Running the
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My
trip on the When
I arrived with four bags three of that weighed about fifty pounds each there
was no one on hand to help me carry the bags into the passenger terminal
area. I was carrying an extra
seventy-three pounds of food for my expected total of thirteen companions on
the John Lentz
who arranged this trip had advised me to bring snacks, spices, desserts and
fruit juice for everyone, as these items would most likely be unavailable in I hauled everything to
the Northwest Airline ticket counter and the agent accepted everything
without charging extra when she heard my story. She was not going to charge anyway. During the flight a
fellow from During
the The
other people whom I later met and talked with at the |
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July 15th, after a great day of
visiting museums in |
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Flying Alaska Air over
cloudy |
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We flew over the Once our plane was across
into Then shrouded in clouds I saw this fascinating view below which I
could not believe. |
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As we flew south over The shore of the west
side of the |
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view of the |
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The |
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Landing in Magadan Siberia
was an ordeal because the Boeing 727 had to land at the lowest air speed
possible so as to not bounce too heavily on the military service cement
runway surface that was bumpier than the dirt runway at Pond Inlet on The military reception of
border guards and police was polite and youthful with a few older officers,
whose appearance slightly resembled the tough character cigarette smoking
good guy types. Passport, visa and
baggage inspection was not difficult.
I was concerned about my excessive quantity of food but I felt that my
talking of this chance was worth it. We drove to Magadan from
the airport 26 km on a 3 lane paved road passing out slower trucks and
vehicles. Whew talk about crazy
driving they would pass on hills corners in blind spots driving like mad
bandits as if we had to catch an appointment as fast as possible, I was
scared! I got to see those soviet
military trucks which are excellent, very rugged design, being small to medium
size, strong and fast. Unfortunately
they consume huge amounts of fuel such as 35 liters in 100 km. The hotel, that I am
guessing was the only hotel in town, was surprisingly nice even including
television in each room, a nice restaurant that always served plenty of food
and vodka, and a bahnia or sauna bath, although for security reasons one does
not go for a walk alone in Magadan. Our day of flying over
lost us a calendar day because we had crossed the date line that bisects the I enjoyed seeing a
majestic monument to World War II was a beautiful example of majestic cubism
that one is unlikely to find in the The museums were very
informative, especially the geology museum at the institute. In it were examples of mammoth remains,
pegmatite, igneous and metamorphic mineral forms dominated by siliceous
minerals such as chalcedony etc. Botany was not exhibited
but anthropological items were exhibited in another exhibit some of that
related to prehistoric local and Arctic cultures including the populations
that inhabited both sides of the There was television
coverage of the celebration of |
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On the next day July 19th, after a few hours of waiting for
the fog to lift, we flew an Aeroflot helicopter from Magadan northeast flying
inland along a river that may have been the |
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fog over |
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We landed at one of the
gulags or prison camps for gold mining on the river and walked about the
premises inspecting the remaining log buildings. |
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The guards’ quarters were
insulated beneath the floor with sawdust and were separated from the
prisoners’ area by barbed wire fencing.
The access was by dirt
road from Magadan where prisoners were brought in by ship and then marched to
these gulags. Not hundreds or
thousands but millions of Russians died at the hands of Stalin's dictatorship
in this area more often from the brutalization of his guards in concert with
deadly weather conditions. And as I
stood there on that warm day looking at the lush green grasses I wondered what
insidious weather patterns this area had that created such deadly
conditions. I thought about the
example in The prisoners here were
housed through their own construction in log cabins and forced to sleep in
only their underwear to reduce the risk of escape attempts. |
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this is unglaciated
terrain |
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I suspect that in these
river valleys the weather must tend to funnel in quickly causing people to be
caught in storms without warning. Stalin's empire made sure
that they provided no adequate warm clothing for the prisoners or sufficient
food because the idea was to kill people off indirectly. Magadan and the settlements near this area
were established by prisoners. So many people died there. I wonder how many people
are buried there in unknown burial plots or what was done with all those
bodies. I felt uncomfortable as I
realized that the Russian people I was now seeing were most likely to be the
survivors of Stalin's purges probably for the very reasons that I would have
not survived. Life in not valued in This will be a different
sort of chance I will be taking with my life on my next trip I shall take on
the open water of Barrow I knew that I would be
where I knew that I had more direct control of my fate because I knew what
the dangers of sea kayaking are from years of winter paddling. |
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As we flew up the Yama
valley I took pictures through the open window of the gray mountains that
resembled the Pocono mountains of eastern Pennsylvania but these had more
definition most likely because this area was definitely not glaciated during
the last period of glaciation in the Northern hemisphere. The mountains have sharply defined razorbacks
that are created by rain, wind and frost erosion that has broken up their
finely layered strata. There is not
much soil and most of the mountains are jagged pyramids with tamarack trees
in isolated areas. In the back of my mind
the distinct contrast between this area that is not
that far from the actively volcanic The mountains of medium
to low height and hills were most often lacking trees. The trees grew in the protected crevasses
and valleys in sharply defined zones revealing the availability of and the
water retention and carrying capacity of the soil, but there were solitary
tamarack trees Larix laricina and
Siberian pine sp. even on the highest ridges. From the air were visible
large patches of yellow gray green lichens with widely spaced trees in a
checkered pattern, most likely tamarack that can survive dry conditions well
and fire is necessary to germinate the seeds.
