Wrangell-St Elias, Copper Center - July 1

The size of this park defies comprehension:  one of its major glaciers is larger than the state of Rhode Island and it contains 9 of the worlds 16 tallest peaks within its four major mountain ranges.  Truly is it mind-numbing in breadth and scope.  We encountered permafrost, something I’d only heard mention of prior to our Alaska foray. Permafrost is a condition wherein the ground never thaws going down at least 10 feet below the surface, so melting water becomes trapped, the soil boggy and nutrient depleted.  Only short, stunted, and sparse black spruce grow on permafrost which, once I made this discovery, accounts for all the sickly looking forest I saw dotting the landscape.  

 

We visited the small but nicely presented visitor center where we learned to identify several piles of wild animal scat and took a walk through a boreal forest along what used to be the Valdez Trail, a road built in 1902 to bring prospectors and miners from the Port of Valdez into Alaska’s interior.  Our walking pace was quite fast through the forest as the mosquitoes were thicker than the vegetation itself.  Oh my goodness they are bad!  

                                           

Of interest is that one of the major Native American tribes here, the Ahtna, still maintain the ancestral custom of fishing for salmon using one of two methods, either by deploying a fishing wheel which sits on the banks of rivers and essentially scoops up fish as they swim along or by use of large round hand-held nets which they simply dip into the river to scoop up the King, Red, Coho and Copper River Salmon running abundantly in these rich rivers.  This type of fishing is called Dip Netting.

 Speaking of rich rivers, water is everywhere in sight.  The rivers are massive, silty, raging, powerful, frightening bodies of water.  On the way to our campground, we came across two moose, one huge bull moose, the other a large cow moose feasting on aquatic plants she dove for on the lake bottom.  

                                           

                                                       

We camped tonight along the Copper River on the eastern edge of Wrangell-St Elias in a fishing camp among about 100 other campers, mostly natives, taking advantage of the short salmon-spawning days of summer to stockpile for the long winter months ahead. We feel like outsiders caught up in a seasonal traditional ritual.  The Copper River where we are camped is just outside a hamlet called Chitina where we encountered several moose roaming the town or gorging on aquatic plants.  My, what a wild place is this Alaska.