20060629a Boys Will Be Boys With Their Toys

I do not fish. I never have, really. Well, I say never—perhaps a couple of times.

Once as a boy I remember our family fishing at a stream somewhere. I had been casting and reeling and casting and reeling to no avail. As I was reeling in what I had decided was to be my final cast, I felt resistance. Something was on the line! It was a fish alright.

As I reeled it in I was congratulating myself on my skill. Then, when the fish broke the surface, I realized that perhaps I was not the accomplished angler after all. I pulled in the line to discover that the first of only two fish I have landed in my lifetime had not taken the bait in its mouth but had been snagged in the eye.

Not being an angler, I feel a bit out of place here. My roommate has just finished work and it pulling on waders. He will be joining Greg and Pat and who knows what other of my colleagues standing in the cold water casting fly rods for salmon or trout. They will be out there with several visiting anglers who have paid hundreds if not thousands of dollars for the privilege.

Having been short, thin, nearly legally blind, and uncoordinated growing up, sports were never a huge part of my life. I did run and hike a bit, but that required only effort, not skill. Yeah, I shot a few hoops in my teen years and became a passable shooter. However, I was a perfect example of what they say white men cannot do, I’ll be darned if I could dribble without looking at the ball, and as for passing it between my legs—fugetaboutit!

I finally grew to 6 feet as a 17-year-old, I’ve put on quite a few pounds over the last few years, and surgery has corrected my vision—but nothing can change my lack of athleticism. Thus my toys are not baseballs and basketballs or rifles and fishing rods. My toys are computers and mp3 players and cameras and card readers.

Today Roy loaned me yet another plaything from his extensive toy box. This time it is an old Nikon Coolpix camera that he has rigged to be an infrared camera. Having been up late last night and arising relatively early this morning, I was hoping to take a nap in the rocking chair this afternoon. Instead, I experimented shooting what I could shoot from that chair. The effect resembles black and white but is not. Some light colored objects appear dark and vice versa. People appear ghastly. What fun! Peter Pan is alive and well and living in Brooks Camp.

20060629 Just Like That

Just like that the salmon are running and bears and people are all around. This is what we have trained for and we are all glad it has finally come. We can see schools of hundreds of sockeye salmon, also known as red salmon, in the Brooks River and we are told hundreds of thousands have been seen downstream in the Naknek River about 30 miles away.

Yesterday morning and this evening I took a few photos at the falls. Tonight I counted 8 or 9 different bears if cubs are ignored. Two yearling cubs watched from the shore as mama fished and two spring cubs dangled from a dead spruce.

Fishing techniques and success rates varied. A couple of smaller bears, I believe the same bears I watched play in the water yesterday, thrashed around below the 5-foot falls near the platform, lunging and circling without much success. After moving to the lip of the falls, each bear caught a fish after a few minutes effort. These smaller bears immediately ran into the woods with their prizes to avoid being robbed at toothpoint by a larger bear.

At a different spot further across the river and just below the falls, one of those larger bears, presumed male, never moved from his spot and caught fish after fish at will. He ate each fish without taking a step, confident that none of the other bears in the area posed a threat. As soon as he finished eating one fish he caught another, just like that.

20060626 Ranger Perquisites

While the 15’x20’ living space I share with Travis seems cramped, nobody and I mean nobody, has a bigger back yard. This would be one of the perquisites of life as a park ranger in Brooks Camp. Today I had the opportunity to view a part of that backyard from the air.

Katmai Air, the concessionaire here, offers one-hour sightseeing flights to the public for $138. In order that we might know the area better, once a season on a “blue-sky day” the park service pays for employees to go. Today was that day for Travis, myself, Niki, and Dan.

Up up and away on a 7-person Cessna, with Sean, the son of Katmai Air’s owner Sonny, as our pilot. We climbed to 7500 feet for the tour of Naknek Lake, the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, and volcanoes in the vicinity. We were able to see the valley road, the only road in an enormous park, along which the tourbus travels to the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. The plane gave us an eagle-eye view of the ash-filled valley, site of the largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century. We flew by Mt. Griggs, a volcano whose summit was shrouded in clouds on this day. We flew directly over the Mt. Katmai caldera and its lake half covered in ice, and alongside a steaming vent. The Baked Mountain research hut stands lonely on an ash-covered slope. The milky-blue waters of Naknek lake, colored by the sun's reflection off of fine suspended particles, looked fake, too good to be true. Enough. The photos speak for themselves.

The flight was one of several firsts on this day. I offered a guided hike to Brooks Falls for the first time, where a few bears have just begun fishing for the salmon that increase in number daily. At the falls I saw my first bear in the falls and my first bear catching a fish. I also saw my first spring cubs, up a tree while mama fished. Sorry, as I was working I shot only one picture from the falls platform. All in all a great day full of the perquisites extended to park rangers.

20060625 Hitting Stride

20060625 Hitting Stride

Non-anglers have been enjoying more satisfying stays in Brooks Camp of late. A few bears, generally sows with yearling or two-year-old cubs and sub-adult bears, have been visible in the area for several days, eating grass.