There are fires in the area ignited by lightning. |
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the inescapable topography of mountains |
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We flew over a village
and an iced in broad section of the upper river and headed back down river
for open water to land on a large island that our trip planners knew of. |
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From our helicopter, the
river appeared to have a fast current of about seven to eight knots with few
rocks of any size. The broad, shallow
riverbed caused the river to frequently divide making new channels in the
innumerable gravel shoals. This
frequent meandering braided channeling of the river indicated that the drop
in elevation was most likely moderate and consistent. |
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the inescapable topography |
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No sooner than we had abruptly landed and our helicopter crew was
rushing us to unload our equipment as quickly as possible out of the
impatiently running helicopter with its blades slicing the air not only
overhead but on the side of the tail section that caused gruesome thoughts
came to my mind as the rotor blades chopped at the air. The helicopter took off
just as soon as the doors could be closed but little did I realize that in
just moments we were to be descended upon by a vicious downpour complete with
thunder and lightning. |
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not good a thundershower is rumbling down
our way |
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The thought came to my
mind, what will happen to us should the lightning strike the river. Will we be electrocuted while we are
stranded, soaking wet, on this island because we were avoiding a possible
direct confrontation with an Asian brown bear had we camped in the surrounding
woods. Then I wonder how much will the
river rise during the night as this deluge continues and other storms further
up river embellish the river's flow.
Our island is only one foot above the at that time river level. This
situation presented to my mind a dilemma.
Then I began to make a
comparison of our new accommodations to others available elsewhere. I thought about our superior room service,
here on the Yama in Yes, we seemed to have
immediately available whether we wanted or not thing of the ultimate
magnitude in sensory perception. We
had electrical service the most stimulating type that lights you up from head
to toe, completely. And showers are
like being fire hosed probably with a few hailstones to embellish the shower
massage with cold water for the restoration of health and vigor. Then should the river
happen to rise precipitously there would be no lack of water indeed you would
find yourself receiving the ultimate flush as you find yourself being carried
off as the river flooded our campsite on the island. Such superb room service I thought as I
imagined some exasperating guest at an elegant hotel somewhere else in the
world complaining about slow room service while we were now rapidly adjusting
to our new environment. Hurriedly we unpacked the
large blue tarp, supported the front of it with two poles and tied and
ballasted it with rocks down to the ground.
We huddled beneath it as the storm momentarily raged. In a short time
the localized thunderstorm subsided in our area We donned mosquito
repellant and put up our tents. The
thunderstorm came through. After the
rain stopped we gathered driftwood for the dinner and breakfast, and tried
fishing. There were no fish biting in the eddies and backwaters and so I contented myself with
watching the storms drift through the mountain valleys and the mists drift
over the lower mountains. Up the river the
thunderstorm continued to rumble throughout the night and into the next day
seeming to be trapped in a large valley up the river where air currents
associated with thunderstorms are forced by the topography become
entrapped. I was glad we did not happen to choose that particular area. That area may happen to have a large enough
concentration of magnetic anomalous iron ore that acts to attract and retain
electrical storms. There are a few
such areas, magnetic anomalies that have been detected by satellite in this
general area of the The fresh food including
potatoes and canned goods for the expedition was heavy and by comparison to
our boats that were of very lightweight materials. We had one rigid kayak
from the |
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Yuri and Henry working on assembling the
pontoon raft |
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Our main boats were a
large inflatable PVC raft propelled by oars with an aluminum tubular frame
that carried the majority of the cargo for the trip and a catamaran. There was an additional one-man inflatable
rubber raft. The catamaran was short
about fourteen feet long and I choose to sit bow right with a sixty-inch
paddle that was a suitable length because of our height above the water. The modular frame was a combination of
aluminum tubing and plate that was welded and bolted together with
telescoping tubing. The rough ends of
any metal piece were covered with foam padding tied in place. Everything was designed to break down to
fit into canvas bags for transportation in an aircraft. Repair tools, pliers, screw drivers,
drills, etc. and the use of capstan method by twisting lines of nylon webbing
brought the frame together without breaking the brittle aluminum welds. This project took up the evening and a few
hours into the next day to complete because the frame happened to be a
combination of mismatched sections of more than one catamaran that with minor
modifications were interchangeable. Tamarack, Larix laricina, willows Salix sp. of both the high sandbar
type and Arctic type grow along the river, infrequently there was birch Betula sp. What was interesting I
found was this soft barked tree that colonizes sandbar areas as a bush. It has soft powdery surfaced silver bark
with a vanilla odor and dull green leaves.
