Among the Volcanoes

Continuing our polar odysseys, Arlon and I spent two weeks in Kamchatka, from July 4 through 18, 2003. For those who didn’t play Risk when they were kids, Kamchatka is a peninsula at the eastern end of Siberia in the Russian Federation and across the Bering Sea from Alaska. Geologically, it is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire and contains 10% of the world’s active volcanoes. Thirty-one are currently steaming away. It also has geysers, bubbling mudpots, glaciers, hundreds of wild salmon rivers, big brown grizzly bears and an interesting mix of indigenous people. Naturally, we had to go and see for ourselves.

Magadan Airline’s weekly flight from Anchorage, Alaska, to Petropovlovsk, the capitol of Kamchatka Oblast, leaves very early Friday mornings. If you miss it you are out of luck for a week. To make sure we didn’t miss it, we spent a day sightseeing in

Anchorage. Like most arctic communities, Anchorage celebrates summer with public displays of flowers and, this summer, a sculpture competition based on Chicago’s cow sculptures—except that they chose to honor salmon, not cows.

Kamchatka is across the International Date Line, so we flew out early July 4^th and arrived on July 5^th, even though the flight was only about five hours long. Once through passport control and customs, we were delighted to meet our old friend, Dr. Victor Kuzevanov, Director of the Irkutsk Botanical Gardens, who had been our expedition leader on our Lake Baikal trip in 2001. He introduced us to Dr. Evgenii Lobkov, Head of the Kamchatka Department of Resources and Nature Management & Tourism. Dr. Lobkov accompanied us on some of our explorations, but he had to stay close to the office because President Putin was expected to visit. Our other leader, Bob Nansen, of Betchart Expeditions, had met us in Anchorage. There were thirteen others in our group, all members of AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science), the trip sponsor.

Our first stop was the Petropovlovsk Museum of Regional Studies, where we had a guided tour that brought us up to date on Kamchatka’s history. Having just read the accounts of Bering’s two expeditions, I was fascinated to find artifacts from his trips, including two cannon that had been recovered from his wrecked ship from the Second Expedition. If you think being an explorer was glamorous, read “Bering’s Search for the Straight, The First Kamchatka Expedition 1725-1730” and “Where the Sea Breaks its Back.” Both trips sounded like a nightmare to me. The director of the Museum, Olga Pyzhyanova, was our guide for the tour and later went with us on some of our helicopter rides.

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Next we toured an open-air market where venders were selling fresh and smoked salmon, fresh vegetables, clothes, shoes, fishing nets and about anything else a Petropovlovsk citizen could want. Kamchatka’s rivers teem with spawning salmon and we enjoyed it throughout the trip, fixed many different ways. As in our previous trips to Siberia, we found that the Russians don’t have a great variety of foods because of their short growing season, but they combine them in creative ways. Every breakfast included buttered bread spread with bright pink salmon roe, tomatoes and cucumbers, sliced cheese and salami, yogurt, and a main dish, such as blintzes or omelets. Lunches and dinners might be salad, fish soup or borscht, veal or pork cutlet or baked salmon with vegetables.

