Fun in the... snow?

06_08_08

Another week has come to an end and I’ve realized that this last month has gone by incredibly fast. I’m still amazed that out here there is enough to do to keep busy. Although, I suppose my job is made up of a lot of standing around looking out for bears. I think this past week I must have spent about 15 hours standing on a platform looking for bears. Supposedly by mid-July we’ll be spending 20 to 25 hours a week standing on a platform.

We do this because there is a rule that states that visitors must be at least 50 yards away from a bear at any given time and we have to keep an eye on areas where there is a high concentration of bears and people. Now, we do the 50 yard rule for a few reasons; to give the bears some room and give people reaction time if a bear does charge. According to our bear orientation video, a bear can run 50 yards in three seconds. That is way fast! It’s starting to get very exciting around here with more and more bears starting to frequent the river.

The other thing that is frequenting the river is fisherman. The sport fishing season started last night at midnight. I couldn’t believe that there were people out there last night fishing. I guess I don’t really understand sport fishing either though. If I’m fishing, I’m fishing to eat the fish not to release the fish once I’ve caught them. The Brooks River at the moment is a catch and release only river. It is weird to me that fisherman would spend all this time and money to come out here to not eat any of their fish. It’s expensive to come here for even just a few days. Crazy. Even if they were to catch a fish to eat, they wouldn’t be able to eat it until they got home. People can’t eat or cook food (except in designated eating areas) or clean fish within a mile and a half from Brooks Camp because we don’t want to temp the bears. I haven’t asked the law enforcement how much a ticket is for not paying attention to that rule, but I can imagine it’s not cheap. I’m glad that employees can clean and cook fish in their cabins. I wouldn’t clean or cook fish in my tent frame cabin considering the walls are made of tarp, but I go over to one of the bear tech’s cabin to have fish. It’s super yum!

Speaking of super yum, we’ve been having a lot of pot lucks. It’s amazing what people come up with, and what dishes can actually taste good. I make a mean corn and tomato casserole apparently. Thank you www.cooks.com! My roommate made a beautiful pancake volcano for the last pot luck we had. It was basically a pancake with Nutella on it followed by a pancake with raspberry jam on it… all stacked with the biggest pancake on the bottom and the smallest pancake on the top. It was interesting… but good. Why was she making a volcano you ask? Well, because it was the 96th anniversary of the eruption of Novarupta on the 6th. That’s right we were having a Novarupta birthday pot-luck. For those of you that don’t know, Novarupta is why this park was first created as a national monument. The eruption was the largest of the 20th century. At the time of the eruption there were 3 days where the people of Kodiak could hold a lantern out in front of them at arm’s length and not see any light from it. The eruption was said to be 10 times bigger than the Mt. Saint Helens eruption. If the eruption had occurred in New York City, it would have covered Chicago in over 2 inches of ash. The 1912 eruption was said to lower the temperature of the Northern Hemisphere by 2 degrees that year. The left over ash is incredible to see! So as you can tell, I’m a bit fascinated with the volcano. It works for me.

Another fascination here at Brooks Camp at the moment is the weather. We have been having insane weather! A few days while I was standing on the platform it was raining, when all of a sudden it got really cold and started to snow. For the rest of the day it snowed on and off. It’s June, why is it snowing?? Then the next day, my colleague was standing on the platform and a lighting storm began. It was a decent size lighting storm as well. I couldn’t believe how close the lighting strikes were. I’m glad that my boss told my colleague to go home. No one should be out in weather like that. Today however is very nice and sunny, and there are lots o’ bears!

Well, I suppose I should get going. I need to finish up my evening program, because I give it on Monday and I’m not at all ready for it. I think that maybe I should have done a program on volcanoes instead of tracks and scat. We’ll see how it goes. I may have to change my topic. I also have my cultural walk on Tuesday. All I have to say about that is, I’m glad I have an archeologist as a roommate.

I hope all is well with everyone on the outside (not that this place is a jail… far from it, but there really is no way out of here unless you have a plane). :) I’m missing you all heaps!

Much love and hugs!!