Materials Man

Once I’d seen images of grizzly bears catching salmon I was sold.  I had to go see for myself and try to capture similar images.

After a bit of research on the web and through photographic forums my wife and I came up with only a few options where we could view grizzlies in the wild, have guaranteed sightings (well almost!), and be safe all at the same time.  We chose Brooks Falls in Alaska, within the Katmai National Park, for our adventure of a lifetime.  Further research lead us to our tour operator Katmailand at www.katmailand.com.  [As a wee aside - the salmon start their "run" upstream in June/July and that's when you see the grizzlies stand at the top of Brooks Falls and catch the salmon as they leap up the falls.  Traditionally our main holiday is in September and we wanted to stick with this.  The grizzlies hang around Brooks River until late September when the salmon have spawned and "float" downstream again into the bellies of the bears.  We had no fears therefore of going in September and not seeing bears].  We booked 2 nights at Brooks Lodge in Katmai NP in September 2007.  Incedentally, we had to book about 10 months in advance to secure places.  If going in July you need to be off your marks 18 months earlier.  Katmailand’s tour starts in Anchorage, Alaska so we chose to combine our visit to the see the bears with a tour of the Seattle/Portland area (the Pacific North West) – more of this in later blogs.

Our travel itinerary from Scotland comprised the following.  We flew Zoom Airlines from Glasgow to Vancouver, picked up a car and drove south to Seattle.  After 1 night in Seattle we flew Continental Airlines to Anchorage where we hit the sack for another night.  Next day we flew Pen Air to King Salmon then by float plane into Katmai NP and Brooks Lodge itself.  As soon as you step off the float plane onto the beach you see the bears and all the travel weariness disappears and turns into adrenaline.

After a safety induction (on bear sense, etc) we and all the other visitors (around 20 “ish”) were shown our room for the next two nights.  It was basic but perfectly comfortable.  After all, we were on an adventure!

We were able to move relatively freely around the Lodge area and beach.  The most basic rule is to stay at least 50m from any bear.  We were sheperded past any bottlenecks, where bears were on paths or in the river near paths, by the NP Rangers.  The bears always had ”right of way” and the Rangers policed this rigidly.  You feel very safe and provided you have a long lens on the camera you still get great photos.  For the photograph buffs anything shorter than a 300mm lens is pretty useless and a tripod/monopod is more-or-less essential.  Brooks Falls is about a mile upstream from the Lodge along a forest land rover track.  You had to be vigilant when you were on the track and whilst we never saw any bears en route between Lodge and Falls you could never be sure you wouldn’t.  The only saving grace is that there are so many salmon in the river that the bears don’t need to eat humans!!  Also, in September, the bears have had a summer of plentiful food making them rather plump and lethargic.

Food is not included in the package from Katmailand but Brooks Lodge has a cafe/restaurant.  Although the visitors have literally no option other than to eat at the lodge the food there is good, wholesome stuff and reasonably priced.  This was a great place to share the days experiences with other visitors.   My guess is that 80% of the visitors were photographers so there was plenty of good chat around the open fire.

It was a huge adventure for us and we were thrilled to be there, feeling priveledged to view these beautiful creatures in their natural habitat.  We will go back – next time in the July, to see the salmon leaping into the waiting  jaws of the grizzlies.

Now for the photos:

An aeriel shot of Brooks River where it enters Naknek Lake.  In September most of the bears are in this area just plucking salmon our of the water as and when they fancy.

The several visits we made to the Falls revealed only one big fella there.  He seemed to be a bit of a loner, preferring to stay away from the action downstream.  Here he is seen tearing the skin of a salmon he has just “dived” for.  The poor thing was still wriggling!

Sometimes they hunted in packs.

One of my favourite shots from the trip was this wee one peeking round the corner.  The warm golden light suited his/her fluffy brown coat perfectly.

More images can be seen here:  http://www.pbase.com/davidleask/brookslodge

Prauge is a very beautiful city, especially in December when the Christmas markets are on the go.  Here are my thoughts and musings after a long weekend trip there last December.

We flew from Edinburgh to Prague using Jet2.com – very easy and quite cheap.  You may hear “horror” stories about being ripped off by taxi drivers and to make sure you book a transfer from the airport.  These transfers will cost around £40 return.  We chose to find our own way into the city from the airport.  Get on the 119 bus to Dejvicka metro station (it’s the bus terminus so you won’t get lost) and from there take the underground into the city.  It cost us £0.80 each, eachway – a total of £3.20!  The metro, trams and buses are all linked in that the same ticket does all.  You pay about £0.80 for 75 minutes and you can jump on and off as many times in the 75 minutes you want.

We stayed at the Hotel Cloisters, a very comfortable hotel in the old town close to all the attractions.  We were 5/10 mins walk from the river, the Old Town Square and Wenceslas Square.  Highly recommended!

We found that in most places communication with the locals was very easy, with most understanding basic English (very humbling really).

Food stops / eating places were plentiful and you could eat in “any country” you wanted.  Price-wise things were not cheap, probably because of the poor exchange rate, and food/drink were costing about the same as the UK.

Whilst the transport system is excellent (and cheap) we walked a lot.  The city itself is very compact and is best savoured as a pedestrian.

Our favourite places were the Old Town Square, Wenceslas Square, Prague Castle and anywhere along the river.  Whilst you are there take in an ice hockey game, you’ll love it!

Prague Castle as seen from the river side downstream of Charles Bridge.

The Old Town Square and the Christmas Markets as seen from the Clock Tower.

A quaint street in the Old Town, taken at 5am before the throngs started to arrive.