Long day

today (6/20) was  a long day, in the sense that I worked from 9am to 7pm- not because it was particularly stressful. I'll get to that last though. Here's what you've missed:

Monday, June13th:

Today we hiked up the Portage Pass trail in Whittier, AK. The only way to get to Whittier by car is through a two mile tunnel that cuts straight through a mountain. It is a cool and dark drive. It was a scenic but short hike. We could have gone farther, but one of us in the group hurt his knee so we turned back. We got a good look at Portage Glacier.

 After the hike, we went back to the center and I took a nap. I woke up after about an hour and felt like going for a bike ride. I rode about a mile down the road with all my gear in my dad's big backpack that I'm borrowing up here for the summer. I got my camera and tripod out to take some video footage of a calm lake with mountains in the background then realized that I forgot the piece that connects the two back at the intern house. I was pretty mad. I decided to ride my bike the mile back to the house , get the piece, then ride the mile back to the lake. I came back and got some good footage. I then biked about another two miles to an avalanche area and hiked up as high as I could go before I hit the steep slippery snow. I got some cool pictures from way up near the middle of the mountain I was on. On the way down, a black bear ran across my path about 50 yards in front of me. I thought it was a cub at first but as I studied it, I realized it was bigger than I thought. It wasn't until later when I saw the pictures on my computer that I realized it was much bigger than I thought. If a black cat crossing your path is bad luck, what happens when a black bear crosses your path? You get cool pictures and videos- that's what happens.

 I talked to it calmly and waved my arms and walked towards it a little bit and it slowly lumbered away over the side of the mountain and out of site. It was so cool. After that, I  biked home, meeting up with three other interns- one had run 12 miles total by the end of the run. I road my bike back with them. We then ate lots of food and watched a movie then called it a night. Good day.

Tuesday, June 14th:

Today was a normal day. I worked at the brown bear enclosure talking to people and making sure the bears were out and about from 9am to 1pm.  I was a tour guide for a bus full of kids. I was asked so many questions that I don't even think I got around to answering half of them. They wanted to know mostly about how the mothers of the orphaned animals died. They also enjoyed counting all the piles of feces in each animals' enclosure. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. They were a fun group.


Later that night a bunch of us interns went into Girdwood, the nearest town- twelve miles away, and played basketball at the pre-k through middle school. The nearest high school is in Anchorage- about 50 minutes north of Girdwood. It was fun to play basketball again. 


Later that night, when I was bottle feeding Nelson at midnight, our newest orphaned moose calf- he tried to escape. I basically caught him as he tried to jump over me from the cattle trailer down to the ground- a good three foot drop. It was weird, but funny. I didn't take any pictures or videos today. Another good day.


Wednesday, June 15th:

Today was a weird schedule day. I worked from 10am to 1pm. Then from 1:30pm to 2:30pm giving two tour bus tours through the center. From 2:30pm to 5pm I worked at the brown bear enclosure. From 5pm to 6pm my coworker Erin and I got ready for our porcupine presentation in Cooper's Landing. We drove to Cooper's Landing- about an hour and fifteen minutes south of Portage, to the Kenai Princess Wilderness Lodge. It was a cool looking place. We got Snickers into a dog crate by luring him in there with peanuts. He is easy to deal with- we just try not to surprise him from behind. Erin got quilled this spring in the hand on accident. 12 quills in the palm. I have yet to be quilled, but I am expecting it one of these days. anyway, we drove him to this lodge, talked about him for about twenty minutes, opened up his crate onto a table, and we fed him peanuts for a while while people looked at him and took pictures. Pretty simple gig. The people really like him. He is cute in his own way. I will have to put pictures of him in either this blog or facebook eventually. Anyway, that went well.

After our little show with Snickers the porcupine, Erin and I drove seven miles south to the Russian River Campground and walked along the Russian River looking for brown bears. We saw quite a few fisherman, but no bears. Some of the fisherman said they saw some bears that night, but we had no luck. 

On the way home, Erin and I saw three moose between Cooper's Landing and Portage. It was a beautiful ride. The Kenai Peninsula is a truly wild and beautiful place. We got home at 12:20am and called it a night.

