This is part three of our adventure to Prince of Whales, Alaska. If you missed part two you can catch up quickly here.
By 8am, a new installment of cruise ships arrived for a nippy, rainy, foggy morning in Ketchikan. The hotel provided another Sourdough cab ride to our float plane, which was to take us to our destination: Thorne Bay, a tiny town on Prince of Whales Island. A few other customers came into the office to ship packages, and we moved our luggage down to the four-wheeler with a wagon on the back, so it could be rolled down to the plane. One of the pilots came in muttering under his breath, and asking for a magnet. It seems the keys to his favorite plane had dropped into the water.
The flight was a thirty-minute panorama of fantastic postcard views. Breath-taking water ways, mountains, and small islands dotted the landscape.
The Thorne Bay Lodge owner picked us up in a 350 Ford, gas-powered crew cab with a camper cover on the full-size bed. The Ford could have easily been our abode for the week. But instead of camping in a pick-up truck he drove to our newly-constructed, modern, “rustic” home for the week. The cabin was located less than a mile from the one grocery store, gas station and bait shop that make up Thorne Bay.
We stowed our gear, had a hard salami and crackers snack and piled in the truck for a deer scouting afternoon. We drove to higher elevations, around three thousand feet, to get above the muskegs and alpine forrest terrain. We spied nearly a dozen large does and two-year-old fawns, but only one buck with a fork. He was more of a “last day” shooter. Coming back down the mountain we stopped at a river running into the sea, which was plentiful with salmon making their final run. Focused on fun and dinner, we brought five eight-pound fighters home. We cleaned our fish and headed out in a different direction to scout a little more.
Our second expedition didn’t turn up much, just a few more does, so we stopped at the grocery store for supplies for the week. After we organized and stowed our stuff, we enjoyed fresh poached Alaska salmon for dinner, and then turned in, ready to start the hunting and fishing in earnest in the morning.
In part four, I put my baking skills to use, and we find out why the bait shops in Ketchikan sold so many lures.
-Kate Riley
