holyoutlaw

Julie and I took a late afternoon trip to North Beach and Carkeek Parks Monday to look for salmon. Well, we stopped at North Beach Park on the way, so I could see how things are going.

The alders were still blocking the trail. But we did see some gorgeous fall color.

Big leaf maple leaves cover the path in North Beach Park.

In fact, I thought the park was particularly beautiful. The cloud cover wasn’t too thick, and the colors were very warm. Where the path wasn’t covered in maple leaves, it was covered in alder leaves.

The park was also very wet. It’s gone from the driest I’ve ever seen it (in September) where just walking along a trail would cause it to crumble; to the wettest I’ve ever seen it, where you’re in constant danger of slipping, and leaves might cover mud a couple inches thick.

Pileated woodpecker on a snag in North Beach Park

We also saw a pileated woodpecker, working its way up a snag. (It’s kind of small, click on the image for a slightly bigger version.) I saw a pileated woodpecker in 2010, I think, or maybe 2009. It was good to see one again.

It worked its way up the snag, its feet spread very wide to hold onto the snag. It pecked here and there, but didn’t have to knock the wood for quite a while. There were two flickers above it, working the same snag, but as it approached, they each flew away without saying anything.

After that, it was back up the trail and over to Piper’s Creek.

We started at the beach, as always. So far, there are only a couple dozen wigeons there regularly. But we also saw a cormorant off in the waters. (Later in the winter, there will be many more types of birds.) Besides the usual crows’n'gulls, I mean, who were enjoying the salmon buffet (that is, the fish that didn’t make it). Looking through the binoculars I saw about five different gulls eating at different salmon. Here is a picture of one that was picked clean.

Then it was back and over the bridge and up to Piper’s Creek. There were lots of salmon in the creek this time, resting in the pools, splashing upstream or over the rocks and logs.

Salmon splashing in Piper’s Creek, Carkeek Park. The curved line in the upper right quadrant is the back of the salmon.

I think we were up and down the various viewpoints of the creek for about an hour, talking to people and listening to their own observations. There are always a few families with young kids.

I’m sure we’ll go again. It’s always interesting to see them swimming around, and it’s exciting when one tries to make it over a little waterfall. No bears, and none of the giant waterfalls of rivers in Alaska. But raccoons, who will spread the fish carcasses around the woods.

Mirrored from Nature Intrudes. Please comment over there.

Salmon in the Trees: Life in Alaska’s Tongass Rain Forest [With CD (Audio)]
Photography by Amy Gulick
Illustrations by Ray Troll
Braided River, 2010

The Pacific Northwest temperate rain forest extended from Mendocino County up to Anchorage, Alaska. It was larger than all the other temperate rain forests combined. You don’t think of Scotland, northern Japan, Chile, or Norway as having rain forests, but they all once did.

The southeast Alaska Panhandle, the northern coast of British Columbia, and all the archipelagos off their shores, are the largest surviving intact temperate rain forests in the world. This book deals with the Tongass rain forest in Alaska.

Even when being set aside as a national forest, the trees were made available to logging companies at dirt-sale prices; one article says a tree would be sold as raw lumber for the cost of a cheeseburger. Economics have weakened the pulp industry, and, in the way of extractive industries, the companies have fired the workers, closed the mills, and moved on.

What is left though is still intact enough to survive and is the largest national parks and national forests in the country.

This book shows us what remains in essays and photographs that made me want to go there. The Tongass rain forest is one of the wildest places on Earth. The essays range from rapturous homilies to the beauty of the landscape, to reports on research being conducted in conservation and ecology.

All in all, it sounds like a magical place. Burgeoning with life, all connected and living together. The essays show in great detail, with many different starting points, why this area is worth preserving. And not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because sustainable practices of fishing and forestry will provide longer-term employment than clear-cutting. Douglas Chadwick points out that a giant spruce, sold as raw lumber for the price of a cheeseburger, is worth tens of thousands of dollars when milled carefully to produce sounding boards for music instruments.

There are sidebar interviews with people who make their living in the Tongass — giving flying and boating tours, fishing tours and hikes, doing research. The photos are beautiful, adding to the information in the essays. I think the illustrations could have been reproduced a little larger — they look like “design elements” rather than an integrated part of the whole.

Salmon in the Trees was produced by the Mountaineers to bring knowledge and appreciation of the Tongass to people who might not have heard of it otherwise. I think it succeeds.

Mirrored from Nature Intrudes. Please comment over there.