20060725 Y Not Laf

Last evening these two large male bears occupied positions side by side at Brooks Falls, attempting to catch leaping fish. These bears must be careful about lunging too far one side or the other for a fish, as in doing so they may slip and tumble the five feet over the falls. Not a particularly dangerous fall, but in the macho world of big boars it would not look good. I can just hear any bear making that mistake announcing to the other bears, “I meant to do that…really!”

The bear on the left caught fish after fish for an hour and one half. This bear seemed to have the perfect spot. The fish jumped almost into his mouth.

The bear on the right, though only two or three feet away, had no luck. Though fish jumped all around him, none jumped close enough for him to grab.

Each time the bear on the left would catch a fish, he would move off several feet to the left for five minutes or so to eat it. This left his fishing spot open. Oddly, the bear on the right remained loyal to his own spot. Even though the much better spot three feet away was vacant with fish jumping, the hungry bear would not take it.

I got to thinking about this bear. “What a dummy you are! Just move a couple of feet and you’ll be in the primo spot! That other bear is busy eating a fish, too busy to pay any attention to you. Now’s your chance, knucklehead, go for it!! What is wrong with you?” Then I got to thinking about me.

At the moment Brooks Camp residents are requested to minimize wastewater. Our wastewater holding tanks are full and the leach field is failing due to rainy conditions and many many visitors. We are asked not to wash clothing, not to take showers, to allow dishes to pile up before washing them, and, oh yes, “if it’s yellow, let it mellow.”

Twice in the last hour I have needed to relieve myself of bodily waste, the kind that men can usually eliminate while remaining standing. I have walked into the bathroom thinking, “Remember, do not flush.” Twenty seconds later I mindlessly operate the lever.

What’s wrong with me? What is wrong with that bear? I suppose we are both creatures of habit.

20060720 Look Alive

Psychologists define habituation as a decrease in response to a stimulus after repeated presentations. You buy the album for the hit song, and after listening to it over and over you like it less and less. Eventually one of the ‘B’ songs may become your favorite. Here in Katmai the bear biologists talk about habituation in bears.

With the exceptions of sows with cubs and courting couples, bears are usually solitary creatures. The abundant salmon in the Brooks River in July draws them into close proximity with one another. When bears first arrive for the salmon derby, they may not be willing to fish near other bears. With repeated exposures, they habituate to the closeness with a tense truce. Bears also habituate to people and become willing to be close to a creature they innately fear.

Likewise, the people habituate to the bears. I remember the first bear sightings back in May and how excited we all were. Yesterday and today, as I sat studying at the kitchen table, bears walked by perhaps ten feet away. I confess I hardly took notice.

I must be careful about that, the not noticing. I have a habit of walking with head down lost in thought. A couple of times this has brought me very close to bears.

Operant conditioning forms an association between a behavior and a consequence. With the bears, if they come into camp the bear techs will haze them with stern voice and sometimes various noisemaking percussion instruments and airhorns. The consequence of ambling through camp is being hazed.

The consequence of my daydreaming while strolling so far has been nearly rubbing elbows with Ursus arctos, an encounter that makes my heart go pitty-pat and an encounter I do not care to repeat. Thus operant conditioning has been working on me. I remind myself that I must look alive as I walk, scanning the woods for bears and remembering to repeat the standard “Hey bear!” to alert bears of my presence.

Bears represent one constant if low probability four-legged threat. There is another. We see wolf tracks regularly on the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes bus tour. A wolf was seen today at Brooks Falls. Some threats have no legs at all, like the lake thirty paces from my doorstep.

Naknek Lake, full of fine suspended glacially-scoured sediment called flour, suffers from multiple-personality disorder. The glacial flour reflects sunlight giving the lake an inviting unreal milky turquoise look on sunny calm days. That inviting look belies a danger. Being glacially fed, Naknek never gets very warm. In fact, it’s downright frigid. Fall into it from a boat or canoe and you will not last for long.

Irritating the lake with a little wind leads to anger management issues that greatly increase the likelihood that you will fall in. That wind seems to come fairly regularly as Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea air masses duke it out, throwing punches through Katamai Pass. Williwaws, as these sudden winds are called, can blow through the pass at 100 miles per hour!

Still another threat comes not from cold but from hot. Thousands of degrees hot. Just 23 miles from where I live in Brooks Camp lies the now-quiet Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. Ninety-four years ago the largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century occurred there, terrorizing Kodiak villagers for 60 straight hours and dumping a foot of ash on their doorsteps.

