By Janelle Eklund

​It was fun to watch the teenage bears who were still trying to perfect the fine art of securing a meal. These bears are often on their own and it's tough trying to make a living after just being booted out of the nest, so to speak. They expend a lot of energy chasing, jumping, splashing, and pouncing. Once in awhile they might be successful. One salmon was making a fast run for its life, its dorsal fin streaming halfway out of the water. The bear was in hot pursuit, totally focused, chasing it up on the bank, literally at our feet. Beyond the sound of splashing water you could hear hundreds of click, click, click, click.... 15 camera shutters desperately trying to catch the action. At this point it was impossible for the bear not to see us. He just looked at us as if to say 'Oh' and turned away continuing in the hot pursuit of salmon.
 
After filling the belly the running and pouncing looked to become a game of comedies. As soon as one salmon was caught, movement of another escaping salmon caught the bear’s eye. The one in the claws was immediately dropped for the glory of the chase of another.
 
The best part of the salmon is the skin, rich in fat, and bears are very adept at using their claws and teeth to strip it perfectly from the bodies, as easy as peeling a banana. I couldn't do as good a job. Gulls continually scream at the bears - give me some!! -give me some!! Bears are generous and leave plenty but you would think the gulls are getting a raw deal the way their high pitched screams don't let up. Part of it too is fending off other gulls. Greed seems to get the best of them. Bald Eagles also take their turn at securing a good meal amongst the frenzy.
 
While mom fished, cub twins played at boxing, rolling, and chasing, oblivious to where we stood on the viewing platform, very near, clicking away. They interrupted their play momentarily, as they walked within a few feet of the platform eyeing us gawking at them. We must have looked and sounded like weird creatures to them: five legs (two of our own and three on the tripod), a very long big nose (lens), and communicating with very strange clicking sounds. Mom was in the background contemplating which salmon to pounce upon, ignoring the play and weird creatures.
 
At some point mom takes a break, lays on her back, and lets her cubs nurse salmon enriched milk. Once bellies are full families of bears lounge along the sandy banks, basking in the satisfaction of a good days work. Long naps are only interrupted to stretch or put a leg around a loved one.
 
The salmon run was prolific, bears were rewarded with fat for the long winter, and photographers went home happy, cameras full of 'clicked' images of the great finale of the season.
 
From my light to yours-

By Janelle Eklund

​As we crossed high above the inlet, giant mountains loomed ahead. The plane veered to parallel them where we flew over foothill mountains rising in undulating geologic patterns of time. Meadows of green swept the tops of these rocky giants. Out the other window mountains in Lake Clark National Park rose higher, dressed in perpetual white, spilling tongues of glaciers carving new pathways. The view was breathtaking.
 
The plane descended over bear camp, with canvas colored weather port tubes arranged in a V shape. Bypassing camp we circled around to land on the beach of the bay in front of camp and home for the next few days. The guides greeted us and helped bring our luggage inside the electric fence that surrounded camp.
 
The purpose of the group of professional photographers we were with was to capture images of bears fishing for meals that would sustain them through the coming winter. For the safety of all, the camp had strict rules: no food or toiletries in your room (there was a cooler in the dining tent for that - where all meals were provided by the camp); no going outside the electric fence without a guide. A schedule for bear viewing was set up to accommodate the guests. Three places were designated for viewing: one at the mouth of the river, one at a double decker platform behind camp on the river, and one down the beach upstream of the platform. The guides kept tabs on where the bears were feeding so we had the best opportunities for great pictures. Another rule was to stay in the group at all times when outside the fence. Separating any distance from the group was a no-no. Staying in a group makes you look big and bears usually stay away from anything that looks bigger than them. The guide(s) carried protection but has never had to use it.
 
These bears have one thing in mind during the salmon run - salmon. It was almost like we didn't even exist in their presence. They seem to have personalities that fit the description of their age. Older boar bears have fine tuned the knack of catching almost every fish they lunge after. Momma bears are also pretty adept - they have to be as they are feeding up to three or four mouths at a time. Their act of acquiring food doubles as teaching techniques for the youngsters so they can eventually fend for themselves. Like any youngster, cubs watch momma and try to mimic her techniques. But when they are hungry they just dive in on mom's catch and fill their bellies.
 
Stay tuned next week for the continuing story of Bear Camp with tales of exciting moments.
 
