Wildlife and Fish at Susitna's mouth

                                       Wildlife and Fish

View from the outhouse

      I pulled back on the throttle carefully.  With Mom, Corey, and Larry on board I didn’t want to throw them forward with a sudden stop.  “Hey look, there’s a bear!”  The lanky two-year-old grizzly was as startled as we were.  He was in the water up to his chest and when we skipped around the corner he pulled himself up the muddy cut bank dripping wet.  Just then his brother poked his head up from behind a pile of drift logs.  We had disrupted their activities.  They were fishing.   They bolted up and over the high tide line disappearing into the grass just as Dad and Mike came around the bend in the other skiff.   I wondered if we would be able to see them from the cabin.  More importantly, I wondered if they would be back fishing during the next morning’s fishing period.  They were very close to our set net sites.

    Slowly we made our way down the beach.  We had arrived at the mouth of the Susitna River an hour and a half past high tide.  The water was rushing out and wasn’t very deep.  An occasional grinding-of-the-prop in the mud reminded me how shallow we were.  Up ahead I saw a pod of belugas breaching in a neat line.  I headed towards them knowing that they were in the channel of Ivan River and it would be deeper.  As we made our way into the river a gaggle of fifteen White fronted Geese waddled up the mud bank into the tall grass where we could see just the tips of their heads bobbing through the waving grass.  They were hustling their way to safety.   Another larger group of Canadian Geese took to the air as we came up on them on the very next bend of the river. Two seals bobbed their heads to get a look at us before diving out of sight into the muddy waters.

    As we pulled up to camp I noticed a fat seagull was squatting on the chimney cap of my bunkhouse.  The cap was now collapsed and there was a new series of white stains below it on the metal roofing.  Sweet.   I pulled the boat up to the bank and we began unloading gear and settling in.   I anchored the boats as the rest of the gang shuttled bags and gear up to the cabin.

   “Hey look there’s a coyote!”  sure enough a large coyote was trotting along the flats directly across the river from us.  We managed to gather all three pairs of binoculars and were focused-in when the coyote lept upward and then pounced nose-down into the grass.  It was easy to see the Twinkie sized vole in its mouth.  The coyote looked over at us and our barrage of glass lenses before turning tail, picking up the pace, and leaving us.   

       All day the Sand hill Cranes were constant.  As I was unpacking my bag in the bunkhouse, four of them flew ten feet over top, landing on the other side of the river.   Their squeaky clarinet-like bleatings are a dead-giveaway.  The mated pairs call in unison: two female calls to the one male.  (There’s a joke in there somewhere.)  There were several other groups of them walking among the grasses on the other side of the river.

       As I walked back to the main cabin I saw a goshawk dipping and swooping over the flats probably looking for Twinky-Voles, same as the coyote.  When I got back to the cabin I found the binocs.  I wanted to see if those bears were still around.   All I found were a half dozen eagles perched on drift logs out by the high tide line.  Several salmon finned and swirled in the river.  

       For some it might be easy to take for granted the abundant flora and fauna after so many years. We have been commercial fishing on the Susitna Mud Flats for the last 34 summers and, in contrast it seems that I have gained a greater appreciation for it as time passes.  It amazes me the diversity and numbers of creatures that gather for the push of the salmon each summer.  It’s like greeting old friends each July as we spill out of the Susitna River making our way to camp.  

   “Nice day.” I said. Larry and Mike were hanging out in the sun on the front porch talking to my dad.  Corey was untangling a kite and Mom was unpacking the food and organizing the kitchen.  The sun was kissing us midday and there was just enough of a breeze to sway our giant American flag that is attached to an old wooden oar. Mom found the oar beach combing one day. 
 “Where are all the fish?” I asked.  Nobody seemed to know.  By this time each year there are usually lots of fish in the river, so many in fact that I prop a few on the way to camp.  On some years the fish are so thick that some even wash up on shore in the wake behind the boat.  They flop and twist on the mud until they slide back into the water. 

     “They’re coming.” said Larry.  In the end he was right. They came and once again life was good. 

Corey and I practicing the forgotten
art of mud-glissading.

Corey earning his stripes

Mom and Dad enjoying the river

Hazelee and Brenton crewing for cheap.

The crew in action.