The dull green leaves have tiny soft teeth along their edges but not
on the ends. On the underside the
leaves there are brilliant red veins running down the center as a spine with
branches off to the sides. This bush
develops into a straight-trunk tree with light brown curling scale bark that
I believe is a species of willow, Salix
sp. |
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mysterious tree |
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The woods were interesting I did not go very far into them for fear of
encountering a bear but I spotted some wonderful flowers here and there
especially exciting were wild flowers that were cultivated in gardens
elsewhere in the world such as delphinium. |
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The spotted sand pipers, Actitis hypoleucos,
were busy darting after metamorphosing midges that were emerging from beneath
the cobbles in the riverbed. A pair of Eurasian crows, Corvus corone, watched our campsite
activity for a short while and then flew close by down the river. Because these crows are not particularly
afraid of people I was later to video tape another pair of these crows at
close range further down the river. As the evening's dew
point fell when the sun set the river's course began to become enveloped in a
mist that gradually rose until the mist enveloped our camp. These phenomena, that might suggest that a
fourth dimension exists, I had never quite
experienced such a discernibly rapid and intimate way before. This emanation of mist made me realize how
these decidedly mystical moments were particularly importantly effective for
manipulating audiences in Shakespearian plays. Note the extensive amount
of driftwood, we always had dry wood for our
campfires from all this wood everywhere on the beaches. |
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Broad leaf trees were
confined along the river shore growing in their greatest height and density
where the clay and fine sand, medium brown colored soil had accumulated and
each type was limited by available water.
Mosses grew in this moist soil but they did not occur in gravel areas
as did lichens. From the air I saw a
peat bog and an elevated lake but by contrast I did not see any peat bog
areas along the river. Gravel was the
most common soil type along this river valley especially in the river channel
area. |
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extensive moss and algae in these waters |
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July 20th, was
our first day on the river. The thunderstorm from the previous day was still
rumbling in the valley up river from our camp, but the water level of the
river had changed little. To me this constant
succession of thunderstorms in the upper valleys was a special weather
pattern that might be a common event in this area but I felt that this was a
type of unusual weather. This was my first experience with a thunderstorm
that seemed to be trapped and I am curious as to why this weather
occurred. Gathering up camp and
loading it aboard the catamaran and raft after our first breakfast on the
river that was complete and hearty I choose to paddle the catamaran. This was my first experience as a paddler
on the catamaran. I took bow right
that is paddled from a sitting position.
The left and right stern positions are paddled with the paddler
kneeling. The paddles were sixty
centimeters long. As we progressed
down the river we had to occasionally add air to the sponsons because they
had a slight leak. This was done while
underway. During our paddling we
found that our observations from the air were accurate and that the current
in the river was swift at about seven to eight knots with the drop in
elevation consistent. When approaching
a bifurcation we strove to choose the largest channel when the river divided
to avoid grounding out or getting into too narrow and winding types of
channels. The character of the river was such that because of its width,
current, and shallow gravel bed there were a few channels usually the
narrower channels that had blockages of washed out trees. |
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July 21st. our second day
of paddling we covered about twenty kilometers the previous day. I noticed that there was
a geological transition from sedimentary metamorphic rock with calcitic
mineralization and mud stone but no schists igneous metamorphic rocks with
some quartz and feldspar just beginning to show but the dominant mineral was
oxides of iron and other minerals such as beryl and garnet in amorphous small
inclusions. Throughout the area I
never saw any type of schist. |
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As we were rounding a
bend we saw what was later to be our only opportunity to see a small flock of
about eight Bean geese, Anser fabalis fly over us and land down river. They are very dark gray making them hard to
see against the dark background and they have a soft low sounding call. We also saw some molting
Spot billed duck, Anas poecilorhyncha,
that resemble mallards and teals because they are in the same family. The molting ducks could only run over the
water to flee from us. |
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Our Russian companions
decided that this evening was a good time for a bahnia or sauna. The bahnia construction was carried out by
two fellows who were specialists in constructing bahnias in the field. They
had brought with them a thick clear polyethylene plastic sheet. This would
cover the structure designed for this purpose. They started the procedure by
gathering firewood and boulders that were then laid out in the best array to
heat up the boulders. Some of the logs
were laid with some kindling to start the fire among them side by side
crisscrossing in a couple layers, the boulders were placed on top of the logs
and more logs and kindling was placed over the boulders in a couple
layers. As the fire burned the rocks
were heated evenly from above and below for a minimum of hour. |
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the fire heating the rocks and Yuri is
constructing the Bahnia frame |
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The base of structure of
the square shaped bahnia first laid with large logs forming the base of each
side that were for us to sit on. Then
the uprights were constructed from sturdy sticks tied together with line. The bases of the sticks that formed the
four corners were pushed into the dirt and stabilized with more
boulders. The height was about six
feet the length was twelve feet and the width was about ten feet. To prevent the rising heat from melting the
plastic roof a piece of cotton was draped across the structure with six
inches of slack handing beneath the middle.
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Once it had been
determined that the rocks were ready, special wide aluminum shovels that
looked like road signs on a stick were used to balance and carry the rocks
over to and place into an indentation that had been dug into the middle of
the sand floor. This required delicate
coordination between the two preparers.
