Last days

It occurred to me that I never posted a final image of the new building we worked so hard on earlier this year. Partially I was waiting for the final paint job and other touches. Here it is in all of its "wavecrest" glory.

The weather has been poor the last few days. Today we have winds around 45 mph and haven't been able to get much field work done. It has made for some interesting clouds and sunsets though.

Our closing helpers, Molly and Pete have been forced to endure long hours in the main cabin with us during the bad weather. We have been reading and cooking alot.

Finally, the secret to working at Chignik. A barometer, shotgun, first aid kit, and inspiration. That's all we need to survive the summer around here. Well, that and a fishing rod, but we have a whole extra room for those.

Sexy Salmon

Well, now we know why there hasn't been much beach seining in late August in past years. There are a ton of beach spawning sockeye that get caught up in the net! This is a particularly large male that we found at one of the bigger spawning sites.

Here is one of the Dolly Varden that I have been working with. Males get a hook in their jaw and associated notch when they are getting ready to impress the ladies.

Late night fish workup in the lab/shop.

There are some scary isopods in Chignik Lake. Seriously. These things will strip a fish down to bones in a matter of hours.

The beginning of the end

On Sunday I flew back to Chignik after a wonderful break in California with Tish. The approach in Chignik is right over our camp. Here you can see the village and runway through the front window of the Caravan (Cessna 208) that takes us in and out.

Lots of flowers started blooming while I was gone and the path up to the camp has a ton of great flowrs right now. It definitely feels like the calm before the storm as everything makes a final go at blooming before fall sets in soon.

Ray and Ulrica Hilborn are also visiting camp for the next few days, and since we had a rare calm day we decided to go halibut fishing. No monsters, but we did get limits so there is plenty of fish to take home. We also baked some with nothing but a little olive oil on the pan to keep it from sticking. It was fantastic bare when its that fresh.

On Tuesday Ray decided he wanted to see the Alec river when all of the sockeye are spawning (the Alec is the biggest sockeye spawning stream in the system with probably half a million spawners). On the way out we stopped to check Conrad's pygmy whitefish nets (above). He is collecting fish from several depths to look at differences in feeding, morphology and genetics among the 3 morphs that exist here in Chignik.

Not surprisingly, the Alec river was full of sockeye. So many are spawning right now that the water is very turbid from all of the sediment that they move. In addition, there are also a large number of bears. They are in very high densities and so intent on fishing that they really pay little attention to us as we zoom by in the jet boats. luckily there are so many fish that they didn't seem very aggressive either.

Back in action. Sort of.

Sorry for the outage. The internet has been out here for a couple of weeks. We have had pretty poor weather which I am sure has not helped the situation. Our internet works by beaming a signal about a mile across the lake to the satellite uplink station in the village (like a really beefy wireless router). This means that when the internet goes out we have a couple of options. First, we can use precious satellite phone minutes to sit on hold with our internet provider. This is pretty poor because it really burns up our minutes so we try to avoid it. Our second option involves sending someone across the lake in the boat to Julie's house. Then they can call tech support on a regular land line and radio back across the lake on the VHF with instructions. I am sure its pretty amusing for the village to listen to us hash out our computer problems over the radio. Well, that's what Conrad and I did the other day, and in the end we got it all working for now. I am leaving in two days to go back to California and see Tish for 10 days. Its a weird time to take a break because our summer is way more than half over and it will be a mad last two weeks when I get back from the states. But, I am really looking forward to it and Jen and Conrad probably want to get rid of me for a while anyway. (here is a view from the deck for Claire).

The weather has been so bad lately I haven't been taking the camera out of the case. Our last trip up to Black lake it was blowing ~20 knots and I wore a drysuit, which proved a wise choice. One of my projects this summer has involved collecting DNA from Dolly Varden fry in several small streams throughout the watershed. This has been fun because we get to go to places where the regular work never takes us. We even named some streams that weren't on the map. The collections were generally done with a backpack electrofisher as we hiked up the streams. This has been a great excuse to get out and hike around, something we don't get much of here. Normally we just ride around in boats all day and count some fish, occasionally cutting their heads open.

