July 5th – 2007 – Day 26 of Our Drive To Alaska

We are in Seward, Alaska! Glaciers Whales, etc today!

We had an amazing few days here in the Kenai Peninsula, and more locally, Soldotna. We spent June 30th through July 4th at the River Raven Lodge – Owed and operated by Dick and Stevie Erkeneff – followed by a housing and cooking staff that do a fabulous job at making you feel at home. The food was amazing – waking up to fresh coffee, a dozen varieties of tea, fresh fruit, a plentiful serving of pancakes and the best bacon we’ve ever had – crisp and full of flavor. When we arrived at the River Raven, we were greeted at the door by their granddaughter, Emma (10) who is spending her summer up in Alaska – her forth consecutive year. We stepped into a welcoming atmosphere as soon as we stepped into the door, stone fireplace and the log cabin structure caught our eyes right away – we knew we were going to enjoy our time here no matter what. During our stay, their daughter Pegge Burnecker helped with serving and making our stay most memorable – and their son Rickie was also up visiting the family and his daughter at the time – Rickie is a lifetime California Surfer and Traveler, an artist, a sculptor, a father, and does design work for companies around the world. Meeting this family and hearing their stories and about their life in Alaska was one of the most memorable events on this trip thus far. They made our dream road trip come true – first by introducing us to Hobo Jim, setting up Halibut, King Salmon, and Red Salmon Fishing – and shooting us all sorts of information for our trip to Seward this afternoon – we are looking to do a Kenai Fjord tour to view the glaciers cracking and falling into the sea – as they normally do during the summer months. The Erkeneff’s will be part of our life for the rest of our lives. And thanks to Bryan’s father, Dave, for visiting and making all of this happen – we couldn’t be more thankful for the events that we have experienced in Alaska – and our trip to Denali on Friday will finish our trip off.

Now down to Fishing Details…

Well, after our exhausting day of Halibut Fishing, we had another early morning at a 4:30 breakfast and a 10 hour ride up and down the Kenai River to fish for King Salmon. Boats were littered everywhere, and the Kenai River is known for the biggest King Salmon in the world – so we were definitely in for a treat. It started out with Bryan, Dave, Pegge, and myself on the first 5 hours – with our expert guide, Reuben. He showed us a great time fishing, brought us to the killer spots, and was even able to keep us entertained for 10 hours straight. I started off with the first fighting catch – turned out to be a trout – but exciting nonetheless. Not 10 minutes later I got a large zip ad my line pulled the boat toward the water – I grabbed my pole and was ready for the fight. He sure gave me one – Rueben said he had to be a killer – because that zip was the biggest he’d ever seen. 3 minutes into my fight, my line went limp…my King Salmon got free – it sure was a rush – but not a disappointment – it was an experience. Dave was next with a fight of a larger trout. We kept neither. Pegge, sitting in front of me hooked a salmon!! – it was jumping left and right, swimming under the boat, and giving Pegge a good fight. We pulled aboard a Jack (a young King Salmon), and under 20 inches, so we were able to keep it – we had it for dinner the next day. It’s now 8:30am, and Bryan has yet to have a bite. Almost snoozed off we all of the sudden hear a quick screeching “zip” as Bryan’s pole bent over and into the water –“ we have a big one!” The adrenaline rush kicked in as Bryan leaped 5 feet into the air to grab his pole. And boy did this fish put up a fight – Bryan is reeling in, letting him run, reeling back in – you should have seen his face – not to mention everyone else’s. As the fish is trying to get away from the hook that is jabbed in his mouth, he gives us a run for our money as we dance around the boat to make room for Bryan and his catch. Twenty minutes later and two loops around the boat we have him close enough to try to net him – and man, that first time he breached – we all yelled out, and more prominently, Reuben, “Yeehaa!!!”. It sure lifted the spirits for our boat, and the other around us – as this was the only large fish caught near us. Too bad for Bryan that he was done fishing for the day after that due to the law – and also good news for him, none of us were able to catch a King Salmon – Bryan was the winner that day!!
So now we’ve gone Halibut and King Salmon fishing – Dick set us up with Red Salmon Fishing over at Wolverine Creek. We drove 30 minutes out to a float plane lake. The site of the float planes put smiles on our faces as we geared up and got ready to fly over the Cook Inlet to the pools of red salmon just 50 miles west of take-off. We flew to no-man’s land – where you can only fly in or boat in – setting down on a smooth lake to our motor boats. As we raced to the best fishing spot for 20 minutes, we spotted eagles in their nests every 1500 ft. Within 15 minutes of us arriving at the shallow fishing hole, a grizzly bear introduces itself to us a mere 50 ft away; his nose up in the air scenting the arriving black bears and the salmon on the shallow lake shore that were packed up to 5 fish deep in spots. He makes no hesitation to grab his easy meal, and dives into the water, snagging a large salmon on his first attempt. Minutes later he was on shore devouring his easy meal and moving on. He came back a few minutes later to chase the black bears away – but soon vanished for the day – and the black bears came back to say hi another half a dozen times that morning. Bryan caught our first salmon this morning – and the deal with these reds is that they don’t and won’t go for bait like the King Salmon and Halibut will. You actually have to snag these guys. Mouth catches are keepers, but if you snag them in the tail, a fin, or the back, you have to throw them back – kind of like a carnival when you think about it…

It was fun though – they put up a large fight, and we each caught 6-8 fish – only being able to keep 3 a piece. The fish were at this spot because they scented the water from this creek in the ocean. They were born here years ago and have come back to spawn – swimming up stream for 10 miles, dodging seals in the rivers that followed the school up, and dodging metal hooks at the pool where they wait to make the last flop up the creek. It is really quite amazing that these fish make it all the way back to their home just by the scent of the water hundreds of miles away – they really have a “scent for direction”. It got better too – as we finished up at the pool and took our pictures and videos of the bears – we headed off to a sandbar beach to clean and fillet the fish. While Nick, our veteran guide, cleaned our meal, we explored the area where bear, moose, and eagle tracks littered the beach. Wildlife is so abundant here – it really blows our mind – sure the Adirondacks near us in Rochester have tons of wildlife, but Alaska has more – much more. We landed back at the float plane airport around lunch time to conclude our amazing adventure out – and just another day to the week that just keeps getting better as we go along.

We ended our day with a trip to Anchor Point, AK – North America’s most Westerly Highway Point – concluding one of our missions on this trip!! Three years ago we did a road trip to Newfoundland, making it to Cape Spear, the most easterly point in North America.
We will be coming back to Alaska to go through more adventures that there are to do. We brought back 22.9 lbs of red salmon, 16.6 lbs of King Salmon, and 50 lbs of Halibut; total of 88.5 lbs being shipped back to Rochester.

All in all – we had the most amazing time that we could have in Alaska – and these experiences
will last a lifetime. Today we are in Seward, Alaska – heading out on a boat to view the glaciers crashing into the waves of the cool waters of the Pacific Ocean – and hopefully viewing belugas and Orcas and others as well. Tomorrow we head for Denali – Depending on weather, we are either flying or driving out that way; we won’t know till tomorrow morning.

We are soon headed down through British Columbia and look to be in Vancouver, BC on the 11th of July. Keep posted as we update. We have over 300 pictures to share (more after today) and a good 10 videos as well. We look to having them up tomorrow as we get a steady internet connection.

Cheers again the people we have met along the way and the friendships that will last forever!!

Matt & Bryan