Sunday, 04 July 2010 08:51 Written by Dave Freeman

As we entered Stephen’s Passage the weather was perfect, just a light southwest tail wind, overcast and cool. We admired the glassy, island-studded expanse from the beach on Cape Fanshaw as we ate lunch and watched the spouts from several Humpback Whales in the distance. This, we thought, was a great whale viewing experience.

The next day began like any other day. We were camped on an unnamed island between Cape Fanshaw and Hobart Bay. In the morning, we followed our routine: up at 4 am, take down the tent, boil water for oatmeal and coffee, load the boats, get on the water by 6:00. Perhaps hearing the Humpbacks’ song during the previous night could have keyed us in to the extraordinary day we were about to have.

As we approached Hobart Bay, we saw what was getting to be a familiar scene-- several whales surfacing in the distance. As we paddled closer, we observed how they would surface to take a breath a few times and then take a deeper dive, as their tails popped out of the water. A couple of miles off shore, we paused to pull out our cameras. The whales still appeared to be quite distant, wrapped up in the act of feeding on krill.

Dave and I rafted up for a moment. It was then that we spotted two whales coming closer . . . and closer . . . and closer! Seeing these 30 ton creatures surface 20 feet in front of our bows rendered us speechless. For a few minutes they just floated there and we just floated there, each of us observing the other. What were they thinking? Had they ever seen kayakers before? Did they think we were some sort of strange creatures moving around on the water surface with odd, rhythmic fin strokes?

Dave and I, of course, wondered if these massive creatures would suddenly dive and tip us over. But they seemed so sensitive to our presence that we dismissed the concern. One whale stayed near the surface. John, who was observing and filming from a few yards away, said he saw it roll slightly, turning it's eye to check us out more thoroughly. The second whale slowly sunk below the surface, gracefully traveling just below my boat.

The moment we spent all floating there together seemed to last an eternity. As Dave took a paddle stroke, bracing himself in the swell, the moment ended and they decided to swim away. They took one last breath at the surface. Then we saw one tail, followed by the next as they dove deep, probably in search of more krill.

To think that an animal so massive would be curious about us tiny creatures just amazes me. And to think that such a huge thing would be so gentle and cautious is equally amazing. We expected to see Humpbacks on this trip, but we never imagined an encounter this close. It was life-changing to be in the close presence an animal such as this.

Humpback whales are listed as endangered species. While they have made a dramatic recovery since the whaling heyday, their current population is only 30-35% of what it once was, according to NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). The Humpback population in the North Pacific is estimated to be about 20,000. Dave and I have a new found respect for these gentle giants and we sincerely hope that conservation efforts will continue, allowing for even more of a population rebound.

Please note that you should never approach within 100 yards of a whale or any other marine mammal to avoid disturbing them. We were observing the whales at a distance much farther than this and these two whales chose to approach us. If you are ever approached by an animal, do not make attempts to feed or touch it.

Tuesday, 29 June 2010 07:06 Written by Dave Freeman

It is easy to loose track of time during the summer in Alaska and on calm days we often find ourselves paddling late into the day, but to celebrate the summer solstice we decided to take a whole new approach. We spent June 20^th exploring the rustic fishing town of Wrangell, Alaska. The delta of the sediment rich Stikine River blocks passage to the north at low tide and even kayaks have to traverse the giant delta mudflats on a high tide. So we waited for high tide. On a normal day we would start looking for a campsite around 4 or 5 in the afternoon, but to celebrate the solstice and to traverse Dry Straight—and celebrate the solstice—we launched at 4 PM, with our headlamps ready.

As we paddled into the shallowest section of the river delta, the tide was cresting and the sun cast a golden glow on the snowy peaks surrounding the Le Conte Glacier. The wind vanished with the sun and the mirror smooth swell was the only reminder of the steady headwind.

As we chatted about how the Dry Straight didn’t seem all that shallow, the bottom surged upwards and we were left gingerly dipping our paddle blades in 6 inches of water. For hundreds of yards we silently paddled with the mud inches below our hulls. It was a relief to know that the tides was still rising because a buggy night stuck in the middle of the river delta was not our idea of a solstice celebration.

We cheered as we passed Dry Island and left the mudflats behind. It was almost 10 PM, but there was still plenty of light. The sun’s final rays highlighted funny looking boats on the eastern shore of Fredrick Sound. The next morning we would realize that these funny looking boats were actually icebergs from the Le Conte Glacier, North America’s southernmost tidewater glacier.

With the delta behind us, we would have normally stopped and camped at the first inviting beach, but being the summer the solstice we decided to paddle our Current Designs Solstices until midnight. In fact it was after 1 AM by the time we set up camp and wolfed down a very late dinner. The bugs seemed to be out late celebrating as well, so we left our headlamps off. It was still light enough.

Sunday, 20 June 2010 11:05 Written by Dave Freeman

We are paddling along the western edge of the North American continent, where land meets water. For this week's Notes from the Trail, we asked Ellen Root, our geology expert, to provide us with an explanation of the geology of this region. Here is what she told us:

You may already know that sea level on Earth changes over time. This depends on temperatures on the whole Earth as well as the amount of ice that is frozen in glaciers and the polar ice caps. At different times in Earth’s history we could have been traveling through what is now land far from the ocean’s edge or among islands that presently lie deep beneath the surface of the water. Today we want to talk about another aspect of the coastline we see each day. We want to look at the rocks that form the support structure for the plants, animals, people, and buildings we have encountered as we paddle along the Canadian coast. Many people think of rocks as solid and immovable, but every day they are moving, very slowly, on a scale so large it can be difficult to comprehend. The science that explains this process is called Plate Tectonics.

