9. Lake Kurilskoye: Four days of 'just bears', Paradise!
"Kamchatka Peninsula" by Bike and Kayak
Mon 27 Aug 2012 04:33
So here I am at this beautiful, Kurilskoye Lake, location, at one of the world's premier Grizzly bear viewing spots. Supposedly the highest concentration of bears anywhere in the world, and I have no other agenda / kilometre objectives to meet, other than to just sit back for the next four days, relax, take it all in, and enjoy!
I had crossed over the clear line between self sufficient adventurer, dealing with all the risks, to passive, protected tourist, but this was part of the 'package ticket' conditions, to being able to access this 'top of the world class', viewing. It now remained to see what life on the other side of the line was going to be like, and how I'd deal with the loss of freedom and paternalistic protection.
An overview of the setting:
With an area of 77m2, and about 16 kilometres across, Kurilskoye Lake is the biggest lake by far on the Kamchatka peninsula. It's surrounded by volcanic origin, mountains, and ten rivers flow from these mountains into the lake, and one, the Ozenaya River, flows out, about 55 kilometres west, spilling into the Sea of Oshkosh at Ozenrenzee, where I'd just come from.
This sea, river and lake system makes for one of the best salmon eco systems in the world, and every year between May and October the salmon leave their saline ocean environment and head up the river to spawn and then die in the lake. Their offspring start life as fry on the fringes of the lake, make it their freshwater home for 1-2 years, before, as fully grown adults they then head down the river, and into the sea to start their 2-3 year saline water life. At the age of 4-5 years they then return to Kurilskoye Lake to complete the cycle. This, all a very well known and documented cycle, and one I observed with great interest in Alaska in 2009. For me immersing myself in this cycle, almost being part of the salmons' struggle makes for a fascinating and very rewarding personal experience. My bike ride to get to the lake has taken me right close up to the salmons' journey from the sea, and the huge odds they are up against in the journey to a spawning spot.
The Kurilskoye Lake, salmon system is very special in that it has a very high concentration of sockeye salmon, the bright red ones with green heads. We were born to appreciate naturally beautiful things, and although the saying goes, 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder', I sense in natures diverse display of beauty, the sockeye salmon being one example, all humans would be consensual beholders.
Traveling up the river in the boat with Nikolas, I was able to see this sockeye concentration inn all it's beauty, as the salmon darted away from our approaching boat leaving amazing red trails in the crystal clear water.
The Kurilskoye Lake, salmon eco system is well managed to ensure, and part of this system is the river 'bridge' across the Ozenaya River, just after it leaves the lake. Here the flow of salmon up the river is regulated by wooden gates that when open allow the fish through on a controlled basis. August is the peak, salmon flow season, when up to 3000 fish enter the lake daily. The salmon are at the heart of a much larger eco system, that includes the bears, who move between a tundra berry and salmon based diet.
The salmon bridge is where the main bear viewing takes place, although, as I witnessed, bears can been seen all over the river, and there is a high concentration around the lake edges. The salmon control bridge has been built with bear viewing in mind, and with its protected walkway across the river provides pretty intimate immersion into life with the bears as they going about their daily routine, which is largely centred around fishing.
When I arrived at the bridge on the boat with Nicolas, the first thing that hit me was the largish group of camera wielding tourists on the bridge, and how I was going to deal with this all? How busy will it be..?
While setting up my tent two helicopters flew in, groups of day tourists filed out, straight to the bear viewing bridge.... Hmmm, this is going to be far from an intimate, soulful bear and salmon experience, I thought...! I'd prepared myself for this, and anyway what gives me the right to think I deserve something more special than the helicopter visitor? Good point, I conceded!
In hindsight, arriving as I did, by bicycle and on my own, was a huge advantage, that I had overlooked: I was free of helicopter group schedules, and I was this misfit (no wise crack comments hey!) on his own who didn't really have any group association or inspector he belonged to and became 'owned' by... Every tourist is supposed to be escorted by a rifle carrying, 'inspector' any time they leave the, electric fenced camp area, and even while bear viewing on the salmon bridge. Hmmm...!
