Feelin' Fined in Kodiak

We just got back from a four-day trip to Kodiak. Sadly(?), we didn't see any enormous, froth-mouthéd bears, but we did see lots of salmon, and lots of people catching the salmon. It turns out that the bears tend to stay away from town, which is generally a good thing, so you have to hop on a plane and fly to the other side of the island to see any.

Let's play a game! Which of these figures has been exaggerated?

A) Kodiak's bear population has a density of .7 bears per square mile.

B) Kodiak's commercial fisheries brought in a total of 337.3 million pounds of fish in 2005.

C) The maximum penalty for possession of a bald eagle feather is $100,000 and 1 year in prison.


Answer: B. They pulled in a measly 337.2 million pounds of fish.

Mainly, I just wanted to draw attention to the fact that one can be fined $100,000 for possessing an eagle feather. This had a lot of influence on my decision to leave a very lovely eagle feather in the bushes where I found it. Of course, when I first spotted the feather, I immediately DID NOT pick it up, and IN NO WAY had it in our room for four days while debating how hard it would be to hide it in our luggage. In the end, it was a fine example of a juvenile eagle's secondary flight feather, but it really wasn't worth a hundred grand. Plus, once you pay the fine, it's not like you get to keep the feather.

Incidentally, the fine for killing a bald eagle is only $15,000. Just don't take the feathers.

Anyway, we had a fine time in Kodiak -- the weather was great most of the time, and the scenery was beautiful, and we managed to bring 60 pounds of fish (caught by Chris) back to Anchorage. Soren and I didn't get to go fishing, but we went to Fossil Beach with our friends Dana and Ned.




Fossil Beach gets its name from the fossilized shells embedded in a sandstone cliff at one end of the beach; as the cliff erodes, chunks of stone containing said fossils tumble down to the beach. You can find individual shells, but there are also some larger rocks with multiple fossils inside:



Now that we're back, it's time to find some halibut recipes. I think we're going to have to eat halibut every day until we leave in December.