The valley floor may be still now, but the Aleutian volcanoes that surround it are not. The next big paroxysm is not a matter of if but of when. Could this threat become reality tomorrow?

You know, I’ve decided that is what I like most about this place—the threats. It’s not just the bears, though that threat is the most immediate. All of the threats together, the bears, the wolves, the cold and the hot give one a sense of uneasiness that never goes away. Every time I step outside I need to assess my surroundings.

Perhaps that failure to completely habituate isn’t such a bad thing. Pilots say, “complacency kills.” I feel truly alive here.

20060716 Going Concern

In accounting class we learned about the Going Concern principle. This principle states that the financial activities of an economic entity should be accounted for as if the entity will be operating indefinitely, unless significant evidence exists to the contrary. For example, the day-to-day operations of a furniture store will be accounted for as if the store will be in business forever, unless the owner is about to be tossed in the slammer for tax fraud. Then a different set of accounting rules applies and the store has that going-out-of-business sale that seems to last for years..

At this point, two months and one week into a four and one-half month season in Katmai, we are at the halfway point. The realization sinks in that this job will not last forever. We will be leaving Brooks Camp on September 20, perhaps never to return.

In light of this realization should I manage things differently now? More than half of my beloved breakfast cereal is gone. Should I buy more or live with the thought of rice and beans for breakfast during the last three weeks of my stay? At what point should I give up polishing my programs and begin in earnest to look for winter work? When does studying the life cycle of sockeye salmon become irrelevant?

Sockeye salmon swimming towards Brooks River as I type have interesting lives and interesting deaths. In winter they hatch from eggs buried in the gravel of a streambed, then move to a freshwater lake to spend the first two years of life. From there they undergo an amazing physiological transformation into saltwater creatures, generally spending the next three years in the ocean. Yet another big change allows them to reenter freshwater to swim to natal streams. A third metamorphosis puts them in breeding condition. Those that survive the ursine gauntlet at Brooks Falls will swim upstream to spawn, and then die shortly thereafter. Every one of them will die—none will survive. Had a salmon the same cognitive powers as a human, it would realize at a young age that its time on earth is finite; it would know within days the date of its death, and could manage its life accordingly.

With humans it is not so easy. Even with our cognitive powers, for most of us our lifespans remain a mystery until the end. I have always thought that I would live to be 100. This is not an unrealistic expectation. Many examples of extreme longevity exist in my family among those who did not smoke or drink themselves to death.

Even if the century mark of my life does come to pass, at 51 I am now more than half way there. Many questions come to mind. Should I be managing my life differently now than when I was 21 or 31 or 41? Is it time to become concerned with amassing tremendous wealth and towering social status? Should I begin seriously saving for my retirement? Does it really matter if I ever lose the spare tire around my middle? To avoid loneliness in my old age, should I give up bachelorhood and get married before I am too shopworn? Should I get my first haircut in almost five years and dye my graybeard brown? Is it too late to start a family? Should I finally buy a sofa?

The answers to these questions come more easily when I think of the Going Concern principle. I expect to live to 100 but I live my life as if I will live indefinitely, or until I am forced to have that going-out-of-business sale.

20060715 Fruits, Vegetables, and Friendship

I can’t say that Thrifty Drug Stores held much attraction otherwise, but I’d definitely stop in for a triple-scooper of their yummy and inexpensive flavors whenever I had the chance. Chocolate Malted Crunch, Mint Chip, and Cookies & Cream were my favorites among the standards. In November they regularly featured a very nice Pumpkin. Every once in a long while, when Peanut Butter & Chocolate would be the feature flavor, I’d be in heaven. Peanut Butter & Chocolate is my very most favorite flavor don’t you know.

Ice cream is my downfall. I cannot seem to exercise any self-control when it comes to America’s favorite dessert. Along with my fervor for ice cream comes an equal passion for minimizing the cost of my existence. A few years ago, when Rite-Aid purchased the Thrifty chain, I was in a panic. What would I do?

Baskin & Robbins ice cream is superior but I cannot stomach the price on a regular basis. I could bring ice cream home rather than indulge in hand-dipped, but the evidence of my habit would be there for all to see. I must have been thinking kind thoughts about my mother during the drug chain takeover, as Rite-Aid has continued the Thrifty ice-cream counter tradition without any changes to product or price.

