20240919 Thursday, September 19, 2024- Kodiak Alaska
As we approached Kodiak, Alaska, the source of its nickname as the Emerald Island of Alaska was evident. The area surrounding the harbor was covered with green and fall colored rounded hills, quite unlike the fjord like appearance of other Alaskan ports. Kodiak Island is the second largest island in the US, second only to Hawaii. Puerto Rico is third. The next 7 top ten islands size wise in the US are all also in Alaska.
Kodiak is perhaps most famous for its brown bears. Being isolated from the mainland, the Kodiak bears have evolved to be significantly larger than their mainland brown bear cousins. Kodiak bears can stand over 10 feet tall on their hind legs, more than 3 feet taller than their mainland cousins. They can also run at 40mph, so there’s no possibility of outrunning them on foot, or even on a bike or UTV under most circumstances. There are about 3500 Kodiak bears in the Kodiak Archipelago.
Our included excursion was no more than a walk around Kodiak on your own with a shuttle from the cruise ship terminal to downtown, which is about a mile flat walk. Transportation is limited as there are no commercial tourist coaches available on Kodiak Island. The only buses are school buses, and even these are limited because with the academic school year underway, the buses can only shuttle cruise ship passengers between school student runs. We had a 10:15am ticket, but the buses were running late. Rather than wait for the huge backlog to catch up once the school buses arrived, we decided to walk into town. It was easy enough to do because they had bright yellow bear paw marks painted on the pavement leading into town.
The walk into downtown Kodiak took us past multiple fish processing buildings and lots of refrigerated containers parked in rows connected to shore power. You could smell the fish processing, which was not unlike the smell of walking along a salmon spawning stream late in the season with lots of decomposition going on.
There isn’t a whole lot going on in downtown Kodiak, but there is a McDonalds and a Safeway which prominently advertises its liquor store. There is a modern Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center with exhibits on the life cycles of both salmon and Kodiak bears, as well as a theatre playing a video on the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge and some history of Kodiak mostly covering it’s more recent history.
Today, the life blood of Kodiak is the fishing industry. There were stacks of huge crab pots adjacent to the pier where the Viking Orion docked today. Salmon, halibut, pollack, cod and crab are caught and processed in and around Kodiak. Initially, canneries were the destination for most of the fish catch, but nowadays, most of the catch is flash frozen and shipped around the world fresh frozen.
The weather was unbelievably nice on our visit to Kodiak with clear blue skies, a light breeze, and a temperature of 57˚F.
The Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center was pretty crowded since most cruise ship passengers flocked to the modern facility. We saw a local fisherman cleaning some freshly caught coho at a fish cleaning station at the small boat harbor. Interestingly, there is a trailer next to the cleaning station where they want all the guts and carcasses deposited. These are apparently taken to a processing plant in town where they are used for something useful. Perhaps fish feed pellets or fertilizer. Back home, our fish cleaning stations are on the docks and the carcasses and guts go right into the water for sea gulls, harbor seals and crabs to feed on.
There is a small Kodiak Historical Museum situated in a historic Russian general store- a wood building dating back to the earliest colonization of Kodiak Island. Unlike in prior ports of call, admission was not included for this museum.
The history of Russian enslavement of the Alutiiq and other Aleutian and Inuit tribes seems a bit whitewashed in depictions of the relationship between the Russians and indigenous peoples early in Alaska’s history here. They say the Russians enlisted the help of local tribes in their fur trade, when they actually held their women and children hostage, and wiped out 75% of the population through starvation and disease. The only thing that saved them from extinction was the near extinction of the sea otters which made the fur trade no longer profitable for the Russians, and the Russian defeat in the Crimean wars which lead Russia to sell Alaska to the US. Despite this, there is still a large ethnic Russian population. One fellow busy plucking salmon roe from fresh skeins at the fish cleaning station spoke Russian with very little English.
There is a Russian Orthodox Theological Seminary and another small historic chapel a little further up the hill.
We hiked across the Near Island Bridge onto Near Island where we visited the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and Kodiak Fisheries Research Center NOAA Aquarium and touch tank.
This was housed in a very modern and impressive building (tax dollars at work). The Aquarium itself is a single cylindrical tank about 12 feet in diameter containing examples of local species including Pacific true cod, rock fish, greenlings, and ling cod. There were also Dungeness and King crab. There was also a touch tank with sea stars, sea cucumbers, anemones and hermit crabs.
There is a network of trails on Near Island. We did a short bit of trail from the ADFG/KFGC aquarium to the U of AK Fairbanks Kodiak Seafood and Marine Science Center, which was closed. We encountered a Pacific Skiff of the same model as ours being used for Alaska Fisheries research. Their boat has what looks like a harpooning platform on the bow. They may use it to put radio tags into whales.
The trail signs do say the trails are in active bear areas and advise carrying bear spray and noise making devices. Since we carried neither, we opted to stay on the road for most of our journey back to the bus pick up site. We would prefer to see bears on the opposite bank of a river or on a beach from a boat, particularly one that could charge us at 45mph and remove our head with a single swipe.
We got back on the ship around 2pm and had lunch poolside. They have a cheesesteak sandwich made with grilled flank steak and peppers with provolone which is quite good. Their fries and onion rings are also quite crispy and tasty. Janet had a hot dog, but said the texture was softer than a Costco dog.
Life is rough on the Viking Orion. After our lunches came naps, and after naps, tea. Then a trip to the thermal spa.
As the ship sailed from Kodiak Island, a flock of shearwaters followed our bow wake hoping to pick off some easy dinner. These birds migrate from Chile to the Gulf of Alaska, and are among the great long distance migratory birds of the world. Some web sources say these shearwaters have the longest electronically tracked and confirmed migration pattern of 60,000km round trip, but others state that the Arctic Terns are the real champions because they migrate from the arctic circle to the antarctic circle, which has got to be a longer distance. Maybe the terns haven't had to carry an AirTag to prove their travels.
Dinner in The Restaurant featured escargot and grilled octopus.
Dinner service was pretty quick so we were able to make the 9pm production show which featured the Viking Orion band and 4 lead singers doing Southern pop music medleys. They put on a high energy and well executed show with excellent musical skills and basic choreography. There has certainly been a big change in entertainment quality and quantity since our last Viking Ocean cruise in 2018. A change for the better.
Tomorrow is a sea day, which we are looking forward to after several port call days.
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