Another rainy day in Portage

Today was yet another drizzly day in Portage.  We quickly finished the diets and began walking around talking to visitors.  Vanessa, Jack the moose's mother, was giving a tour to a Fish and Game employe so we tagged along.  It was a lot of fun.  We went and visited Mukluk.  She is getting so big!  They are thinking about putting her in with the other musk ox since she is big enough to hold her own. 

 Later, we went in with the bear cubs.  They are also getting big!  Shaggy, the female, is learning new behaviors such as picking objects up on command.

Here she was picking up a stick and playing with it.  Jordan also recently added new enrichments items such as tires, PVC pipe, and a culvert.  They love it!  It is just like a new play ground for them!

Taqoka playing with PVC Pipe.

Amelia had some left over bread that I was giving to the chickens..

Well, with this weather and all it has made me very tired and ready to get into my nice warm bed.

Goodnight lower 48,
ErIn

Hiking

Today was the start of my 2 days off this week.  Amelia and I were babysitting at 9 for our boss.  We had a lot of fun with their 2 kids.  We watched Sleeping Beauty and and just hung around the house.  They are 4 years old and 1 year old....so like I said a lot of fun to babysit.  After we were done babysitting everyone who had a day off wanted to go hiking in Hope, Alaska.  We started hiking arond 3:30pm and ended at 8:30!  We are all so tired!  It was a total of about 10 miles.  It was a difficult hike since the terrain is up hill a lot.  But, the pictures I got were worth the hike.

This is Devil's club...it can be very prickly as you can tell...

New Arrival

Here is an update on our bison calves... we now have about 10 calves!!!

Today we added another member to the intern squad.  Vanessa, Jack's mother, is arriving tonight. 

When we arrived to work at 10 we had 2 volunteers waiting for us to give them some work.  We went on a drive around with them and introduced ourselves.  Jordan then took them into the bear cub exhibit to introduce them to the cubs.  After, they were done we were in charge of them for the rest of the day.  We began with the normal routine of cleaning bowls and preparing diets. 

Snickers was especially excited to be getting a slice of cantalope today....

 People always think that he looks harmless, but here is a better picture of his back...

The quills are in fact under his hair!  There was a puppy in the barn and he was getting a little angry...

Here he was looking very intently at Mazzie (the puppy)....


When we took the volunteers to the 3 brown bears' enclosure our coyote was out and about.  He came really close since the bears where no where to be found.  He had a feast of hotdogs and beef jerky...

Overall, it was a really drizzly day, and we stayed either in the Information Barn or at the bear enclosure.  The info barn is where there is always an intern in the summer to answer any questions.  We opened it for the first time this weekend. 

Hey guess what...Vanessa the intern is here...so I gotta go now...
Tomorrow is our day off and we are going on an 8 mile hike.  Can't wait!


Goodnight lower 48,
ErIn

Thursday's post

Sorry I didn't post last night, the internet wasn't working. 

Anyways, on thursday we had another tour group from a school visit.  It was 72 first graders.  They were much more behaved than 75 5th graders.  The whole presentation went rather smoothly.

I did get a good picture of our 3 week old reindeer.. I have been calling him Toby.  I really don't know if it is a boy or girl though.

Next, Amelia took down an old wasp nest from last year...

                                                   It was huge!!!

Then, we needed to get a few pics of me and Amelia in our work attire for our boss.

Intimidating I know....

Then serious...

I was walking through the snack bar and something was calling my name...

If you know me really well, then you know I LOVE rice krispie treats!!!

The black bears were fed as I was walking by.  This is kuma eating dog food and some sweet peppers.

Overall, it was a gorgeous day!  A group of us decided to go for a bike ride/hike to Moose flats.  This is the same trail that I have been taking on the bike lately.

 This picture was taken from the top of black bear mountain at the center.  The gift store is the building on the right.  The ticket booth is on the left.

Lots of kids and then a day off

On Tuesday, which is normaly a day off, we had 75 5th graders coming in for a field trip.  What a way to start a day.  We had 2 hours to give them a tour, porcupine presentation, and then have them eat lunch and visit the gift store.  Well, 5th graders are definitely a little more rambunctious than 1rst graders....
That tour wore me out!  Anyways, it was eventually over and the day continued as it does normally.
The chickens were happy to have a nice sunny day...