Egberta, a sow with a yearling cub, has taken a few leaps into the river usually in response to fish jumping. She will engage in snorkeling behavior, where she plunges her muzzle and eyes beneath the water’s surface to look for fish, carefully keeping her ears out of the water. These forays have been in vain thus far. I suspect these are not serious fishing efforts but rather scoping trips.

Egberta may have success soon as more and more salmon are seen each day. Travis Hall, my roommate, has seen a few salmon jumping at Brooks Falls.
Employees have staged an informal contest, the winner being the first to catch a sockeye. Imes Vaughn, one of our bear techs, emerged victorious two days ago.

I have had a small victory as well. Today marked the fourth time I have led the all-day tour of the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. We interpreters present at two interpretive stops along the 23-mile road to the site of the largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century. Upon reaching a cabin overlooking the valley we have another short talk from the deck before a lunch break. After lunch we lead visitors on a 3-mile out-and-back hike down to the valley and the ash. My interpretation for the entire day revolves around the powerful forces, some acting over many millennia and others instantly, that have shaped, are shaping, and will shape the Katmai landscape.

The group of twelve enjoyed the trip today, if I must say so myself and I have. During each of the three previous trips I have been moving painfully up the learning curve. I’ve made mental notes of needed changes, altering hike logistics as well as filling in the gaps in and generally improving the flow of information. While the program still needs work and will until it is perfect, today for the first time I felt that I was dialing in on where I want to be.

It would seem that Brooks Camp and I are finally hitting stride.

20060621 I Love My Jobs

20060621 I Love My Jobs

It has been my experience that many people romanticize about the job of park ranger. Visitors often declare, “You have the best job in the world! I would love to have your job.” They say this without first-hand knowledge of what the job entails. Like any other, the occupation of seasonal ranger naturalist with the National Park Service [NPS] has its ups and downs.

We have the opportunity to work and live in areas of scenic splendor, biological interest, and historical significance. We are paid to share these places with generally nice people on vacation. While not all rangers do, I choose those positions where I can live in a small, almost crime-free NPS community within the park and within easy walking distance from my workplace.

The tradeoffs we accept for wonderful working conditions often include rental housing that would kindly be described as rustic and more realistically as substandard. Also, seasonal rangers enjoy relatively low pay and no benefits. The old saying is that park rangers must be willing to accept at least some of their compensation in the form of sunrises and sunsets. This sounds wonderful, until the phone company calls complaining that the bill is overdue. “Can I send you half a sunset? Will that work?”

Most of the naturalist work in national parks is seasonal. For rangers like me who work summer and winter, we can be “fired” twice a year. This can be a double-edged sword.

Seasonal work means that we have the freedom to move from park to park every few months if the jobs are available and we are selected. We must apply for these positions along with sometimes hundreds of others in a game of musical chairs. Ongoing NPS budget woes mean each year chairs are removed. While we can be rehired noncompetitively to last year’s job, we cannot be sure that job will be funded this year. Thus, we are always looking for work.

This is the time of year I start looking for winter work, as my Everglades job may or may not be there come November. When I first started in 1997, a 14-page paper application was required to be submitted by an early July deadline. Seasonals could send applications to a maximum of two parks per season. Now we apply online to an unlimited number of parks.

Of course, the number of parks to which we can apply is limited by the number of parks offering positions. Law enforcement ranger positions tend to be much more plentiful than those for naturalists. As of today, the number of parks offering seasonal naturalist positions for the coming winter is….zero.

Still, make no mistake, I love my jobs.

20060622 Monkey See, Monkey Do

It is said that, given a room full of monkeys at keyboards, one of them would eventually type the Declaration of Independence. The right tools and sufficient opportunity can produce a masterpiece. Hmmm. I’m not so sure.

Every painter would like to be able to paint this. I’m not a painter but I could buy brushes and a palette and paints and find a blank wall somewhere. Still, even with all the time in the world I doubt I could reproduce the Last Supper. Something about talent. I would end up with something like this.

Photographers at every level come to Brooks Camp and would like to shoot this. Most lack the tools, opportunity and/or the talent, so we end up with this.

Roy has loaned me the tools, at least for the time being. I have three more months, long hours of daylight, and within a few days beaucoups bears. But even with tools and opportunity, can I produce a masterpiece like Mangelsen’s “Catch of the Day”? I’m not so sure. I’m afraid I’m not the right monkey.

20060619 Ho Hum

As can happen anywhere but especially in the remote places where I work, technology does not always cooperate. We’ve been without internet for some days here in Brooks Camp, hence the lack of blog posts. You didn’t miss much.

This time last year brown bears were fishing, fighting, and mating in some number here. This year, some say due to a cold spring season, the salmon run has not yet begun. Soooooo…not many bears in Brooks Camp. (Isn’t that horse already dead?)

This suits the many anglers just fine. They are here to catch-and-release fly fish for giant rainbow trout, not salmon. Moreover, the presence of bears just cramps their style. If a bear comes within 50 yards they must cease fishing. If an angler has a fish on the line when the bear approaches, the angler must break the line.

