A great place to call home

Twilight was quickly fading as we drove south on Highway 95 after crossing the border at Eastport. As we descended down the hill by Brush Lake, there was just enough twilight left to see the view I had been waiting for--the Selkirk Mountains over the Kootenai Valley. 

Kootenai Valley view looking south

Even though I could only make out the major features in the fading light, the view is etched in my mind from descending the hill many times. The tree-covered slopes of Trout Creek and Ball Creek stand above the patchwork of fields in the valley. The north bench a checkerboard of fields, forests and homesites. 

Kootenai Valley view looking north

After being away for seven months in Alaska, I realized how much I take for granted in Boundary County--the wildlife, the trees and the land. After only seeing three animals bigger than a snowshoe hare all summer (lynx, caribou and black bear each once), I’m looking forward to deer and turkeys walking through my yard, watching elk herds and coyotes in the fields, and finding moose browsing up Myrtle Creek. I take for granted the variety and abundance of our big game animals. I enjoy seeing the tracks of the more elusive critters of the mountains--cougars, marten, bobcat and lynx, to name a few--because I know that if I spend enough time outside I will eventually see the animal itself. 

Selkirk Mountains and Kootenai Valley from Tungsten Mountain (looking west)

Even during a short walk in the woods, I hear the nasally twang of a nuthatch, the piercing scream of an eagle overhead or the funny call of the pileated woodpecker. The woods are filled with so many sounds that I often don’t pay attention to, including the wind blowing through the towering pine trees.

Oh, how nice it is to see trees larger than six inches across and 20 feet tall. As we drove from Alaska to Idaho, I could see the progression of increasing tree height and variety. The short black and white spruce of the boreal forest slowly grew taller and then started to include tamarack (which later changed to larch). Then farther down the road came the lodgepole pine, then hemlock and cedar, and then Douglas fir. Only after passing through Radium Hot Springs did the ponderosa pine appear along with one of my favorite things about autumn--hillsides covered in a mosaic of green and gold. Larch make autumn colorful when the forests are dominated by conifers. 

From alpine fir to yew, the land here supports a diverse array of trees. When looking along the edge of a field, the assortment of trees is evident in shape and color, with each conifer having its own shade of green (and yellow in the fall for the larch). 

Looking north over the Kootenai Valley from Clifty Mountain

When overlooking the valley, the combination of forests with logging, open fields with tractors, pastures with grazing livestock and horses, and the meandering Kootenai River make the view complete. I’m glad to be home. 

Note: Published in the Bonners Ferry Herald on October 25, 2012. 

Camouflage a means of survival

I catch a slight movement out of the corner of my eye and stop to scan the brushy slope. After a few seconds I spy a ruffed grouse with its head held high next to a birch tree. If the grouse hadn’t twitched I would have walked right past, like so many other times. 

While animals don’t have printed patterns of needles, leaves and grass on them like hunters do, they have various techniques that camouflage them in their habitat. 

A snowshoe hare molting from white to brown in the spring

Ptarmigan, snowshoe hares and some weasels trade in their brown summer coat/plumage for a snow white coat that allows them to go undetected against the snowy winter landscape unless there is a late winter or early spring. Then these white creatures will stand out against the brown landscape like a beacon in the dark.

Can you find the ptarmigan?

White-tailed deer also change color with the season but not to the extent of snowshoe hares. During winter, white-tailed deer have a grayish-brown coat to help them blend in with the dead grass and drab colors of the leafless forest. Come summer, their coats will turn a tan to reddish-brown color. 

In addition to color, markings help camouflage an animal. White-tailed deer fawns are born tan to reddish-brown like their mothers, but they also have white spots. These spots are highly visible in broad daylight but they mimic the dappled shade of the tall grasses where a fawn waits for its mother. 

While a few birds are brightly colored like the red northern cardinal, many more are outfitted in varying shades of brown and tan. With the addition of spots, streaks and stripes, such as on the turkey or brown creeper, they often go undetected except for  movement or sound. Brightly colored birds will often molt into drab colors for the winter in order to be camouflaged. 

Can you find the three grouse in the boreal forest?

As unlikely as it seems, the bold tan, white and black bands on a killdeer make it virtually impossible to see while it sits on its eggs among stones of similar color. This type of camouflage is considered disruptive coloration because the contrasting colors or markings break up the outline of the animal which makes it harder to see. 

Other creatures rely on pure deception to keep them alive, especially insects. These insects, such as praying mantis, look just like the leaves and stems on the plant they rest upon. Some butterflies and moths look exactly like the tree bark on which they rest, lichens included. 

A grasshopper in late summer blends in with dried grass stems

Camouflage helps an animal look like the vegetation, soil or rocks where it lives, even if that means underwater. How often have you peered into crystal clear water and seen only rocks? Then the slightest flick of a tail reveals a fish camouflaged against the sunlit rocks. Besides coloring and markings, fish stay camouflaged by countershading--a technique where a creature’s back is dark and the underside is light. The dark, speckled backs of fish help them blend in with the plants and rocks of the bottom when viewed above by fish-hungry herons, hawks, eagles and osprey. Their silvery undersides keep their silhouettes against the surface from becoming too obvious to predatory fish lurking below. 

Being camouflage not only helps animals survive by not being eaten, but it also helps predatory animals hunt. Predators need to be as concealed as their prey in order to sneak up on their next meal. No matter how well camouflaged either the prey or predator is, the slightest movement can make the difference between surviving or not. 

Note: Published in the Bonners Ferry Herald on October 18, 2012. 