One had to assist with getting the rocks to balance on the shovel and
then go and open wide the door just at the right time because if a rock were
to accidentally brush against the plastic that would melt such a large hole
in the plastic that the bahnia could not generate the heat necessary. After the rocks are positioned inside the
doors are sealed, a bucket of fresh water is gotten and some birch branches
are gathered if they are available. |
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the frame of the bahnia before the cover
is put over the frame and rocks put inside, we sat on the logs |
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When all is prepared everybody
carefully files in, seats themselves and water a few cups of water are poured
on the blistering hot rocks as needed.
Sweat begins to profusely roll off everyone's faces and bodies as
everyone’s skin begins to redden with the absorption to the intense heat and
humidity. I tell you there is
nothing as nice as a bahnia. Just before feeling too
light headed we headed out the door and plunged into the nearby icy
pool. Although people in the |
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Three rounds in the
bahnia were enough for me. I quickly
donned my clothes to avoid my friends the mosquitoes and retreated to the
tent for my expected sound night's sleep. |
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July 22nd, our
third paddling day, having covered another twenty kilometers. I started to
see granitic mineralization injected into the sedimentary rock. These were represented by small pieces of
granite, chalcedony, and igneous dikes here and there. There was more and more granite showing
with both pink and white feldspar and dark gray gneiss. There were no pegmatites, at least none
that I spotted anywhere. |
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cloud coming over mountain |
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further progress of cloud advancing over
mountain |
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July 23rd. our fourth paddling day, the geology changed to higher
temperature igneous intrusions of basalt although the dominant rock is still
metamorphosed sedimentary rock that continually erodes into pyramidal
mountains of loose scree punctuated by some small basalt outcrops and dikes
dark brown in color. One group of mountains
had mottling where the granite had mixed with basalt showing pink mottled
colors of pink and dark gray that were devoid of vegetation. Molting ducks often being
Western Grebes were seen more frequently, that were less skittish and let us
get fairly close before resorting to diving to escape us and I caught sight
of a Common Goldeneye, Bucephala clangula, trying swimming and diving
to hide from us. The small Mew gulls, Larus
canus, had also become common and they
exhibited protective behavior because raise their young on the sand bars of
the river, common terns, Sterna hirundo, and Arctic terns, Sterna paradisea, that were also
nesting were here and there and there were a few geese. Eurasian crow, Corvus corone, coal tit, Parus ater, and
common sandpiper, Actitis hypoleucos, were in this area as one or two in number. |
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Arctic tern, Sterna paradisea I was zoomed while
taking this photo we were near their nesting area |
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Wow what fun, we began to
catch salmon, the Chum salmon. Our
guide, Yuri, with years of experience on this river showed us just where to
cast our lures and offered us better lures when the lures we were trying did
not work. |
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Valeri with a coho salmon on line |
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Valeri
demonstrated to us just how to fish with each lure. For me this was priceless to learn. Immediately cooking preparations and
salting of roe and the fish began. The
fish were salted and placed in a 55 gallon plastic barrel. We were at last there where we had wanted
to be doing what we so excitedly looked forward to doing, catching fish. They tasted most delicious. |
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the Coho Salmon Valeri
just caught |
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Everyone was avidly
trying their luck and one fellow caught his first fish on this trip. He caught a nice big salmon. |
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dolly varden |
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At this point in the
river we had come far enough for the onshore breeze to blow up river starting
in this region in the early afternoon but as we progressed further down the
river the wind occurred progressively earlier in the day at about 20 to 25
knots as the venturi effect on the on shore breeze from the Sea of Okhotsk
that makes paddling the kayak more challenging because it is just strong
enough to catch the paddle and flip the kayak. |
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The narrowness of the
river valley in its upper regions caused this wind to blow more
strongly. This combination of the
strong winds and current made this otherwise easy class I river into almost a
class III because it is very hard to swing into an eddy without being carried
down and out of it. Submerged rocks had
noticeable up stream backwash waves strong enough to surf on and the streams
and channels feeding into the main channel have an occasional overfall strong
enough to overturn the unwary kayak paddler. |
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I frequently avoided the
brunt of the current by paddling along the inside of river bends and sought
other areas with slower current because it was more powerful than I was used
to paddling in. I was especially careful
to avoid other potentially dangerous obstacles such as submerged trees and
overhanging sweeper. Even though I had taken
courses and run races in whitewater slalom paddling, in this fast water I
found that there were a couple moments when it was too late to avoid a
submerged tree, luckily a small tree. To my horror I was swept
over it so fast that I had no chance to react with any sort of corrective
moves. I had to make any eddy turns into quiet backwaters with resolution and
an anticipatory lean because despite the large volume well rounded cross
sectioned hull design of the kayak, it could easily be flipped by this swift
current. |
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Siberian elm seedling |
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lush moss and bluegreen algae indicating
highly enriched soil |
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Our food consisted of
fresh vegetables mostly flown into Magadan from Barnaule
in the Altai region that is several thousand miles away in southern Meat was very tasty
kielbasa made-up of smoked reindeer and canned beef. In addition we had canned
evaporated milk, squash sauce, and peas for various meals. We also had a very delicious two-foot
diameter wheel of cheese was great eating in large hunks. Our occasional dessert was made up of prunes, cherries, apricots that
were boiled for fifteen minutes in sweetened water until thoroughly soft as a
dilute mixture of stewed fruit called compote. Also tea, coffee, sugar, salt, pepper,
mustard sauce, cooking oil, salt pork, cocoa, sugar candies, honey, jam of
raspberries and black currants, and butter were brought. Among the spices Yuri brought
mint and bay leaves that were part of what went into his pilaf that had
canned beef, rice, dry fruit and butter. Yuri's pilaf was very delicious and
not like the other pilafs I have eaten.