Visitors not here to fish are less enthused about the lack of bears. They paid considerable sums to get here expecting to see the bear concentration as depicted in some brochure or on some web site. For the past few days many have wandered all day, often in the rain, for a glimpse of a bear or two—if they are lucky. Mostly they seem bored.

They are not alone. Among other duties, we interpreters have been staffing two locations for several days now, often hours at a time. Our job is to keep anglers and pedestrians apprised of bear locations. Last year at this time we would have been busier than we wanted to be. This year, in twelve hours of this duty I have seen a grand total of three bears [please, no Goldilocks jokes]. Today the total was zero.

As a kid in faceless suburbia I would spend hours sitting at the curb in front of our one-of-identical-thousands crackerbox tract home letting my mind wander. One of my favorite pastimes was watching objects flow along with the gutter water. Many an unlucky pill bug was impressed into service as crew on a Popsicle-stick ship. I thrilled to hydrology, constructing grass and mud dams to force the water far out into the street. How long will it take that leaf, on a side trip spinning in an eddy, to finally be set free and continue its journey to the inevitable storm drain?

My mind can wander still. While I am supposed to be vigilant, scanning for bears, my mind takes side trips. At times today’s four-hour stint as sentinel degraded to self-portraits of ennui and last year’s bear scat.

The salmon will come. They always do. The bears will follow. They always do. Any day now I may wish for the quiet and solitude of the past few days, but for now it’s the spinning eddy. Ho hum.

20060615 One Big Problem

You have problems. I have problems. We all have problems. Some big, some small. For me it seems that while I may have multiple problems, one of them always looms foremost in my mind, depressing others into subordination in the battle for my attention. This problem may at times keep me awake at night, but I do have a talent attributed to males, that of compartmentalization. I keep the problems contained, stacked up like so many tart candies in a Pez dispenser. Tilt back my Mickey Mouse mind and that one big problem springs up in my conscience.

Eventually, one way or another, that one big problem dissolves on my tongue and its piquant disappearance puckers me with satisfaction (not difficult for an anal person). Problem is, the next problem in the stack has popped up to become my one big problem.

You have problems. I have problems. At least I know mine are orderly. I take comfort in that.

20060614 Focus

I have been focusing so much on training, studying, and developing programs that I have not taken the time to enjoy what Brooks Camp has to offer in the month that I have been here. Today I took my first day off in that time, not working one bit. I took the four mile hike up to the summit of Dumpling Mountain and took a few photos. The tundra is in full bloom! And not a bear in sight.

I hope that the visitors will not focus too much on the bears and, like me, ignore what else this area has to offer.

20060613 No Photo Finish

Note: you can click on the image for a larger version.

I've been taking a little kidding lately about the number of photos I have been taking and the subjects. All through training I snapped away at such things as the form authorizing us to carry pepper spray. The photos have come in handy for evening programs and not just my own. Sabrina is using some of the pepper spray photos for her program on bear/human interactions through the years, and may even be using the shot of the authorization form.

Everywhere I go here a point-and-shoot digital camera goes with me. A few other folks carry theirs as well. You just never know what you'll run into here and when. Take yesterday for example.

The Brooks River is all of a mile and a half in length. For the past several days interpreters have been staffing two key points along lower Brooks River: the lower platform and "the corner", a sharp bend in the path where it reaches the river a bit past the fish freezing building. The start of this assignment coincided with the opening of fishing season for rainbow trout. Each day since then it seems more anglers than the day before are standing in the shallow river wearing waders and casting fly rods.

One interpreter stands upon the lower platform and another at the corner. Our job is to keep a watch out for bears and alert the anglers in time for them to maintain the requisite 50 yards from an ambling brown bear. Since the start of fishing season we have felt like prison guards watching people fish. Bears have been seen in the vicinity of the lower river only a couple of times. Until yesterday. I saw three on my four hour shift.

The first two were well off and posed no threat to anyone nor anyone to them. The third was a different story. Bears commonly use the Naknek Lake beach as a travel corridor. They move south along the beach to "the point", turn right and wander along the north shore of the river. This is what bear number three did yesterday, when I was assigned to the corner.

Trees blocked my view of the bear but my colleague on the lower platform kept me apprised of its position. My supervisor was in the area and let me know that I might need move toward the bridge to notify some anglers of the approaching bear then "close the corner" and move out of the area.

I moved west along the path toward the anglers and shouted over the river noise to let them know that a bear was coming and for them to move away. I made a general radio announcement that the corner was closed and that I was moving toward the fish freezing building. Then I turned around to face the corner.

There was the bear, now at the corner where I had been standing and no more than 50 yards away. This was no gangly goofy subadult like we have been seeing for the past month. This bear was LARGE and round, surprisingly round for this early in their wakeful period. Woow!

This was the first time I had been forced to move by an approaching bear, not that the bear was after me. I just happened to be in his travel path. Still, a bit intimidating. Without delay I took a shortcut path to the fish freezing building, avoiding the corner. And guess what? No photo.