Thursday, June 16th:

Today I woke up around 8am when my roommate Scott was getting ready for work. I had the day off so I just went back to bed. It was a great feeling. I felt a small tremor at around 10am. I knew it was an earth quake because I felt them every now and then last summer when I was living in Jackson, WY. I feel tremors quite frequently actually. This one was just the largest I have felt since I have been here. The Portage Valley, where I live, is actually a pretty active earthquake zone. Back in 1964, the land here in the valley sank ten feet in a huge earthquake that killed a bunch of people and destroyed the town of  Portage. All that remains of the town are old dilapidated cabins.

Anyway, I didn't get out of bed until 11am. I then made breakfast which consisted of frying up 6 breakfast sausages, 2 eggs, some onions, all put into a bowl and topped with maple syrup. It was delicious!

Today was our field trip day for four of us interns. We decided not to go into Anchorage and spend part of the day in a museum, so we went mountain biking on the Kenai Peninsula instead- just four miles to the south of us. The trail was called Johnson Pass Trail. It was a blast! We only had one popped bike tire, a cut knee, and an impaled groin during the whole day! I managed to escaped unscathed somehow. Very rare for me. I am very grateful for my Alaskan relatives for letting me borrow a bike from them. It has proved to be invaluable up here. 

We started out on the ride at about 2:30pm and didn't return to our vehicle until about 7:15pm. We were home by 7:30pm. It was so much fun. The scenery was unreal. I was waiting for a bear or moose to pop out of the brush at any second, but no luck. It reminded me of mountain biking in the Tetons of Wyoming last summer when I had a really nice downhill mountain bike. Now I just have a no-suspension mountain bike that is a bit too small for me- but it works just fine. It was fun non the less.

We got home and I went immediately to the center's concession stand where the interns and staff get free food after 6pm. I of course grabbed two burgers and a hot dog. I still cannot help but take the free food. I'll get over it someday. We sat by the campfire that was already going when we arrived at our staff house and talked and ate s'mores for a while. Another great day.

Well, time for bed. Today is actually Tuesday the 21st, I am just really behind with this blog. I will update the rest later. I am headed for two days of camping in Eagle River, just north of Anchorage for two days starting tomorrow. Should be a good time and I will enjoy my first two day in a row break! Catch ya later.

Sunny day

Been a while yet again. My bad- I get lazy. Here's what's up:

Wednesday, June 8th:

Don't remember much of this day- didn't take any pictures or videos. I remember being tired all day from the cruise. Often times I feel like a need a day off after a day off, because the day off is long and tiresome. But that is a good feeling know that you had a long, full, enjoyable day. Oh yeah, we got a new two and a half week old bull moose calf today. He is noisy and won't take the bottle. He is kind of annoying, but still cute. He and the other calf, Gilly, are now in the same cattle trailer next to the intern house. They are separated by a divider so they are not able to be in physical contact yet. "The new guy", as we call him, is being tested for tuberculosis and cannot come in contact with Gilly until the test comes back negative. I think they will be fun to watch run around with each other some day.

Thursday, June 9th:

Started out the day with AM bears- meaning I am stationed at the brown bear enclosure from 9am until 1pm. Every morning, whoever has the AM bear shift, has to walk the perimeter of the fence to check for damage to the fence, make sure the electric fence is functioning as it should, and to make sure the bears are not trying to dig there way out. This is the back side of the enclosure- the road between the Wood bison enclosure and the Brown bear enclosure- bears on the left, bison on the right:

 

and here are my colleagues with whom I collaborate during the day:

Patron- like the beverage. She is the 7 year old female coastal brown bear. She is named after the Patron beverage company because they donated $5,000 to have her name be that. Pronounced like "patrone".

Hugo- the 11 year old female grizzly from north-western Alaska, above the arctic circle. Rescued by two hunters when found by herself as a cub covered in porcupine quills. She has lived here for 10 years.