I’ve considered a 12-Step program to get the Chunky Monkey off of my back, but I have another method that seems to work. Simply work for the National Park Service and live most of the year in remote places where ice cream can be difficult to come by without either a long drive or an exorbitant price.

For example, in the Flamingo district of the Everglades I can ride my bicycle three minutes from my apartment to the Marina Store to buy a pint of Ben & Jerry’s any time I would like. The store even has spoons. That pint will set me back over $5. My gut says, “Go for it!” but most times my brain will not allow my arm to reach into my back pocket for the wallet. Perhaps a couple of times a season I yield to the sinful.

Here in Brooks Camp I have no temptation at all. Ice cream simply does not exist. I suppose I could buy an ice cream maker and the ingredients, but that would be too much trouble and expense. I do without.

You would think that I would have cravings after more than two months without a fix. I do, but not for ice cream strangely enough. My desire is for fresh fruit.

Jim Nixon, an old buddy who I seldom see these days, left yesterday after visiting for five days. We had a grand time together, including a couple of accidental too-close encounters with the furry ones. We renewed a four-decade friendship that has always picked up right where it left off.

Before coming Jim asked if he could bring anything. Along with items as exciting as cordovan shoe polish and a cheese grater, I requested fresh fruits and vegetables.

Jim came through. He arrived with carrots, cabbage, artichokes, peppers and onions, all of which keep well. Two ripe avocadoes were guacamole the first night. Also stuffed in his carry-on were apples, peaches, apricots, and two kinds of cherries. Within ten minutes of his unpacking I had ravished two peaches, two apricots, and more than half a pound of cherries.

Comfort fruit and a comfortable friendship—what more could I ask for? Would you believe...Peanut Butter & Chocolate?

20060708 Widgets And Gadgets

Perspiration can be had through an act of will. No amount of will can inspire. To the contrary, will seems to daunt inspiration. Inspiration may be shy and need time and distance. Perhaps inspiration is the wet shirt bouncing around in the dryer of the mind, and will never dry if we keep opening the door every five minutes.

Among other duties, National Park interpreters research, develop, and present thematic interpretive programs. Here at Katmai National Park paid interpreters [not volunteers] are required to prepare an evening program. Three of the more experienced staff, including myself, must prepare two.

My first evening program revolves around the significance of place names in the park. Most people seem to enjoy it even though it is not directly related to what brought them here—fishing and/or brown bears. The inspiration for the program, and even a rough draft, came three weeks before I had ever stepped foot into Alaska. It came in California where I was staying with my friend Tia in what she calls her Tuna Can on the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Tia has often served as my sounding board and is herself a fountain of program ideas.

The time has come for me to begin preparing a second evening program. For the second program I have the benefit of a few weeks experience in Brooks Camp, especially experience listening to the questions people ask. Programs seem to work better for me if the inspiration comes from the audience.

In business school I learned about widgets and gadgets. Joe’s Production Company makes widgets. They make fine widgets. Their widgets have a wide range of options and prices. But nobody buys them. “We make the finest widgets in the world, so how can this be?” Joe moaned. Joe finally hired a marketing consultant.

The marketing consultant went out into the marketplace to talk with potential widget buyers. He asked them all about their buying decisions. What he found out explained Joe’s problem. Joe may manufacture a fine widget at fair price, but the buying public did not want widgets. It turned out what they wanted were gadgets.

My program on place names is a widget. When there are no bears in Brooks Camp, as in most of June, visitors are happy with a widget. Now that the bears are here, while a widget might be nice what visitors really want is a gadget. I need to come up with a gadget for a second evening program and that means bears.

“Bears” is a subject and too broad for a thirty minute program. I need to narrow to a topic I can do justice in such a short time. The idea for a topic came not as I toiled over the computer, wondering what I might do for a second evening program. The inspiration came as coworker Niki and I fled the Dumpling Mountain tundra, our thoughts focused on swatting the biting flies.

Visitors commonly ask, “Why is that bear standing up?” They also ask, “Why did all the bears leave?” when a dominant male arrives at Brooks Falls. So it seems that bear body language interests people, at least when they are seeing bears all day. That is the gadget I need to manufacture.

20060706 Batting A Thousand

Visitors often want to know of other national parks where I have worked. When they hear that I have worked in Everglades, the next question almost invariably will be “Are the mosquitoes worse here or in the Everglades?”