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We spent the next few days at the Blue Lagoon Hotel, nestled in the midst of wild flowers, weeds, trees and a small lake in the suburb of Paratunka. It has three hot mineral pools, including one with a water slide, and at least a million and a half mosquitoes, PER PERSON. Fortunately, being experienced Arctic travelers, everyone had brought plenty of DEET and the stuff works. We got very few bites, but the insects were pesky. The next day we visited a reconstructed Itlemen settlement in the middle of woodland, by a river. The Itlemen, a Kamchatkan native tribe, always settled near a river because all the native people here are dependent on salmon. The Itlemen were in costume and welcomed us to their village. There were some beautifully carved totem poles, one for each year that they had had a gathering at this village. There was a winter dwelling and two summer dwellings.
The summerhouses are on stilts with an open platform on the first level and a pyramid shaped room with a thatched roof on the upper level. The upper level is reached by a ladder made from a notched birch log. Victor encouraged us to climb up to the upper level. Only four people did, including Arlon and I. (We love a risky challenge.) The winter house is partly underground with a large mound of earth covering the above ground portion. The men enter through a hole in the roof by way of a notched log ladder. The women enter through a tunnel that is lined with boards cut from a fragrant larch tree. Young boys and men were trained from childhood to climb the ladder so their legs muscles would be developed to allow them to get in and out quickly in case of attack. The male entrance is also a smoke hole and a skylight. There is a fire pit in the middle and sitting and sleeping compartments around the sides that are filled with plaited soft grasses. Dried salmon hung from the rafters. There was also a place on one side reserved for a deity represented by a totem pole god. There are very few full-blooded Itlemen left. The culture is being lost, so this village was built to preserve their traditions

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				One of the best parts of this trip was our ability to visit personally with leaders of various scientific and ecological institutes, NGOs and regional museums who were quite open about their work, their frustrations and their concern for protecting their still pristine country. They are very proud of the natural wonder all around them. One of our first visits was to the Institute of Volcanology, where Dr. Victor Okrugin, Head of the Department of Physical Chemical Methods Analysis and Mineralogy, gave us a lecture on Kamchatka’s volcanoes and let us poke around his large collection of volcanic rocks. Our last stop of the day was a visit with a biologist who is trying to save the wild geese native to the Aleutian Islands, without government funding or much help of any kind.
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Everywhere in Kamchatka, former military vehicles have been converted to civilian use. We rode nearly impassable roads in enormous military trucks and even saw a tank that had been converted to a camper. Our helicopters were no different. In one we were lined up along the sides like paratroopers about to jump, in the other we had airline seats, but both took along a mechanic to make sure everything went smoothly.

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Helicopters got us into the remote parts of a country that has only one north/south road. We landed in the Uzon Caldera where we walked along Lake Tsentralnoye, which is full of minerals and a chemical foam that washes against the shore. There we saw bear footprints tracking into the water. The bears wallow in the warm chemical pools to rid themselves of parasites. Wooden walkways took us past bubbling mudpots. In the near distance a mother grizzly was nursing her two cubs before they ran off to play
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From there, we flew to the Valley of the Geysers in Kronotsky Nature Preserve. At the guesthouse, guides were ready to show us the geysers. We descended many steps to a viewing platform to see the geysers that shoot up along the river. The biggest one had just gone off and wasn’t due to erupt for an hour and a half, but the next largest one was due in a few minutes. There are four stages to an eruption. First, the water begins to flow out, then it begins to bubble and steam, next comes the eruption and then the recovery. It blew pretty high in the air for about five minutes, then gradually subsided. Meanwhile, steam was pouring from other vents along the river and little waterfalls of hot water were running down the river banks. After the eruption, we continued on the walkway and began to descend to a lower level where a whole wall of geysers steamed and flowed out into the fast rushing river.

The next day we took a twelve-hour bus ride to Esso, a primarily ethnic village in the center of the peninsula. It was a hot dusty ride, but the only way to get there in this country of coastal fogs that interfere with scheduled flights and earthquakes that make railroads impossible. Esso is beautiful, with a climate like Switzerland. The three main ethnic tribes, Koryak, Evan and Itlemen are all represented here. The traditional dwelling is a yurt. It resembles an American Indian teepee with straight sides. Many people still prefer to live in a yurt in the summer. The people were very welcoming and one of their leaders, a woman named Taisha, accompanied us all around the village to make sure we didn’t miss anything. Residents were proud to show us their beautiful vegetable and flower gardens and invited us into their houses for tea. We were invited to Fish Day, a celebration of the salmon run. It was held along the river and included fish cleaning competitions, wrestling matches, horse races and games that included one where contestants tried to lasso caribou antlers swinging around a pole. The women had cooked all their favorite ethnic dishes for us to try. The highlight of the day was a show put on by the aboriginal dancing ensemble, Biserinka, who have won international competitions for tribal dancing.