Chignik eats

Its time I discussed food here in Chignik. First and foremost we eat a bit of fish here. Although we have huge salmon runs, we actually eat more halibut as they are easier to catch. These usually end up as tacos or pan fried fillets. When we are lacking fresh vegetables it feels good to at least have some fresh fish (strange but true).

Greens can be sparse at times here. We often cannot get fresh veggies so we go through dry spells on the green stuff. This is particularly hard because we are so accustomed to good fresh veggies in the summer time. This year I am experimenting with growing sprouts as a way to get some green between trips to the bay store. So far it has worked out really well. They are easy to grow and low maintenance. It really makes the sandwich when there is no lettuce.

I have also been working with sourdough this year. I made a starter in the first week of June and have kept it going ever since. We have made lots of pancakes, but the fresh sourdough bread is the real treat. This is fun to do and helps our store bought bread go a little farther.

We have also made some sourdough pizza crust. This is nice because it actually doesn't need to rise. Just mix in the starter and roll it out. Its not quite as good (although Jen looks pretty excited) as the dough I make at home but its really easy and makes for a quick pizza meal.

Of course, we do also eat salmon here. There are currently over 1000 kings in the river, which may not sound like too many, but the river is only about 2 miles long. Hopefully we can get out and get some more in the next couple of days.

So what is a typical meal at Chignik? Here is a list of our dinners from the first month:
Red sauce spaghetti (it was the first day, ok)
Chicken stir fry
Halibut tacos
chile verde
fresh sockeye/mashed potatoes
hamburgers
grilled halibut
roast chicken/ rosemary potatoes
pork fajitas
gumbo soup (progresso can, we were camping up at Black Lake)
macaroni and cheese
homemade 15 bean soup
Thai curry (twice)
flank steak/baked potatoes/green beans
taco salad
homemade chicken pot pie
poached salmon
soft tacos
pizza (artichoke hearts/onions/tomatoes)
pan fried halibut
halibut green thai curry
mushroom and red wine risotto
chili and cornbread
homemade enchiladas
shepherds pie (Jen specialty)
homemade black bean soup
stir fry with rice noodles
mushroom and broccoli quiche
Lasagne

I think we do pretty well. Soon Jen and I are going to make a run to the Bay store for some lettuce, tomatoes and more tortillas (I have been pushing the mexican pretty hard and we have used up a case of tortillas already).

Another Bear

Well, we are pretty busy right now with several visitors and the ongoing building projects so I haven't had time to take many photos. Here is a nice blond bear I saw a while back. It was pretty curious about us and stood up checking us out for some time before it went on eating the vegetation. Yesterday we went up to Black Lake where 500,000 fish are currently beginning to spawn. There are a number of bears up there. Next time I will try to get some shots of them.

More building projects

We're not putting up a flag, we're pulling up a fridge! So we decided it was high time for a new generator shed. Our old one was three feet from the new lab/shop building, soaked in diesel, and not very sturdy. So we decided to put up a new one further away. Unfortunately we got off to a rough start as the spot for our foundation was occupied by an old refrigerator al la 1970's. Lots of stuff gets thrown out around here, but few people go to the trouble to bury things as huge as a fridge. It was quite an ordeal to get it out but we finally succeeded.

A couple days later we got the foundation in, and the pad for the generator to go on (3000 pounds of concrete! That one is going to be around for a while.) The old generator shed has the rusty red roof. Mark Reynolds came over from Dillingham to help us put this thing in, and here we are starting to put the roof on.

Rafters are done.

So the 900 pound generator had to make it from one generator building to the next. Luckily with some encouragement we could just ride it over (well, that and a couple of strategically placed come-alongs)

Hey its in! The old Lister lives again, and it even fits on its new pad! Now we just need some finishing touches and we'll be making power again.

