July 10, 2024 - Breakfast, National Wildlife Refuge and Salty Dawg

This morning, we headed to Capitan's Coffee for breakfast.  Andy got a notice that the local ham radio club meets there for coffee on Wednesday.  Well, we waited and no-one showed.  We did check their website and we were at the right place, date, and time so who knows what happened.  

We did a few errands and then I went to the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center (Islands & Ocean).  What an incredible place!

"Much of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge has been conserved for over a century, and we share stewardship with Alaska Native people. Development of sophisticated tools and the abundance of coastal and marine wildlife have made it possible for people to thrive here for thousands of years. The refuge stretches across the traditional homelands of the Unangax̂ people, in the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands, as well as smaller parcels on the homelands of Alutiiq/Sugpiak, Yup’ik/Cup’ik, Iñupiat, Dena'ina, Tlingit, Haida, and Eyak peoples.

One of Homer's two outstanding museums, the Alaska Islands & Ocean Visitor Center takes a sweeping look at life along the Alaska’s 5,000 miles of Pacific coastline, from the bottom of the Inside Passage, clear out to the tip of the Aleutians, then all the way up to the Arctic. That long line matches that of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, five million federally-protected acres of islands, headlands, islets, rocks, spires, and other wildlife habitat (the visitor center is, in fact, the headquarters for the refuge).

In the museum, natural history goes hand-in-hand with 9,000 years of human history here, with a strong sense of theater throughout. An entire room is transformed into a seabird rookery, with sound and smell effects. A life-size trapper – "Mother was an Aleut, father was a Russian," he tells you – appears on a video screen in the door of a cabin, wanting to chat about the weather and fur prices. Special attention is given to the Aleutian Islands. The intimacy with nature of the island’s Native Aleuts is revealed in a rich collection of artifacts made with plant and animal materials (a surprisingly stylish seal intestines rain jacket with grass stitching). Native artifacts yield to displays on World War II in the Aleutians (the battle to dislodge the Japanese from Attu Island was the second bloodiest in the Pacific ), and the cold war military buildup and Atomic Age (three nuclear bombs were tested there)."

I started the tour in the theater watching two short movies about the Refuge and the Research Vessel they use.

From there I went into the museum that starts with the Native Peoples and how they lived and still live on the Refuge. Next section was about the Russians and the Americans and the fur trade and fishing trade and what happened over the course of many years that led to conservation efforts.

There was a section on the war and what it did to the Native Peoples, the Islands and the creatures who lived there.

The last section was on conservation efforts to bring back the refuge and what is happening now and what the future holds.

I am going to post a few things but there was so much more.

This website has a virtual tour as well as movies on the visitor center and the refuge itself.  If you have a chance or the time, take the tour and see the shows.

https://www.fws.gov/refuge/alaska-maritime/visit-us

Ceremonial Mask:

Mukluks made from seal fur:

The start of the give and take:

The last sentence in the above "killed more than 300,000 walrus but successfully landed fewer than half of them," which means more than half were killed and left in the ocean.

The decimation of sea otters and Native Peoples:

The foxes were brought in by the Russians and Americans for fur farms.  But they killed many of the birds and bird eggs.  Today, they are still removing foxes, island by island.

The Legacy of the Wars:

From above the cleanup continues both of the contaminants and hazardous debris of the war from over 60 sites.  The other removal still happening are the rats from each of the islands.

Here are the current sites where crews are working:

Conservation efforts are working:

Where the nesting birds are - check out those numbers.  Over 80% of North American seabirds come here to nest every year - WOW!

The Research Vessel - Tiglax:

This is a research vessel for the Refuge.  It travels over 20,000 nautical miles each year, carrying field crews and supplies to the various areas.  It is staffed with researchers, scientists and holds living quarters, laboratories, and supplies for up to six months.  It travels in all kinds of weather.

There are six field camps that are manned for six months each year.  Most are manned by two people and when they come to the camp, they usually carry all their supplies for that time frame.  If you have a chance, there are number of You Tube videos about the field camps and what they do.

The blue dots are those six field camps:

World War II debris from Adak Island:

The Beluga Slough in the foreground, Bishop's Beach beyond:

We did this museum in 2007.  It fascinated me then and still does.  I highly recommend going.  If not, I highly recommend checking out that website near the beginning of this blog.

Since it was still cloudy-ish, we decided to check out the Salty Dawg.  We first headed to the Pavilion where they were having a demonstration of Japanese drumming.  Cute:

We walked past the docks and saw this - What a HOOT!:

Finally to the Salty Dawg for Happy Hour:

"The Salty Dawg started out as one of the first cabins built in 1897, soon after Homer became a town site. It served as the first post office, a railroad station, a grocery store, and a coal mining office for twenty years. In 1909 a second building was constructed, and it served as a school house, post office, grocery store. And at one time, it housed three adults and eleven children.

It was acquired in the late 1940’s by Chuck Abbott to be used as an office for Standard Oil Company. In April of 1957, he opened it as the Salty Dawg Saloon. The late 1950’s produced a change for the Salty Dawg Saloon by joining this building to it.

The Alaska Territory became the 49th state of the union in January 1959.

Earl Hillstrand, the late State Representative, purchased it in 1960. After the March 1964 “Good Friday” earthquake, he moved the structure to its present location. The distinctive lighthouse tower was added to cover a water storage tank, thus completing one of Homer’s more historical and recognizable landmarks.

The Salty Dawg Saloon is currently owned and operated by John Warren. The saloon has been featured on Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel. The bar is known for the thousands of dollar bills signed by visitors and tacked to the walls."

The inside - yes, that is money tacked EVERYWHERE!:

What fun!  We had a few drinks and then headed back home.  Another fun day.

Enjoy today!