The Long Day's Paddle - Part II

            Our mission was closer to geocaching than scientific data collection. Each of the research plots completed over the last two summers has a pair of digital loggers that record air and soil temperature. We simply have to paddle our kayaks to the closest access point, hike into the forest and follow our GPS units to the survey site, scrutinize the trees to see which one has the climate sensor tacked to it, and grab the sensor before paddling back. The sites are temporally stratified to represent various lengths of time that have passed since the cedars began to die off. A forest that died in 1895 is considered old, and the layers go up through healthy forests that exist in Glacier Bay National Park. A cluster of these sites lies six miles southeast of camp at the very bottom of Slocum Arm, a mile-wide glacially carved inlet separated from the Pacific Ocean by the jagged Khaz Penninsula.

            A fishing boat was wrecked right across from this campsite 11 months ago, a seiner, which stretches a long net across the width of the channel and then closes it like a purse around masses of fish. A young captain at the helm, the ballast tanks in the hull of the Evening Star were only partly full of water when she cinched up a full load of fish. The outlying weight caused the water in the tanks to slosh violently, and the failure to top off the tanks became a crucial mistake. "You would think that would be the first thing they would tell them, to keep those tanks full," says Charlie, our intrepid water taxi conductor, who at around age 70 has survived a variety of capsizings, accidental firearms discharges, and an epic trainwreck on the Skagway to Whitehorse line. "With how many boats have gone down that way." The Evening Star sunk down onto a shelf with the bow under ten feet of water and the stern below 90. Then she slid off the shelf while the sein net clung there, leaving the vessel tethered and swaying in the current. I never heard what happened to the wreck after that. The whole crew of six was taken off safely. Rumor said that the cash payroll for the crew went down with the ship.

            Our 2012 research crew missed witnessing the incident by mere hours. We had paddled down to the base of the arm to collect data at the six sites. Which is exactly what we had to do now, one year later. The original plan called for breaking up camp on the morning of the July 10th, loading tents and all into our boats, paddling down, collecting one or two sensors en route, setting up a new campsite for the night, collect sensors on the 11th, and then determine whether to head back to Waterfall or stay in Hidden Cove for one more night. We were scheduled to meet with Scott on the 13th to load our large and unwieldy bearproof food boxes onto the Alacrity and move the whole show north to Ford Arm.

            I was worried that so much shuffling would leave us mentally and physically ragged. Why not just make a long day of it instead, collect sensors from the Hidden Cove sites and then paddle back to basecamp? Since the sites themselves weren't taking very long, it seemed doable, and way more efficient. I said as much on the evening of the 9th as we picked bones from our fish. Opinion about the change in plans was mixed but supportive. Jen agreed that a day trip would greatly increase efficiency. Jaime, taciturn and measured as ever, pointed out that moving camp merely to fill time was a questionable strategy. No firm decision was made, though, and we tabled it until morning.

            2012 was one of the wettest summers on record in Southeast Alaska. New marks were set for precipitation in June in Glacier Bay, and July was more of the same. Our trips were cold, wet, and demoralizing at times. So the relatively warm and dry conditions we found in 2013 were a welcome change. The morning of the 10th saw the sun dawn on Waterfall Cove, and the water looked placid. Conditions seemed auspicious for a full day of paddling and a return to basecamp, and we decided to go with that plan. What could go wrong on such a beautiful day?

The Long Day's Paddle, Part I

copyright Corey Radis

            It was my own suggestion that we do a day paddle down to the bottom of the fjord, rather than pack up camp and move down there for the night. I just thought it would be a lot less hectic. Our camp was an assemblage of tents and tarps pitched on a promontory of trees rising up out of Waterfall Cove. The location was chosen for bear safety, which is always of utmost concern in this country. Maritime Southeast Alaska has about the highest density of brown bears in the world, rivaled only by Kodiak Island some hundred miles to the West. The brown bear is genetically identical to the grizzly of the Rocky Mountains, but larger due to her rich diet of salmon which arrive to spawn annually in the many waterways of this very wet country. By setting up camp on an outcrop projecting into the sea, we hoped to minimize ursine traffic through our dwelling. The whole thing was ringed by three strands of electric fence with a battery powered charger. I was personally responsible for erecting this barrier and testing its function by submitting to electric shocks. The current isn't very strong, but bears lead with their noses, and the hope is that a shock to the moist sniffer is just enough of a deterent.

         We were a crew of six on a wilderness research mission. The team leader was Gregg of Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation, a Montana nonprofit that facilitates citizen science. He and I had stood together piece of remote ground the year before along with Lauren, an ecologist who designed the project. The study is an investigation of the forest's response to mass the die-off of yellow cedar which affects the most of that species' range along the Northwest Coast. We did about seven weeks of fieldwork last summer, one of the wettest on record, no small claim for in this country of dripping temperate rainforest.  The rain was incessant, mold grew in all of our clothes, and Gregg ripped the crotches out of three pairs of waterproof pants while bushwhacking. We'd gone our separate ways for the offseason, me to bus tables and study chemistry in Chicago, Gregg to track wolverines on Nordic skis in Mongolia. Summer brought would see us meet again. I accepted his invitation to join the team at the last minute and flew up to Sitka on the 5th of July, with bits of corn on the cob still stuck in my teeth.

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            "We're all gonna get mercury poisoning on this trip," Gregg says as we prepare dinner. It's true that we are eating an inordinate amount of salmon, which have sadly been documented to bioaccumulate the toxic metal from the ocean. But deliciousness overwhelms concern about toxic exposure. We thought we would be too early to catch many fish, since their stream runs haven't really started. To our pleasant surprise the salmon that are massing up outside the estuaries are biting assertively. Gregg has a $20 spinning rod picked up in Sitka, and two of his Montana crew brought fly gear. Together they are slaying them. By day three we are accustomed to fire roasted pink salmon to go along with our little baggies of dehydrated soup mix. Pinks are not considered the best eating of the five species of Pacific salmon, but given our rustic situation they delight the palate and fortify the bones. Dolly Varden char and rockfish are also on the menu.

            I am mulling over how to suggest a change in our trip plan while we rattle the tinfoil and pots. I'm just a worker bee here, not looking to upset carefully coordinated plans. On the other hand, I am the only one who is working on this project for the third year, and I consider myself an expert in data collection logistics. And I don't want to move the camp.