Riley's First Frontier

For those who don't already know, this summer I will live, work, and play in the nation's 49th state, Alaska. I'll be stationed in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, but plan to take many other adventures over the course of my 108 days in the Last Frontier. So follow me there!

[rileyinalaska]

home again

Sadly, I am back in the hot and humid Florida, visiting with family and friends before heading back to school for my final semester. I miss Alaska dearly, even though seeing friends and family is, of course, always nice. Nothing will ever compare to my summer in Alaska, but I will greet my last semester with an open mind, and hope that whatever adventures I have during and after school will be somewhere as close to as amazing and spectacular as Alaska was. One can only hope...

[rileyinalaska]

WRST, day 57

Today was my last day :( I had an amazing summer, and will never forget everyone I met and everything I had the chance to see and do. Everyone should visit Alaska at some point in their lives. It's a beautiful, vast, immense wilderness with so much to offer, and I'm convinced there is no other place like it. Until next time, Alaska...

[rileyinalaska]

WRST, day 54

Today I had the opportunity to work with one of our fish biologists to analyze the water temperature, pH balance, and other levels of Tanada Lake and Copper Lake in the northern areas of the park. It was a beautiful day, and my first time on a float plane!

[rileyinalaska]

WRST, days 53 & 55-56

I gave my last program on Alaska today, as for the rest of the summer I will be giving guided walks and creature talks on caribou exclusively. The end is near, and I'm becoming less and less okay with it every day.

[rileyinalaska]

WRST, day 52

For work today I got to go with the exotic plant management team out to do some highway surveys. We drove along the Edgerton Highway looking for invasive plants, and when we found some we recorded them on a Trimble, a GPS system that will allow those selected to pull the weeds to create a map of where they're all located so they can find them more easily.

[rileyinalaska]

Photo of a grizzly sow my friend took while we were fishing in Valdez a few weeks back. It was such a good photo I had to share it, too

[rileyinalaska]

Since people are starting to leave and go back to school, home, or other jobs, we had a final party this weekend. Here are some of my favorite photos from the night with some of my new favorite friends <3

[rileyinalaska]

Some photos from my last trip to McCarthy- walking underneath the Kuskulana Bridge at mile 17 on the McCarthy Road

[rileyinalaska]

WRST days 48-51

This week I did my normal job for two days, but then got to travel to McCarthy to work on a fish weir for the final two days. A fish weir is put in to a stream in order to count the number of salmon coming in (at least, in this case it is). We counted 21 salmon the first day, but 0 the second day. It's a pretty easy job. The fish are recorded 24/7, then daily someone goes up there to watch the video from the day before to count.

I enjoyed being in McCarthy and Kennecott again, especially since it was the last time before I leave Alaska.

[rileyinalaska]

This weekend, I got to attend a music festival called Salmonstock in order to benefit a great cause against mining in Bristol Bay, where a large amount of salmon enter Alaskan rivers, and benefit the Alaskan economy immensely. One of my new favorite bands, Trampled by Turtles, performed at the festival and it was awesome to see them live.

Before we went and enjoyed the music, we traveled down to Homer to have a look around. I’ve heard such wonderful things about it, so I was very curious to see what all the fuss was about. I definitely understand it- it was a very cute little town with a lot of staff to see and do. I wish I could’ve spent more time there.

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend filled with lots and lots of fun. I’m really not looking forward to leaving Alaska in two and a half weeks.

[rileyinalaska]

WRST, days 44-47

Tuesday, I went to the Gulkana airport to work with the dispatcher there. I got to track a flight and answer phones when passengers and pilots called to check in. It was pretty neat to see that from a perspective other than nervous flyer.

Wednesday, I prepared my new guided walk that I'll be doing over at the Princess Lodge. Then, I drove a shuttle down to the river to pick up some friends and the YCC crew from a raft trip they did. After that, I gave a guided walk, worked the front desk, and did some other small projects. Yesterday, I helped maintenance paint the buildings so that one of their people could go with the YCC kids and finish a trail we've been trying to complete since last summer. I may be doing that again Tuesday.

Today will be a normal day of programming for me. Once work is done, I'll be going to Anchorage for the night. Then tomorrow I'll drive to Homer to explore and have some lunch before going to Ninilchik for the rest of the weekend for Salmonstock music festival! I'm so excited!!

[rileyinalaska]

Went to Valdez once again this weekend! It was absolutely incredible. I’ve been six or seven times now, and I’d never seen it so beautiful. The sky was 100% clear the entire drive and once we got into town, and it was sunny and warm. Neither of those three things ever occur in Valdez, especially not on the same day! It was spectacular.

We went to Valdez in order to get some fishing in, and that’s exactly what we did. I caught five, but two got away so I ended up with three. I even beat mine in the head with a rock like a real Alaskan fisherman, and hated every second of it. My friend eventually took over on my third fish. He caught his limit of six, so we ended up with nine, which we caught in about an hour and fifteen minutes. There were fish everywhere!

The best part of the day was seeing a family of grizzly bears. A sow and her four cubs, who are pretty famous in the area since it’s almost unheard of for a sow to successfully care for four cubs for so long, were out fishing as well. We spent the first hour or two of our time in Valdez just watching the bears fish, video taping and snapping photos as often as we could. We both agreed it was the most touristy we’ve been so far in Alaska. But neither one of us cared, it was such a neat experience, and definitely one of my favorite days spent in Alaska so far.

[rileyinalaska]

WRST, day 43 This morning I had a wonderful surprise: I got a fish filleting lesson! I got to cut my work day short in order to learn how to properly fillet a salmon, and the best part was we got to keep ten salmon fillets, which is one per person in box town. It was pretty awesome, and very, very filling. I hate touching fish cause of how slippery they are, but I'm glad I had the lesson.

[rileyinalaska]

WRST, day 42

Another typical day at the visitor center. I only gave one program today because we were a tad short staffed and I had to watch the desk, but the one I did give went wonderfully. The audience I had was very enthusiastic about what it's like to live in Alaska!

[rileyinalaska]

WRST, day 41

Today, I was lucky enough to go on a NPS employee rafting trip down the Gulkana and Copper Rivers. It was pretty awesome! I saw lots of bald eagles, mature and juvenile. I also learned to row the boat myself, which is just as hard as it looks. But I had a lot of fun despite my sore muscles and a little sunburn!

[rileyinalaska]

WRST, day 40

Back to work again today! Gave my guided walk for the first time in a week, and my supervisor came on it to audit me. Everything she pointed out that I needed to improve on were things I already recognized I lacked, so that's good. Now just to fix them!

[rileyinalaska]

This weekend I made an awesome trek all the way to Inuvik, NWT from Alaska. We drove at least 1,630 miles in order to make it there, and we did it in about 3 days and 6 hours, so it was a pretty incredible feat. But it was well worth it. Inuvik is a very cool, quirky town, and so is Dawson City, YT. The best part was Tombstone Territorial Park, where the panoramic photo was taken. It was absolutely gorgeous, untouched wilderness. Other highlights were crossing the Arctic Circle and seeing four bears! One black bear, and three grizzlies (pictured) – a sow and her two cubs – running as quickly as possible away from the car. All in all, even though it was a lot of time spent in the car, it was a blast, and I’m glad I did it. I’ve finally been to a foreign country, even if it was just Canada…