Life and death in Valdez

We see these seagulls in the distance,

I had never seen anything like it,

so many of them,

they were going clockwise in a circle

suddenly they would change and reverse their direction,

spinning, fast

We were across town from them, we had to go see what was going on















In the middle of the harbor you see seagulls flying around getting the stuff that the fish canneries throw back, but this was no where near that

It's like the birds

The Humpback Salmon are spawning, that's the attraction

The Silver Salmon are waiting out in the bay until the Humpbacks are through, I wonder how they know

I once saw a Mark Morris dance called Suzie Salmon Swam,

I never really understood it until now,

they twirl,

and slam themselves into the earth with such fierceness,

that when they do finally stop moving,

you are never sure if that's the end

There was a couple from Iowa next to us when we saw this, the man said it was the saddest thing he had seen, and just walked away shaking his head

The next day we came back and saw this, maybe a bear, or wolf

The seagulls wait until the salmon die before they start eating


I have seen salmon spawn before, but never have I seen them come out of the bay, and die a few feet away

There is only about a quarter of an inch of water there that the salmon throw themselves up on to

Cindy and I weren't very impressed with Valdez, it seemed to have an air about it that it had given up, first the earthquake, then the oil spill, then we looked again, and changed our minds

The Valdez Glacier, you can drive right up to it

An appropriate name for a church

Beauty to spare

Only one road in and out of it, Valdez is still pretty isolated, imagine keeping that road snowplowed with 33 feet of snow each year

Valdez is as strange as anywhere else, they sell t shirts that say,

"Valdez, a Drinking Town, with a small Fishing Problem"