The food items I had
brought were not needed but on occasion I was able to offer them. The most pleasing food I had brought were
individual bags of nut and dried fruit mixture with a few pieces of candy in
each heat-sealed plastic bags. The
plastic bags were a product of "Dazey Seal-A-Meal" that I choose to
use because they are highly puncture and pressure resistant as well as can be
used for boiling food within and can be cut and sealed to accommodate
variable sizes. Cooking was done over an
open wood fire on the abundant dry washed up wood. The pots were a
three-gallon pail, cast iron two-gallon pot with lid, three nesting deep
rectangular pots that ranged in size from about one to two gallons. |
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this was an absolute
hilarious moment, we had such a great time!
I still laugh about our master chefs, who would believe this out in
the middle of nowhere and I mean nowhere. |
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Two heavy-duty hatchets,
one "Sven" folding saw and a two man saw for large logs were used
for cutting up the wood. The cooking
pots were suspended from a counterbalanced cantilevered thick stick by
pothooks. Unfortunately these handy
pothooks were inadvertently left behind because when we discovered that a
brown bear was making its way toward our lunch area we decided to leave in a
hurry. Since we did not know if the
bear might happen to be an aggressive female with cubs we decided that we did
not want to stay around and find out. |
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021 |
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During those first four days on the upper section of the Yama I saw
the following plants; blue iris, Iris setosa,
that had several large brilliant blue flowers on each stalk and
resembled cultivated a Japanese type of iris that had multiple blossoms on
the stem and grew on the banks of the river.
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blue iris, Iris setosa |
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Iris in their forest glen. |
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I saw some wild geraniums, Geranium
Bicknellii, that looked unmistakably like the
wild geraniums that commonly grow and flower profusely in Litchfield |
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Geranium
Bicknellii |
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There was a relative of the tansy, Chrysanthemum
bipinnatum subsp. Bipinnatum, that was
topped with clusters of brilliant golden yellow flowers that had no petals
and with the typical turpentine scent when a leaf is crushed. |
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Tansy buttons |
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To my delight I found the progenitor of a majestic old garden favorite
with its spectacularly beautiful brilliant blue flowers on its thin tall stem
growing sheltered among the tall grasses of the margin of the woods we call
larkspur or delphinium Digitalis Delphinium nelsoni
. This was just such a thrill for me
to see. |
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Delphinium
nelsoni |
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The trees were aspen, poplar, willows, birch and tamarack. |
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Growing on the gravel island was one of the tallest forms of
cinquefoil, the shrubby cinquefoil, Potentilla fruticosa, with its typical bright yellow five
pedaled flowers. In the same area of the
gravel island I noticed Yellow Dot or Spotted Saxifrage Saxifraga bronchialis
that flowers had an unusual combination that I had never seen before
of large white flowers with yellow spots as a cluster on an upright stem
emanating from a dense cluster of gray green tiny leaves. This looked to me like a plant that was
most suited to high mountains and open tundra and not to be found in the
protection of a wooded area. |
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Saxifragia |
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Mertensia |
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Also in the periphery of the woods grew large numbers, almost as a
solid mat of plants, the pink Pyrola, Pyrola
asarifolia that had rows of
pink round shaped flowers on the upper quarter of its stem that grew from the
center of a whorl of shiny dark green leathery leaves. |
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There was some bog whortleberry Vaccinium membranaceum whose tasty blue berries
I sampled. |
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Bog Whortleberry |
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A small creeping plant the twinflower, Linnaea borealis, with distinctive long singular stems that had leathery
medium green oval leaves grew over the ground. From its stems grew shorter upright shoots
topped with two white bell shaped flowers.
This was a pretty plant that could compliment any rock garden. |
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Linnaea
borealis |
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A type of aster that may be Erigeron
peregrinus
or may be another similar species of aster looks like a New England
aster and has light purple flowers. Marsh Marigold |
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Marsh Marigold note all of the algae
around the roots |
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I came across a plant
that resembled mint by having square stems but no odor with pendulous flowers
and lanceolate leaves I am not sure of its
identity. Some of the many members
of the legume family I generally identified as Astragalus sp. and Oxytropis sp. |
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Among the smallest low
growing plants more typically found in the tundra were Empetrum nigrum ssp. hermaphroditum
whose very tiny black berries I sampled.
