Da Bears....

YAY for Jesse! He shot his bear the first night they arrived in Ketchikan! Apparently there were bears all over where they went hunting so Jesse got to be a little picky!

After the hunt, which ended around 11pm, they brought the carcass back to our house and left it in the back of the pick-up for the night. Thanks to Max, around 1am, Reid went outside to find a LIVE black bear standing on his back legs with his front paws on the side of our truck, looking at his dead friend.

SOOO.......in order to be able to get some sleep that night Reid and I drove the truck to the Forest Service building, downtown, and left it for the night. This turned out to be a good spot and the bear was all ready to go visit the Fish and Game office the next morning.

You can see the paw prints in these pictures a little. If you look closely you can see smudge marks from his fur on the side of the truck too. Good thing Max heard him before things got bad! What can we expect? We do live in a neighborhood called Bear Valley!

28 pounds

Reid and Beau went fishing for King Salmon on the opening day of the King Salmon Derby. This 28 pound fish was in 10th place at the end of the day. It has since been beaten, but is still in the running. First place is worth $12,000 and this fish is far from first, but the top 30 places win a bunch of money--most of them about $1,000!

The Derby lasts for 3 weekends so there is still a chance for us to win! Keep your fingers crossed.

A good sign!

BEFORE

This is Skunk Cabbage. It grows in the spring and is the main diet of bears when they first come out of hibernation. They eat the tops off of this stinky flower and it causes a chemical reaction of some kind that acts like a laxitive. It is their version of Activia I guess! The picture above shows what the plant looks like before th bears eat it.

AFTER

We love to see bite marks in these plants. That means that bears have been through here!

There was also a HUGE, fresh pile of bear crap on the trail we were walking, but I didn't think you would appreciate seeing a picture of that so you will have to use your imagination.

Bet you can't do this!

The suby just turned 111,111

On our 35 miles of road (yes there are only 35 miles of road on our whole island!) we are averaging 3k miles per year. Crazy huh?

A Sunny Day in Ketchikan

On Saturday the weather was really nice so we took advantage and went for a boat ride up to Traitors Cove--hoping to see some bears for next week's black bear hunt with Jesse. We didn't see any bears, but saw a lot of other things! If you look closely you can see the back of these 2 humpback whales. Just an FYI: I am not using the zoom feature on my camera for this shot. They were really that close!

Max wanted to show off his Camo up at Margaret Creek. There is a fish ladder at Margaret Creek and in the fall people spend over $400 per person to fly here in a float plane and watch the bears eat the salmon jumping up the falls here. There is a really nice trail and viewing platform.

Above the falls at Margaret Lake.

After Traitors Cove we took the boat to Neets Bay. These seals got a little jumpy when we got too close so I had to zoom in to get a shot of them before they jumped in the water. There are 2 white seals up there. That is good bear country behind them! There is a hatchery in this bay so we will be back next week!

Notice that on a sunny day in Ketchikan, we are still pretty layered up! Who needs that pesky sun and warmth on their skin anyway right?

p.s. I DO!!!

Yes, you are related to this guy!

We did a grand opening trial run of the Audio Tour last Friday. Reid and Brian must have been feeling the spirit of Dolly Arthur (Ketchikan's most famous call girl).

This is a proud moment for Jen (Brian's wife) and I.

Turkeys!

As most of you know, this hunting trip was Reid's birthday present. Looks like they had fun!

In Alaska we hold the fish out in front of us to make the fish look bigger. I'm not getting that affect from this picture......

Kind of a weird way to scratch your shoulders if you ask me! But look at his muscles!

Where's Reid? That must be some nice Camo he is wearing because I can't even see him!

Poor Max!

While we were in Arizona Max took it upon himself to chew up a piece of a PVC pipe and enough grass to plug up his intestine! So when we got back we had to take him to the vet and they cut him open and charged us A LOT of money. All of our fishing and home improvement plans are now out the window thanks to Max! But he is finally doing better and we are excited to have our Max back to normal soon!


They used staples to put him back together. We asked for a zipper so that if he decided to be a dumb lab again we could have easier access to his stomach, but they didn't think that was a very good idea......