SW ALASKA : KATMAI NATIONAL PARK & PRIBILOF ISLANDS 1984

Katmai National Park and Preserve in SW Alaska is known for its abundance of brown bear that feed on the annual sockeye salmon runs, and its valley of 10,000 smokes, an area of active vulcanism. The area is located in southwestern Alaska on the Alaska Peninsula across from Kodiak Island, with headquarters in nearby King Salmon, about 290 miles (470 km) southwest of Anchorage. The park is named after Mount Katmai a large stratovolcano. and includes 6,395.43 sq mi ( 16,564.09 km2) of spruce forest and lakes, with 6,128.12 sq mi (15,871.77 km2) designated a wilderness area where hunting is banned. The park The area was first designated a national monument in 1918 to protect the area around the major 1912 volcanic eruption of Novarupta, which formed the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, a 40-square-mile (100 km2), 100-700-foot-deep (30 to 213 m) pyroclastic flow. The park includes as many as 18 individual volcanoes, seven of which have been active since 1900, and well known sockey salmon runs that attract a large population of brown bear, from McNeil River in the north to Brooks falls in the mid area.

Katmai contains the world's largest protected brown bear population, estimated to number about 2,200. Bears are especially likely to congregate at the Brooks Falls viewing platform when the salmon adults come to spawn in the river. The salmon arrive early at Brooks Falls compared to other streams, and between 43 and 70 individual bears have been documented at the falls in July and an equal number of bears are seen in the lower river in September. The coastal areas such as Hallo Bay, Kukak Bay, Kuliak Bay, Kaflia Bay, Geographic Harbor and Chiniak Bay also host very high population densities of bears year-round, due to the availability of clams and edible coastal sedge as well as salmon and other fish.

My only visit to Katmai was working as a Naturalist guide leading a tour group to Alaska in 1985. We stayed at the famous Brooks Lodge located at the edge of Naknek Lake, visited the valley of 10,000 smokes by bus, then canoed and explored with beautiful views of Mt Katmai and Mt Griggs. We visited Brooks falls for three days whe the sockeye run was at its peak. It was amazing to see bears positioning themselves according to dominance on the river at the base of the falls. Dominant bears got the best fishing spots, and younger bears would keep their distance. Fishing techniques varied. Younger bears just plunged into the river at the edge and scattered fish, trying to catch one with a paw, or jaws. Others fished with submerged heads. The dominant huge bears were at the base of the falls, sitting, and if a sockeye bumped into their foreleg or paw, the bent over to dispatch it quickly, strip if of eggs if a female, and discard the rest to float downstream to gulls and younger bears. Even wolves showed up to fish as well. That same year I visited the Pribilof Islands, which is reached with great difficulty from a PenAir twin prop plane that had a huge metal patch where a prop had been thrown into the passenger section several years back. The first several hour trip we had to turn back as we could not land with Fog. Three days later the weather cleared enough to land at both St George and St Paul island. Here there are amazing rookeries of Alcids, one of the largest rookeries in the world of northern fur seals, and colonies of tufted and horned puffins, , guillemonts, thick-billed murres, dovekies, and red-legged kittiwakes.

Mt katmai, one of the still active volcanoes in Katmai National Park and Preserve

Active Volcanoes katmai: valley of ten thousand smokes, bottom pyroclastic flow, transportation to Naknek Lake

Bottom: wolves on the lower river, Alaskan brown bear juvenile

Sockeye at Brook falls, Sockeye pooled at the entrance of Brooks River to Naknek lake, Common mergansers

St George island, Pribilofs

Tufted puffin

Horned puffin

Above: horned puffin, tufted puffin, double crested auklet, dovekies, thick billed murres, red-legged kittiwakes