Wildlife Putting on Shows for Us

We went to Skagway, and took a boat to Juneau for the day. We saw 8-9 humpback whales together bubble-net feeding. I'd never seen this, and the Captain said it wasn't that common. The whales swim around blowing, and go down low. Then they all come up at the same time with their mouths open catching the small fish in the bubble they developed. It looks like they are jumping up and bumping their chests to each other, like some men do when their team scores a point. It was fascinating. Going to Juneau we saw this twice, and, coming back, once more. You would think with all these opportunities, I would have gotten a good picture, BUT NO.... I'm going to have to get a picture from someone else in the group.

In Juneau, we went to the Mendenhall Glacier. Here a number of our group saw a couple bears catching salmon. But, I missed that. How many times has someone said, "Did you see...."  Aaarghhh!!
The truth is we have seen many animals, and have been excited about all these opportunities. Also, the countries, states, provinces have instituted regulations not to feed or disturb the wildlife. I don't know if there are any existing dumps where you can go to look at the bears. In the areas where we have been traveling, again and again we are told that we need to keep the habitats of the wildlife wild. So we wondered what kind of deal the Captain had made with those whales to bubble-net feed.

Skagway was a town that grew at the base of a trail to the Klondike during the gold rush. Dyea was another which grew at the beginning of the Chilkoot trail. Dyea is now gone, but there are some remembrances of the times. One is a cemetery for about 70 people who were caught in an avalanch. It was rather sobering.

We are now in Stewart-Hyder. Stewart is in British Columbia, and Hyder in Alaska. Last night we went to Hyder to see the bears. The stream was crowded with salmon. What a constant battle to get to their spawning area. I can see why a large percentage don't make it. And, on top of the uphill battle, they have these bears fishing for them. First we saw a mother and her "yearling" come to fish. The young one was a riot running through the water, and caught 2 fish. Then we saw a big grizzly come into the stream from the other direction. The mother and child caught a whiff of him, stood on their hind legs to check him out, and left in a hurry. Then the grizzly left. Then the mother and child came back (same ones?). They were doing fine, and another grizzly (much smaller than the first) came into the stream. He tore at a couple salmon, and starting walking up the stream on the bank. We all thought he was sneaking up on the mother and child. Then he went back into the water and the other two took off in a hurry. And then we left, once again wondering what kind of deal the bear union made with management to conduct the show for us.

We understand that the males chase the females and cubs out of the stream frequently. The first grizzly looked like he didn't care what anyone was doing, because he knew he was the biggest, baddest bear in town. The second grizzly looked like he was strutting his stuff to scare off the female and child, particularly the way he was sneaking toward them. Once they started running he put up a short chase but fizzled out very quickly. We're going back tonight for a second showing.