First Year Cubs

Brown bear cubs are born in the late winter, and we refer to these new little ones as “first year cubs.” There is no mistaking first year from second year cubs – the firsties are skinny little fluff balls, and the second year cubs are much bigger and more rolly-poly.

I found this brown bear sow and her two cubs on Chichagof Island in Pavlov Harbor. They came out to eat grass by the beach several times a day on one side of the peninsula or the other. If I didn’t see them for a while, I would paddle around the corner and wait – which was usually worthwhile.

The sow was a pretty bear, and one of the two cubs was particularly curious – climbing on small tree limbs and trying to eat flowers.

One of the little bears was very curious about me, even though the sow didn’t seem to mind.

I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that I adore bears. I can’t get enough of them, especially brown bears, and my idea of a perfect day involves hanging out with them.

Pavlov Harbor is a nice anchorage with a good salmon stream, small waterfall and a lake up in the woods. I flew the drone one morning to show you what it looks like, and I got lucky towards the end when an eagle soared below my little bird for a bit.

The area just below the waterfall is a favorite of the bears when the salmon start running – in very late July and early August for this stream. The incoming tide brings the fish up, and as the tide goes out the fish are trapped in shallow pools among the rocks – easy pickings for the bears. We’ve seen as many as 9 bears at a time fishing here in late summer.

We made a very short stop in Juneau to hit Costco and fill the freezers, glad to see so many people wearing masks in the capital city. The weather continued to be pretty rainy, which made for rather unhappy eagles who just want to dry out.

Heading south down Stephens Passage we encountered a lot of glacier ice from Tracy Arm – a sure sign that the glaciers are calving a great deal, and that getting up the fjord to see them is not very likely right now.

Whales were abundant in Stephens Passage as we got closer to Five Fingers Lighthouse and the intersection with Frederick Sound. We stopped counting at 40 one day, but it seemed like the only ones breaching were far away.

It’s always a special treat to see Dall’s Porpoise riding our bow wave. If we’re lucky we’ll see them once or maybe twice a summer, but one afternoon we had pods riding our bow wave twice! They’re incredibly hard to photograph – they are very fast swimmers, able to hit 34 mph over short distances – but I realized that my camera shoots video too.