From my light to yours-

By Janelle Eklund

​Autumn had descended upon the land. We wandered out of the Copper Basin to experience the joys of this season on the Kenai Peninsula at Cooper Landing. Our friends and their cozy new cabin at the base of a tall mountainous hill welcomed us. A walk in the brisk air along the Russian River piqued the senses. In the summer this river is teeming with salmon on their journey to reach their birth place. And the banks of the river are teeming shoulder to shoulder with fisherman doing their best to catch their limit of salmon.
 
On this day the fisherman were gone and hundreds of dead salmon lay on their death beds along the shore where fisherman once stood. These salmon reached their goal and completed their task of laying and fertilizing eggs for the next generation. They dodged around commercial fishing nets as they made their journey from ocean waters; they missed entrapments of those subsistence fishing; they snuck past the gauntlet of sport fisherman along the river; they alluded hungry bears, eagles and other wildlife. I applaud their stamina and determination.
 
The stench of their decomposing bodies wafted through the crisp autumn air. Eagles sat in trees still ready to feast on left-overs. Salmon are very interesting creatures. Even in death they continue to contribute to the cycle of life. Not only do they feed wildlife and humans in life, but in death their decaying bodies feed plants through their nourishment of the soil. Maggots and other insects join in the feast of the year.
 
Brown and gold leaves mimicked the salmon in their death beds, as they lay together to finish the job of making new enriched soil.
 
The open graves that lay at our feet blended into the entire scene of a river winding gracefully through a golden and green forest, back dropped by sun washed snow peaked mountains.
 
Splashes of red rose leaves against dark grey boulders. A pile of rich red high bush cranberries that went clean through a bears system. Turquoise water flowing below canyon walls.
 
Ponds wearing a golden necklace of leaves. Plump white swans with elegant long necks disappearing under pond water - tail feathered butts rising toward the sky. Necks emerge -intertwine in love shapes.
 
 Large wet snow flakes resting on brilliant colors, melting into giant water drops. A game of catching them on the tongue ensued. A chill in the air announced the inevitable entrance of winter. Swans lift for take-off - giant white wings flap up and down trailing water, necks in line - destination - south.
 
From my light to yours-

By Janelle Eklund
​It was one of those nice summer days - it had to be nice - we were at Silver Lake! My daily walk down the road always graces me with something new and beautiful. On this one particular day on the McCarthy road I had the pleasure of meeting Platanthera hyperborea, or the common name, green-flowered bog orchid. The common name surly got it right. Everything on this plant is green in one shade or another. I found it living in a wet area near a trailhead.
 
Leaves that are longer than they are wide hug the stem starting at the base. As they climb the stem they get smaller and smaller until they become bracts of the little flowerets - looking like a small filler in a beautiful bouquet. Each little floweret appears to be sticking out a long green yellow tongue. Two horn like petals of the same shade curve toward the center of the floweret. The cap has a light green visor that shades whitish green eyes, or anthers, lurking inside. The two petals that form its turned back floppy appearing ears are about the same color as the light green cap. The scientific name, hyperborea means 'of the far north'.
 
I have found no mention of any medicinal or edible qualities of Green-Flowered Bog Orchid. Beauty is its main quality. It was a delight and wonder to meet this jewel of a stately orchid growing in the far north.
 
From my light to yours-
 
References: Plants of the Western Boreal Forest & Aspen Parkland by Johnson, Kershaw, MacKinnon, Pojar

By Janelle Eklund
​It was October 1. A clear blue sky and bright sun looked down on a cold crisp landscape. The 20 degree chill of the night stilled puddles and lakes in a layer of thin ice. Previous cold nights loosened the leaves on trees. When a fierce relentless wind blew for a couple days it released the leaves to their deathbed on the ground. There they will nourish the tree or bush it was born from, giving it life to continue the cycle.
 
My hiking companion and I donned rubber boots and warm clothes for an invigorating trek in the cool woods. Colorful leaves floated in suspended animation in frozen pockets of water where the light of the sun splashed them with golden hues. Ice shapes formed whitish wavy patterns. We moved through a well trodden icy wet four-wheeler trail anxious to meet higher dryer ground. After a couple of hours of wading through a drunken black spruce forest the aspen grove was a welcoming sight. The trail meandered through white barked stately trees, gnarly growths decorating some of their trunks. Above the trees a three-quarter moon hung in the blue sky like a genuine pearl.
 
Wind had released some aspen trees of their firm grip to the ground. Their trunks lay like benches on the forest floor. We took our seat on one in the sun where we basked in its light and had a bite to eat. It was the perfect setting to linger, nourish our bodies and souls, and contemplate where we were in that moment in time. The afternoon air was a little warmer on our return trek. The slightly frozen mossy tundra beneath our feet gave way just a little more as the diminished warmth of the sun tried its best to thaw the icy grip.
 