Another day, another helicopter trip to the volcanoes. We landed at the base of the three newest volcanoes and climbed up the steep sides into the caldera of one of them, our feet slipping back one step for every two we climbed in the loose cinders. In spite of the barrenness of the landscape, we were amazed to find tiny plants, not just clinging to life, but blooming profusely. Our helicopters circled active volcanoes that were smoking and steaming, sometimes from multiple fumaroles, including Kluchevskoy, the largest active volcano in Eurasia. Some of the calderas were filled with brilliant blue water that contrasted sharply with their dark gray ash sides.

We landed on a ridge in the midst of the volcanoes of the Kluchevskoy group and built a fire for tea to go with our picnic lunch before we headed off to explore the sharp ridges and deep valleys. Not far away we could see a waterfall from glacier runoff. Even here, there were mosquitoes. What could they live on in this barren landscape? Life is persistent and there were, no doubt, small mammals there that escaped our notice.

Back in Petropovlovsk again, our group boarded a converted military truck and a heavy-duty bus for the trip up to the Mutnovsky Volcano to visit Mutnovsky Geothermal Station. Although construction had started on this plant during the Soviet era, everything stopped during perestroika. Recently, a joint project between the Russians and New Zealand completed the plant. The drive over the rough gravel roads was bone jarring and took several hours. As soon as we rounded the last curve, we saw steam shooting high into the air from one of the steam wells that was being cleaned out. The noise was deafening. A little farther on we came to a beautiful new hotel where we were grateful to find hot showers and an excellent dinner. While we enjoyed climbing up to their small Valley of Geysers, the highlight of this part of the trip, particularly for Arlon, was the two-hour tour of the geothermal plant. The plant manager was generous with his time as we explored the steam wells that were drilled 2000 meters or more into the mountain to tap the volcano’s steam. He then led us through the control room where he explained the software and computers that controlled the flow of steam to the turbines and the electrical output of the generators. The plant provides all the electricity needed for the city of Petropovlovsk, but has a capacity to generate much more power. A new back-up turbine had just been delivered and we could examine its shiny stainless steel precision up close. Next we climbed three stories to the top of the coolers where the hot water condensed from the steam is cooled by 80 foot diameter fans before being piped five miles to be returned underground in an ecologically responsible way. Just as we had on our way up, on our way down the mountain we made numerous stops to search out and photograph plants and flowers. There is nothing like traveling with a biologist to make you aware of what is growing under your feet.

On one of the last days, we boarded a boat in the harbor to sail out of Avacha Bay into the Pacific to view some of the island rookeries and their flocks of tufted puffins, guillemots and kittiwakes, along with a few seals. We roared with laughter as the football shaped puffins tried to get airborne. Their bodies and wings are better suited for swimming than flying and their landings are like controlled crashes. With my new telephoto lens, we were able to catch some of their antics on camera. The harbor, which could handle eighty ocean-going vessels in Soviet times when Kamchatka’s military bases were off limits, is now under-utilized, with many of its large cranes sitting idle. Although navy ships and fishing vessels ply the bay, it was easy to imagine what it had looked like when Bering first sailed into it so many years ago.

Eventually, like all adventures, this one came to an end. Who knows where we’ll go next. Surely, we’ve exhausted all the Polar Regions…haven’t we?

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Note: Photography on this trip was a joint effort between Arlon Hunt, Victor Kuzevanov and me. I found the faces of the people to be fascinating and we all worked at trying to capture the beauty of the flowers and plants. If you would like to see more of these photos, I’ve provided two slide shows: Faces of Kamchatka and Flowers of Kamchatka. I hope you enjoy viewing them as much as we enjoyed taking them.

Slideshows: Faces of Kamchatka Flowers of Kamchatka