To the left, the two bays of the small
boat ramp await the flood of the incoming tide.
To the right, the tidal flat extends to the mouth of now-exposed Ship
Creek channel. A flock of seabirds mills
just above the tide line. 
At the end of the promontory,
two park benches offer an unobstructed panoramic view encompassing the entrance
to Knik Arm, the mouth of Ship Creek, and the wharves of the Port of Anchorage. The dockside’s alive with the bustle of
machinery loading a green barge with all manner of shipping containers and
other cargo. Two motor coaches sit atop
a stack of containers, most likely heading south to serve other tourist
destinations as the Alaska summer season winds down with the shortening
days. Overhead, a small, single-engine airplane
heads for the traffic pattern at Merrill Field.
For the next two hours, two or three observers, including myself, will
scan the waters for signs of the endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales. If the
belugas are present, given today’s nearly ideal viewing conditions, we should be able to see them
from this elevated location at water’s edge.
I am amazed at how many people in
Anchorage seem unaware of this place.
When I talk to them about the monitoring project and this location, I sometimes
get a perplexed look in return as if they are thinking “Anchorage has a small
boat ramp? Why? I have never seen any
small boats on the Inlet.” The more adventurous sport fishers know this
location. They thrive on the prospect of
getting first crack at the salmon and a little bit of relief from the
shoulder-to-shoulder combat fishing farther up Ship Creek at Kings Landing and
the Bridge. Tourists on bikes seem pleased
to stumble on this spot while following the downtown attractions map in the
tourist guide. The entrance road, not
well marked, has an “On the Waterfront” look to it. The reward for their perseverance is an
absolutely breathtaking view of the Arm in front and the cityscape behind.
Over the next two hours, in
addition to documenting the presence of beluga and their behavior, as well as
that of other marine wildlife, the crew will make note of some of this human
activity. Tugs occasionally dispatch to
escort an incoming or departing cargo vessel or barge and the very rare cruise
ship. The dredge with its clamshell
bucket sometimes operates scooping mud from the bottom and depositing the muck on
an adjacent spoils barge to maintain the ship channel. Without this activity, I wonder how long the channel
would remain navigable. A trailer-launched
small boat fleet, mostly skiffs but a few runabouts and couple of inflatables, use
the ramp. A well-stocked “Kids Don’t
Float” station at the top of the ramp offers free use of personal flotation devices. Once in the water the boats quickly motor
away, most of them heading in the direction of the opposite shore. Small boat operation in the Inlet with its cold
water, huge tidal swing, powerful and contrary currents, every changing bottom,
and sometimes adverse weather conditions is not for the inexperienced. These circumstances may account for the
scarcity of activity. I have seen a solitary
kayaker (not counting his dog) unloading at the ramp in the last few
sessions. This part of Cook Inlet does
not really seem that conducive to water-borne recreation. By far, the most plentiful activity is
airborne, with a number of small airplanes passing overhead as they arrive or
depart Merrill Field.
People come and go to the end of promontory. Kids scramble up and down the rock rip rap as
their parents caution them to stay well away from the water and mud. The kids pick up rocks and chuck them into
the water in a ritual that I suspect has gone on as long as this point has been
peopled. Most people take in the view
but really don’t linger too long. It is
as if the vastness and solitude hurries them away. A visitor will sometimes regale the observers
with “you should have been here this morning or yesterday when I heard
so-and-so saw lots of beluga just swimming around for about an hour.” While
such reports are invariably second- or third-hand, with the number and duration
increasing with each telling, they are frequent enough that I sometimes wonder
if the belugas’ echolocation senses my car’s approach to the parking lot as a
sign that “the observers are coming, time to clear out quick.”
The conversation I am never quite
prepared to have is when a long-time resident stops by and asks “what happened
to all the beluga? I’ve been here thirty
(or more) years and we used to see them all the time, now we hardly see them at
all, if ever.” I can respond with
information about the decline and the current population estimates that place
their numbers in the mid-300s. I can
speak about how our monitoring effort is part of overall recovery
strategy. I can educate the folks in a
conversation about beluga conservation efforts.
What I can’t do is assuage their feeling that something magical about
the not-too-distant past is now missing.
You can sense their nostalgic yearning to see the plentiful pods of
beluga and the sadness that what once was common is now rare. They long to show beluga to their grandchildren. I can only hope that the data I collect as a
citizen scientist beluga monitor collect will help in the beluga recovery. That
prospect keeps me coming back for another shift. Hopefully, the belugas, known as “the canaries
of the sea” for the sounds they make are not now “the canaries in the coalmine.”
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