Fall days are lingering with nights in the 20°'s or 30°'s and days in the upper 30°'s to 40°'s. There was a slight inkling of snow with a dusting one morning in early October that vanished almost as soon as it appeared. My thoughts wandered to visions of planting something in the greenhouse - hah - not really warm enough but never the less these warm October days play with the mind! Actually, there is something green emerging from the bin - I think it's an onion! As the sun disappears earlier each day it brings the mind back to reality - very little light - very little growth. OK, too early for planting already!
 
Snow seems shy this year but today, October 16, we got our first real dump, even if it is heavy wet snow and part of it came down as rain. With a temperature of 32°F it can make for messy road conditions so be careful as we fall in winter - pun intended.
 
From my light to yours-

Copper River Record
By Janelle Eklund
​It was October 1. A clear blue sky and bright sun looked down on a cold crisp landscape. The 20 degree chill of the night stilled puddles and lakes in a layer of thin ice. Previous cold nights loosened the leaves on trees. When a fierce relentless wind blew for a couple days it released the leaves to their deathbed on the ground. There they will nourish the tree or bush it was born from, giving it life to continue the cycle.
 
My hiking companion and I donned rubber boots and warm clothes for an invigorating trek in the cool woods. Colorful leaves floated in suspended animation in frozen pockets of water where the light of the sun splashed them with golden hues. Ice shapes formed whitish wavy patterns. We moved through a well trodden icy wet four-wheeler trail anxious to meet higher dryer ground. After a couple of hours of wading through a drunken black spruce forest the aspen grove was a welcoming sight. The trail meandered through white barked stately trees, gnarly growths decorating some of their trunks. Above the trees a three-quarter moon hung in the blue sky like a genuine pearl.
 
Wind had released some aspen trees of their firm grip to the ground. Their trunks lay like benches on the forest floor. We took our seat on one in the sun where we basked in its light and had a bite to eat. It was the perfect setting to linger, nourish our bodies and souls, and contemplate where we were in that moment in time. The afternoon air was a little warmer on our return trek. The slightly frozen mossy tundra beneath our feet gave way just a little more as the diminished warmth of the sun tried its best to thaw the icy grip.
 
Fall days are lingering with nights in the 20°'s or 30°'s and days in the upper 30°'s to 40°'s. There was a slight inkling of snow with a dusting one morning in early October that vanished almost as soon as it appeared. My thoughts wandered to visions of planting something in the greenhouse - hah - not really warm enough but never the less these warm October days play with the mind! Actually, there is something green emerging from the bin - I think it's an onion! As the sun disappears earlier each day it brings the mind back to reality - very little light - very little growth. OK, too early for planting already!
 
Snow seems shy this year but today, October 16, we got our first real dump, even if it is heavy wet snow and part of it came down as rain. With a temperature of 32°F it can make for messy road conditions so be careful as we fall in winter - pun intended.
 
