Fun in Northern Kenai Peninsula

Salmon dipnetting is a frequent summer conversation topic among Alaskans.  We use a big net with a 0.9-1.5m (3-5') diameter hoop and a 2.4-6m (8-20') long handle to scoop up fish.  We have been thinking of taking our 5-year-old son to dip-netting for a while, but we finally decided to do it this year.  Most Fairbanks people go to Chitna, about 5.5 hours of drive, to harvest the famous Copper River salmon. Chitna is too dangerous for kids since you have to fish from the shore of rapidly flowing copper river, usually on a big rock on which only a couple people can stand.  Instead, we chose Kenai River/Beach, about 9 hours from Fairbanks.  In Kenai, we are fishing from the beach at the mouth of Kenai River, so it is safe for kids. This post is just a brief travel log so that we can remember the fun time we had.

Taiga experienced lots of "firsts" in this trip.  For example, touching and/or eating the cloud is something all kids imagine about.  While we were driving through the Denali State Park, clouds started to hang low, and we drove into it.  Taiga initially didn't believe we were inside of the cloud.  He was probably wondering why it wasn't filled with lightning like Miyazaki's movies (e.g. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Laputa - Castle in the Sky).  When we stopped the truck and tasted it, the cloud didn't taste like cotton candies, neither.  Instead, it was cold, quiet, and peaceful.  I'm guessing that it was a bit of disappointment for him.  Well, reality isn't as fun as imagination in many cases.  For now, he can still dream about walking across a rainbow.  Here is his face about the first experience of being inside of the cloud:

Before going to Kenai, we decided to spend a couple days in Seward.  When we moved to Alaska more than 10 years ago, we took a ferry, and we arrived to Seward.  Seward highway between Seward and Anchorage is probably one of the most spectacular highways, and the amazing scenery blew our minds at that time.  I'm glad that we could share this scenery with Taiga this time although he was probably more focused on videos on his iPad.

The first stop in Seward area was Exit Glacier.  We haven't been there for a long time, and we were shocked by how much Exit Glacier has retreated.  It is difficult to feel the distance from the photo, but the place where we were standing in the following photo was covered by the glacier when we visited here last time in 2004.

The following photo is from 2004. I think that the angle is different, but we were standing at the similar area in the photos above and below.

Because of the glacier retreat, we had to hike quite a bit more to touch the glacier.  Taiga could walk all the way to there and back from there by himself.  He was carrying an insect net, and he was chasing all kinds of insects (catch and release), so it helped him to keep going.

Seward has extensive city-operated camp grounds, which sit right next to the beach.  Even though it wasn't during the week-end, it was packed.  I think the population size of Seward is probably more than doubled in the summer time because of the camp grounds.  We arrived there late, but we managed to get a site.  Setting the crowdedness aside, we enjoyed the spectacular views of Resurrection Bay and mountains with glaciers.  It is a great campgound for kids because you can just walk to the beach and find sea creatures.

Next day, we took a 3.5 hour wildlife cruise by Major Marine Tours on a boat, Orca Song.  The harbor is within a walking distance from the campground.  It was a beautiful calm day.  However, when we were close to the mouth of Resurrection Bay, it was quite choppy.   Indeed, quite a few people were sick even though it was an extremely calm day around Valdez.  Taiga became quiet, and he was experiencing a little bit of sea sickness.  Diana and I were ok since we took the number one motion sickness medicine in Japan (Aneron Niscap).  I was surprised how well this medicine works (I get sea sick real easily, which I inherited from my mother).  Unfortunately, there is no equivalent in the US.  If you are considering this cruise, I would recommend to take some motion sickness medicine (on contrary to what the captain said).  The captain was courteous, entertaining, and amazing; she greeted everyone, made us feel welcomed, piloted the ship, spotted wildlife, talked about history, geology, and biology over the microphone all by herself even though there were quite a few other crews.  She also explained how to vomit properly.

We didn't see many animals for the first half, but once we got to the mouth of Resurrection Bay, we started to see more.  One of the highlights was 3 humpback whales feeding together.  We could watch the whales for 20-30 minutes.  They showed us their pectoral fins and tail fins. They blew rainbow out of spouts.  Thanks to the whales, the encounter Taiga's mild sea-sickness away!  We saw other fun animals such as sea otters, harbor seals, Stella's sea lions, and sea birds including Crested puffins and Tufted puffins.

Two humpback whales. The spout can be seen from the left one.

After the exciting encounter with whales, we headed to Alaska Sealife Center, which is a nice place to learn about Alaskan sea creatures.  It is a small aquarium, but it is well done, and all kids would have fun for sure.

