ZECO TRAVEL TALK

Home! Well at least for me, as I live just over an hour away in Ebetsu. As we neared the Japanese coastline, my phone service kicked in and I was able to call home and check that my partner, Mayumi, was on her way to the harbor and carrying her kimono in readiness for the final dinner on board. That, however, was to be several hours away. In the meantime, after our morning at sea and our Japanese clearance procedures had been completed, we all set off ashore. Most were bound for Otaru City—just a stone’s throw from the dock, with visits to the famous local glass studio, which reached its original hey-day through the production of glass for glass oil lamps and for floats used in the local herring fishery, and to the Aoyama Bettei villa to learn more of the fishery. Meanwhile, a pair of taxis arrived to whisk the birders off to a lovely local valley. Mayumi and I regularly hike to Mt Haruka, a mountain just west of Otaru, so I had chosen the lower reaches of that trail as the site that the birders should head for on our last birding foray of a fantastic trip. Read more

Wow! What a day! A fantastic fiery sunrise kicked off a day which involved us going ashore on tiny Tyuleniy in the Sea of Okhotsk. Approaching from the south, the island became noticeable first because it was literally carpeted wall-to-wall with mammals and birds, second because of the incredible sound, and third because of the smell of all of those creatures. We pushed our way ashore through ranks of Northern Fur Seals and spent over three hours with our senses on overload. Read more

Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky is the capital of Kamchatka Province in Russia’s Far East. The city of 200,000 residents is the center of Kamchatka’s lucrative salmon fishery and houses Russia’s largest submarine base. Petropavlovsk (the city of St. Peter and St. Paul) was founded in 1740 by Vitus Bering, a Danish explorer in the service of the Russian Navy. Bering named the settlement after the two ships, the St. Peter and the St. Paul, which he used in his discovery of Alaska and the Bering Strait (1741-1742). During the 18th and 19th centuries, Russian fur traders exploited the sea otter (“Kamchatka beaver”), then so numerous that the first Russian term for the Pacific Ocean was the “Beaver Sea.” Sea otter pelts, the most valuable of all furs, were traded for Chinese tea, silk, and porcelain. Salmon has been Kamchatka’s main export since the early 20th century. The salmon fishery was dominated by Japanese entrepreneurs after the Russo-Japanese War (1905) through the Second World War (1945). Since 1945, Russian fishing interests have controlled the valuable Kamchatka salmon fishery. Read more

This island was once occupied by Japanese forces during World War II. The staff landed early, enjoying a golden sunrise on a beautiful black sand beach, in order to perform reconnaissance for the morning walks. The tundra on the surrounding hillsides still showed scars, however, of slow healing bomb craters created by U.S. ordinance in 1943 to drive off the Japanese invasion.

War relics were scattered everywhere: blasted underground bunkers, overgrown concrete foundations, mounts with rusting anti-aircraft guns, and unrecognizable bits of metal hidden in the high grass. Wildflowers were resplendent, and included monkey flower, wild iris, two varieties of bog orchid, and coastal paintbrush, and their brilliant color stood in stark contrast to the ravages of a past war. Of particular interest to me (the staff geologist) were the sea cliffs comprised of cross-bedded volcaniclastic deposits, likely left by pyroclastic flows from past volcanic eruptions.

As passengers were ferried back to the ship they cruised past a sunken Japanese supply ship in the harbor, and stopped briefly at an electrically powered mini-sub, destroyed while it sat in dry dock. Later in the afternoon we visited Sirius Point on the north side of the island, chasing enormous flocks of thousands of least auklets during a Zodiac cruise. The spectacular columnar jointed basalt was created there in 1962, during the most recent eruption on this remote Aleutian island.

Our visit to Attu Island, the last of the Aleutians that we will visit on our voyage of discovery through Alaskan water was spectacular and wonderfully varied. Over the course of the day we had a sample of at least three different weather patterns. We were greeted by low overcast, foggy conditions, and then expanded the island’s weather repertoire with sun breaking through briefly, before reverting to heavy fog and rain. Most of us walked up through Massacre Valley, the sight of one of the bloodiest battles of World War II as American and Canadian forces made an amphibious landing on this remote isle in 1943. The whole geography of the conflict was spread out before us as we took one of the walks that our expedition leader, Mike Messick, laid out for us today.

We arrived at a time in which the Coast Guard is pulling out of this island after decades of occupation.

For birders Attu Island is place for extraordinary watching as it is situated on the East Asia flight path of migrating birds. One never knows what will show up and that “hope springs eternal” attitude that characterizes birder in general was well rewarded today. The birders saw a number of very exciting birds including long-toed stint and terek sandpiper.

Throughout the day we were very much aware of being in special and remote place, one in which the conflicts of yesterday has been replaced by wild flowers and quiet rolling fog-enshrouded hill, green and inviting.

The roars of the male fur seals would occasionally cease just long enough that we could hear the squeals of the tiny month-old pups. Scattered across the black lava rocks, many of these young seal pups were eagerly awaiting the return of their mothers, who were currently currently off on feeding trips. While the pups waited, the enormous adult males (which are 35% longer and more than 4.5 times heavier than the females) each defended their beachfront territory from other males, in the hope that only they would have access to the females on their turf. This morning, we had arrived at one of the world’s great wildlife spectacles: a northern fur seal rookery in the Bering Sea’s remote Pribilof Islands.

Equally impressive was a visit to a tundra-covered bluff overlooking a steep cliff that was dotted with nesting seabirds of several different species. Puffins, murres, and three species of auklets found this vertical environment a safe haven for raising their young, no easy task on an island with an extremely healthy Arctic fox population. We looked down upon black-legged kittiwakes, gliding gracefully along the cliff face while coming and going from their nests. But the highlight of it all had to be spotting the coral-red legs of the red-legged kittiwake, perched on a ledge high over the sea. This species breeds only on four island groups, all of which are located in the Bering Sea.

This morning expedition leader Mike Messick assembled us for a Zodiac cruise around the Baby Islands where we had great views of the common eiders (with chicks), tufted puffins, pigeon guillemots, and a peregrine falcon. The stars of the day were the whiskered auklets, as the Baby Islands offer one of the best places in the world to see these birds. Along with a few marine animals (stellar sea lions, harbor seals), we had the wonderful opportunity to observe them as they interacted with their environment.

Returning to the ship, we enjoyed lunch as we sailed on to Dutch Harbor, the busiest fishing port in the United States. Upon our arrival, we visited the Aleut Museum and the memorial park celebrating military efforts in the Aleutians. We were given a very moving introduction to the Russian Orthodox Church where the guide explained to us not only some details of the work of the church in the region, but also about the building itself which is listed on the National Register of Historical Sites. The World War II Museum was a high point for many. Here we viewed a first-class series of exhibits detailing the military activity in the Aleutians during that conflict, but also giving appropriate attention to the support services including the nurses who served in this dangerous theater of the war and of the removal of the Aleuts from their island homes for the duration of the war and their return after it was over.