Day 46
Saturday, July 23
Valdez - Free Day

Cloudy skies and mild temperatures greeted us this morning. It was 54 degrees when I took Lucy out for her morning walk. I am certainly glad we took the Prince William Sound cruise yesterday when the sun was shining. It would have been much colder out there today. A bus came at 9:30 to take about half of our group on an optional Historical Tour of Valdez. Since Valdez has only been in place since 1964, I'm not sure what is too historical. We mainly rode around town and had different building pointed out to us. "This is the library, that is city hall, that is the Safeway, etc." Not too exciting or interesting.

We did go to the site of the Old Town Valdez. After the town was devistated by the earthquake in 1964 the voted to move the town about 5 miles south. Houses and buildings that could be moved were moved. The rest of the town was burned to keep members of the 60's counter-culture from moving in. In other words, they didn't want the Hippies moving into their old town.

They told us how Valdez gets an average of 350" of snow each winter. The town stays open and things keep going despite the snow. They say they have to be very good at shoveling snow. One week this last year they got 11' of snow in 2 days. School is held everyday unless they have high winds.

We went on around to the Fish Hatchery. This was by far the most interesting and educational part of the tour. As I have noted in previous blogs, Salmon return to their home waters to spawn and then die.  

The fish hatchery collects salmon each year and collects their eggs or sperm sacks. The remains of the fish are ground and sold to a company that makes "Yummy-Chummies," a dog treat kind of like "Beggin'Strips." The eggs are fertilized and placed in incubation trays where they remain until they hatch. Pinks stay in the incubation trays for a several months and then moved to a big pen in the bay for 30 days. After that time they are released into the bay and the process starts over again when they return to their homewaters a year later. The whole life is a little less than 2 years. Pinks are harvested in July and Silvers are harvested in August. The Silvers go through the same process as Pinks except that Silvers cannot go into the seawater for 1 year. They are kept in the hatchery in large pens for a year before being released. It was an very interesting presentation and made me feel a little better about the Salmon's"sucky" life. They are going to die anyway, so why not give your eggs/sperm where they have the best chance for survival.

After we returned from the tour, Jenna and I went to eat, and then Robert and Bet went with us to a museum that was devoted to the earthquake of 1964. They had a complets scale model of Old Valdez and the docent told us a great deal about how the earthquake devistated the town.

We had an Italian PotLuck dinner tonight. Lots of good food and fun. After dinner over half the caravan group went "bear hunting" on the other side of the bay. After about 1 hour of waiting, a juvenile grizzly came down to the bay and tried to get a fish. He gave up and crossed back to the mountain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He walked along the mountainside for a while before returning to the road and crossing the parking lot to get back to the bay. Fishermen scampered up the rocks to the parking lot as the bear strolled down the side of the bay looking for a fish. He was soon rewarded by a fish left on the rocks by a fisherman. The lucky bear grabbed the fish and ran back across the road before disappearing into the woods.

Tomorrow we are leaving Valdez for a 250 mile drive back to Tok. We will only be there one night so tomorrow's blog will probably be short.
Till then - Happy Trails!!