After Sealife Center, Taiga was itching to fish.  So we went to the beach south of the Sealife Center, and fished for salmon at the mouth of Lowell Creek.  In Seward, snagging is legal, so most people there were throwing a giant treble hook with a sinker, and trying to snag them.  I personally think that snagging is not fair, so we were using typical Alaskan lures (Pixee spoon, Vibrax spinner #5, KwikFish etc).  I was hoping to film 5-year-old vs salmon, but no luck this time.

Next morning, we explored Resurrection bay with a 3-person kayak. It was even calmer than the previous day, and it was mirror-like.  Our guide, Taylor, from Kayak Adventures Worldwide was very helpful, and we had a great time.  We started from Lowell Point, and we went south of Tonsina point. According to our guide, Tonsina point is a alluvial fan laid down by Tonsina Creek.

The highlight for Taiga was catching fish, crabs, and isopods when we landed for snack.

Thank you, Taylor, for a wonderful tour, and we hope that you'll have great adventure in Thailand!

After a couple days of fun in Seward, we drove to Soldotna Centennial Park, where we decided to camp.  It is about 20 minutes drive from this camp ground to the Kenai dipnetting spot.  People can tent camp at the North and South Kenai beaches, and others park RVs at FredMeyers in Soldotna.  But we decided to stay in this nice camp ground instead.  After setting up the camper, it was already 4PM, so we weren't planning to go dipnetting.  But Taiga was so excited, and managed to convince us to go there. We decided to go to the North beach via Spruce St. entrance.  It costs $20 to park, which would be off-set by one salmon.  I've done Chitna dip-netting, but this is the first time in Kenai.  After watching others,  I put my chest wader on and walked in to the chest high, and tried to hold down the long net to the bottom.  It was a pretty windy day, and I saw quite a bit of wave (at least 1-2 feet).  When the boat goes by, they made big wakes, and I had to jump over them.  Additionally, my good old wader decided to leak...  The current was strong, and I couldn't hold the net on the bottom.  So instead of 16 feet of handles, I had to make it shorter (10 feet).  Even with the shorter handle, it was a struggle to hold the net down.  Other people had T-handle or had some other attachment to get a better leverage to fight against the current, but our net didn't have those features.  After wet, cold, and miserable one hour, it was Diana's turn.  Taiga was feeling cold, but hopeful, and patiently waiting for the excitement.  But after two hours of miserable experience, we called quit.  Nobody was catching any...

Next morning, I wasn't so thrilled to wake up to face what was waiting; I imagined that it would be another miserable day.  But Taiga was all pumped up.  I've heard that between 2 hours before and after the high tide is the good time.  So we tried to time correctly.  On contrary to my expectation, there was no wind, the sea was calm and mirror-like, and it was warm.  And a couple people were catching a few fish.  I used the longest handle (about 16 feet), and the place I was standing didn't have much current.  Standing in the sea, watching sea lions going up and down, and chatting with neighbors, I thought that it is not bad!  Actually, it was peaceful and enjoyable.  Then within 20 minutes I felt a big bump on my net, so I put the hoop down to close the net, and drag it out of the water by walking backward. A big salmon was splashing in the net.  Taiga immediately ran toward the fish, and he was so excited to see the beautiful fish.  He bonked the head with a bonker, and went to get the bucket.  I went back to the spot, hoping to catch another.  Meanwhile, Taiga was having a great time with the new toy.  He frequently got the salmon out of the bucket, holding it on his chest sometime with head up, sometime with head down.  Sometimes he brought the salmon to the shore and washed with water.  So the dead salmon was well "taken care of".  Watching Taiga having fun, I felt like a big hero for a moment.  Whenever I walked up to the shore to take a break, Taiga ran over to me, expecting another fish.  But nothing since then.  After 3-4 hours, we decided to quit.  In the 3rd day, Diana was doing it.  But it was a slower day.   She got one, but it escaped before she could bring it in.  Well we were hoping to get 20 salmons, and we wondered if we have enough space in our chest freezer at home.  But we ended up with only 1.  We were there July 12-14, and it was about 2 weeks too early.  But we experienced the essential Alaskan life, and we had a good time.

Soldotna Centennial Park is along Kenai River, so there are salmon running.  Around the boat launch, there is a pretty kid friendly area for fishing.  It was quite crowded, but we decided to give it a try.  Here is a video of Taiga fly-fishing.  It is not quite, but he tasted a little bit of combat fishing experience (not quite crowded).  Nobody was catching anything, though.