I found two species of
cloudberry Rubus camaemorus Rubus strigosus that also had
delicious fruit. Other small flowers were Saxifraga punctata
exquisite little gray green with star shaped white flowers growing only on
the most sterile gravel was Stellaria laeta. |
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Stellaria longipipes |
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Ranunculus eschscholtzii low growing brilliant
yellow flowers typical of the buttercup. |
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Ranunculus eschscholtzii |
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And I thought that it was rather unusual to find that there numerous
grain bearing grasses that certainly attract ducks. Aside from nature it almost seemed as if
they are purposefully promoted because of their relative abundance just along
the banks of the river that were within a hundred mile long nature
preserve. |
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I noticed that there were
some Achilia that had interesting light pink
flowers in the upper reaches of the Yama but reverted to the more common
white flowered Achilia, Achilia sibericus, down river. This plant I immediately recognized because
the flower and general plant structure resembles Yarrow, a common |
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Achilia sibericus |
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Among some of the birds
that I saw in the upper section of the river were a medium sized plover the
Mongolian Plover, Charadrius mongolus,
and the Northern Three toed Woodpecker, Picoides tridactylus. Terns and gulls were
still active when it was twilight that I thought was not usual in other areas
such as Long Island Sound I have not seen this behavior in these birds. |
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the woods |
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Flying among the wet low
land plants were large dragon flies, the Common Amberwing Perithemis tenera , that had wings that looked like they were
made of fine brass mesh with green and brown bodies with large legs folded
under and in front of their body. They
are quite beautiful and I noticed that they mate in the usual fashion of the
species. How they are able retain their normal capability of flight while
mating is an interesting question. It
certainly looks like a good barnstormer's trick. There were a type of Pine
Sawyer beetle one of the Monochamus sp. was a strikingly large jet black wood
boring beetle with a one and a half inch long body and with long semicircular
one and a quarter inch jointed curved back antennae. These strange antennae are carried beneath
the body during flight creating the comical most awkward resemblance as a
strange huge wasp that has fluttery buzzing awkward style of flying. This beetle's flight immediately suggested
itself as being some more material for barnstormer tricks. Also there appears to be an orange area
somewhere beneath its wings that becomes exposed during flight. I believe
that this is the insect that can be heard making a loud rasping noise beneath
tamarack tree bark and excavates a rounded rectangular quarter inch wide hole
in the wood leaving a large amount of sawdust outside the hole. I did not find out how deep the hole is
made or if indeed this is actually the insect responsible for the loud
rasping noise every fifteen seconds. |
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There were wood boring
flies Ichneumons possibly being Dolichometus sp. with long straight ovipositors and large
black flies and green headed flies Tabanidae that resemble a midsummer livestock fly
that bites. Along the edges of the
water and under rocks in the water there were various midges with forked
tails that were probably larvae of Caddis flies Trichoptera
, Stoneflies Perlidae
and Mayflies Ephemeroptera and small beetles Dryopoidea with elliptical not quite round like
ladybug body and shiny black wings, and there was a species of Ladybug Adalia bipunctata
that had two spots on its back.
There were ants that I did not identify. |
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iris |
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Among the types of Wasps
and Bees,
Hymenoptera , I saw a wasp with orange legs and black and brown
body. The Hornets Vespinae were large black with yellow
coloration. The Bumble Bees Bombini were an assortment of colors whitish
yellow, yellow, orange and orange brown.
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Iris setosa with bumble bee |
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Representing Arachnids or Spiders, the most common were the Lycosidae that were
Geolycosa
sp. large slightly hairy black and brown ground spiders, some
unidentified dwarf spiders Micryphantinae ,
wolf spiders Pirata sp.
and Paradosas sp. living in the gravel, Red Mites Trombidiidae on rocks and orb weavers Araneidae sp. or
Argiopidae
sp. with very strong long stranded webs. When I was walking
through wooded areas these long connecting strands of webs that were easily
more than six feet long felt almost like wire when my face broke through
them. |
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wolf spider on my solar panel |
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A crab spider Misumenops sp., I happened to find sitting on
my tent long enough for me to take a picture of and it did not stay there
long enough to start to change its color from light brown to the blue color
of the tent. I wondered if it had
decided that the huge light blue flat surface of the tent was not a flower blossom
and that it had better move to less conspicuous ground to avoid becoming
dinner for a hungry bird. |
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I spotted the hoof tracks
of what was either and elk or a moose.
