timistravels

Aug. 12-14, 2015

After invited to work with the Lake and Peninsula Borough School District I was thrilled to visit King Salmon, which is located in the infamous Bristol Bay, a quick 1 hour flight south from Anchorage. There is a little bit of everything “Alaska” in this region, though it is best known for 1, fishing and 2, brown bears though there are a lot of caribou, moose, wolves and little critters like fox, beaver and of course porcupine!  Tourists also come to the area for bird watching with over 150 different species that pass through this area.

Lake and Pen School District is about the size of West Virginia. The district represents the following communities, the population as of last census is listed after the site.

1. Port Alsworth ( Tatalian school) 113
2. Nondalton 205
3. Newhalen 183
4. Kokhanok 166
5. Igiugig 56
6. Levelock 57
7. Egegik 76
8. Pilot Point 76
9. Port Heiden (Meshik School) 90
10. Chignik Lagoon 103
11. Chignik Lake 113
12. Chignik Bay 92
13. Perryville 110

Only 2 of these communities, Newhalen and Iliamna are connected by road, everyone else must fly or boat to other communities. Almost 80% of the population of this area are Alaska Native and the district office is in King Salmon.

Fishing: There are 3 main rivers, the Naknek, the Kvichak and the Alagnak which are all a fisherpersons dream. As the name of the area may give away, salmon is abundant in the region as are rainbow, dolly varden, and grayling. As I left the airport on Friday a.m.

I was one of the only NON fisherperson on the plane. Each of them was checking 100-200#’s of fish, and because of this, there was too much luggage for the plane. In the end the airline had to leave over 2000#’s of luggage in King Salmon that would be delivered at a later time.   Mine arrived home on Saturday!

Bears: Katmi National Park and Preserve is home to Brooks River/Brooks Camp a famous brown bear viewing location. This area is home to over 2000 bears and in the summer many of them can be seen catching and eating fish during the summer! The other famous bear viewing area in the region is McNeil River. 90 miles from King Salmon it too offers visitors an opportunity to see brown bears in their natural habitat.

Though I did not get to fish on this trip, I did have a bear experience. As I was leading the workshop, a gun shot was heard, and quickly the superintendent defused any concern by stating “oh the bear must be around the building and we are just shooooing it away”! Only in Alaska!

Posted in alaska, bears, fishing, Travel

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