Here is another his first in this trip.  While we were hanging out in the camping site, he suddenly decided to get onto his pedal bike.  He has been able to balance and coast really well for more than 2 years.  So I have thought that the transition to the pedal bike would be so easy.  But until this time, he was really cautious, and he wasn't too determined to ride on it.  For the pedal bike, I had to support the bike and ran behind him (actually, I've heard that it would be better to support his armpits than holding his bike around his seat).  This time, I supported him as usual for the first run.  Then I switched with Diana for his second run, and then next moment, he was riding all by himself!  I managed to record the video of his first bike ride by himself:

After dip-netting, we changed our attention to geology.  Taiga has been a collector of rocks (pebbles) for a couple years.  Everyday, he brings home a couple pebbles of different colors from his school, and we have a couple containers full of these.  We went to look for agates at Salamatof Beach.  This site was listed in a book, "Rockhounding Alaska - A Guide to 75 of the State's Best Rockhounding Sites".  I think it was about 30 minutes of drive from Soldotna.  From Soldotna, we took, Kenai Spur highway northwest to Mile 22.  Turn left onto Salamatof Rd. and take the right at the end of the road (about 0.3mi).  Then you can park right next to the beach.  We visited Alaska Horn and Antler (east end of Soldotna, their facebook page) before heading down to the beach to see how Kenai Agates look like.  It is a nice little shop, and a great place to visit if you are interested in rocks.  The owner is friendly and nice.  When we get to Salamatof Beach, there were nobody.  Since it is next to a big factory or something, I wouldn't call it as a beautiful beach.  Agates were easy to find, and there are so many different kinds of rocks, and we filled up the bucket with cool looking rocks quickly.  Taiga was having a great time!

On the way back to Anchorage, we stopped at Russian River ferry.  It is a famous fly fishing spot for salmon.  There were quite a few people fishing, and some of them on the ferry were bringing back their harvest.  I have a feeling that we will be coming back here some day in the future.

After Diana and Taiga flew to Seattle from Anchorage airport, I had to stay in the Anchorage for two additional days.  So I decided to spend two days for mostly fishing by myself.  It's not something I have done for a long, long time. The goal was to find kid-friendly fishing places.  There are some interesting places, but some of them are not so suitable for kids.  So I was mostly fishing for trouts instead of Salmon since Taiga can have great time with stocked trouts.  Alaska Department of Fish and Game has lots of useful information, and I visited quite a few places listed in their information PDF (available here).  I thought that S. and SW. shore of Cheney Lake, N. shore of DeLong Lake, and Taku-Campbell Lake offer very easy shore fishing opportunity for 5-year old fly fishing kid.  Additionally, Campbell creek, which can be accessed easily from Taku-Campbell lake, is beautiful. There is extensive trails along the creek, so it is easy to fish even for kids although a good casting skill may be needed.  I really enjoyed fishing this small creek. Aside from the traffic noise, I felt like fishing in a mountain stream.  It is amazing that there is such a nice stream in the middle of a big city like Anchorage.

At the end of the day, I fished the South Fork of Campbell Creek, which is quite a bit upstream from Taku lake.  From Tudor road, I turned south on Campbell Airstrip Road, which is about 0.5mi east of Boniface Parkway. At mile 1.1, there is a parking lot on your right, and you can access the extensive trail system, a part of Far North Bicentennial Park.  Right next to the parking lot, we can access the South Fork.  It is a beautiful small stream filled with spawning salmon, but no salmon fishing is allowed here.  While I was getting ready at the parking lot, I met a person, John, coming back from his walk through the park.  He is a fly-fisher, too, and he shared some of his fishing stories with me. He casually warned me about the bear in the park as he left, and I realized that I left the bear spray at the camp site. Not a big deal, I hope...  While I was cautious of my surroundings, I soon started to enjoy the amazing experience of fishing in a small stream where giant king salmon roam.  The salmons didn't care about me too much, but occasionally, I was scared by their giant splash right next to me.  Salmon have been coming up to the stream generations after generations.  The health of their population has significant impact on food source for human, bear, and other animals, and it can possibly influence the ecosystem of the region.  Sharing the river with salmons made me understand why salmon are sacred in some indigenous culture.

After enjoying "solitude" (amazing that it is only 10 minutes from the highly populated area) and fishing for 1 hour, I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye.  It was brown, and pretty big!  I gradually backed up and started to escape.  But after assessing the situation, I had to take a snap.  I guess my heart was pounding a little bit, so the image was blurry:

It was a relatively small grizzly, but I decided that I better go back to eat dinner before becoming a dinner.  I got out of the stream and sought the closest trail (Rover's Run Trail), which runs parallel to the stream.  I found an appropriate sign there:

Then, when I got back to Anchorage Centennial Campground, there was another bear, this time a black bear, waiting there.  The cute bear was hanging out around the slides in the kids' playground.

A couple days after the bear-enriched day, an Anchorage newspaper, Alaska Dispatch News, reported that Rover's Run Trail in Far North Bicentennial Park should be avoided because there are so many bears, trying to catch salmons (link to the article)....