Joe Boxxer- like the company. They also donated $5,000 to have him named that. He is Patron's brother and they were both orphaned and brought to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center when there mother was shot in defense of life and property in Willow, AK 7 years ago.

Joe Boxxer, or JB, seeing what I'm up to:

After the work day was over for me, at around 7pm, we moved Gilly, our three week old orphaned bull moose calf out of the cattle trailer and into his new enclosure.

After moving in, Gilly quickly met some of the locals like this neighboring bull caribou.

Gilly

 

After moving him in, I went around the center and took photos of some of the animals because there was a good evening lighting at my back. Here is a muskox bull:

Three year old Jack the moose.

After the move and the photo shoot, I went on a thirteen mile round trip bike ride with some co-workers. We rode our bikes to nearby Byron Glacier and hiked around for a bit before heading back to the center. Here is a pond near the bike path on the way to the glacier:

My friend Marcy- she's from Texas.

 

Me with Byron Glacier in the background:

Our bike gang

On the way home from the bike ride, not only did we see a black bear near the bike path, but we saw this porcupine cross the road, so I had to get a picture.

 We got home around 11pm and sat by the campfire for a while. It was a good night at the end of a long and eventful day.

 

Friday, June 10th:

Another day of work. Always something new everyday. I have no reason to complain about my job because I am outside in Alaska everyday talking with people about animals and interacting with wildlife daily. I especially like feeding the two Great-horned owls at the end of the day. They are fun to watch. 

I started out this day very early with a 4am moose calf bottle feeding. The new guy, Nelson, as we have been calling him, hasn't been drinking a lot of milk since we got him from the Anchorage zoo. I was elected to do the 4am calf feeding by the lead intern. You get to do that kind of thing when you have been here for five summers it seems. Anyway, it went fine and Nelson took the whole bottle. Good thing he did or I wouldn't have been too happy. Since I was up at 4am, I called my parents who were shocked that I would be calling that early. It's good to surprise people every now and then.

After work, I road my bike to a nearby campground four miles away.to meet up with some extended family members who came down from Anchorage to do some camping. It was fun to see them and connect with them. They fed me great food, we talked for a while, then I left around 10:45pm to ride home. There is still plenty of daylight left- even at midnight. On the way home, I stopped at Moose Flats, a popular marshy area that is good for moose viewing. No luck tonight. I am now 2/5 in my Moose flats visits for spotting moose. A good day none the less.

Saturday, June 11th:

Another day of work. Today I did a lot of brush trimming and weed pulling in the garden. It was a very pleasant 66 and sunny today, and the mosquitos weren't too bad. I did not have AM or PM bear duty, so I found other work to do instead. I trimmed the bushes and trees in front of the brown bear enclosure so it was easier for people to see them. I also trimmed the bushes near the Bald Eagle and Great-horned owl's enclosures for the same reason. It was a good full day of manual labor- which is what I like.

Sunday, June 12th:

Today was another non- AM or PM bear day so I found other work to do- which there is always a lot of. I got to run the chainsaw again to cut willow, alder, and poplar trees and branches for the muskoxen and moose. I also got to drive the 4-door Ford F-450 flat bed diesel, which I love doing. The larger the truck, the more fun it is to drive, in my opinion.

The little calves are now starting to eat solid plants at three weeks old. It's cute watching them eat branches and plants. I also did a lot of trash can emptying and errand running. It's ok because I like to ride the four wheeler- which I did a lot of today. Good stuff. I bottle fed Nelson at midnight and have been catching up with the world on Facebook and updating this blog since. Well, bedtime for me. Tomorrow is a day off and I am going on a hike with five co-workers and one dog. Should be a good time. Pictures and stories to follow. Goodnight.

Yet another day off

So it has been a good four days since the last post. The internet is back up and running, for now, so here goes.

Friday, June 3rd- I have little memory of this day as it was four days ago. I perused through my cell phone videos and pictures, as well as my videos and pictures I put onto my laptop, and I apparently took none on this day. This probably means it was a very rainy day, because I remember we had one recently. It was cold and rainy and not many people came to the center on this day. I do remember scrubbing the Great-horned owls' perches on this day. I should really write some of this stuff down when the day is over and not just plan on remembering everything. Oh well.

