After breakfast it was off to the Basic Hike! Hikes of various athletic levels are offered, in addition to other daily activities. Not knowing how basic "basic" was, we decided to start there. We found it was more of a nature walk than a hike, but that was good because I constantly dawdled over photo opportunities.
That is where we met Mie (pronounced as Mia) and her daugher, Hannah. Hannah is referred to as the "Kantishna Baby" because Mie's husband is an expeditor-- meaning he hauls supplies in and takes trash out once a week-- and Mie lives in Tokyo, so she and Hannah visit every year. But once again, there is more to the story! Mie noticed my Fox Valley Police & Schutzhund Club shirt and excitedly asked if that was Fox Valley of the Appleton/Kaukauna area. I quizzically replied, "yes", wondering how this Japanese woman from Tokyo knew my city? Turns out, she was a foreign exchange student and lived with the Richard Wanek family, attending Xavier High School during her Junior year!
Our guide for the hike was Jenna. Jenna attended Evergreen University in Washington in a cultural study with Native professors. She was extremely knowledgeable. This company has chosen its guides very well. They don't just hire summer help who can quote facts, these guides really know stuff. Jenna has also taught survival classes. When the hike began we were instructed how to react if we encountered a black bear, a grizzly bear or a moose. In the interior, the brown bears are referred to as grizzly bear. There, they struggle to find food and are smaller than the salmon-rich coastal bears. So, grizzly becomes a term that refers to a hungry bear with a bad attitude, found in the interior! They are recognizable by the large hump on the back over the extremely muscular front shoulders made for digging. For those bears you make yourself look big and strong, grouping together to look like a giant and standing your ground. If they attack, you drop to the ground and clasp your hands to the back of your neck to protect the spine. For black bears, the advice is the opposite. Black bears will play with dead food, so if they attack you fight for your life and never go to the ground. I heard an interesting quote on National Geographic: if a needle falls in the forest, the eagle will see it, the deer will hear it, but the bear will smell it! Moose is the most dangerous of all. Serpentine! Serpentine! We would hear this advice over and over throughout our trip.
As we walked, Jenna shared stories of the plants and animals of the area. Everything is on a miniature scale here with the cold and the short growing season. Plants need to be close to the earth to survive. The root systems are very shallow. The spruce trees are deceptive and the tree that barely reaches your knees may be a hundred years old. You can count the intersections of a spruce to tell its age.
The black spruce is very dark because it needs to absorb heat. People in Alaska know not to buy land with black spruce, as it is indicative of permafrost. The permafrost is very noisey and active underneath. Walking on the tundra feels squishy at first and comfortable, but quickly becomes difficult to navigate the larger clumps. We identified wolf scat by the wrapping; Jenna notes that canines "wrap" their poop so the bones are on the inside, whereas with a cat it is all together.
I am noticing some equipment that would be helpful to have, such as this harness for my camera. They also make harnesses for your binoculars, but I find myself with a slightly sore neck from the weight of the camera strap and so I cradle it for much of the walk. Add this to the list of "suggestions"!
camera harness
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