Chilkat Bald Eagle Reserve 1. Alaska, 2024.
My most recent trip to Alaska started close to home, standing beside the Nooksack River watching eagles soar and swoop in the pre-dawn light. A mid-winter avian and epicurean vision highlighting the annual late-run chum salmon migration.
Chilkat Bald Eagle Reserve 2. Alaska, 2024.
Not quite enough light to take photos yet, but I was watching the ethereal mists working their way along the riverbanks with the sun just starting over the far Canyon Lake Ridge. At just over five-thousand feet in elevation, this ridge is home to old growth Alaska Yellow Cedar, Pacific Silver Fir, and Mountain Hemlock. The northern base of this ridge, along Kenny Creek, provides overnight roosting for several hundred eagles during salmon season.
Chilkat Bald Eagle Reserve 3. Alaska, 2024.
Closer to the river where I stand, still mostly hidden by the dissipating darkness, adult and immature bald eagles are fishing on the banks, sitting on logs, and scouting for salmon high in the trees above me. The white flashes of the mature heads and tails draw your gaze as they seemingly float, disembodied, up and down and all around this moving, beautiful watershed.
Later that morning, my wife and two friends continued to watch and photograph eagles on the North Fork Nooksack. Our discussion turned to other places to see large numbers of the bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). Certainly the nearby Skagit River, or just across the border in the Fraser Valley (Harrison Mills) or further north to Brackendale Eagles Provincial Park near Squamish on the Sea-to-Sky Highway. But we had also heard about the Haines Alaska Bald Eagle Festival, and their claim to have one of the largest concentrations of eagles in the world.
Mendenhall Glacier Eagle. Alaska, 2024.
The idea of a solo, early winter adventure to Alaska really got me psyched. I had to go! So, in early November I hopped on a plane to Juneau, and then aboard the ferry MV Hubbard for a ninety-mile trip up the Lynn Canal to Haines. I hadn’t been to Juneau in years, and I enjoyed an afternoon exploring the Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area and then driving up the Glacier Highway that parallels Stephens Passage and the Saginaw Channel towards Echo Bay. Ferry rides are always a highlight -- time slows down…. you are alone with your thoughts… and nature glides by in all its glory.
Winter Reflection. Haines Alaska, 2024.
The following morning, I found myself traveling the deepest fiord in North America, past Eagle, Bird and Gull Islands, enmeshed deep within the Tongass National Forest, cruising alongside the Juneau Icefield and the Boundary Ranges of the Coast Mountains (Alaska and British Columbia), and in the home of the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian nations.
That afternoon, I landed in Haines, situated between the Chilkat and Coast Mountains, and wasted no time in heading up to the 48,000-acre Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve (established in 1982), and the Chilkat, Kleheni, and Tsirku Rivers. Haines is Deishú in Tlingit, which means ‘end of trail’ where the native tribal members would portage their canoes. The Jikaat Kwaan and L’koot Kwaan are Lingít people of the area. Lingít is the normalization of the Lingít language in a region known as Lingít Aani or “land of the Tlingit.”
Chilkat Reserve Grizzly. Alaska, 2024.
Like that morning on the Nooksack, I found myself out early on the banks of the river with fog and mist. In this case, the fog was brighter and golden in the light of the sun glinting off banks of light snow. Since this was my first trip here looking for eagles, I drove upriver slowly. I scanned every field, wetland, and creek bottom to find a late season moose, bear, or really … any wildlife. My patience paid off as I had just gotten out of the car on a side road when my peripheral vision picked up motion. A young brown bear (xóots in the Tlingit language) was making his/her way upstream, and it was moving fast.
Around the next bend, I found the sign for the preserve, and all the other eagle photographers lined along the river. I stopped to give them a heads up on the bear, who arrived within a few moments. Lots of tripods and cameras retreating quickly to their cars, although this young bear was shy and posed no threat to anything other than salmon carcasses. I spent the better part of that morning watching this bear. What a wonderful way to spend your day! And ok, yes, that was definitely the highlight of my trip! No surprise there, as bears are always the high point of any of my explorations.
This bear presented other benefits, as its passage really got the photographers, the eagles and a few mergansers moving around. It was a good time to have your camera, with perfect light and active, agitated subjects infighting, flying from river to tree, and back again to the banks, logs, and strainers all along the waterway.
Both the Nooksack and the Chilkat are wide, glacial fed rivers. But Chilkat has an enormous alluvial flood plain, and there could easily have been thousands of eagles out there, scattered over a wide and expansive field of view. Almost every log and stump in the river had one or more eagles perched on it. Far off in the distance, almost beyond eyesight, you could faintly make out the white heads of eagles in great numbers. Certainly the “convocation” of eagles that I had been searching for.
Living In Alaska! Haines, 2024.
By afternoon, the fog lifted and the mountains surrounding Haines, including some fifty-four summits and hundreds of glaciers, came out in all their glory. Looking to the east and the Coast Range, you are looking at peaks creatively named Devils Fist, Mount Mordor, Rage Against the Machine, Rotting Death Spire, and Satan’s Mistress. To the west, the Chilkat Range and 8,104-foot Mount Nesselrode, and just beyond that range, Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve.
Chilkoot Lake Eagle. Haines Alaska, 2024.
The motto of Haines is, “if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes” and the next morning found it cold, grey and with a light but constant rain. About what was expected, but the weather seemed to affect the eagles who were listless and just sitting motionless in the rain. I opted to drive out past the ferry station to Chilkoot Lake and river that flows into the Lutak Channel. On my last trip here, it was bear central, and my wife and I saw at least a dozen or more bears each day. No bears this trip, but that end of Haines is absolutely outstanding!
Living In Alaska 2! Haines, 2024.
The next morning, I had a few hours before boarding MV Kennicott for the ride back to Juneau. I spent my remaining time sitting along the river, thinking about how lucky I was to be here in Alaska, to see bears and eagles, and to have the time to drink in the river, the mountains, and the experience. Time on (or beside) the water, time with my camera, time alone to reassess my life and priorities, and to dream about future adventures in the wild. Back home for a week, I still wake each morning with visions of golden light, eagles, mountains, and bears. Was I really there? And how soon can I go back?
Endnotes:
Thank goodness for successful conservation efforts! In 1982, the State of Alaska established the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve, setting aside 48,000 acres of river-bottom to protect the eagle habitat and all five species of pacific salmon found there. On the Nooksack, the Whatcom Land Trust and the Trillium Corporation signed a conservation easement in 1995 to protect a 168 acre night roost along Kenney Creek, a tributary to the North Fork Nooksack. After a day of foraging for food, eagles gather in a staging area near the river in the late afternoon, and from there move to the night roost on the creek. At the end of 1998, the Whatcom Land Trust purchased the 2,266 acre Canyon Lake Community Forest and donated the property to Whatcom County and Western Washington University (retaining a restrictive conservation easement). Part of this community forest, Canyon Ridge, includes 750 acres of old growth estimated to be nearly 1,000 years old.
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