Saturday, June 4th-I also do not remember a lot from this day as it was three days ago. The only pictures and videos I have of this day are from my cell phone. I took a picture of the moose calf we are bottle feeding and I also took a video of me feeding our porcupine. Oh wait. Now I remember. I took videos with my video camera this day. It was another rainy day here in the Portage Valley. I was working at the brown bear enclosure in the afternoon, and took this video:

This was the day we moved the muskox calf to a holding pen near the rest of the muskox. We also moved the elk to the former moose enclosure, and we moved the moose to the former moose enclosure. It was a good time. It involved all of the interns and staff who were at the center at the time, and Mike, our boss. We did this move after the park was closed for the day. It was pretty chaotic, but fun to watch. Take a gander:

As you can see, it was an eventful evening. Sorry the video quality is so poor, it looks much better on my laptop. The quality diminished after it was uploaded. I don't know enough about computers to know how to fix it either.

Sunday, June 5th- Today was a sunny day. No church today as I was scheduled to work today. I'll try to take Sundays off when I can to make to it to church sometime. Not sure where they are or how to get there, but I'll figure it out.

I got my picture taken with Mukluk, our year old muskox calf. We moved her to a new pen yesterday, and myself and another intern got pictures with her before she gets moved into the enclosure with the rest of the muskoxen.

After the photo shoot, I was over at the bear enclosure talking with visitors when I got a call saying that my roommate had an accident while putting in an electric fence in the elk enclosure. I was told to leave the bears and come pick up where he left off. I felt bad for him when I heard about it and was a little worried. All I was told was that he was bleeding from the head and was taken to the hospital in Anchorage, about an hour away. I met up with the boss, Mike, and he filled me in on what happened, and what needed to be done. He pointed out the drops of blood on the ground and showed me where he got hurt. He was using the post pounder to drive fence posts into the ground. I'm not entirely sure what the real name of this tool is, but it is about a foot and a half long metal cylinder with a hole in one end, has handles on each side, and you slide it over top of the fence and slam it down to hammer posts into the ground. He got to a bent fence post and as he was pounding the fence post in, the pounder slipped off and the post smacked him on his hairline above his forehead. Luckily, he was wearing his hat, so the cut was not as sever as it could have been. He got ten stitches and had some compressed vertebrae in his neck, but other than that, he's fine.

Anyway, I went to work hammering the rest of the posts in and then we wired the posts together, before turning the electricity on, of course. After that, we put up a small fenced in area in the caribou enclosure for the moose calf to be moved into eventually. For the past week, he has been in a cattle trailer with straw for bedding. It will be fun to see him in his new outdoors enclosure. Here is the moose calf with my roommate, Scott, after he returned from the hospital later that day.

 

Well, that's about it for that day.

Monday, June 6th- Today was a field trip day for myself, my roommate Scott, Vanessa, and the newly arrived intern from last year, Sarah. We went on a day long Kenai Fjords cruise based out of Seward, AK. I had done the day long Kenai Fjords cruise with my family in 2000 when we vacationed in Alaska. In 2008, when I came to AK during college, we did the half day Resurrection Bay cruise. The one that I did yesterday was the best, as we saw seals, sea otters, puffins, killer whales (orcas), sea lions, and humpback whales. I got some really cool pictures and videos. It was a bright, sunny day and couldn't have asked for better whale watching weather. We stopped at Fox Island, which is a large island that had a fox farm on it a long time ago. They would breed foxes and kill them for their furs. Now, it is an island where people come to on cruises and eat really good food and buy souvenir shirts and such. There was an all you can eat buffet on the island for dinner, and an optional half pound of king crab legs for $10. Scott and I figured that we may never get the chance to eat fresh Alaskan king crab on an island in Alaska again, so we obliged. My dwindling supply of money continues to dwindle. Oh well. I'll get paid in three weeks and I can certainly survive until then. After all, we had a good-bye party for Amelia, one of our spring interns who left yesterday, and there is a bunch of pizza left over from that. There is always the free hot dogs, reindeer dogs, and burgers too, although I am starting to get sick of them. Oh yeah, and my $140 worth of groceries that I bought when I got here. I'm all set.