The Earth’s crust is made of rigid rock that floats on a ductile layer of rock called the mantle. (Ductile in this case means rock that has not fully melted, but because of pressure from overlying rock and heat from the Earth’s center it can bend and flow like a liquid). The mantle surrounds the Earth’s core, which has a liquid outer layer and a solid inner layer. The Earth’s crust, or lithosphere, is broken into separate sections, or plates. Check out the map below of the Earth’s currently recognized tectonic plates.

Image Source:  Wiki media Commons (This image is in the public domain because it contains materials that originally came from the USGS.)

Different plates are more dense (you can think of them as heavier) or less dense (lighter) depending on what they are made of. Plates that are beneath the oceans are generally more dense than plates that contain the rocks our continents are made of. These lithospheric plates can be very large. All of North America and then some sits on one single plate! 

Plates move on top of the mantle so slowly that we can’t feel them: this motion is called tectonic motion and the plates are called tectonic plates. When a more dense oceanic tectonic plate collides with a less dense continental plate, what do you think happens? Subduction! The oceanic plate is pushed beneath the continental plate, and if it travels far enough down through the Earth’s layers it can melt and eventually become recycled into new rock that forms at or near the Earth’s surface.

This diagram shows an oceanic plate subducting beneath a continental plate.

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons, Released into public domain by author(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b7/Oceanic-continental_convergence_Fig21oceancont.svg)

Just like the land we see on continents, the ocean floor has topography, high spots and low spots. The earth’s oceans even have underwater mountain ranges and deep trenches. Imagine the Hawaiian islands, which were formed by volcanoes and are made of rock that reaches all the way to the ocean floor. If this part of the seafloor was about to be subducted, do you think it would be easy or difficult for it to be pushed beneath the continental crust? Geologists have found places all over the world where pieces of subducting oceanic crust have been scraped off of their plates and become part of an overriding continental plate. This process is called accretion.

So what does all this have to do with the area we are traveling through? Well, the entire western coast of Canada and the United States is composed of chunks of rock that came from other places and got stuck on to the North American tectonic plate. Geologists call these chunks suspect terrains. Look at the map below; the grey area inland is older continental crust, while the white area along the coast is divided into 41 different suspect terrains! Many of them came from tectonic plates that long ago were pushed beneath the North American continent. Not only were these suspect terrains stuck on to our continental plate as other plates subducted beneath it, but since they have become part of the plate, some of them have been broken into pieces and moved long distances by geologic faults. Pieces of the Wrangellia terrain (marked in black on the map) are found as far as 2500 kilometers (about 1500 miles) away from each other.

 

Reprinted by permission from Macmillan Publishers Ltd: Nature 288, 329-33, copyright 1980.

The forces that move tectonic plates and change continents and oceans work so slowly that it can be hard to imagine that tectonic plates even exist, let alone move around. In fact the idea was not widely accepted by geologists until 1976. The science of plate tectonics is only 34 years old! Whether the rocks that we see along the western coast came from a bump on the ocean floor or an ancient volcano, we know that they became part of the North American continent when parts of subducting oceanic plate accreted (or stuck on) to the continental plate. These suspect terrains make up the shoreline we see every day as we paddle along the Canadian coast.

Want to learn more? Ask your teacher to help you find more information on the geology of the Pacific Northwest, or the geology of the area you live in. 

Wednesday, 16 June 2010 18:01 Last Updated on Wednesday, 16 June 2010 18:15 Written by Dave Freeman

Wilderness Classroom Kayakers Reach Alaska

Dave and Amy Freeman have made it to Alaska. On Wednesday, June 16 Dave, Amy and two other Wilderness Classroom expedition team members, John Amren and Clayton White, kayaked in to the Ketchikan harbor. They departed Bellingham, Washington (near Seattle) by kayak on April 22. They have kayaked 760 miles so far. Slightly weary from several gales that blew through Dixon Entrance and a day-long paddle against 20 knot northwest winds, everyone was thrilled to officially make their entrance back into the United States. Reaching this milestone is just a small part of a much bigger plan.

Their next goal is Skagway, Alaska-- 360 miles away. That will mark the end of the first stage of the North American Odyssey, but Dave and Amy have five stages and over 10,000 miles to go after that. Fortunately, they never run short on enthusiasm, because they have 60,000 school children following their every move they make.

The North American Odyssey is an 11,000 mile expedition, traveling across North America by kayak, canoe, and dogsled. While traveling, Dave and Amy update an educational website: http://www.WildernessClassroom.org. This is where students, teachers, and parents interact with the expedition team. A second website, http://www.NorthAmericanOdyssey.com serves as a blog for adults to follow the adventure. They are also posting weekly articles for Paddling.net.

The first stage of the expedition has been by kayak in the Inside Passage, observing the temperate rainforests and marine life of the Pacific Northwest. Five other online adventures will follow, highlighting North America's wildest places. Between April 2010 and March 2013, the Wilderness Classroom team is traversing over 11,000 miles of North America's lakes, rivers, and coastlines-- emphasizing the importance of preserving North America's waterways. The following stages will involve hiking in the footsteps of the Klondike Gold Rush and canoeing to the Arctic Ocean. They will dogsled and canoe south through central Canada, kayak across the Great Lakes, eventually following the annual whale migration down the Atlantic Coast, finishing in the Florida Keys.

The Wilderness Classroom started with a simple idea: to show students from around the world the wonders of exploration and wilderness travel. Six years and ten expeditions later, the Wilderness Classroom is a 501(c)3 that reaches over 60,000 students around the globe. Their goal has never changed: seeking to instill a lifelong appreciation of wilderness in young people by highlighting the joy of discovery.