6_29_08

There is just way too much excitement here at Brooks Camp. I’m not sure where all my time is going. I’ve been working too hard and having too much fun!

A while ago, I gave my first bear orientation spiel and it just happened to be in German! I couldn’t believe how tired speaking German on and off during the day made me! It was good fun though. The five older German men were here only for only a day on their world trip in hopes that they would see a Grizzly Bear. Unfortunately for them they didn’t see a single bear, but fortunately for me, I seem to be bear repellent. Almost every time that I’m on duty to be bear look out the bears seem to disappear. I’ve only seen a bear once, a few weeks ago, while standing on the platform by the river and all he was doing was eating grass. I was happy with this encounter.

Then a few days later, we, the interpretive ranger staff, got to fly over part of the park to see what it’s like from the air. It was incredible! The weather had just been beautiful for a number of days and it made all the scenery look awesome. The best part of the flight was flying over the Mt. Katmai caldera and Novarupta. It was just so cool to see ground zero! It really put some things in perspective as well, the eruption site is massive! The Katmai caldera was so massive that I couldn’t take a picture of it all at once, even at 5,000ft.

I also gave my first evening program. It’s not the best evening program in the world, but it’s okay. I hope to brush it up a bit, give it a few times, and then create a whole new evening program. I think being able to track an animal is really cool, but it’s difficult tailoring the program to focus on why Katmai is so unique, without talking about bears for more than half the program. I’m not saying I dislike bears (all that much), but I just see them all the time; I don’t want to talk about them all the time as well. I think my next evening program will be about volcanoes. That seems to hold my interest a little better. I was really meant to do something with geology. I don’t know what it is with me and talking about rocks here at this park. I think the geology here is so awesome. Then again, apparently I’ve always liked rocks. Ha!

The other programs I do are alright. My cultural walk could use some help. I think it’s neat that Brooks Camp is considered a National Historical Landmark because of the number of archeological sites (There are over 900 of them!), but I want people to see that our culture isn’t so different from Alaskan culture and the way people lived over 2,000 years ago. As you can see though, I even have a hard time explaining what I want to do. I have no idea how I’m going to get in the information that I want to. How do I connect little depressions in the ground to the world as a whole? Anyhow it’s still kind of cool to think that people once lived in a home in that little depression about 2,000 years ago or so.

My favorite program by far is the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. Of course there I get to talk about geology and get out of camp… and maybe see a moose! We see way too many bears around here!!

Speaking of the bears though, they’ve really started to come out in force to eat the millions of sockeye salmon that are coming in. The people are starting to really come out as well. We have easily over 120 people a day now! I jump into that mess starting tomorrow. I hope I haven’t forgotten all my training!!

Like I said before, I’ve been having too much fun. Hopefully that hasn’t affected my memories from training too much. Today I went fishing with my friend from the lodge, Stephanie. We caught a HUGE (okay, medium) salmon and then spent the day cleaning it, cooking it and eating it! It was beautiful! I love fresh salmon! A week ago we had our Solstice party. Yay for the longest day of the year! It’s just too bad that the days are getting shorter now. We seem to have a lot of parties out here, both the lodge and the NPS staff. There’s a lot of food and drinks to go around… and movies to watch… and dancing to be done. A good time is had by all.

It is such a good time that it wears me out. It’s time for bed.

Send ice cream :-)