July 23, 2009 – Seldovia

Today’s journey took us across the Bay to the fishing village of Seldovia – home of 307 friendly people and a few old crabs – LOL!!

Here is our boat:

We first went to Gull Island:

 

Thousands of birds (5 different species) make this their summer home – the sound was deafening and the smell, well, I will leave that to your imagination.

Here is a Horned Puffin:

And Common Murre:

Both of those birds dive and swim underwater and it was a treat to see them so close.

Most of the birds you see here are Cormorants:

And this little one just loved getting his picture taken:

The Sea Otter is also called “The Old Man of the Sea”.  They consume large quantities of kelp-eating green sea urchins, which left unchecked would greatly diminish the kelp community. They are often seen floating on their backs.  Using their belly as a workbench and picnic table they break open their food with rocks.  Lacking the blubber common to most sea mammals, otters require large amounts of calories to maintain their body temperature. Otters spend a good part of the day grooming their fur and feeding.  Their velvety brown fur is the densest of any mammal with some 126,000 hairs per square centimeter.  (Yes, I copied all that, but I also still have pictures – :-))

We passed by elephant rock which is believed to have spiritual significance to some of the Native Peoples.

 

And we passed by some islands that were homesteaded many years ago and their main business was fox farming.  From what I understand, when a person homesteaded they had to live on the land for 5 years before it was officially theirs.  Seeing some of these places is amazing – what brave, courageous, and hardy people!!  Here are two of the original homestead homes:

 

We pulled into the small port of Seldovia:

“Seldovia”  is derived from a Russian term meaning “herring bay” It can only be reached by boat and has the distinction of being one of the two Alaskan cities with an ice free harbor in the winter.  It was once a bustling port with canneries, farming, and mining.  Many of the gold prospectors started their journey to the interior here after getting off the steam ships.

Every year they also have a chain saw carving contest.  Here are some of their carvings:

This area of Alaska has heavy Russian influence.  This is the St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church that was built in 1891:

The original settlement in Seldovia was built along the waterfront.  Access to homes and businesses was by boardwalk.  But with the 1964 earthquake, the land dropped 4 feet and much of the waterfront was destroyed.  However, there is still part of the original boardwalk left.  Here it is along with some of the homes:

Really impressive!!  So we had a nice few hours there, had some lunch and stopped by the local bar and grill where we spent some time talking with the owner who has lived there for over 20 years.  What a neat little place.

When we left Homer it was low tide and when we came back it was high tide – check out the differences:

 

 

What a wonderful little trip!

We got word that the folks we meet in Talkeetna – Larry, Cheryl, Bruce, Sue, Bob, and Jackie were here so we spent the evening with them just getting caught up.