At he end of the day we watched a few movies and called it a night.

On Wednesday it was a day off.  I had no plans and was loving it!  I slept in, fed some animals, had some yummy breakfast, and then opened up my book to finish reading it. 

When I went to feed the chickens Taqoka was playing with a tire, one of his new toys.

  A few hours later I had finally finished reading The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown.  It was a really good book.

Later, I decided to ride down to Portage Glacier and get some nice pictures on a beautiful day.

Remember when Portage Lake used to look like this... 

Now it looks like this...

These are just a few more photos I took while riding the bike....

After riding the bike for 12 miles I was worn out!  So we watched a movie and called it a night. 
Tomorrow we are starting our day off with three different tours going on around 10:30 consisting of about 150 kids!  I think I might need to have a rockstar energy drink!

Goodnight Lower 48,
ErIn

Happy Mother's Day

We now have 3 bison calves!

Doug Lindstrand, our center's photographer, sent me some of his pictures.  So I can't take credit for the amazing pictures on today's blog.

The wood bison or really good mothers.  Our musk ox are a different story.  We are always keeping a close eye on the musk ox calves.

Today on mother's day we simply had to just hang out by the big bears and answer any questions.  Also, to make sure that no loonies tried to jump in the enclosure. 

This is a pic of 2 of the bears playing in the water. 

We also saw a lot of planes flyong around for Hooligan.  Hooligan is a type of oily fish the some people like.  Our Eagle, Adonis, really loves them.  The planes will try to spot the hooligan in groups. 

So After a long day of dealing with a few dumb questions and windy weather It was finally over!  It was one of our busiest days of the year!  We had about 2,200 people visit the center on Mother's Day. 

It just wore me out! 
Today, Monday, is finally a day off.  I think we are going into town today to see a movie.  I want to see Water for Elephants.  I read the book and loved it! 

Happy Birthday to my friend that I met at the center, Linda!

Goodnight Lower 48,
ErIn

The Day Before....

I woke up really early today and decided to go for a run.  As I was making my way around to the musk ox enclosure I noticed that we had a new musk ox calf.  We had a baby born 3 days ago and now we have another!  Sping time is in the air!  We are about to see babies born left and right.

The day before mother's day was very busy.  We are all preparing for our one day of the year when everyone gets in FREE!  First, we started by walking around the bear enclosure to make sure they are not digging any holes.  Then we threw some cantalope over for them.

Then we finished making our rounds and we noticed an addition to the Wood Bison!  We now have 2 bison calves.  Our first one was born yesterday and we had another one born this morning.  

We also had a bag of spinach that Jeremy, another employee, gave us to give to the animals.
We gave the spinach to the Elk.

This is our biggest male Elk.  You can see that he is growing his new antlers.  While they are growing their antlers; the antlers can be very sensitive.

Next, we needed to cut some branches off of our cottonwood trees.  It took us about 2 hours and we were exhausted! 

Here is a picture of one of our wood bison. 

Wood Bison are the largest land mammal in North America.  They can get up to 2,200 pounds!  They went completely extinct in Alaska due to hunting.  They were even on the extinction list for 13 years.  They believed that there where no more wood bison on the planet.  Some guys were flying over a remote part of Canada and spotted a herd of pure breed wood bison.  From canada we have received our original herd.  We are up to almost 90 wood bison.  They would like to re-introduce wood bison to Alaska.  In 2 years they may be able to release the first batch into the wild. 

Around the center we have signs explaining the dead trees on the property.  In 1964 there was an earthquake that completely destroyed the town of Portage.  There are still dead trees that are left over from the earthquake.  The ground sunk about 10 feet which caused salt water to kill the trees.  These forestof dead trees are now called Ghost Forests.

Then I ended the day by cleaning snickers' enclosure.  I gave him an orange to distract him.  Otherwise, he just trys to climb my leg and whines the whole time.

Well, I am starting to fill the soreness from cutting the branches down today...

Goodnight Lower 48,

ErIn