Fourth of July Fun

sorry for the outage, our internet has been terrible the past week or so. On the fourth of July we were invited to the fish and game weir downstream from our camp to hang out for the day. We started off around lunchtime with some fishing for kings in the fish and game scow. Why bring the fish to the BBQ when you can bring the BBQ to the fish? Their boat is great because it has a big flat deck so we could anchor it in the river and cook up some lunch while we were fishing.

After fishing we were involved in a horseshoe tournament. James (the weir manager) and I were paired up and won our first game, but then lost in the second round. It was alot of fun though, and I wasn't too embarassing even though I haven't gotten the horseshoe pit here at FRI up and running yet (well, the pit is done but I haven't made any horseshoes).

After horseshoes, fish and game brought our a huge box of expired flares, which are as much fun as fireworks. Here everyone is trying to figure out how to launch the big rocket flares.

The kids, Wyatt and Dalton, got to set off some of the hand held flares and smoke signals. They had a blast with those things.

Alec River

A few days ago we took a trip up the Alec River as far as we could go in the boat (about 12 kilometers). At that point the river forks and the flows are too low to get any higher, even in the jet. It was the furthest up any of us had been. What was neat was that the water was extremely clear and loaded with big Dolly Varden. Conrad and I took turns rowing the boat down while casting to the fish holding in the river. The weather was nice and it was a blast. We would love to get back up there but the water is dropping fast and I don't know if it will be possible this year.

Here's the focus of my research, a big male Dolly getting ready to spawn way up the Alec.

After a long day of fishing it was a late trip back down to camp, about 2 hours in the boat.

Fishing

A few days ago we had a 40,000 sockeye day through the weir. Conrad managed to catch one of them and we ate it within the hour. It was fantastic, and the first sockeye we had here this year. They can be frustrating to fish for, as they are extremely numerous, and don't really take fishing tackle.

Before Chad left we did some halibut fishing.

Being the gracious host, I arranged to let him catch the large fish. He actually caught two that were 25-30 lbs. He froze them and took them home. Mine became tacos that night.

Gratuitous bear photo of the day

Across the river from our camp there are some nets that locals use for their subsistence fishing. The neighborhood dogs patrol the area pretty hard and sound the alarm when bears come by to pick the nets. The dogs are pretty tough and will often challenge the bears to a point. Even the bravest dogs will turn tail and run when the bears take a serious nip at them though. These nets are a constant source of entertainment for us. Thanks to Chad for the cool shot.

Fish On!

So after dropping Chad at the airport we headed down to the lagoon to get front row seats for the commercial salmon opener at Hume point. Fish and Game keeps sockeye counts at their weir and finally had enough escapement (~200,000) to allow a 48 hour opener. So, they decided to open the season at 3:30 pm on June 20. We arrived a half hour early to ensure that we would not miss it. There were about 20 boats waiting for the countdown to make their first sets of the season.

At 3:30 the Fish and Game boat gave a radio countdown and fired a flare gun ( a couple seconds early) to indicate the fishery open.

Nets out!

The Kurt Eldon makes their first set of the season with the tender practically pulling the net up on the beach. He is only about 50 feet from where we stand on the shore.

Kurt Eldon with a nice haul pulling the boat over. The first day of lagoon fishing netted about 19,000 fish for the fishery, so now the cannery is in full swing as well. More on that later.

Chad goes home

Two significant things happened the other day (June 20). In the morning we took chad to the "airport", so he could go back to Oregon. Luckily he had a nice relaxing vacation here with us. See how happy he is?

Luckily the lines at the airport were short

The security can be pretty tough though.

Chad's ticket out of here, a Caravan. He said that after he left Chignik they landed on a beach somewhere and loaded up 35 50 pound boxes of frozen salmon from a fisherman, which brings us to the next significant event.

All decked out

Last year Ray Hilborn mentioned that a deck on our cabin could be nice and might help keep the cabin cleaner (note sweet inlay of steel grating near the door). Anyway, we made it happen this year. It tooks a couple of days to pour the concrete footers and get it set up, but in the end we are pretty happy with it. It was even t-shirt weather the day we finished. Thanks Ray!