May 29--Sitka, Alaska

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Sunday May 29th, Sitka, Alaska

At the Motel 8 kind of breakfast, I had a conversation with a man visiting his son and granddaughter that live year-round in Sitka. He was recounting a story about questioning his son who left his keys in the ignition of his car. His son said, “Dad there are only 13 miles of road in town and the only way to get off the island is by the ferry that comes a couple of times a week. Anyone stupid enough to steal the car would be met at the dock by the police”. He also said his wife addressed a package to “my son Ron, Sitka, Alaska” and received a phone call from the Sitka postmaster saying that she really needed to put his last name on the package even though they knew who it was for, and had delivered it.

We walked downtown and toured the Russian Bishop’s House completed in 1843 and was the center from which Bishop Innocent oversaw his far reaching diocese. It is hard to realize that Russia had a settlement here for almost 100 years between 1799 and 1867 when the USA purchased it. It was a very successful fur trading port, the most profitable in the world, but the Russian company had to support the Russian Orthodox Church’s missionary efforts. The Church flourished along the Aleutian and Alaskan coasts because it translated the religious texts into the native languages and promoted the native culture and provided education including seminaries. A good many of Alaska’s Native Americans in this region are Russian Orthodox because of it The building remained in the hands of the Church until 1972 when the Park service purchased and restored it.

We then went into a gift shop we had admired that evening, to purchase some ear covers. The day was grey and looked like it might rain and we had arranged with Sitka Secrets to go out on a tiny boat to visit St. Lazarius Island a National Bird sanctuary. It had been much warmer in Skagway and so had packed for warmer—read sunny—weather. We had sunscreen, sun hat, and shirts with us but not our scarves and winter hats. When we made reservations we were told that the boat was going to drop off a group of college kids doing field work on the island for the summer and their gear. We said that was fine by us. So, the boat motored over after we were on, to a dock to put on a ton of gear including 4-5 sheets of particle board that was put on top of this little boat.

The island is about 15 miles from the mainland and it didn’t take much time to get there. There were ancient murrelets, murres, murrelets, auklets and Valerie saw a rhinoceros auklet in the water as we neared the island. The rocky island itself was very interesting with holes and odd shapes covered with mosses, trees, and wild flowers. It was apparently once part of the Edgecumbe volcano that dominates the mountain range around the Sitka Sound.

We first watched them unload all the gear into a rubber run-about and then haul it up to other’s who were waiting on the shore---no dock. At the same time they were doing that, Valerie and I were watching hundreds of tufted puffins flying around or sitting on the rocks on the island. They were all in breeding plumage so were really an interesting looking bird. There were also some pelagic cormorants on the rocks by the water’s edge.

The Captain then took us around to another side of the island and we looked at 1000's of murres nesting on the rocks and flying about. As we came around the interesting looking rocks, a peregrine falcon was fighting a pair of eagles who were defending their nest up in the trees. At the water line was a million grey and red-orange starfish.

Then, off we went out into the open water to hunt for whales. We saw a good number of humpback whales but none of them came up out of the water like the one does on the insurance commercial. Closer to the other side of the bay, we saw a good many sea otters with pups riding on their mother’s stomach. They were really hard to photograph as you could just see a blob of fur on top of a floating, on their back, plob of fur. Counted about 8 wild eagles seen today.

Left at 3 ish and returned after 7pm, so walked up from the dock and found an Italian restaurant for dinner. Valerie had spaghetti with Italian sausage and I had a scrambled eggs breakfast.

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