Anyway, the cruise was great. We got home around 9pm and just relaxed after that. It was a good day. I was pretty tired when I got home. I had fallen asleep in the car on the way to Seward at 7am. Sarah got a picture of Scott and I in the middle seat of they Yukon both asleep. I had my mouth open, which when I saw the picture, wasn't too attractive. I remembered I had fallen asleep, just for a few minutes at a time, at two separate times on the cruise. I believe both times I woke up, my mouth was open. I only sleep with my mouth open when I am exhausted, I swear.

Anyway, here are a few pictures and videos of the cruise:

Seward, AK

Orcas:

 Aialik Glacier, Kenai Fjords National Park, AK

 4/7 of the interns

 Stellar Sea Lions

Fox Island

  It was a good day indeed. I had a video that I was going to upload, but it wasn't working.

Today, Tuesday, June 7th- a lazy day off. I literally spent 4/5 of my day in bed, using the internet that is now working. I also watched a movie with Scott. Good times. Well, more to come later, internet permitting.

Another day off

It has been another three day gap since I have posted on here, so here goes.

Tuesday was my field trip day. Once a week, the interns get a day off from work, aside from their other day off from work, to go on a free field trip. Myself, Michael, Vanessa, and Kristen got to go on the 26 Glacier Cruise in the Prince William Sound based out of Whittier. Whittier is a small town about fifteen minutes away from Portage. We had to drive through a tunnel cut straight through a mountain to get there. It took about five minutes to drive through the tunnel going twenty five miles per hour. The tunnel was originally just made for trains to come and go to the port town of Whittier, but it is now open to cars during certain parts of the day. Whittier is an interesting town. Alaska imports a lot of materials by way of ships, and Whittier brings in a third of those shipped in materials. Also, the only road to get to or from Whittier is not always accessible. You have to know the schedule of when the tunnel is open to cars, or you may have to spend the night in Whittier. Another interesting thing is that there are no private houses in Whittier. Everyone who lives in the town either seasonally or permanently lives in one bug apartment building. No houses can be built in the small town. This is Whittier:

 And here is the apartment where everyone in Whittier lives:

The cruise was fun. Apparently by the end of it, we were suppose to have seen twenty six glaciers, but I wasn't counting. I liked seeing the bald eagles, the sea otters, the seals, the glaciers, the mountains, and the waterfalls. So basically, I liked all of it. It went from about noon to 5pm. They served us really good Alaskan cod fish and cole slaw. I dared my friend Michael to mix a packet of lemon juice and then six squirts of Tabasco sauce into his coffee, because they were there. He did, so I did too. It was the most vile drink I have ever drank. I have even drank my own urine before in a mock-survival scenario while in Tanzania two summers ago, and this may have been worse. I washed it down with a normal cup of coffee and went on with my day. I almost threw up before our boat even left port.

We made it back to Portage and had the rest of the day off. I think we watched a movie in the barn after that, but I can't really remember. So that's it for the 31st of May.

Wednesday, June 1st:
Back to work today. I finished planting the last of the vegetables in the garden. They were broccoli plants. I was glad to have that all squared away. After I was finished with that, Erin asked me to go into the Kodiak brown bear enclosure with her to help feed them. I had never gone into that enclosure before, so I was pretty excited. When we got in and walked up to where the bears were playing by the fence, I realized they were a lot bigger when there is no fence in between them and you. Although they are only 15 months old, the femals still weighs in at about 115 and the male around 130 lbs. They could do some serious damage if they wanted to. They huffed and puffed as they smelled me, the new guy who had never been on there before with them. It was pretty nerve racking, but I stay calm and collected. I didn't want them to sense that I was afraid. I helped feed them their premium puppy chow and stashed some away in various parts of their enclosure so that they could search for it later. I was feeling good about leaving the enclosure. I didn't want to overstay my welcome. It was a pretty awesome feeling to be standing two feet away from two bears that will some day grow to be between nine to eleven feet tall and weigh between 500 to 700lbs for the female and 1,000 to 1,500 lbs. for the male.

