Stranded Starfish

Starfish move very slowly. The tides go in and out rather quickly. It is not surprising the the starfish get stranded on the rocks and pilings. This one is on a bed of mussels. If you look closely, you can see its tiny feet.

Glacial Panorama

Cruising is about the only way to see this kind of scenery in Alaska. You could drive but it is about 3500 miles to Fairbanks and you can't really drive to the sea coast like this. It is a lot easier to stand on the deck of a ship and take photos like this. This is the Alaskan Coast near Glacier Bay.

Salmon Fish Trap

This is a fish trap for Salmon. The only people who can use this type of device are the Native Americans living off of the salmon harvest. I understand that this is a very effective way of catching the salmon and they return to the rivers and streams from their lives in the ocean.

A Mountain Waterfall

This beautiful waterfall is located right in Juneau, Alaska on the Salmon Creek. It is about a half a mile away from the main, and only main, Highway 7 that runs through the town. If we had such a waterfall in Arizona or Utah, it would be a famous attraction. In Alaska, such a small waterfall is hardly noticed. We saw this at the Gold Creek Salmon Bake, which had an all-you-can-eat salmon bake for our lunch that day.

Searching for Whales

It was a gray and windy day with lots of rain and we spent most of the morning moving around in a very fast boat looking for whales. This is about as much as you get see of the whales in the Alaskan waters. We found out that they "breach" or come out of the water more frequently in warmer waters such as those around Hawaii. Here, near Juneau, Alaska, they are too busy eating to jump out of the water much, although it does happen. Taking this type of photo is very difficult. The boat is pitching. The rain is coming down in sheets. The whale pops up without any notice and then dives within a few seconds. This is a lucky shot, not the best taken that day, but lucky none the less.

Juvenile Bald Eagle, Juneau, Alaska

When bald eagles are young, they lack the distinctive white head of the adult. This younger eagle has started to change from a juvenile to an adult and you can see both the darker feathers and the newer, white feathers on it head. This bird was sitting on a large wooden pole in the ocean off the pier in Juneau, Alaska. It was raining quite hard the whole time and I had a hard time keeping water drops off the lens of my camera.

Built Over the Ocean -- Ketchikan, Alaska

When the mountains come down to the edge of the Ocean, land is at a premium and much of Ketchikan, Alaska is built on piles over the water or on the edge of the steep mountains. It is a picturesque community, flooded with thousands of tourists every day of the Summer season. It is definitely a walking city because the roads are narrow and there is very little parking. In addition, there are no roads to Ketchikan. All access is by air and water.

Sea Kayaking

It is an interesting experience to be only a half-an-inch or so from the ocean. You can feel every wave and are, to some extent, at the mercy of the wind. This was a relatively calm day. The rest of our kayaking experience was in the rain. We are sitting in a dual kayak in the Refuge Cove, just north of Ketchikan, Alaska. There are several small islands, such as this one with its unique grove of trees. It was a splendid day of paddling.

Starfish at low tide

This image was shot from a bouncing kayak on the ocean off of Ketchikan, Alaska. Could have been better, but we were moving along at a pretty brisk pace to keep up with the rest of the group. I would have liked to have explored the tidal area more throughly but I guess that will have to wait until another life.

Safe Harbor, Ketchikan, Alaska

With just over 13,000 people in the borough, Ketchikan is Alaska's sixth largest city. The city is located on Revillagigedo Island and has no road contact with the mainland. You can only get to Ketchikan on a boat or airplane. It is known as one of the wettest spots in North America with as much as 200 inches of rainfall in a year. It has almost as many days of rainfall on the average as Mesa, Arizona has of temperatures over 90 degrees. It is a lovely and picturesque place to visit. I would find it a little to isolated for my interests.

Clouds in the Morning

The transition from the desert to the mountains is dramatic. The is nowhere more evident than when the first light of morning hits the mountains and the glow extends across your field of view. A discerning eye can see beauty in almost any scene, but when you are confronted with the overwhelming presence of the mountains, it is nearly impossible not to appreciate the grandeur and majesty of the scene.

Sunset on the Inner Passage

The Inner Passage is a series of straits along the West Coast of Canada and Alaska where the open waters of the Pacific Ocean are shielded by a string of coastal islands. Ships can navigate through these narrow passages without the threat from waves and wind from Pacific storms. All things are relative and the storms in the Inner Passage are pretty spectacular, but not as severe as on the open ocean. This sunset took a long time to happen. First, it was late into the night hours, about 10:00 pm and second, the ship was moving and it was difficult to get the right focus and keep the horizon level.

Inside Diamond Head

In contrast to the lush, jungle-like vegetation of most of the rest of Oahu, inside the volcanic crater of Diamond Head or Le'ahi, right at the edge of Honolulu, there is an area that is remarkably similar to parts of the Arizona desert. I am sure that was likely the time of the year when this photo was taken, but the interior of the crater is dry and has a look similar to a mesquite and grass bosque. There is a paved trail from the parking lot to the top of the mountain and there is a constant stream of visitors. The entire area inside the crater was a military base and is now in Diamond Head State Monument.

