Donald DymerThe Glorious 12th – well if you were in Scotland it would be – the start of the very short Grouse Shooting Season – also the birthday of our lovely elder daughter Clare. (actually it’s really easy to remember our two daughters’ birthdays as Anna is 1st April- you can work out the rest!)
I took a 75 mile Express Ferry Trip from Haines to Juneau, to reach the state capital, and see the way a beautiful place can be developed. By the way the only way to reach this state’s capitol is by water or by air – there are no roads in but some great roads once you get there! The journey begins at the small boat harbor in Haines and after a day’s travel returns there. The journey passes through two ranges of mountains including to the west the Glacier National Park. On the way we see more glaciers than you believe exist – especially with climate changes we are experiencing. The boat is actually a forty seat passenger ferry that they use as way to view the area as well as transport the locals and tourists.
Bald Eagles galore. Actually in November Haines experiences an Eagle invasion when upwards of 3,000 eagles can be found in the Chilkot River area, in fact they have an eagle festival every year.
Ion arrival I took the tramway in Juneau that climbs 1800 feet and then had Fish and Chips overlooking the cruise port area. Five ships disgorged about 15,000 people – thank goodness I got to the restaurant before that hord! As you can see from the pictures one of the ships has some amazing facilities on the top deck – goodness knows how you go up there if you don’t like heights? With 3,000 travelers I guess it’s first towel on the bed, or maybe you are allotted times?
The Alaska fishing industry has two major fish species that makes it work commercially, Halibut and Salmon, although Rock Fish are becoming more important as fishing increases. Halibut is out there in the ocean and is basically free to catch subject to a two fish per person per day limit. That said I’ve hauled some pretty big Halibut that now reside in the freezer in Jacksonville. It seems to me that the state of Alaska is very smart, and is taking great strides to protect its commercial fishing as well as the tourist and residential needs for fishing as a food supply and a sport. On our travels I have seen many different ways residents are allowed to catch salmon – you may have read the Dip Netting article at Kenai ( pronounced “keen eye”). But they do more. They control the commercial fishing by only allowing Salmon fishing in “openings”. As I write this there is an opening in Haines when the commercial fleet can fish – it was 48 hours from noon Sunday till Noon Tuesday. these fishermen set out gill nets as can be seen from the pictures, but time is limited.
The most fascinating part of this trip was to visit the salmon hatchery. At the great risk of boring those who know about the salmon industry in Alaska, I will expand. Throughout the state there are a number of Hatcheries, where Salmon are incubated and then released into the waters at the hatchery. The pictures show the process (except for the actual egg and sperm collections. Salmon of all five species breed the same, but vary by location. The thing to remember is that Salmon have a life cycle that ends when they spawn.
Let’s start from the spawning phase and work through this fascinating life cycle. The female salmon makes her way back to the same place where she was spawned – fact – young salmon released from the hatcheries are micro tagged and these tags get read when they return. They swim out to the Bering Sea or the Pacific depending on the river exit, and they feed around there for a couple of years. Then they swim back up the same rivers against the stream, jumps waterfalls, avoids feeding bears and eagles as well as the fishermen, and if they are one of the one to five percent who make it, spawn and die! Yes after spawning they die.
Back to the hatcheries and the reasons for their existence. The photos show the progressing up through the hatchery ladder to the collecting pool, then they give up their eggs and their carcases are sent to a pet food processing plant. Although in nature they just die in the streams and the nutrients feed the ecology, in the hatchery there would be too much food going back into the waters. Here’s why.
Remember the hatcheries protect the salmon population. To do so each hatchery has to gather between 100,000,000 and 250,000,000 eggs which they then incubate, and after almost two years release into the local waters. Off go the salmon babies and two years later they return to spawn and die. Maybe 1% of all those released will survive, after all bears, eagle, man, and others want to eat them!.
This got long, but you can click off at any time
