I would highly suggested you pre-book this optional tour; there are only 60 permits issued per day to allow people on AnAn and you don't want to miss it. I suggest sitting in the front of the boat if you want to be able to hear the Captain. We brought mosquito head nets but there were no bugs to be seen; apparently early in the season they are terrible so it's better to be prepared.
Our jet boat Captain, Brenda Schwartz is an artist. Her watercolor renditions of ships on navigational charts are used by Cruise West and hang in a gallery in Juneau. She and her husband are Stikine River Jet Boat Association members and she owns her own boat. Her husband takes out commercial fishing charters, staying true to the fact that everyone in Alaska seems to wear multiple "hats". I immediately decided she was special, as she owns a German Shepherd and even hunts ducks with him! I have a photo of my old patrol dog, Eros, concealed in corn on a goose hunt. Step back, labradors!
The sun peeked through and I learned the local term for it here is "cloud failure!" Wrangell is famous for shrimp and crab. We passed the buoys for shrimp pots and Brenda said everyone keeps a few pots to stock up for winter. Since her husband has a sport fisherman charter, they use his leftovers as bait. I noticed bare swaths on the hillsides and was told that they can clear-cut because the rain forest reclaims and re-seeds. In fact, if you leave your truck parked long enough it will have a tree growing out of it! Wrangell is an island and therefore the only access is boat or plane. All the businesses there are owned by residents, not cruise lines!
We saw Blake Island, named for the Russian explorer. It is made of marble and apparently for sale. Any buyers? I also noticed a power line, seemingly out in the middle of nowhere. As it turns out, in one of the fjords there is a hydro-electric plant producing clean energy because they have alot of water to use.
As we continued on the river we passed some surf scoters on the water. There were many auklets--- parakeet, cassin's and marbled-- because they require trees that over hang the water. They don't fledge, they fall out of the nest into the water and continue their development there! Once we arrived on AnAn, the white heads of eagles were everywhere in the trees. I've never seen so many eagles in one place!
Brenda commented that Cruise West passengers are more experienced travelers. They are generally dressed appropriately and have realistic expectations. I appreciated hearing that and saw evidence of this over and over throughout our trip, compared with passengers of other groups that we encountered. AnAn reminded me of the Denali experience. It is not a zoo. You must be grateful for whatever opportunities come your way and understand that the wildlife appears (or not) on their own schedule. There is plenty to appreciate in the splendor of your surroundings. Shut up and listen.
AnAn means "the place to sit and listen." Brenda told the story of escorting a blind woman to AnAn and wondering how she would appreciate the area, but the woman had so much to take in with her other senses that is sometimes lost when we only "see" with our eyes. There is an abundance of smells and sounds. The wet, organic smell, gulls calling and eagles shrieking in quite a girlish voice... decaying fish and splashes of the successful ones moving upstream. It sounds like the rain forest that it is.
It was incredible to see the salmon trying to get up stream. The wildlife managers had blown tiers out of the rock in an attempt to help the fish but found they were genetically altering them because the weaker fish were reproducing. They blocked it off again.
The locals have taken friends to see the bears there for years, but once professional photographers put the word out, people flocked to it and the forest service/wardens had to make rules. Why? Because people are idiots around wild animals. We had to make certain we weren't bringing in any food products. Tom needed a pat-down. He claimed he had nothing until I asked "gum? you have no gum" and he produced two packs that had to be left behind. They do not want the bears looking to the human visitors as a food resource.
Once we arrived at AnAn, Brenda added a rifle to her arsenal. She had a mega-can of bear spray on her waist and loaded the rifle when we hit shore. We received another bear safety talk. She talked as we proceeded along the boardwalk, partly to announce to the bears that humans were here. Someone raised the question of bear bells. I'm not sure if that came at this point in the trip, or earlier, but it begged the joke about how to tell grizzly poop... by the bear bells. I had seen hikers with bells and was told that they aren't a good idea as bears are curious and the bells are more apt to bring them in to see what that odd noise is; they know what a human voice is and tend to avoid that in most cases.
We observed from a raised deck and also signed up for short time in the "blind", which put us even nearer to the bears. We could poke our cameras out through zippered openings and I watched as a black bear fished for salmon. He would duck his head under the water, biting at fish. Finally, he would come up with one, shaking his head, the fish slapping the sides of his head. And then he feasted. Another bear wandered past the observation deck, mere feet from it and without acknowledging the row of paparazzi. During the time we were there, the bears appeared individually and while it wasn't a bear party, I was able to watch a handful of them climbing on the rocks and gathering dinner from the stream. It was a view previously only known via a television set.
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