Sunday, October 7, 2012

Back in Alaska

Well I made it to Seward, again! For those that may not know I was offered a job at the Alaska SeaLife Center working in the Aquariums department doing sort of what my internship was this summer. And I took the job!! So I am now an Aquarist I (entry level aquarist) I'm so pumped. Who'd have thought that I would have a real job so soon? I was fully planning on doing the post-college flail for at least a few months.

The work will be extra hard for a while because Seward had some huge flooding a couple of weeks ago so the center has some serious cleaning up to do but I have full confidence that the tanks and animals will be in top shape very soon, but it will take a lot of very hard work to get there. On top of a full time job I still have to finish school, which includes a big research paper on a restoration project, and also a big paper about my internship this summer. So after about 3 months of writing and researching and working I will have a college degree and a real job. Life seems to be falling into place just nicely.

I will be up here for a year and I wanted my car here so I can get out of town when it gets too small, so I convinced one of my best buds to drive up to Alaska with me. The ultimate road trip!! I left form Seattle on the 29th of September and picked her up from Surrey, BC on the 30th and the driving began.  We drove about 400 miles a day, sometimes more and camped our way up through BC, Yukon, and Alaska. After 8 days of driving, 2,831 miles, seemingly infinite stops for gas, two border crossings, tons of wildlife, a broken tent, sun, rain, snow and hotsprings we arrived in Seward on a beautiful sunny evening. It couldn't have gone more smoothly my car is still in one piece and I start work on Monday.

I shot film for the whole trip cause my digital camera was out of batteries and we had no way to charge it in the northern interior of BC/Yukon, so I dont have a lot of photos but here are some from the last bit of the summer internship and one or two from the trip up here. Enjoy!
Resurrection bay from Mt. Alice



Quatro the Giant Pacific Octopus

Oh and yes, I got to hang out with the baby walrus calves, they love to snuggle and are so adorable I can hardly stand it.

Wally #2 Mitik


Nap Time

Feeding Time




Devious... 
Beautiful sunrise at Nancy Lake
I caught a big one!
Bison on the side of the road
Getting a couple of casts in at sunset... no bites
We Made it to Seward!!

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