Top 10 Favorite Things About My Alaskan Adventure NUMBER 7 - Bruin Viewing!

For 21st Century bruin viewing, Fish Creek in the Tongass National Park is the place! People, particularly professional photographers, come from literally all over the world and stay sometimes all summer just waiting for bears to come and feast on the salmon here. The multi-million dollar viewing deck which extends approximately forty yards across the area and overlooks a surreal pond (see photo) is just a few years old. Can you imagine what the bears thought when they woke up that spring and came to their favorite pond? "What the heck....??" We were able to see a collection of amazing photos one of the photographers had taken there such as the one at the top of this blog entry. While we were there a sow black bear and her three cubs came for supper. Unfortunately they remained too aloof to get any good photos. We watched another large bruin carry off a salmon and saw several on the road near there. Fish Creek is at Hyder, AK, just next to Steward, BC - that charming town I mentioned earlier. If you go there, don't forget your rain gear! Some areas of this rain Forrest get up to 16 FEET of rain a year!






This Stone Ram, was more than happy to pose for us!



Everyone looks forward to seeing lots of wildlife in Alaska and we saw our share! Here's the count:

13 Bears - 12 Black, 1 Brown (Alaskan Grizzly)
11 MOOSE
1 Wolf
Buffalo
Stone Sheep
Dall Sheep
Mountain Goats
Elk
Deer
Caribou
Seal pups
River Otters
Sea Otters
Marmot



Unfortunately, most of these animals are a little camera shy and when you see them, they give you little chance to get your camera in focus so I don't have much proof of the great "BRUIN VIEWING". At Eagle River we spotted a large black bear on an outcropping on a mountain. We watched him for a long time. We watched a brown (grizzly bear) as he meandered several moments about thirty yards in front of us. Phil had a black bear join him while salmon fishing.

I'm including a few photos I did get. One critter that is not the least bit camera shy are sea otters!

Of course we saw umpteen fish, dead and alive. Salmon are quite entertaining! Watching them put on aquatic acrobatic shows while sitting at the beach in Seward was really fun!

Feathered friends included:

Bald Eagles
Trumpeter Swans
Great Horned Owls
Puffins
Sand Hill Crane
Scrub Jays
Belted King Fishers




My bald eagle picture was taken from our camp/parking site in Seward.

OK. IF YOU REALLY WANT GREAT PICTURES AND STORIES ABOUT ANIMALS, TUNE INTO MY DAUGHTER-IN-LAW'S BLOG: "Alaskan Adventures and Polar oids" at www.teakells.blogspot.com AND watch for the photos of the two "courting moose" taken from her dining room window in Kenai!!!