Hoonah, Alaska:  Thursday, July 21, 2016

Low 56 - High 61 with light misty rain off and on, typical SE AK weather.  Sunrise was at 4:30 am and it was still light at 10:30 pm last night. We rented a car and drove many of the 40 or so miles of roads around Hoonah.  The ABC islands, as Admiralty, Baranof and Chichagof are called, are home to the largest concentration of Brown Bears in the world (there are no Black Bears on these islands).   We were fortunate to find a sow and her two cubs and watch them for over an hour while they played and foraged and fed.

The view from our room at the Icy Strait Lodge at low tide

Same view at high tide 12 hours later

So beautiful without a lot of city lights around

Female Brown Bears weigh between 200 and 850 lbs.

This female looked a little skinny but now that the salmon have started their runs she should fatten up quickly.

She stood up to check on her cubs

Mom with one of her two cubs

 Unlike Black Bears, Brownies have a prominent shoulder hump



Brown Bears have huge shoulder muscles

One of the cubs

Mom is ever-vigilant on the lookout for male bears

Mom caught a salmon and the cubs are fighting over it

Mom is teaching her cubs how to reach high and pull the Devil's Club leaves down to get to the tasty red berries near the top.

The berries are poisonous to humans but the bears suffer no ill effects from eating them.

Lesson learned

Watching bears being bears

Beautiful Fireweed

Somebody wasn't paying attention, ya think?

Mew Gulls

Bald Eagle chick

One of the parents returning to the nest

Parent feeding Junior

Immature Bald Eagle

We will be boarding the Delphinus tomorrow (Friday) morning and will be on the water and out of internet and cell coverage for about a week.  We will check in from Juneau in 8 days.