Aiktak, Poa, Ugamak

contents include: biotechs, puffins, slugs, seals, ghost rabbits, sea lions, profound joy

Tuesday, July 23rd 2024

We wake up to fog, cutting the tops off the mountains with neat white slices. John informs us that we are officially in the Aleutians. 

Today is also a special day because we’re doing another resupply of a field camp nicknamed “Puffin Palace”. Our visitors on board are two young women from Aiktak Island, Erin and Molly. 

This is Erin’s third season as a biotech with the refuge and Molly’s first. They’re both extremely alert and enthusiastic, having woken up at 5am and had ALL the coffee. I ask them for any good puffin stories and they have lots. 

• The sound puffins make in their burrows is akin to a moo.

• Puffins occasionally wind up in the grass on the island and they need to pick them up and relocate them (they can’t take off from grass). They get given a sacrificial finger to gnaw on. 

• To do productivity checks (to see how breeding is going) the biotechs put on swim caps and gloves and shove their faces into the burrows. 

This is A+ material for my fantasies of being a biotech on a puffin island. 

Their field camp is the first and only one to have Starlink. They both wish they didn’t have it. As nice as it is to listen to Spotify in the cabin, being fully present and unplugged in a place like Aiktak is better. I kind of feel that way about the Tiglax. Being able to keep in touch is nice, but everyone’s glued to their phone when there’s windows to look out of instead.

We were originally going to take the biotechs on a morning circumnavigation of Aiktak so they could count the cliff-nesting seabirds from the skiff (a view they can’t normally get). But the fog has made that impossible, so we pivot to Plan B - you guessed it, island surveys! 

We proceed to launch the most complicated zodiac ballet I’ve ever encountered. Each spot is 20 minutes apart and dropping anchor doesn’t make sense, so we do something called live-boating. The Tiglax spins in a circle, creating a ring of calm water in which we lower the skiff down the starboard side instead of the aft.

I get so much practice throwing and catching the lines I feel like I’m teetering on competence.

Three teams go to Rootuk Island to check for plants, mammals and slugs, and one team (including yours truly) is going to a puffin island called Poa.

Poa used to be a rabbit island (introduced presumably for food). They were eradicated except for one wascawy wabbit, and they sent a trapper back for several years to try and get it. The rabbit hasn’t been seen in years, but we were just making sure.

Ray, Katie, Brie and I skiff to Poa through a cloud of mist and tufted puffins. The beach is thick with kelp, and we crawl to shore on our hands and knees with absolutely zero dignity. 

After that it’s up into the grass. Poa is steep and stunning, but could use a quick pass from one of those cows. The vegetation went up to our armpits and Ray’s knees (Ray is a tall man). It’s very cliffy and beautiful, and we stumble on the remains of a barabara, an Unangan structure that is partially underground. We shove our way around the upper plateaus of the island, checking for rabbit sign and finding none. Katie says with confidence that if they’d left 2 rabbits on that island a few years ago they’d be running the joint.

We DO find slugs, and in a whole new flavor. Arion fuscus is destroying the arnica and cow parsnip on one side of the island. They’re a bummer, but not the European Black Slug we’d been seeing, so hopefully those haven’t made their way this far west.

These brown ones are currently categorized as non-native, but not invasive. Non-natives species are not naturally occurring in an area. Invasive species are non-natives that have some kind of negative effect, whether it’s outcompeting native species or damaging the ecosystem or economy. It’s hard to know quite how worried to be about finding these brown ones - it’s still so early in understanding slugs and their effect on the environment. 

We chill in the grass for a little while waiting for our pickup. (I am a little reluctant to sit down because the slugs are eeeverywhere.)

The skiff radios that it’s on its way to get us, so we take an otter-slide shortcut down the hill. Three seals watch us as we go.

We head back to Aiktak to try the circumnavigation again, and so that Kim and Ben can treat the Kentucky bluegrass that is growing on the island. We say goodbye to a happily fed, laundered, showered and resupplied Erin and Molly.

Then… we get a TREAT.

Aiktak is right across the way from Ugamak Island, which is a sea lion rookery. That means it’s where the sea lions go to breed, as opposed to a haul-out, where they just go to loiter. We very carefully make sure we’re far away enough not to disturb the sea lions, but we’re definitely close enough to see and hear them. 

The moody beach is magnificent.

The waterfall we climb is magnificent. 

The wildflowers and lush tundra are magnificent.

The view of the columnar basalt cliffs and crashing waves and audible sea lion roaring is magnificent.

The fog breaking enough to let the golden 10pm sunset light up the rocks is magnificent.

The climb down is terrifying because I’m wearing inappropriate footwear on wet grass. I’m so so happy. 

As we head back to the Tiglax, lights reflected in the glassy water to guide us home, it’s agreed that that is a strong contender for loveliest island. Maybe it’s even the best day. But they’re all kind of the best day.