of a bear.
We flew out on a clear day with Ken. Upon take off, we circled over the Swan River estuary which was expansive at low tide. The afternoon sun fluoresced the rivulets like veins under an X-ray. Out on the flats, we passed over a sow and two cubs. It takes a big landscape to make a 900lbs animal look like a speck, and it takes an even larger Wilderness area to ensure that such a landscape remains truly wild.
