Wolf Tracks Near Dry Bay

Fieldwork in Southeastern Alaska, 1979
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14]

Bears were not the only animal to watch for. Let this excerpt from one of my letters home tell the tale of this photo: "I decided that the next morning, before our plane arrived, I would walk up the beach to 'the whale,' a sperm whale that died and was washed up last November. I wanted a chance to take some of its teeth. The next morning came foggy. . . . I set out, shotgun over my shoulder, for the beach. Across a wide sandflat was the present beach ridge, topped with alder and young spruce. A jeep trail threaded through it, and on part of the trail I walked with the gun in my hands, a cartridge in the chamber. I reached the beach just in time to turn around and go back to camp, but before I did I photographed some fresh wolf tracks along the high-tide wrack line. As I crossed the sandflat again I sank to the ankles in quicksand. The whole surface of the flat was rubbery and yielding. A bald eagle swooped overhead and landed in the trees. That was my true Alaskan adventure."

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