Well with all the helicopters / tourists of these first few hours, there was a demand for inspectors, and definitely not one spare to be one-on-one with me..! Practicalities reigned, they worked out that the best way to deal with me was to bend the rules and give me a small, emergency flare for protection, and then I was free to explore the bridge and surrounding area on my own... Yippee, I suddenly had more freedom than I could ever have imagined, and in one of the world's premier wilderness spots. When I understood that the helicopter traffic was just day trippers between 11am and 3pm, and the big group of overnighters I'd seen were leaving the next day, I suddenly realised that I mostly had the whole area all to myself, and to use whenever I wanted...! Howard Fairbank paradise!
I used this access to its extreme, and got to really observe the bears and salmon in all their different moods, time of day / night routines, and I got to know the 12-15 bears that frequented the area, and some of their unique mannerisms. That was very special. The first days were full of over excited camera shooting activity, but thereafter often I'd just arrive and watch bear life as it took its day's course.
During the peak traffic tourist time, the bears kept we'll away from the foot bridge, but often I'd arrive early in the morning, and there the young bears had literally taken control of the bridge, and almost seemed upset with me arriving 'out of tourist schedule' to reclaim the bridge for human use.
There as one huge male who clearly dominate the bridge area society, and had his own dedicated fishing spot, but unlike the other bears who seemed to tirelessly fish on and off all day, he only started fishing almost like clockwork, around 3pm each day, with a focused effort through to 8 30pm sunset putting, I estimate easily, between 8 and 12, 3.5kg salmon into his belly. I was told he was around 12 years old. I saw him easily defend his dominant status, after challenges, but a much younger male.
There were two mothers, one with two, cute little 4 month old 'helpless dependants' who enjoyed salmon, but still relied on mother's milk, and fishing expertise. I saw what a full on job being this mother was, and how much patience with her young ones she displayed.
The other mother's offspring were previous season cubs, so 16-18 months old, and I was surprised how these, soon to be, full status adults were still seriously short of effective, self survival fishing skills. Understandably, this mother was far less patient, and willing too be a sharer, than the one with 1st season cubs.
The salmon behaviour was hard to 'pattern-ise', and didn't seem to drive the bear routine. Some days I'd arrive and there'd be a huge amount of salmon just upstream of the bridge, but the bears were fishing downstream! Other times the opposite, and other times it seemed like the salmon had deserted for good.
Often as I walked out onto the bridge, my moving shadow caused fear to spread through the resting sockeye's, and suddenly the water would become a series of red waves, radiating away from me, as they scurried away in the clear water to a safer haven. From the elevated vantage point of the bridge it was fascinating to watch a bear fishing, head down in the water, eyes open below the water, making a small bow wave as it stalked closer to the shoal of salmon infront of that I could see with my helicopter view, but it clearly couldn't. I'd watch till the bow of 'the submarine' got within view of the shoal, hopefully before they took flight, as then I'd know a fish pounce was imminent. I'd often feel the urge to assist the bear by directing it to big shoals of salmon, but then realised that would be changing nature's well designed odds.
In these conditions the grizzly bear fishing process is highly productive, yet the salmon seem to enjoy playing roulette, almost taunting the bears, swimming closer as a collective to a scanning bear. Invariably one gets taken, the bear stands enjoying its tasty catch, and the salmon then almost seem to know the odds have swung dramatically and swim around almost touching the otherwise occupied bear, maybe a victorious jaunt, at not being the unlucky one.
