Snettisham 2013 - 4: Basics
June 7-9

View from the waterfall looking upriver

Darren was about to leave town until August, so I took advantage of a free weekend to show him the homestead. We were lucky with the weather, phenomenal from start to finish. We left the harbor, beers in hand, at 5:50 and rode on nothing but ripples all the way south. The sky was mostly clear, Devil’s Paw brilliant above the Taku contrasting with dramatic rainshowers in sheets over Admiralty. We saw a group of Dall’s porpoise off Taku Harbor, but Stephen’s Passage was otherwise quiet until we pulled inside the port. A rainbow arching in from Point Amner suggested the rain shower we soon encountered while passing by one or two whales and hundreds of Pacific loons just inside. The evening was getting on and the rain dense, so we didn’t linger long, landing at the homestead just after low tide. I haven’t managed a high tide landing yet this summer, but this was the best timing yet, as the low tide was high and rising. I dropped off Darren with the gear, grabbed the kayak, and anchored out in the middle of the river. After lighting a fire to take off the chill, we toured the property, ate Subway sandwiches for dinner on the porch, and chatted inside for a while before bed. We had a good look at a mink standing on the beach and a bat passed in front of the window several times.

The next morning I slept in until 9:30 and Darren beat me to the lodge. The day was high overcast but warm, and we decided to wander downriver in the general direction of the eagle’s nest and a possible crow colony. Barefeet since we landed, we strolled along the beach, climbed up to the cliff waterfall and from there along the mountainside below the cliffs, discovering little caves hidden by devil’s club and alders. When we ran out of dirt below the cliffs and the ground steepened even further, we carefully made our way down a scree slope grown up with alders and elderberries to the beach where we say on a flat rock and listened for crow activity nearby. The shallows were alive with fry rising to the surface and Cailey waded in, cocking her head from side to side to watch them. Before long I heard begging crow calls and watched an adult land in a tree above us and disappear into some nearby branches followed by the distinct gurgling sounds of a baby crow being fed. The trees were scraggly spruces growing above the cliffs, a difficult place to reach from the beach, but at least my crow nest suspicions were more or less confirmed! I then walked around the point under the eagle’s nest and heard another young crow being fed on that side, so either there is a colony or the nestlings have fledged and spread out. A crow perched on a branch overhanging the beach next to the eagle’s nest and appeared to be on sentry duty.

The tide was too high to see the eagle’s nest from the beach, so we thought we’d try to climb underneath it. We think we could have made it up the cliff and into the steep forest above, but it would have been awkward for Cailey to follow, so we abandoned the effort. On the way down I spotted a white grub on the bare rocks and carefully placed it onto better habitat on some soft dirt nearby. Then Darren pointed out that Cailey was munching on something….which turned out to be a piece of fish (undoubtedly fallen from the nest) with some white maggots writhing around on it….one of which I’d apparently just moved to safer ground. I was a bit put off by that, but there’s no harm for Cailey, and she choked it down.

By the time we wandered back to the lodge it was time for lunch. Darren started working on a bow drill made from alder and I made quesadillas which we ate in the sunshine on the porch. The overcast sky was blowing apart, relinquishing its hold to increasingly long stretches of sunshine. That afternoon Darren made good progress on the bow drill and we threw sticks in the river for Cailey. I harvested the stalk of a devil’s club plant overhanging the path to the water source and made tea by scraping off the spines and outer bark and boiling the inner green bark. It was too weak the first time, so I went back and doubled the amount, and it still could have used more (or steeped longer), but it was pleasant and tangy, and a good experiment.

I made salmon alfredo for dinner and finally harvested a few stalks of rhubarb for the first time since I planted it there two summers ago, making a small rhubarb crumble using plain instant oatmeal (with cinnamon) and brown sugar for the topping. We experimented with combinations of red wine and vodka, with mixed results.

Mountain goat Cailey	Waterfall	Cliff cave protected by devil's club
Up on the cliffs	Snake liverwort in a cave	Cailey snacking below the eagle's nest

The next morning saw a negative tide at 8:30, so we took off for a low tide walk upriver shortly after, first swinging by the boat to pull the plug and drain the bilge. The float switch on the bilge pump system had ceased functioning the week before, having become so gummed up that it wouldn’t move; I hadn’t had time to fix it, so I took that opportunity to get most of the water out, though the tide came in so fast I had to replace the plug prematurely. While we waited for the boat to drain, Darren taught me a little about pressure releases using our footprints in the sand.

With the tide rising behind us, we wandered upriver, soon spotting a rusty brown bear close to the forest at the grassy point. As we slowly meandered upriver (keeping as far away from her as we could on the sandbars by wading through icy, shallow river channels), she relaxed and laid down facing us, drooping her paws over a rock. She watched us but we snuck by without disturbing her. When we were somewhat upriver of the grassy point, she came out and started grazing. We continued up until the sandbars met the rocky shore and there was only river beyond. Cailey chased spotted sandpipers feeding in the shallows and Darren found a deep pool inhabited by hundreds of tiny fry.

By that time the tide had brought the river right to the tip of the grassy point and our beautiful brown bear was still in the grass feeding, though closer to the forest. We approached slowly and she raised up on her hind legs to see us better (we were downwind, so it was good that she saw us). Her enormous wooly head was impressive and we were close enough to see her eyes clearly with binoculars, the only time I was unnerved by the encounter. As far as I can tell, she never looked at us again but continued grazing while we passed over the point and continued downriver, distracting Cailey with sticks. The very last of the sandy beach was getting flooded as we returned and we walked back over the property in the woods.

The bear encounter slowed us down and it was already after noon when we returned. I did the dishes and tidied up while Darren cleaned and packed up his cabin. We had a picnic lunch on the porch before I headed out for the boat with Cailey, finding a troubling amount of water in the boat considering I’d nearly drained it a few hours earlier. I picked up Darren and the gear and we took off in the sunshine, concerned about the stiff breeze blowing in off Gilbert Bay and the sunny skies (which generally come by way of northerlies and westerlies). We passed the sea lion haulout, which still harbored a few dozen individuals, then hugged the coast in an attempt to ride in the lee of Mist Island. There was certainly a westerly crossing Stephen’s Passage when we emerged, but it was tolerable. I’d forgotten Cailey’s boat blanket, so she curled up on lifejackets against the back bench. For once my predictions were right and the seas were better between Taku Harbor and Point Arden, but crossing to Douglas was rough (3-4’ seas) and the chop in the channel arduous. But it was hard to argue with such a beautiful day!

Relaxing brown bear	Fresh tracks	Fresh tracks
Fry in a tidepool	Canine tracks	Fresh tracks

On the way home