Rocky North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii

I decided to warm up a little bit and move from Alaska to Hawaii again for a while. While on Oahu, we took the time to drive nearly all the way around the island. When I say nearly, I mean that there is part of the island's shore that is in the Moluleia Forest Reserve and there is no road following the beach. I am not sure this would be a good place for swimming, but it is a good place for looking at tide pools and watching for marine life.

At the Edge of the Tundra

The tundra is the area where the subsoil is permanently frozen. It is also above the tree line. Here you can see there are only a very few trees and although they are full-grown and very old, they are relatively small. This photo is in Denali National Park and the tree line is only about 3000 feet above sea level. Here in Utah, where I live now, the tree line is visible from my front room window and it is above 10,000 feet.

Barnette's Landing, Fairbanks, Alaska

This is Barnette's Landing in Fairbanks, Alaska. Captain E. T. Barnette, a passenger on the Riverboat Lavelle Young, debarked near this site on 26 August 1901, and established a trading post which, 1902, became known as Fairbanks. I was surprised at the very pleasant weather in Fairbanks at the time of our visit and I was also surprised at how small the downtown area was. They had a number of very large buildings, most of which were government buildings and not much else. The city has a population of 32,000 or so, making it about the size making it about the size of Apache Junction, in Arizona or about the size of Tooele City, Utah. It is the second largest city in Alaska after Anchorage.

Alaskan Mountains at Sunset

As you go north during the summer months, the days lengthen and the sunsets occur later and later in the evenings. Usually, it is difficult to capture the essence of the color and drama of the sunset, but this image is the exception. Mountains are always a good place to see the sunset with all its color and glory, but Alaska turned out to be a particularly impressive place for sunsets.

Floating in the Blue

Except under extraordinary circumstances, the moon is the only astronomical object we can see clearly during daylight hours. Most of the detail in the image cannot be seen with the naked eye. A long photographic lens and a telescope have much in common. It is rare for me to get an image such as this in focus, especially with a hand-held camera on the deck of a moving ocean-going cruise ship.

Leaving Skagway, Alaska at Sunset

The end of an interesting day spent in and around Skagway, Alaska. This sunset was about 10:00 pm local time. The weather was nearly clear, one of the few days in Alaska without rain. This photo was taken from a large cruise ship and the light was changing every minute. I wonder if the snow on these lower mountains ever melts? The mountains are only a few thousand feet from the sea level where I am standing to their tops.

Walking on the Glacier

I am not sure how I thought glaciers ended, but I think I imagined a wall of ice. In some parts of this terminus of the glacier, there are cliffs of ice. Here along this edge of the glacier, the people are standing on the ablation moraine, which is mostly still ice from the glacier. The pile of debris along the side is a lateral moraine composed of glacial till. The water coming from the left in the photo is a subglacial stream. Where I was standing to take this photo was solid ice covered with a thin deposit of till.

Up Close to a Glacier 2

The piles of dirt and debris at the mouth of this Alaskan glacier near Skagway, are usually referred to as the terminal moraine. As the glacier carves its way down a mountainside, it picks up huge quantities of rock gouged off of the sides of the glacial valley. It carries this load of rocks and silt like a giant conveyor belt and dumps it at the mouth of the glacier. This particular glacier is retreating rapidly and as it melts, it leaves more and more of the dirt and rocks it is carrying. In the not-to-distant past, this glacier ended in the large lake, but now it has retreated up the mountainside. Soon the area at the base of the glacier will begin to be colonized with trees and other plants.

Passage to Vancouver

The passage from Vancouver to Vancouver Island is spectacular. But I was impressed that most of the passengers on the B.C. Ferry seemed oblivious to their surroundings. For most of them, it was just another commute from the Island to the mainland. Now that I live on the side of a mountain, I have to remind myself everyday to open my eyes and see the beauty of the clouds and the mountains. It isn't all that hard to do so.

Low Tide, Qualicum Beach, B.C.

There are a couple of very interesting things about this particular photos. First, the tides, as you go north, seem to get higher and lower. I realize that the amount of beach exposed in any tidal change is a function of the slope. But here, in Qualicum Beach, B.C. the tidal change was as much as 4.5 meters (about 14 or 15 feet). With such a huge change between high and low tides, there was usually a very large expanse of beach exposed. In this case the local seagull population seemed to enjoy the low tide. Another interesting thing about this photo is the fact that it was cloudy. Yes, it rained every single day we were on Vancouver Island. The weather data shows that they get about 51 inches of rain on the average. This is remarkable for someone who lives where 8 inches a year is the average.

Englishman River Falls

This very unusual waterfall is the upper falls in the Englishman River Falls Provincial Park on Vancouver Island, just outside of Qualicum Beach and Parksville. The entire volume of water falls into the narrow slot canyon and goes on downstream to the lower falls. In looking at photos of the falls, it is apparent that we saw them when the water was relatively low. But they were beautiful, none-the-less.

Dancing Waters

This is another photo from the Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island, just short drive north of Victoria. This fountain would change shape constantly. I guess it was symbolic that we were standing in the rain watching a water fountain.

