Cordova, AK

Salmon stream on Whiteshed Rd, Cordova

I flew to Cordova, AK to meet the boat for the longline survey.  It's a small city, about 2000 people, and it's situated near the mouth of the Copper River, which is known for it's salmon.  It definitely felt like a fishing town.  We (Katy - another scientist - and I) were meeting the boat at 4 pm on Aug 11th, but had to fly in the day before so that we wouldn't risk missing flights due to bad weather (very common, any time of year).  So that meant we had most of the day on Saturday and Sunday to explore Cordova.  Much like Juneau, Cordova is not on the road system.  You can get there by plane or boat (our plane left Juneau, stopped in Yakutat brieftly, then continued on to Cordova).   Coming in our airplane was a "combi" type - with the front half of the 737-400 separated off for cargo and only the back half for passengers.  It was really windy as we were getting ready to land, and the pilot had to abort the landing and circle around to approach from the opposite end of the runway.  It was weird because we were really close to the ground then suddenly we were pulling up again. 

Cordova, AK

Cordova is beautiful!  We had pretty rainy and foggy weather, but you could still see that it's surrounded by mountains.  There's a huge delta where the Copper River flows out of the mountains, and there's a gravel road that runs across the delta for 30-40 miles towards a glacier.  Severe flooding a couple of years ago knocked out a bridge so you can't go as far as you used to, but it was still a pretty drive. 

Copper River delta area

We also took a drive along Eyak Lake to see the salmon spawning.  The water was so clear it looks like the salmon are floating above a dry gravel bed!

But just across the street from the salmon, the river flowing from the glacier was overflowing it's banks, and you could see the contrast between the glacier fed water and where the clear stream came in!