We have friends over to see our garden–they read about it on our blog of course–and they suffer some serious garden envy but we have serious fish envy because they supply us with their fresh King Salmon catch.

It’s a very clear day–one of these spring days you spend all winter thinking about. They’re flying to Sitka this morning but no room for another passenger–only my camera. Here’s a photo of our house as they fly by. Note our skiff which hangs on a ‘clothesline’ like back-haul that we reel in when we need it.

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Here you can see the saltchuck behind our house and also our garden and greenhouse just north of the house. The snow has just left our beach which is still brown but will green up very fast with the long days ahead.

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Here’s an eastward view showing the creek behind our house. Animals parallel the shoreline and stumble into this cut–great for the wildlife and our wildlife viewing–we expect bears any day now. Their first order of business is to gorge themselves on sedge grass to clean out their system after hibernation.

Whoa! No sooner than I published this post, a black bear shows up–May 22 and stays all day–the first seen this season and a real piggy weighing in at over 300lbs. If I saw him in the lower 48, this would be a grizzly; his facial features, claws (at least 3-4″ here), shoulder hump resemble his larger cousins. Brown Bears (Grizzlies) are primarily on the ‘ABC’ islands (Admiralty, Baranof and Chichagof) but they are seen here occasionally.

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As my camera heads off to Sitka, it snaps one more photo towards the NE–our house is just beneath the lump of trees on the near shore. The muskeg in the foreground is our winter playground and ski touring center. Devils Thumb is a ‘blip’ seen straight ahead across Frederick Sound with Petersburg Mountain on the left. My camera will follow Petersburg or Coho Creeks west (left) over Duncan Canal and eventually across Chatham Strait.

Here’s my camera nearing Sitka. After crossing Chatham Strait, my camera flies across Baranof Island. Sitka is located on the west coast of Baranof with Mt. Edgecumbe in the distance embracing Sitka Sound. This is one beautiful place–we lived here for a year.

When my camera returns to Petersburg it snaps one more photo of our point; this time looking south down the Wrangell Narrows. All Alaska-bound inside passage traffic must pass through the Narrows which are about 25 miles long and span about 60 buoys or turns. Currents can run fast here on the big tides so you have to be careful crossing to town. Stay tuned….