Thursday, June 28, 2007

Rudyerd Bay, Alaska


Rudyerd Bay is at once amazing and despoiled. Utterly wild and roadless and left to its own soggy devices, Misty Fjords is a largely forgotten corner of the world. Vast granite wall and inviolate forests. Bear and salmon, wolf and eagle.

And floatplanes.

Dozens of roaring, buzzing, deafening and disruptive avian invaders. Cruise ships disgorge tourists by the thousand, and they dutifully crowd onto small planes to roar around the wilderness.
Sitting with a young grizzly bear, I watched as he was buzzed every few minutes by yet another low-flying Cessna or Beaver. He looked up from his grassy lunch trying to find the source of this infernal, deafening roar.