Yesterday (May 12) we were in Sitka. A few interesting facts about the town:
It’s the fourth largest city in Alaska with a population of
around 9,000.
It’s where the sale of Alaska from Russia to the US was
completed.
We paid a whopping $7.2 million dollars for the whole state
which worked out to 2 cents per acre. We
pretty much hosed the Russians on this transaction. No wonder Putin always looks mad!
The original deal was $7 million but they came back later
and wanted more money for a small lake in Sitka that they (Russia) carved block
ice from in the winter to sell to the fish canneries around San Francisco so we
threw them an extra $200 thousand.
At over 4,100 square miles Sitka is the largest city (square
mileage) in the US, which is a great trivia question.
It rains an average of close to 7 feet per year and the
average temperature tends to hold pretty steady all year at around 50 degrees.
Now that you are sufficiently educated on Sitka a little
about our day:
It’s better to be lucky than good! Yesterday it was around 75 degrees and not a
cloud in the sky. The good folks of
Sitka were absolutely giddy about the weather which was quite
understandable. One local we talked to
who had moved there a few years back from another part of Alaska said that it
rained every day the first 3 months he lived there. I’m not sure if he was named Noah or not, I
should have asked.
In addition to tromping around the small but really nice
harbor, downtown and some local trails we went to a place called “Fortress of
the Bear” that takes in orphaned bear cubs.
In Alaska there are so many bears that they are really offered little or
no protection. If a momma bear is killed
or dies and the cubs are too young to raise themselves they are typically put
down. This place was started as a rescue
for orphaned cubs with the goal of them being either reintroduced into the wild
or placed in zoo’s or animal reserves around the world. If I was a bear cub I would prefer either of
those options to being shot pretty much any day.
It was an amazing place which currently has 5 brown and 3
black bear cubs living in a very natural environment. Beth quickly developed a crush on “Lucky” who
is pictured below.
In addition to the bears, the Sitka area has a huge bald
eagle population and there were eagles living in the wild in many of the trees
around the bear reserve. They were
flying down to within about 10 feet of us for a quick fish meal that was being
thrown to them by the workers.
It’s often been said “You can’t judge the day by the
weather” which is true but a blue sky and 75 degrees in the middle of May in
Alaska ain’t bad!
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| Beth's favorite bear.........Lucky! |
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| Sitka Harbor |
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| Sitka from Castle Hill |