Mighty Yukon River

From the time I leave Bettles, Alaska until I cross over the Cassiar Mountains east of Whitehorse, Yukon on the Alaska Highway, I will be traveling almost entirely in the Yukon River watershed. Only one area along the Alaska Highway near Haines Junction drains to the Pacific Ocean through the Saint Elias Mountains (the Dezadeash/Alsek River).

At approximately 330,000 square miles, the Yukon River watershed is the fifth largest in North America. Despite the huge area the Yukon River drains, the inhabitants are few, roughly 128,000 people, and that includes the major towns of Fairbanks and Whitehorse. Compare that to Spokane, Washington which has a population of 210,103 people or even Kootenai County (Idaho) with 141,132 people, both of which are located in the Columbia River Basin that encompasses 258,000 square miles. 

Crater Lake on the north side of Chilkoot Pass is part of the Yukon River watershed

From the northern reaches of the Coastal Range mountains in British Columbia to the southern slopes of the Brooks Range in Alaska to the Bering Sea, the Yukon River creates a large arc through the Yukon Territory and Alaska. The water in the Koyukuk River flowing past Bettles eventually ends up in the same place as that flowing from Lake Lindeman on the Chilkoot Trail--the Bering Sea. 

Before the Yukon River reaches the Bering Sea, it spreads out into an extensive delta, 40 to 60 miles wide in some areas (which is approximately the distance from Porthill to Sandpoint). This extensive area of wetlands is some of the most productive goose and shorebird nesting habitat in Alaska--over 100 million shorebirds and waterfowl migrate there to nest. The delta is also the starting location for one of the largest Chinook, Chum and Coho Pacific salmon runs in the world. 

Llewellyn Glacier and Atlin Lake--the headwaters of the Yukon River

From the Bering Sea to its glacial headwaters at the south end of Atlin Lake in British Columbia, the Yukon River traverses 1,980 miles, making it the third longest river in North America (the Mississippi River is first and the Mackenzie River in northern Canada is second) and the twentieth longest in the world. 

Over those nearly 2,000 miles, only 17 communities dot the main river banks, however, more exist on the tributaries. Fewer yet are the number of bridges--only four--along the entire length. The Yukon River bridge on the Dalton Highway (also called the Haul Road) is the only bridge that crosses the Yukon River in Alaska. 

The only bridge that crosses the Yukon River in Alaska

Before bridges and roads were built, sternwheelers navigated the Yukon River from the Bering Sea all the way to Whitehorse. This was the main method of travel in the watershed, especially during the gold rush days. Once the Klondike Highway was completed in the 1950‘s and connected Dawson City to Whitehorse (and the rest of North America’s road system), the need for sternwheelers plummeted. 

With minimal roads, only a small portion of the Yukon River watershed is accessible by road. The nearly thousand-mile drive from north of the Arctic Circle to east of Whitehorse crosses the Yukon River only twice but crosses dozens of small and large tributaries that all flow into the mighty Yukon. 

Note: Published in the Bonners Ferry Herald on Oct. 11, 2012. 

What’s that protruding from your head?

Often I catch myself using the terms antler and horn interchangeably, such as “I’m going horn hunting”, even though I know they are different. One of the obvious differences is that antlers are shed annually while horns are not, which is why I go shed (antler) hunting and not horn hunting.  

Living in north Idaho, we are surrounded by mammals with antlers--moose, white-tailed deer, mule deer and elk. Wild mammals bearing horns are fewer (bighorn sheep and mountain goats) or farther away (buffalo and muskox), which makes horns all the more intriguing. 

Woodland buffalo

Every time I drive through the Thompson Falls area in Montana, I watch for Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep along the roadside. On mature rams, the massive, curled horns can weigh up to 30 pounds--which is small compared to the 80-pound pair of antlers a mature moose can grow in one year. On rams, the age can be determined by counting the number of growth rings. Those growth rings are composed of keratin, a fibrous protein, which comprises the outer covering of the horn. The inside of the horn is composed of a living bony core. 

Not only is keratin an integral part of horns but also a component in the claws and hooves of mammals; hair, nails and skin of people; scales and claws of reptiles; shells of turtles and tortoises; feathers, beaks and claws of birds; the quills of porcupines and the baleen of whales. A rhinoceros’s ‘horn’ is entirely composed of keratin and therefore isn’t considered a true horn because it lacks a bony core. 

Similarly, giraffe ‘horns’ are not true horns because even though they have a bony core the horns are covered with furred skin, not a keratinized sheath. Another mammal that is considered to have horns is the pronghorn antelope. 

The pronghorn antelope’s horns are a cross between horns and antlers. They have a bony core and a keratinized sheath but the sheath is shed annually like antlers. Also, a pronghorn’s horn is branched (hence the name pronghorn) and true horns are unbranched. Pronghorn antelope are the only animal in the world to have a forked ‘horn’ that is partially shed every year. 

Pronghorn antelope shed the horn's keratinized sheath every year

Even though true horns are unbranched, they can take on unique shapes--the full curl of the bighorn sheep or the spiraled horns of the spiral-horned antelope. The curves and spiral shapes are caused by growth pulses that result in some areas growing faster and thinner while other areas grow slower and thicker. 

Since horns grow continuously throughout an animal’s life, one might think there would be little nubbins of horns at birth. However, horns begin as small bony growths under the skin in the subcutaneous connective tissue and are not even attached to the skull. These small growths (called ossicones) will fuse to the skull bones sometime after birth and up to four years later in giraffes. 

Bighorn sheep horns will eventually grow into a full curl

Even though giraffes, rhinoceros and pronghorns don’t have true horns, it is easier to say they have horns than to figure out what to call the structures protruding from their head. One thing for sure is that they are not antlers. 

Note: Published in the Bonners Ferry Herald on October 4, 2012.