Grizzlies on the beach

Lake Clark, AK

About 18-months ago I researched where we could go to photograph some bears, and decided on Silver Salmon Creek Lodge at Lake Clark and booked it; so it has been a long anticipated wait. The booking included flights from Soldotna to Lake Clark, accommodation, food and a guide to take us to photograph the bears and a boat trip to photograph the puffins. We chose August as this is when the bears are fishing for salmon and our whole trip has been based around this holiday within a holiday.

Prior to our flight from Soldotna to Lake Clark it pretty much rained for two weeks, apart from about four days, which we spent looking around the rest of the Kenai peninsula with day trips to the towns of Kenai and Homer. 

On the way to Homer you see a number of beautiful snow capped mountains, with glaciers and mountains greeting you as you drive into town. 

We also went down to the Russian River an hour away a number of times as we were told that we would definitely see bears fishing in the river. Unfortunately we were either too late (by an hour) or at the wrong part of the river on the few occasions that this happened.  So we spent the days chatting to the locals, learning about the salmon, watching the fishermen and enjoying the sunshine. There is a walkway a couple of metres in from the river hidden behind thick undergrowth, which you then have to go down other walkways to get to the river which are numbered. The stairways are also marked with the name of the carpark that you came from, so you don’t waste time and energy (it’s a steep walk up). Like Haines, all the fishermen and women (and there are lots of females) stand in the river in waders to fish. The salmon are very tired by the time they get to this part of the river and most of them are starting to decompose, having spawned and being the end of their lifespan. The fishermen are hoping to catch (more like snare as the fish don’t eat at this stage) the younger fresher fish that are still silver on the outside. When they are red, they are no good. There are so many fish here that you could scoop them up in a net but only the natives are allowed to do this. There were some women from the same family fishing in the river in long skirts – their father said they were used to this which makes me think it is some religious thing (that they can’t wear pants)

On the day we were due to fly out the cloud cover was too low for safe landing, which wasn’t a great start. We had moved our truck and trailer to the carpark of the company that was flying us over, so we were able to spend the waiting time in comfort instead of their waiting room which we would have to share with the two boxers; one of whom needed constant entertainment (which consisted of annoying me). The pilot did another test run at 19:30 but it was still unsafe.

time to fly

The following day was bright and sunny so we were able to go, yay! We landed on the beach and were taken by a little trailer attached to an ATV to the Silver Salmon Creek Lodge. This lodge is visited by fishing groups, photographic groups and of course individuals like us. This time there were two photographic groups and a group of five independent travellers – so we became the group of five. We were given a guide just like the photographic groups who took us out to find the bears. As we had found in numerous places on this trip, there just weren’t very many bears around this year which was disappointing. We really wanted to get a picture of a bear catching a salmon, and we both did, so we were both really happy. We were lent gumboots as we would often be standing in or walking across water or marshy land. David had said to Lindsay that he didn’t need to bring his new lens as the bears would be too close. But it turned out he did need it, so it was lucky that we had brought it anyway. We probably saw four or five bears altogether but never at the same time, so there was no interaction between them. Lake Clark is tidal and we had to go across creeks to get to the beach, with the full moon the tide was 27 feet, so time spent on the beach was restricted depending on the tide. We would have to come back across the last creek at a certain time or risk being left out there for six hours.

Silver Salmon Creek Lodge

We never saw any male grizzly bears or cubs unfortunately. Apparently there had been a lot of bears just outside the lodge in the meadow in July, but then a storm came through and they all disappeared. The bears spend a lot of time sleeping, then suddenly decide to get up, do some fishing and then go to sleep again! Then they will go looking for fish, scanning the waters like they are watching a tennis match. If they can’t see any they will walk off, they walk for miles and very quickly, I doubt I could keep up with them without running. Four legs are much faster than two! You spend a lot of time waiting for action, but when there is action it is explosive, the bear sprints through the water after the fish, sometimes catching it, sometimes missing. It makes exciting photography. They look like a dog chasing a ball. This was what we had come for...

Our river cruise

We had a couple of boat trips up the tributaries and one out into the sea to Duck island to photograph the puffins. Puffins are extremely frustrating to photograph; it’s like catching a fly with chopsticks. If you are lucky enough to spot one with fish in it’s mouth, you try and follow it until you can get a shot as it goes round and round in circles from the sea to the rocks. Then you get extremely dizzy and nearly fall over! My camera is great for landscapes but not really built for the speed of wildlife and birds, which made my job even harder. These birds are really fast. If I left the camera on multi focusing the puffin would be blurred, so I had to use a single spot which made it even harder to capture the target. Lindsay couldn’t keep holding his big lens up, it was just too heavy for this type of photography, so he had to use a smaller one. They are so far away that most of them are just tiny specs on our photo and we have to blow them up to see if they are any good or not. I was really pleased that I got a couple with fish in their beak.

Grizzly

Bald Eagle

Grizzly with salmon

Puffin with a herring

The day we went to the puffins was perfect and the sea was as flat as a pancake which made it easier to get off the boat onto the island – we had all been lent waders to walk through the water. On our return trip the tide was out and the boat couldn’t come even close to the beach, so we waded a fair way in to the beach with all our camera gear. I wouldn’t have wanted to do that with waves crashing around me.

Puffin

We had booked 5 days, 4 nights, with the fifth day just flying out in the morning. Luckily because we were flexible and so were they, so we were able to add the day we lost to the end of our stay. We were extremely lucky with the weather, the first three days were sunny, the fourth was overcast, with no rain on any day. It held off until the night we got back, just perfect!

It was a great trip and we hope to go back there one day.

Sunrise from the balcony