I tend to suspect that because I saw no areas of submerged aquatic
vegetation that was large enough to feed a population of moose, the ungulate
must have been an elk. Storm clouds were
frequently quite visible passing rapidly by the mountaintops to the east. |
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July 25th, gulls and
terns were becoming increasingly abundant suggesting that more returning fish
had reached the middle section of the river offered larger supply of food and
suitable nesting sites. We experienced
the typical protective strategies of repeated strafing and cries
of alarm typical of gulls and terns that are nesting. |
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We began catching two
types of salmon, one was a Coho salmon |
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coho salmon caught by Alexie |
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The other salmon was a
was long bodied, brown backed, green to light blue green with bright pink
dots, that survive cooking, and a brownish white belly that was spectacularly
beautiful sea run Dolly Varden trout. The salmon had grayling minnows in their
stomachs. |
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Dolly Varden |
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While investigating
surroundings on our island campsite I came across these web
footed tracks of a river otter. Later
in town I bought a nice hat made of that fur. |
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Otter Tracks |
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There are four species of
Grayling, Thymallus
sp. that occur in |
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I caught a grayling |
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The lower third of the
Yama has a different group of plants that indicates warmer climate most
likely due to the lower elevation and proximity to the sea that acts as a
heat sink. I saw silver birch, more
ducks and small insect feeding birds, warblers, whereas in the upper more
mountainous region there were only ravens, chickadees and sand pipers. The trees are now much
larger in size. The poplars and
willows are not six inches in diameter but in this area are commonly fifteen
to twenty inches in diameter. The
willows are some type of vertical narrow short-branched tree,
tamaracks are growing on the less fertile soil. The plants are larger, more broad leaved
varieties, and taller as well. There is the same wild
mustard that is in The Herring gulls Larus argentatus are now in this area that I noticed
were gradually replacing the smaller, softer voiced Mew gulls as we
progressed further down the river. I
think that this replacement of one species of gull to another was related to food
type and availability. The White
Wagtail, It was wonderful to see
the lovely Common Oyster Catcher Haematopus ostralegus had its typical larger lower beak drawn
back in flight, long pointed tail combination with its short square tail,
pointed wings like a tern but larger and coloration of some black on the head
and shoulders. Sighting of this bird
in flight is always most exquisitely graceful and they always have their
distinctive cry. |
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Among the insect food for
grayling were small ladybug sized black beetles, caddis flies, and forked
tailed midges. The grayling minnows
are food for some of the salmon. To
date we had caught three species of salmon.
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A new species of salmon
was caught today that was an Arctic char.
It was silver gray with small bright pink spots like the green one
caught earlier. I was the size of a
trout with brilliant orange red flesh.
The graylings have eggs as well as the salmon that are seen jumping in
the rip currents. |
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the arctic char photo from wikipedia |
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The graylings are being
caught on Mepps spinner lures one to two feet below
the surface at the edge of the current and to get the lure down deeper in the
water to where the fish were we put a 1/2 oz. lead weight on the line. |
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Yuri with the grayling he caught |
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It was critical to cast
in to the current at a right angle and to follow the lure as it was carried
down river with the row so that the hook could be set efficiently in a
straight line with the rod. I had to
keep the lure at the proper depth and not to pump the lure unless I felt a
bite. The water makes the lure spin not
the fisherman. The best fishing area
is where a current feeds into a back water deep area, the fish hang out in
the current and go for lures in the current more often that in the quiet
area. This is similar behavior to
small sized blue fish. |
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We not only were eating
lots of fish head stew for lunch and baked fish for dinner but we were
putting salted fish in a barrel to take back to Barnaule
for our friends who could not be with us on this Altour
trip. In a week the salted fish had
become nicely preserved with clear softened flesh and easy to remove
bones. They were delicious eating. |
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sunset back from where we have come |
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That evening the sunset
and the full moon arose at the same time with such brightness that from the
open landscape of our island I was able to take pictures of both of them. |
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there is the moon peaking through |
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On July 27th. the next morning I awoke to
find that we were shrouded in a layer of mist. Everything was grey a silver grey as the
sun began to climb and the colors of green, brown, yellow and red begin to
reappear. The mystical layer of river mist
became thinner and thinner until it gave way to the sun. |
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foggy morning |
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When we were underway I
spotted an a huge predatory bird soaring on the air currents over the trees
easily as large as a bald eagle that Yeri
identified as a Steller's Sea eagle Haliaeetus pelagicus
that had a wing span of 85 cm and the distinctive coloration of a black head
and back but with black and white shoulders and with a white wedge-shaped
tail. This is by contrast to the other
area birds, which were busily engaged in the typical behavior toward large
predators of harassing it, quite startling to see on the wing not only
because of its great size but its contrasting coloration. The herring gull attacking was easily half
its size. I noticed a small olive
yellow warbler like bird that I believe may have been a Yellow Backed Wagtail Motacilla flava flying among the bushes along the
river. It was a small bird with the
most spectacularly bright coloration of all the birds I saw on the trip. There was another white wagtail that was
busy keeping an eye on every move I made reminding me of all the attention
you suddenly find you are getting when you are in the nesting area of the
catbird in |
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salmon smolt in a shallow quiet part of
the river |
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Among the new plants was
an Astilbe that is the exact same plant I have in my garden at home in There are a type of tree
possibly cottonwood that is shedding seeds that are carried on the wind by
their individual cotton tufts cottonwood. |
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The Astilbe |
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Similar to the rivers
along the Alaskan and Northwest coast where the annual migrations of anadromous
salmon occur here in The salmon were not as
numerous and as visible as those in The bears were
attentively waiting for just the right moment to scoop up these migrating
salmon that were lined up, hanging in the current waiting to head up
stream. These bears despite their
imposing size have a well developed sense of balance that makes them appear
as though they were well practiced at tight rope walking as they walked on
the narrow trunks of precariously positioned trees. When they saw our rafts coming down the
river they scrambled for the safety of the woods. |
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Bear tracks and my tracks |
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In the upper part of the
river the first salmon we caught were Chum Salmon Oncorhynchus
keta and
Pink Salmon Oncorhynchus
gorbuscha that were about two feet long and the
females had eggs. |
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Chum Salmon caught by Velodia
with Victor looking on |
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As we worked our way down
the river we began to catch Coho Salmon
Oncorhynchus kisutch
, Dolly Varden
Salvelineus malma
, Arctic char Salvelineus
alpinus and
near the end we caught Cherry Salmon Oncorhynchus sp.,
and we saw but did not catch Red Salmon
Oncorhynchus nerka
. |
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Cherry Salmon caught by Velodia |
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Here and there we caught
Grayling and frequently saw grayling minnows in shallow areas. The grayling spawn earlier than salmon such
that their growth cycle coincides with the spawning of salmon and are known
both as minnows and adult graylings to eat salmon eggs. We had a bahnia that
evening that did wonders to the body.
