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Southeast Alaska harbors
millions of such tales, and Ursa’s crew seemed to know ‘em
all. But as we entered Ford Arm on the western shore of Chichagof Island,
I was more interested in how a Seattle-based rheumatologist came to
purchase Ursa as her first boat. The story is a convoluted one involving
a slip Gauthier owns and near confiscation by the U.S. Marshals. Somewhere
along the line, she fell in love with not only Ursa, which at
the time needed considerable work, but all of the Malahide trawlers,
of which Explorer is also one. After bringing this four-stateroom double-ender
to the fine condition she was when I was aboard, Gauthier decided to
charter her in Alaska. But the decision was not motivated solely by
financial concerns. “You don’t get into this business to
make money,” she told me. “You do it for three reasons:
to see the boat used as she was intended to be, to expose her to as
many people as possible so they can appreciate her, and to preserve
something special.”
After dropping the
hook about a mile into the arm, in about 50 feet of water and ringed
by craggy, cloud-enshrouded peaks, we offloaded the kayaks, hoping to
spot grizzlies feeding on migrating salmon. Paddling up to the mouth
of a creek, I was suddenly surrounded by dorsal fins. Hundreds of salmon
were schooling, waiting for that mysterious signal that tells them it’s
time to head upstream, spawn, and die. They leapt all around me, banging
into the hull of my kayak until I thought I might capsize. I headed
on up the creek and soon spotted the distinctive brown humpbacked mass
of a grizzly wading 50 yards ahead. As he turned to face me, I realized
the creek was too narrow to allow me to quickly turn around. Knowing
he could cover the space between us in seconds, I furiously backpaddled
as he eyed me with apparent disinterest and beat a hasty retreat back
to the safety of the bay.
I awoke the following
morning at 7:30 and, stepping out on the misty foredeck with my coffee,
spotted a mother grizzly and two cubs nosing the shoreline. I watched
them for about 15 minutes, until the scene was broken by the sound of
Ursa’s engine. We were off for what locals call the “inside-outside
passage,” in the Gulf, but shielded from big swells by islands.
After two hours we left the lee of the islands and learned what we were
missing: eight-footers on the beam, rolling even the bulk of Ursa. We
were glad to turn up into Lisianski Strait, a fjord that separates Yakobi
Island from Chichagof, and head for the town of Pelican, a half-mile
wide, a boardwalk deep, and named after a bird that doesn’t exist
in Alaska. Pelican’s principal attraction is Rosie’s Bar
and its eponymous owner, a garrulous 60-something Alaska native with
platinum blond hair and oversize designer glasses. She has enough 1950’s
tapes to test the capacity of the hydroelectric generator a few steps
away. A word of advice if you visit: If someone asks you to climb up
on the bar and write your name on the ceiling, don’t.
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Alaska Cruise, Part 3 > Page 1,
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