The procedural efficiency with which a bear consumes a salmon, never failed to capture my attention. Once caught, the salmon is tightly gripped by those huge and impressively clawed paws, then positioned so the bear can start eating tail first. The tail is eagerly bitten off with a single crunch sound, but in a way that keeps a segment of skin in tact. Using this intact segment, the red skin is efficient ripped off the still alive and wriggling fish, exposing the prized orange body flesh. The skin must be a delicacy on it's own, as the bear seems to sit back for a split second and really savor this seemingly insignificant morsel. The fish is then turned and positioned head down, often with one long claw piercing it's head, and then thee bear progressively bites off large flesh segments, crunch by crunch, as it demolishes its catch towards the head. Salmon innards appear closer to the head, and these are separately stripped out, seemingly as tasty snack breaks. Finally it's down to the bony, sharp toothed jawed head. This is efficiently crunched into two, the two jaws pulled apart, and then satisfyingly crunched and swallowed one by one, with not a piece of left over waste. From catching to 'all gone', takes 2-3 minutes, and the eating process seems to be really enjoyed by the bear.
The younger ones haven't quite got this whole process mastered yet, and I often saw a younger bear having to take its catch to the river bank, for fear of losing it while trying to position it for eating, while still being in the river. The real young ones wait for the mother to do the risky part, and then when the hear the brutal bone crunching noise, the move in on the mother, almost stealing her mouthful.
This is just a sharing a bit of my
Truly special experience with the bears and salmon at Kurilskoye Lake.
I met a few very interesting people while I was there. A couple from Moscow with a five year old son. Both scientists, involved in Salmon research, the live 5 months of the year at Kurilskoye Lake, and then return to Moscow for winter to process the data collected. Lisa could speak good English, and we got on well, we both interested in the other's different life. Another, Kamchatkan born tour guide, who married an Austrian, and lives there now, was guiding a group of Austrian's on quite a customised trip. Some years back, she'd done six tour leadership jobs on shark diving trips to Simonstown, just near my cottage in False Bay. Then the wealthy businessman from Moscow and his teenage son, who arrived with a huge helicopter all to themselves. The went out onto the bear viewing bridge, with serious cases, of serious photographic equipment, while I was there. In the whole time they were on the bridge, just two bears showed up, then at the critical photographic moment the camera malfunctioned, and the spent the next twenty minutes focused on technical issues while the bears decided, "well if you don't want to photograph us, we'll leave". I just thanked my lucky stars, that I'd experienced some real special stuff, and knew what Kurilskoye Lake really had to offer, and wondered if they were disappointed, and would have a totally different rating with their experience. ..As I thought of our completely different paths to get to this magical spot, I did think back to one of my core beliefs that: "All VERY special things require more than money, an investment of time and effort, and some level of suffering".
The park staff at the camp see themselves as only providers of physical protection, and as such offered no social or educational dimension, but being who I am, that didn't negatively affect my experience, but could have been an area where it added to the experience. I slept in my little tent every night, and with my helicopter-ed in resupply food, I had a new camping food menu, a bottle of Russian red wine, and a half jack of vodka with a bear on its label to 'work' with. Food was never an issue, in fact with little exercise, I had too much!
Larissa the private chef for the Moscow businessman who stayed overnight, insisted on giving me samples of the special food she made for dinner and breakfast for her client. He probably didn't know that that poor, cyclist, who has to sleep in his little tent on his own, without even a mattress, was eating the same food as him! Funny hey!
BTW, my visit wasn't exactly cheap, and the pick up by boat, and ranger's time cost quite a lot more than a tot of vodka!
I did get to do a three hour walk down the river, escorted by 'my inspector'. I'd seen this amazing rock sculptured valley on the boat trip up the river, so asked if I could go there? It was great, a special pumice mountain that had then been wind, ice and rain eroded into fantastic shapes. Lots of bears along the way, and we were charged by one, forcing the rifle to be cocked and aimed, but thankfully not fired. I observed the whole situation develop, and honestly believe it was a clear case of unannounced, human intrusion, causing a fear reaction, and aggressive behaviour. I felt really good about how I'd handled things on my own, weaponless, and without incident!
The end of my time at Kurilskoye Lake came all too quickly, and I was scheduled to depart at 11am, the same team Nicolas, me and my bicycle on the boat back down the river to the pickup 'bridge'.
I had one last morning trip to the bridge....Good bye bears and salmon thanks for all your taaught me!
That's all for this post!
, s