When we first arrived here in Brooks Camp in May we encountered plenty of mosquitoes. These were the Alaska mosquitoes I had been told about. They over-winter as adults under the snow pack and are giant-sized. These mosquitoes are slow moving and slow thinking. Like a lazy curveball you expect, they are easy to swat.

During June another mosquito species made its appearance. This one, more streamlined and quicker to bite, now teems in the willow and alder thickets. It can be a real pain on Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes guided walks as the group descends through such a thicket to the volcanic-ash-covered valley floor.

I remember during a chilly, breezy training day weeks ago Peter Hamel, my supervisor, showed the interpretive staff a few places in that thicket that would make fine interpretive stops. In particular he pointed out a sharp bend in the narrow trail. By wrapping a line of people around the bend, an interpreter could be seen by everyone and address the group without shouting. Yeah, right.

I have shouted along that trail, alright. “Don’t stop! If we continue moving briskly we shall be through this nightmare in about 20 minutes.” I look behind me to see folks swinging wildly to keep the bugs away from their faces.

But even these mosquitoes do not come close to what I have for years now considered to be the queen of the bloodsuckers. The black saltmarsh mosquito of The Everglades rates as the most aggressive biter of any mosquito around. Other mosquitoes may dance before your eyes and whine in your ears before making contact. Not the black saltmarsh mosquitoes. They swing at the first pitch, flying directly to any exposed skin to begin drilling. I have seen them persistently attack leather-palmed gloves, pumping up and down. Other mosquitoes are not even in the same league.

Today I faced a biting insect that plays an extreme game. No offense Chicago, but I am not a White Sox fan. This small black fly with six white sox plays a different kind of game. This thing takes divots. It anesthetizes the opponent then removes a chunk of flesh, leaving you bleeding. Later an itchy hard ball appears at the wound site and may persist for days.

White sox seek the protection of a hairline, whether it be scalp or beard or back of the neck. It will just as readily crawl up your sleeve or pantleg. My beloved headnet, my catcher’s mask protecting me from everything incoming, cannot stop the white sox. They crawl up my shirt and slip under the headnet to score. They field a team much larger than nine. In fact, there are thousands of them. I can’t win. I’d like to moiduh da bums.

20060705 Soap Box Derby

Ask anyone who has stood on the south rim of the Grand Canyon during the Independence Day weekend. Or waited for Old Faithful to erupt. Or waited longer to descend into Carlsbad Caverns. Or waited even longer on this particular weekend to ascend the Statue of Liberty, to step inside Independence Hall, or to view the Liberty Bell. Ask any visitor if National Park Service units can be busy places and the answer will resound: Yes!!

I often ask visitors who have been to these crowded places if they received the national park experience they expected. In a number of cases the answer is yes. We know well the reputation for throngs at these major attractions. It is no different from our daily lives. We are accustomed to waiting in line with crowds at the movies, grocery stores, and on freeways to name a few.

Now ask the same people if they received the experience, not that they expected, but that they desired. I believe you’ll find the answer to be quite different. Crowds may be fun at a football game or dance club, but based on eighteen seasons of experience in three national parks I believe most park visitors are not looking for that kind of fun. We like people but we do not come to national parks to be elbow to elbow, speared by the next person’s tripod.

The National Park Service has a two-pronged mission as dictated by Congress in 1916. In a nutshell, the Service must conserve the resources within the park while allowing for visitor enjoyment. That enjoyment is limited to the extent that the resources remain unimpaired for future generations. No one generation should be able to degrade the resources to the detriment of generations that follow.

National Parks could be closed to everyone always. This would certainly fulfill the conservation portion of the park mission but who could enjoy the parks? Park Superintendents could allow everyone to do what ever they wanted wherever and whenever they wanted. This policy would allow for much enjoyment, save that lost to incompatible uses. After a while, what would be left to enjoy?

The National Park Service has the duty to prevent us from loving parks to death. To protect resources, park managers must decide what forms of recreation are acceptable and for how many. In theory, anyway.

Park managers do not make decisions independently. Decisions must be made in compliance with laws, regulations, and policy. The decisions are subject to pressure from other branches and levels of government and from park users.

We all can see the effects of too many people on a natural setting. Litter and trampling of vegetation come to mind immediately. After considering a bit, I think of pollution of all kinds, including sound and light pollution, as well as the effects on wildlife. I’m sure you can come up with more.