I did a few more chores throughout the day, like bottle feeding the moose calf, which is always a good time. He is really cute and growing by the day. He is playful and likes chewing on jackets, coats, shoes, camera straps, and basically anything you bring in their with you.

After that, I went on a 12 mile round trip bike ride to Portage Lake and back with some of the other interns. It was good to exercise, especially in a very pretty area on a very well kept bike path. We watched another movie in the barn then called it a night.

Thursday, June 2nd:

Today was my day off for the week. I slept in until 11am, and just rested til about noon. These long days make it hard to go to sleep until late. It doesn't get dark until about 1am and it starts to get light again by about 3am.

I made a huge breakfast this morning which consisted of a big bowl of wheat Chex, two big pancakes, one egg, and 6 sausage links. I made lots of smoke and smells in the kitchen during the making of this meal. After breakfast at noon, I cleaned up my room, put pictures of the cruise on Facebook, then helped Erin get some brush for the animals. Although it was our day off, Erin and I were bored and wanted to do something outside. I drove the big 4 door Ford F-450 diesel across the highway to a dirt road where we cut down willow, alder, and balsam poplar branches and small trees for the animals at the center. We have permission to do this- at least that's what the other interns tell me. We gathered a good load then delivered them to the moose, porcupine, muskoxen, elk, and Sitka black-tailed deer. They were all very appreciative. When we finished to that, I fixed the vacuum which meant pulling out about a pound of hair and dust balls from the suction tube, as well as two plastic forks. That seemed to have been the problem. I then gave my room a good vacuuming.

After that, I fed the two Great-horned Owls, of which I am personally responsible for feeding. We all got our assigned animals and since I worked with birds of prey last summer, I was given the owls. Their names are Hootie and Snappy. No, I didn't name them, but if the naming were up to me, those would probably have been the same names I would have given them. They are pretty low maintenance- some mice or quail everyday and a fresh new water bucket for them to take a little bath if they feel like it. They are pretty cool looking birds.

Following the feeding, I went back to the intern house for dinner, then went for a bike ride with two other interns who went for a run. I did not want to run as I had just eaten dinner number one of two. I eat a lot around here. I just have this thing where if there is free food available, I cannot refuse it. I have eaten more hot dog, reindeer dogs, and cheeseburgers in the last week than I have had in the last two years. Seriously. At least one if not two meals a day consist of food you would find at a high school football game. I will soon begin to look like a high school football coach. No offense to high school football coaches, but you know what I mean. Anyway, the other interns marvel at how I am not sick of the concession stand food here yet, and I am wondering how I am not either. I think it is because it is free for us, and I can't turn down free- especially in my current economic state. That $140 worth of groceries is going to last way longer than I thought at this rate, but my cholesterol level is probably sky rocketing. Well, as they say, "when in Rome..."

Anywho, after the bike ride, we all decided to play wiffleball in the main parking lot of the center, right in front of the gift shop/concession stand area. It was a lot of fun. We played boys versus girls, because we are all still in 6th grade. Actually, it was one of the girls' ideas. The men victoriously triumphed, although being down a player. It was brutal right down til the end.

On the way back to the interns' house, myself and three other interns decided we should try to hand feed grass to North America's largest land mammal- the Wood Bison. We watched them stick their tongues through the fence and try to reach the grass, so we decided to give them a hand. The big bull nearest me accepted the grass, hopefully as a peace offering. It was fun feeding him knowing that his head alone probably weighed more than my entire body. Bulls can easily weigh or 2,000 lbs. with some topping out around 2,250 lbs. They are an immense animal with power to spare. They are the tractor-trailers of the North American land mammals.

Well, time for some sleep. Another day of work tomorrow. Can't wait. Oh and I finally got my navy blue Dickies work pants today. Now I won't be the only intern wearing blue jeans instead of uniform pants anymore.