From my light to yours-

Copper River Record  October 2015
By Robin Mayo
I am thigh-deep in a beaver swamp on a chilly September morning, glad for thick fleece under my chest waders.  The arrow on the GPS pointed us here, to a waypoint we marked yesterday afternoon amidst the maze of ponds, channels, muskeg, and willow.  A strip of orange surveyor’s tape helps locate a cord tied to the bushes on an overgrown beaver dam.  We pull up the cord, and the wire mesh minnow trap at the end has to break through thin shards of ice as it surfaces.
A telltale vibration of the minnow trap is our first indication that something is alive inside.  Many of our traps this morning have held juvenile dolly varden, immediately recognizable by their speckled backs.  But in this trap we see a tiny flash of silver, and our hopes rise.  We are hoping to find salmon fry in this previously unsampled location, the first step in the process of adding new waters to the State of Alaska Anadromous Waters Catalog.
For the past several years, WISE has been helping the Copper River Watershed Project (CRWP) with their “Salmon Blitz” program.  With the help of grants from Wells Fargo via the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the North Pacific Research Board, we are exploring previously undocumented streams all over the Copper River Watershed, hoping to find baby salmon at home.
This location is near mile 64 of the Richardson Highway, a large spread of new and old beaver projects near the headwaters of the Little Tonsina River.  The highest previous sample point is several miles downstream, so we are wading into new territory.
To choose sample sites for Salmon Blitz, the first step is the online State of Alaska Anadromous Waters Catalog, available to the public via the Alaska Department of Fish and Game website.  Orange squares mark sampling extents, and we look for streams that have likely-looking habitat upstream which have not been sampled.   Google Earth and ownership databases are consulted, owners or land managers are contacted for permission, and we try to find practical access to the site.
The fun begins when we explore the site on foot and start setting traps.  Whenever possible, we bring along students or volunteers to expand the reach of this Citizen Science project.  Operating with a permit from ADF&G, we bait the trap with salmon eggs which have been treated to avoid spreading disease.  After soaking overnight, the traps are pulled and their occupants identified, measured, photographed, and released.  We also collect observations and measurements of many different aspects of the habitat, and take photographs.
This fall’s Salmon Blitz activities identified juvenile coho salmon in two new locations:  The beaver complex on the upper Little Tonsina, and Squirrel Creek above the pipeline crossing.  Kenny Lake School middle school students accompanied us on the second exploration, bringing enthusiasm and great attitudes to a challenging piece of terrain. We scrambled through alder hells, willow thickets, and mazes of downed spruce trees, and wading in the creek was no easier, with slippery rocks and swift current.  More data will be collected before the locations are submitted to ADF&G for inclusion in the statewide database.
Although we collect data on all life stages found, this study is focusing especially on what is called “rearing habitat,” the areas where the salmon fry live in the several years between hatching and migrating downstream to the ocean.  As we study, we are learning that juvenile salmon travel widely throughout systems during their young lives, and rearing habitat can be very different from what we think of as spawning habitat.  All of it reinforces our belief that “it takes a whole watershed to raise a salmon.”
Salmon Blitz will continue in 2016 with school field trips and volunteer opportunities all over the Copper River Watershed.  Please contact WISE at 822-3575, or CRWP at 424-3334 if you would like to get involved.

​Kenny Lake Middle School students take a width measurement on Squirrel Creek.  CRWP Photo

By Janelle Eklund
Lousewort dots the high tundra in the Copper River Basin dressed in different forms and beautiful hues. In this miniature plant kingdom Pedicularis labradorica's small clusters of yellow flowers sit like pinwheels on scattered branches. Whereas Pedicularis langsdorffii wears a full embodied regal dress in pink hues from top to bottom on a single stem.
 
Tiny toothed hairy leaves resembling ferns sit across from each other along the stem(s). On Pedicularis langsdorffii the white hairs on the leaves are thicker than those of Pedicularis labradorica - somewhat wooly - making them appear to be tightly nestled between the flowerets.
 
Each small floweret on Lousewort has a convenient wide landing surface for bees. An elegant colorful helmet acts as a roof over the landing platform. On Pedicularis langsdorffii the landing platform is a light pink with a darker pink helmet. Once a bee lands it is lured into a bright cavern with a dreamy like entrance. Inside, bees are awarded treasures of nectar.
 
Pedicularis is a parasitic plant. Its roots are modified to connect to the conductive system of another plants roots providing it with water and nutrients.
 
I looked extensively to find out where the common name, Lousewort, came from and could only find on Wikipedia that it "derives from an old belief that these plants, when ingested, were responsible for lice infestations in stock".
 
In past tundra wanderings I have met woolly lousewort (Pedicularis lanata), whose dress is much like Pedicularis langsdorffii with its floweret's covering the stem, but the leaves are surrounded by an even thicker wooly white hair like netting. Thus, its common name, Wooly Lousewort. Pedicularis lanata has a robust lemon colored taproot that can be quite long. This beautiful root has a sweet nutty flavor. Pedcularis langsdorffii roots are similar but paler and more branching. Both of these plant roots are edible and the Inuvialuit people of northern Canada utilize them for food, cooked or raw. The somewhat sweet blossoms of Pedicularis lanata are edible raw, as well as the leaves and stems.
 
The thick hairs on Louseworts hug the stem and act like insulation to protect it from the cold and wind, and help the plant to stay moist. In the cool days of spring, before the flowers emerge, they are protected by this wooly blanket. Once summer brings its warm breath the flowers break through the blanket of wool announcing their glorious splendor. Like wool on a sheep, the hairs have the ability to trap warm air so the plant can survive the harsh conditions of the north.
 
Look closely at plants and they will tell you the secrets of adapting to and surviving the rigors of a challenging environment.
 
From my light to yours-
 
References: http://www.nps.gov/bela/learn/nature/wildflowers.htm; https://en.wikipedia.org; www.flora.dempstercountry.org; www.nature.ca/aaflora; Inuvialuit Nautchiangit, by Inufialuit elders with Robert W. Bandringa.
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