Not everyone agrees that natural [sic] parks have carrying capacities. A few years ago I exchanged letters with an elected official whose influence extended into the national park arena. I was concerned with what I considered to be the overcrowded condition of Yosemite Valley. This representative countered that the parks are for the people and that facilities should be added until demand is met. Hmmm.

But what about an attraction like the Liberty Bell? How can you harm it just by looking? While we may not harm this symbol of our freedom with our eyes, great numbers of us can impair the experience that any one of us has. Is there time for quiet reflection when others are waiting two or three hours just to catch a glimpse?

Sooner or later, busier parks will reach a limit. I recall that at one time Yosemite was considering closing the entrance gates at times when Yosemite Valley contained no available parking spaces. This tells us that the national park experience may become scarce. That is, there will not enough of it for all of us to have as much as we want.

How will we as a society allocate this scarce resource? Is it to be a willingness to wait in line? Will VIPs be allowed to take cuts? Should a lottery be held to see who gets to view the presidents at Mt. Rushmore? Will Americans have preference? Will we need to make reservations two years in advance to camp in Yosemite? Three years? Five years?

Will we allocate based on the ability and willingness to pay? The Katmai experience is allocated that way now, at least in part. Yosemite saw a dip in visitorship after raising entrance fees from $10 to $20. Why not raise them to $50 or $100 to cut down on crowding? You could have your contemplative moment at the Liberty Bell if ten minutes cost $250.

In my view these are decisions that must be made in the coming years, like it or not. Can you and I influence these decisions? Let Freedom Ring!

20060701 Bear Traffic Controller

Bear Traffic Controller? Well, not really. Bear Traffic Monitor would be more accurate, or perhaps Human Traffic Controller.

Near the mouth of the 1.5-mile Brooks River, an 80-yard floating bridge allows people and small motorized vehicles to cross from the north [Brooks Camp] side of the river to the south [Lower Platform] side and back. Visitors use it to get to the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes tour bus, to walk to Brooks Falls to view bears, and to reach Lake Brooks when a strong east wind creates waves that prevent landings or take-offs on Naknek Lake. Employees use it to reach the same locations for work and pleasure purposes. Some employees live at Lake Brooks and must cross the river to go home.

People’s need or desire to cross the river can conflict with the park’s policies of 1) remaining at least 50 yards from bears and 2) yielding the right of way to bears anywhere beyond the buildings area of Brooks Camp. Should a bear come within 50 yards of the bridge, or appear that it may do so shortly, the ranger on the Lower Platform may close the bridge to travel.

Closures may last only a few minutes as a bear swimming downstream, snorkeling for salmon along the way, approaches the bridge, ducks under, then drifts into the river mouth. Or, should a bear decide to take a nap near the bridge or the pathways leading to it, the bridge may close literally for hours. Just as one bear finally moves away after a two-hour snooze and those imprisoned on the Lower Platform or across the river at a trail bend known as “the corner” anticipate moving, another bear may pop out of the woods and move to the bridge area.

This can lead to people missing meals at the lodge—meals for which they paid a great deal of money. Delays due to bridge closure also delay flights out of Brooks Camp on a regular basis. The small airplanes usually wait, but some folks have connecting flights in King Salmon and Anchorage, where larger aircraft will leave them behind. Bridge closures can prevent day-use visitors, all of whom paid a great deal to fly here, from reaching Brooks Falls in a timely way to take that once-in-a-lifetime photo of a giant brown bear catching a sockeye salmon. Thus visitors and lodge management may question the Lower Platform ranger’s judgement in closing the bridge and pressure the ranger to open the bridge.

Today I served as the Lower Platform ranger for the first time since bears and people moved into the Brooks Camp area in some numbers. At most times during my 5.5 hours on the platform, bears were visible and often four or five not counting cubs. These bears were almost always on the move. Numerous times I closed the bridge, but never for more than about 20 minutes at a time. Visitors were supportive of my attempt to play the human side of the chess board, closing the bridge when bears were close and reopening it when I felt bears had moved off far enough for safety.

This is a heckuva responsibility if you ask me. What if that bear does not keep moving away and instead turns around and heads straight for visitors I have allowed to move? Not being noted for my calmness, this makes me a bit nervous.

Thank goodness for salmon and lots of them. I’ve been told salmon save many visitors and me when we find ourselves closer than we really would like to be to a speedy several-hundred-pound predator. Why bother with humans when the river is full of tasty calorie-rich fish?

I’ve been told but has anyone told the bears?

“Ranger Tim you are cleared for takeoff on runway B.”