An Almost Perfect Garden

I have a concept of the perfect garden. There is no way to achieve that perfection, in this life, because of limitations on time and resources. There are a few places on earth that come close to that perfection. You may not like all of those places equally well, but you recognize that there is something about the design and the harmony that speaks to your soul and you know they have achieved that perfection possible here on earth with earthly plants and resources. This is such a place in the Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island, B.C.

A Splash of Color

This lovely flower was at the Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island. Unfortunately, as a matter of policy, they do not put labels on their plants and flowers. So, it is a guessing game sometimes. They do have a desk with a horticulturist to answer questions.

Port Alberni, Vancouver Island, B.C.

Port Alberni is just about at the middle of Vancouver Island. It is situated on a very long and narrow arm of the Pacific Ocean called the Alberni Inlet. This was a beautiful afternoon and we watched a flock of eagles circle over the water. Of course, this isn't the entire port. The town is actually quite large but mostly spread out to the east and north of the port. It has a population of about 17,000. It is strange that some of the place names on Vancouver Island are Spanish in origin. Spain had a fort on the west coast of the Island in the 1790s.

A Quiet Reflection

There is a subtile difference between purely natural beauty and beauty created intentionally by human endeavor. This is another view of the famous Butchart Gardens located on Benvenuto Avenue in Brentwood Bay, British Columbia. Walking around the garden illustrates the best of planning and gardening. How do you compare this to a view of an old growth forest or a glacier? It is an interesting challenge.

The Face on the Tree

This interesting artifact was on a tree in the Cathedral Grove, located in the MacMillan Provincial Park on Vancouver Island. Although, the origin of this artifact was not indicated, if were not from the First Nation people, it would have been removed.

In British Columbia, those people who can trace their ancestry back to the original inhabitants of North America are collectively referred to a the First Nations. On Vancouver Island there are 53 First Nations. Quoting from the Vancouver Island Economic Alliance:

The First Nations of BC refer to those people that can trace their ancestry to the aboriginal people that inhabited the land prior to the arrival of Europeans and Americans in the late 18th century. Based on 2001 census figures, aboriginal people (living on and off reserve) number 43, 420 or 6.8% of the estimated population on Vancouver Island.
(Source: mcf.gov.bc.ca/regions/vi/profile.htm)

Among the major indigenous languages, the dialects primarily spoken by First Nations on Vancouver Island stem from the Salishan and Wakashan language families.

There are 53 First Nations on Vancouver Island which equates to almost 20% of the provincial First Nations and about 6% of the national total.

 If you are interested in pursuing this topic, see also First Nation and Aboriginal Organization on Vancouver Island.

Little Qualicum River, Vancouver Island, B.C.

This is the Little Qualicum River on Vancouver Island, B.C. This entire area is considered a temperate rain forest. The rocks are covered with moss and lichen. The trees are emblazoned with Spanish moss and the river is cold and clear. This is truly one of the most fantastic wilderness areas of the world. I really enjoyed the lush, green beauty of the forest. There was just one or two small problems; rain and mosquitoes. But I willingly endured both because of the beauty of the surroundings.

A Glacial Fed Waterfall

There are relatively few roads in Alaska and most of our viewing was from boats or from the cruise ship. There were hundreds of waterfalls coming down from the glaciers and snowfields of the mountains. We usually didn't get a chance to get near enough to see any detail, but this was an exception. The Ocean is green because of the sediment from the glaciers carried by the rivers such as this one.

Welcome to Skagway

Skagway, Alaska has about 920 permanent inhabitants. During the Summer months, the large cruise ships dock at the edge of the town and there are an average of 2000 to 3000 or more people per ship per day, every day. The day I visited Skagway, there were four cruise ships tied up in the docks. If you think about it, Skagway is really the Alaskan version of a theme park. It is tiny little town with intentionally quaint buildings in the downtown area that are mostly entirely dedicated to tourists. I am sure if you lived there, you would soon find the "real" Skagway where the reality of living out the winters can be a decisive factor.

Lilacs Blooming in Alaskan Mountains

I found this beautiful blooming lilac bush in Skagway, Alaska. It was the first of June and in most of the part of the U.S. where I am a frequent visitor, the lilacs had already bloomed months before. It was a pleasant surprise to see lilacs in June. Of course, lilacs do not normally grow in the desert where I have been living for many years. If you do see a bush now and then, the flowers come on in January. Now that I live on the side of a mountain at the mouth of a canyon at over 5000 feet above sea level, I am looking forward to seeing more lilacs blooming.

A Sea Lion Rookery

Large congregations of animals is one of the hallmarks of the wilderness. Except for animals such a pigeons and other birds, we seldom see this number of wild animals in a civilized, developed setting. These are Stellar sea lions or Eumetopias jubatus. They live in large rookeries and they are an endangered species. We saw this rookery on the shore of the Chilkoot Inlet near Skagway, Alaska. It was a challenge to get photos in focus since we were on a small boat that was bouncing on the waves. You might want to click on the photo to see the detail.