HaveKidsWillTravel

Getting close enough to touch and walk on them, though, is a rare thing – and the Exit Glacier, dropping from the massive Harding icefield near Seward is the best chance we’ve had to really see a glacier up close and personal. Walking across the brittle talus of the moraine, through the cloudy meltwater streams, feeling the cold catabatic winds and touching the clear, hard ice of the glacier tongue itself brings it to life in a way that no amount of picture-postcard scenic photo-ops are ever going to.

This is what a Glacier feels like.

The cabins are booked 6 months in advance, but we found a Yurt available , and while we weren’t exactly sure what a Yurt was, we were certain it sounded better than a tent. So we booked for a couple of nights, arranged the water taxi to drop us off in Tutka bay, and started packing. I stopped to see if I could get a map of the bay from Homer visitors information, and it turned out the lady there had a cabin in the area – when I asked what she’d do for a few day’s camping in Tutka, she gave me a withering look – “Watch out for Bears!”

And according to our water taxi captain, Black bears are pretty common in the area we’re headed – but with common precautions and a bit of respect, not too much of a problem. I’m not sure how a Swiss army knife counts as a precaution, but I all of a sudden somehow feel better with one on the belt – and am starting to understand why all the locals carry rifles…

We were dropped off along with our packs, food, water and a double sea-kayak on a shingle beach in a densely forested little corner of Tutka bay – about an hour out of Homer, and a good 20 minutes past the last sign of human habitation… The Yurt was just along a trail, set about 25 meters back in the trees, and is a very practical little wilderness home – a lightweight, round structure with three daybeds around the walls and a combustion stove in the centre. Simple, pretty, dry and warm. There is a mattress on each bed, an axe for firewood, and that’s about it. Cooking is done in a firepit back down at the beach, where there is a steel cable and pulley system there for hanging your food out of reach of bears – you don’t want your porridge attracting them up to the Yurt for breakfast.

Angus and I went for a fish in the Kayak, Fiona got the fire going, and Digby and Evie had a play on the beach. With light so late, we didn’t get the kids to bed till maybe 11, and I was up fishing till maybe 1am. With the still, clear water on the Fjord, it was like fishing in an aquarium – you could watch the little fish and occasional larger one following the lure in, and I’d caught and released a few (just little 1 or 2 pound Black Cod, Rock Cod, Pollock and Irish Lord) when up popped a sea otter – right where I was casting, and just sat there watching me till I gave up and went to bed.

Next morning we all had a slow start, and Digby woke up with a bit of a cold, so Fiona snuggled up with himin front of the logfire in the yurt while I took the two big kids for a hike up a trail up to the ridgeline. Through the dense spruce down low, and then up through neck-deep thickets of raspberry, skunk weed and devils club (which is as bad as it sounds…). Angus started to get ‘a bad feeling about this’ as we came across a few fresh patches of bear scat, and after about two hours of powering straight up the trail, Evie’s little legs started to run out of puff – I had revolution on my hands just as we reached the crest of the ridge, just in time for some snacks and the hike back down again.

Back at camp, we were doing a bit of whittle craft before bed-time and discovered that a split feather, tied to the shaft of our arrows using a teabag string, turned our harmless home-made bow and arrows into weapons of mass destruction. A bit more fishing before bedtime, and a few more little fish (a bigger black cod, but threw him back too), and the sea otter, although he was a little less interested in me tonight.

Next morning Fiona woke up early and was scanning the still bay when she saw something she reckoned looked like a Beluga, so I jumped into the Kayak and went for a paddle to see what I could find. Nothing but sea otters, but I carried on across the bay and found a narrow tidal channel that ran through to a freshwater stream and meadow. Paddling up, I could see good size fish on the stream bed below (steelhead or salmon, I’m not sure) as I struggled against the stiff current.

And then, all too soon, it was time to pack up – just in time for the water taxi to take us back to Homer. And despite the dire warnings and the evidence of bears in the vicinity, they’d been happy enough to keep to themselves – and on all accounts, that’s pretty much how they are. The lady at the visitors information told me how she’d been up in the bay just a couple of days ago with her husband out in their boat, watching a family with young kids traipsing along a shoreline trail, and noticed a bear and its cubs picking at mussels just around the headland in the direction the family was headed. While they were working out whether to try and scare off the bears or warn the family, the bears sensed the intruders, and melted into the forest – just as the family rounded the headland and carried on their way, oblivious…

Now the Kenai peninsular is renowned for its fishing – and while we are a bit early for the height of the salmon runs, some fellow campers tipped us off about a stream just in from Seward where the salmon were already backed up below a fish weir to the point that there were more fish than water in the creek.

It’s an incredible sight, the fish boiling in the water and leaping from the air up the weir – so intently focused on their task of navigating the river that you can literally reach into the water and grab them. They are a bit slippery to grab a hold of, though, and I’m not exactly sure bare-handed wrestling of salmon is covered in the fishing regulations.

The next day we passed the confluence of the Russian and the Kenai rivers – a beautiful stretch of river that is mecca for fly fisherman – and sure enough, there were already literally hundreds of anglers along the bank, spaced every 2 or 3 meters. Locals reckon that it gets 3 deep, shoulder to shoulder at the height of the season – and seeing the sign outside the local medical clinic advertising “Fishing Hooks Removed Here!”, I don’t doubt it.

But I could just imagine causing an international incident by elbowing my way up to the riverbank with Evie’s pink fishing rod and proceeding to entangle the next 30 lines downstream – the shave can wait.

So when we got to Homer (literally the end of the road on the Kenai peninsular), proudly billed as Halibut fishing capital of the world (and home of ‘Time Bandit’, of ‘Deadliest Catch’ fame), I finally sought some professional assistance. Together with Les, a fellow camper and truck driver from Kansas, and Craig, a local fisherman who had just yesterday caught the 2nd place holder in the Homer Halibut derby (weighing in at 170pounds), we climbed aboard Captain Norm’s mighty Sea Otter and headed out into Kachemak bay.

The weather was magic – clear and still, and Homer itself is set in a remarkable position, a sandy spit in a broad bay fringed by glaciated peaks. Rafts of sea otters bask in the sunshine, and it didn’t take long for the fish to start biting. I was pretty impressed by hauling up a 20-odd pound cod, only to have it thrown back (‘we’re here to catch Halibut!’), along with some rockfish and an Irish Lord. The lines went quiet for 20 minutes before all three lines went at once and bedlam broke out. We were into the Halibut – these are big fish and can take some persuasion to get on board – (“Don’t be afraid if you hear a shot and smell gunpowder…”), but it didn’t take too long to meet our quota for the day (2 per person), and started the troll for King Salmon.

We were motored lazily around and I’d nearly dozed off when ‘Fish On!’ – the rod bent in half, and reel sang – there’s a reason they’re called kings. They are impressive fish out of the water, and even more-so still in it, putting on a fight and a show all the way in. It didn’t take long to bag one each and with bag limits all complete, head back to harbour.

I returned home the victorious hunter – the kids were very excited when they found out they were going to have to eat all the ice-cream to make room for the catch, and Fiona was so excited that I’d run out of excuses for not shaving that she made enough salmon sashimi to feed half the campground.

I just wonder how long it takes for the glory to fade with the reality of having to eat our way through 30 odd pounds of halibut fillets…