The hot steam extracted all possible dirt from our pores and cleared
our heads. The intermittent dunkings in the river's waters rejuvenated our
vitality. When we could stand the heat
no longer we donned our clothes as rapidly as possible before the mosquitoes
ravaged us. On July 28th. I awoke to
find that the full moon was just showing through edge of the tamaracks on the
north slope of the mountain across the river from our camp. The early morning light at There was just one little
problem, I had forgotten to put on my shoes while I was busily engaged in
taking these pictures. The mosquitoes
absolutely feasted on my feet. When I
crawled back into my tent my feet were in agony from the innumerable mosquito
bites they had gotten. |
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Here in this section we
were beginning to notice that the river current velocity was beginning to slow
down and that there were more places to catch salmon and greyling. We were catching some new varieties of
salmon and there was an especially unusual salmon that had large white spots
outlined with gray and the upper back or dorsal area was dark gray blending
into silver gray to white on its stomach or ventral area with very little red
coloration. |
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Some new grasses I saw
were Gramineae, Carex aquatilis , and areas of
Equisetum arvense on land
and Equisetum fluviatilis in the river bottom. I saw the fern Dryopteris fragans in the
river area near the sea that was twelve inches high with pale green
leaves. The Eyelash Cup Scutellinia
scutellata a
Pyronemataceae was a tiny scarlet red one eight
inch diameter round cup shaped stalked
fungus with black hairy edges growing on damp wood. A Barbarea othoceras,
with yellow flower, a
Caltha palustris in the brook with very fleshy leaves, a Barbarea sp. with
small white flowers, an Arabis arenicola ? with leaves like Barbarea with
small six-inch clump of yellow flowers and bud shaped seed pods like Cochlearia. |
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A Petasites sagittatus
that was two inches tall with large deep green shiny leathery leaves on the
river bottom. |
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Petasites sagittatus |
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noisy spotter plane flying over |
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On July 29th. the Aeroflot helicopter came
and picked us up. Once again I was
able to take pictures from the open window.
We flew inland above the river and followed the valleys back to
Magadan. The ecology of the area where
there were high mountains had distinctly defined tree lines and vegetation
limits that were narrowly confined to the percolation of water through the
soil. |
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flying over the Jama
river delta area by helicopter |
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Where the mountains reduced in size becoming hills the colonization of
low growing vegetation, possibly grasses, increased to such an extent that
they entirely covered hilly areas. |
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We drank some tasty local
beer on our way back and I eagerly looked forward to a day on the |
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When we were in Magadan
we went out fishing on a coaster similar to a coastguard cutter on the I found that taking
pictures of puffins in flight next to impossible with my Olympus OM-1 35 mm
camera. I did take some video
footage. Puffins are very fast fliers. |
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all you see is lots of black backed
gulls, the puffins have flown away |
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We went out on the water in a small motorboat and pulled up round
traps that caught thorny crabs |
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fish we caught, very good tasting too |
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our all we could eat feast on those
thorny crabs in the box at the end of the table |
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assorted shell fish I picked up, nice clams,
blue mussels, snails |
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The entire sea is loaded with shellfish. |
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Gail E. Ferris, 1 Bowhay Hill, |
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Reference list: The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American
Mushrooms, Marsh, Robin B. Bovey,
1988. 1963. Flora of Alaska
and Neighboring Territories, a manual of the vascular plants, Eric Hulten,
1968 Vascular Plants of Continental W.J.Cody,
1980. A Field Guide to Birds of the A.A.Kuznetsov,
english translation, 1984 A Golden Guide Spiders
and Their Kin, Herbert w. Levi,
Lorna R. Levi, 1968. American |
