Thanks. This is a short one, though.

The floatplane dock is a ways away from the real airport.
Shuttle by Luth was provided. Our trip started off on the
wrong foot as lili managed to trip over something on the
dock (about 4/10s of a second after one of the staff had
said "be sure not to trip on the ____"). To give a modest
facsimile of an excuse, we'd just been issued waders to
slog around in and were still getting the hang of walking
in these.

lili, GrjApp, myself, and the pilot in this DHC-2 Beaver.
Also someone in the front seat, I forget who, but he was
sharp eyed and asked lots of mostly pertinent questions.
He reminded me a lot of cova, but he wasn't. Sorry for
the lack of proper identification, but to be fair, I was
in a state of near torpor when I got on the plane.

As it was as clear and windless a day as they'd seen in
quite some time, the pilot decided, with our enthusiastic
consent, to deviate from the planned itinerary and to fly
us down the backbone of the island, through to some inlets
where there had been recent whale sightings, and then to
the bear sighting area we'd been assigned to, Frazer Lake.

The ride down the center of the island was one of the most
spectacular I've ever been on. We were mostly at a couple
thousand feet AGL and even I could enjoy the rock formations
and glacier-surrounded mountaintops. After which we went
down to an inlet I believe on the western side, where there
is a fish cannery, and at which there had been radio reports
of a pod of whales. We found the whales (at least the rest
of them did) and followed their travels for a bit before it
was time to go to our rendezvous with the grizzlies at the
fish ladder. We landed on the mirror-smooth lake and hiked
a kilometer or so through the devil's club to the bear
viewing site (actually built as a fish ladder, but the
local bears are not dumb), where we were met by the resident
fish and game officer, who was delightful, informative, and
fearless. We watched as a local male tried to bully one of
the females and her cubs; eventually our ranger went out
there to give him the what for, which was impressive as she
was perhaps 10% the size of the boar. Even though she carries
noisemakers and I believe firearms I don't envy her her job.

We spent the better part of an hour watching bear antics,
and the time came too soon to return to the plane.

As it turns out the officer was heading out for supplies, so
lili hitched a ride behind her on the tractor with me in the
trailer behind.

On the way back the pilot took us along the east side of the
island, making a short detour to buzz his father's house,
which was kind of fun.

Dinner at Henry's Great Alaskan Sports Bar and an Elton
sighting. A large, good-humored table, intent more on
consuming vast amounts of seafood and products of the local
brewers' art than on fussing about miles and points, though
I suspect there was some of that too.

My Captain's Platter offered local cod, very good; jumbo
prawns, pretty good, though I suspect from warmer waters
than local; and Kodiak scallops, disappointing as modest in
flavor and sweetness; all fried with a defter touch than I
would have expected. Kodiak North Pacific Ale went quite
nicely.

Apothic Red was off, so the fallback was something somewhat
worse but cheaper, Jacob's Creek Merlot.