Sometimes when I close my eyes and dream about Alaska I dream about a waterfall pouring out of the rainforest, with huge mountains looming far behind it, and then a bear walks out in front of the waterfall and catches a salmon.
Well....that exact thing happened today.
We arrived early in the morning to a place called Pavlof Harbor. It is a little bay on Chichigof Island in Southeast Alaska. At this time of year the pink salmon return to the river at the head of the bay to swim upstream and mate. And with the return of the salmon, bears from all around descend upon the stream. There also happens to be a beautiful waterfall that you could almost kayak almost all the way up to.
We had one large bear come out and catch a few salmon. Then it walked straight up the waterfall, posed for a moment, and cruised out of sight. Then two more bears came out and really put on a show. By this time we had our guests up the river in kayaks, stand up paddle boards, and our small boat. It was a pretty amazing scene with a couple of bears hunting for salmon up an Alaskan river and guests on stand up paddleboards watching from the same river.
These two sibling bears were not very good at catching salmon but their antics were enjoyed by all.
The riverside steeped in a bright green algae made for a stunning background for this brown bear.
The two young siblings did show a bit of interest in our small flotilla from time to time.
The local Tlingit people have a saying, 'when the tide is out, the table is set.' Here our brown bear snacks on some readily available barnacles.
Bear in a waterfall, dream come true.
This is going to make a wild Christmas card for this family
Check out the location on pinmapple here: [//]:# (!pinmapple 57.84127 lat -135.03700 long Pavlof Bears at a Waterfall d3scr)
And as always, thanks for joining in the adventures!
Dai Mar