What a privilege to visit the artists and craftspeople of Haida Gwaii in Old Masset. Today we visited two master carvers, Jim Hart and Christian White. They were amazingly generous in opening their homes and workshops to our guests. Works in progress in various forms of media were all about the workshops, including woodcarvings, drawings, and argillite and bronze statuary. Pictures of the works will not be shown here, as the artists requested that we not post images of their work on social media. This is just one of a multitude of reasons to come to Haida Gwaii and see for yourself what centuries of carving artistry can produce.
5/17/2023
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National Geographic Sea Bird
Inian Islands
This morning found us where the Pacific Ocean meets Cross Sound and Icy Strait, the Inian Islands. Named by William Healey Dall, one of Alaska's earliest scientific explorers, in 1879, the Inians are a mecca for wildlife. The powerful tidal currents flowing in and out daily create a tremendous upwelling of nutrient-rich water. This area is where fishing boats from the various ports in the northern portion of the Inside Passage enter and exit. It was a glorious day with calm seas, which allowed us to cruise around the various islands in our Zodiacs drinking in the fantastic scenery and looking for wildlife. Unmissable were the Steller (or northern) sea lions, the largest member of the “eared seals,” first described in 1742 by Georg Wilhelm Steller, the German surgeon and naturalist on the Bering expedition. We saw many of them on “bachelor haul-outs,” rocks where single males of all ages bask, posture and feed on numerous species of fish. Sea otters with pups are just about the cutest animals on the planet! As members of the weasel or mustelid family, southern sea otters are the smallest marine mammal. Like other members of this family, they have very thick fur. In fact, at 850,000 to 1 million hairs per square inch, sea otters have the thickest fur of any mammal. Without blubber to protect them from chilly ocean waters, sea otters rely on their thick fur.
