We are midway through our season, and we’ve had a great summer so far. Last week, the Hihn family from South Carolina watched bears, including a huge, old male, laughed at sea otters, and gasped as a pod of six fin whales zipped past our boat, surfacing beside us. To top it off, they enjoyed excellent halibut and salmon fishing. They caught 22 silver salmon one afternoon and experienced the thrill of landing halibut in shallow water. The water was so shallow that Mary Hihn watched a 35-lb. halibut grab her lure. Mary and her family caught five halibut between 50 and 100 lbs. Nature can be wonderful or frustrating, but I am expecting amazing things from the second half of our season.
I want all our guests to see bears and whales and to catch as many halibut and salmon as they desire, but I sometimes worry that if a guest is too goal-oriented, he will lose sight of where he is. He won’t see the entire picture, and he won’t appreciate this beautiful, remote bay on Kodiak Island.
Look at the cloud-draped mountains, the small buck prancing through our backyard, or the eagle standing watch in the tree. Did you see the puffin, or the sea otter lounging on its back, its baby nestled snuggly on its stomach? Did you notice the seals hauled out on the beach, two of them bloody from fighting, or did you stay up late one night to watch a beautiful Alaska sunset?
One thing I have noticed over the years is the guests who have the best time at our lodge are those who see everything. They are the ones who show me their photos at the end of the day and are embarrassed by all the images of rock formations they snapped. They are also the ones who admit they didn’t take any pictures of the whales because they just wanted to look, listen, smell, and feel the experience instead of watching it all through their camera’s viewfinder. The guest who sheds a few tears when she talks about a bear splashing in the water twenty feet from her and the guest who was thrilled by watching through binoculars from a distance as a sow interacted with her three cubs are the guests we will see again. They will return in a year or two or ten because they won’t be able to get the sights, the sounds, or the smells of this beautiful place out of their heads.
Nearly 75% of our guests this summer are returnees, and many of them have been to
our lodge multiple times. They’ve been here when the bear viewing was spectacular, and when bears were scarce. They’ve been here during great fishing years and years when the fish were slow to bite, and some years they’ve seen whales, while other years they haven’t. They’ve braved storms and basked in the sun. They’ve seen it all, but they keep returning because they have never focused on just one thing and lost sight of the big picture. One guest this summer who has been here multiple times told me she and her husband have never had a rainy day here. I’m sure she must be either extremely lucky or mistaken, but I love that she and her husband only remember the sunshine!
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We can’t control nature. Weather systems and animals act outside our realm of influence. We can control the way we run our operation, though, and we always try to do the best job we can. We only take six guests at a time, and we concentrate on giving those six guests the best experience possible.
I think Mike and I do a good job, but there is one member of our crew who is always at the top of her game. Mary Schwarzhans has been with us for six years, and she is magical. Guests rave about her meals, from her cinnamon rolls to her handmade pizzas to her beer-battered halibut and amazing side dishes and desserts. Mary is a gem, and I’m not sure she ever sleeps. Mary’s sister, Abby, hired on as Mary’s assistant and our camp helper, and she is also a wonder, making all our jobs easier. No matter how tired she is, Abby always has a smile on her face.
I know many of our upcoming guests this season will read this post to check in on our summer up to this point, and I want to let you know we are having a great season, and we can’t wait to see you!
For more information on Kodiak wildlife and life in the Alaska wilderness, I invite you to visit my blog. I post every Sunday: http://robinbarefield.com/blog.