Life on the Flats

Stikine River

Finally got over to the Stikine River after our initial plans were delayed by the weather. We borrowed a floathouse on the flats that I went to 20 years ago almost to the day with Don and Alan. That cabin since burned I’m told, and the replacement cabin was very tidy with an oil stove and four bunks.

We got to the cabin on a high tide that was also the higher high tides of the month. We pulled right up to the cabin. When we climbed onto the porch, we could see through the decking that the logs underneath looked alive. With mice – more specifically as far as I can tell – voles. We’ve since concluded both meadow voles and long tailed voles. The voles were flooded out from their burrows by the huge tides. When we looked around, we could see voles swimming and climbing into willows or anyplace above water level. We also saw a small buck deer about 75 yards from the cabin but I’d left my rifle back in Wrangell and none of us had any slugs so he’s still out there.

When we walked out into the flooded flats, voles were scurring everywhere. The swimming voles looked like windup toys plowing their way through the water to someplace dry. The flats were alive with predators. Marsh hawks, ravens, owls, bald eagles – even sea gulls – were all hunting the voles. The ravens seemed like the most efficient with the bonanza. We’d see a raven with a mouse in its mouth fly by, land on a log, cache his catch, then repeat this over and over until the tide receded and the activity waned. The bald eagles, on the other hand, looked to eat their voles one at a time, first taking off the fur, then eating the remainder. The gulls didn’t seem all that successful hunting the voles but got a few.

The next few tides were very high and the scene played out each time. All the birds up and hunting for an hour or two, then they’d all disperse when the tide ebbed.

We did get in some hunting. It was the first time using the big shot gun Paul gave me – his Remington 1100. It’s got about a 30 inch barrel and felt like driving a sports car. I still didn’t hit much but did get my first two Canada geese and a nice drake mallard.

We moved up to the cabin we usually stay in after a couple days to do some work. Right at dark, we heard wolves start to howl – I think only my second time ever hearing them, as the first time was near Juneau 25 ish years ago. My sister in law was going out to the outhouse before daylight the next morning and saw 3 sets of eyes in her headlamp beam. It took awhile before she was relieved to see the eyes belonged to deer and not wolves.

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